Matthew Reilly - Temple

But Renee only had eyes for the object that Ehrhardt held in his left hand. An object wrapped inside a ragged purple cloth. The idol.

At that moment, Heinrich Anistaze charged in from the helipad deck and stood to attention before Ehrhardt. ‘You sent for me, sir.’

‘What’s going on?’ Ehrhardt said.

‘They’re everywhere, Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer. There must be dozens of them, maybe more. They appear to have split up, taking out different sections of the fleet and causing significant damage.’

‘Then we leave,’ Ehrhardt said, handing the idol to Anistaze and guiding him back towards the helipad deck. ‘Quickly. We will take the idol in the helicopter and get it to the mine that way. Then, if the heads of government haven’t responded to our demands by the time we insert the thyrium into the Supernova, we will detonate it.’

From the wheelhouse of his newly recovered Pibber, Race surveyed the aquatic battlefield around him. What was left of the fleet still surged forward along the river, but it was a shadow of its former self. Three Pibbers were still afloat, but one of them belonged to Race. Only one helipad barge remained, along with three of the original five Rigid Raiders, and one of those belonged to Schroeder.

Van Lewen’s Scarab sped along in front of the fleet, and of course, there was the last Mosquito chopper still wreaking havoc from above. About forty yards behind him, Race saw Doogie’s Goose seaplane wheel out of the wash of the helipad barge in front of it. It surged out into the river proper in search of a clear stretch of water from which it could take off. Race spun forward. About thirty yards ahead and to the left of his Pibber, he saw the massive Nazi command boat powering along the river.

At that moment, however, Race suddenly saw two men burst out onto its rear deck and dash for the white Bell Jet Ranger helicopter sitting on its stern. He recognized one of them instantly Anistaze. The other man was considerably older than Anistaze fat, with a thick muscular neck and a semibald head. Race didn’t know who he was, but he guessed that he was the man Schroeder had spoken about earlier, the Stormtroopers’ leader, Otto Ehrhardt or something like that. Anistaze and Ehrhardt leapt into the rear compartment of the Bell Jet Ranger and immediately the rotor blades on top of the chopper began to rotate. And then it hit Race. They were taking the idol away … Just then, as he was gazing at the activity on the stern of the command boat, Race saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, the glint of a small shadowy figure hustling down the starboard passageway of the command boat. His eyes went wide. It was Renee. She was running swiftly down the side passageway, heading aft, holding her M16 firmly across her chest. She was going after the idol … By herself.

Race watched in astonishment as Renee rounded the rear corner of the passageway and opened fire on the Nazi chopper with her M16. A couple of the Nazi troops standing near the chopper were hit instantly and dropped where they stood, but the others just turned and fired back at Renee with AK47s. She ducked in the face of their gunfire and fell back behind the corner as the Nazis on the helicopter deck took off after her. Race could only watch in horror as she stumbled backwards up the starboardside passageway of the command boat, heading towards the bow. She fired wildly with her M16 as she moved determinedly, keeping the Nazis at the aft end of the passageway pinned down, until at last she was able to hunker down at the forward end of the passageway, holding her attackers at bay at the other end. It was at that moment that Race saw him.

A lone Nazi commando. Moving slowly across the wide roof of the command boat, towards Renee’s position. The man held his gun high, and moved with slow deliberate steps, out of Renee’s field of vision, sneaking up on her from above. She had no chance of seeing him. No way of knowing he was there.

‘Shit,’ Race said, looking around for an option. His eyes fell upon Doogie’s seaplane skipping quickly over the waves behind his boat, coming alongside it in between his Pibber and the command boat as it dashed forward through the fleet in search of a clear stretch of water. Race saw the chance instantly, and without so much as a blink, he quickly leapt out through the shattered forward windshield of the wheelhouse and climbed up onto its roof. Then, just as Doogie’s Goose swept past his Pibber, Race leapt onto the wing of the moving seaplane and danced across its length. It was an amazing sight. The Goose seaplane, speeding along in between the Nazi command boat and the Pibber, with the tiny figure of William Race in his saturated jeans and Tshirt and his New York Yankees baseball cap, running across its wings, his body bent forward, braced against the battering wind. Race ran hard, his feet moving quickly but surely across the fifty foot wingspan of the Goose. He saw the command boat looming in front of him; saw the world streaking laterally beyond it; saw Renee up near its bow holding off the three Nazis at the other end of the passageway; saw the lone Nazi up on the big catamaran’s roof, closing in on her position.

And then, like a racing car overtaking its rival, the Goose came alongside the command boat and Race hit the edge of the left wing at full stride and leapt off it, and flew through the air and landed, catlike, on both feet, on the roof of the command boat, right next to the Nazi who had been sneaking up on Renee! Race didn’t miss a beat. Gunless, he hurled himself at the man, slammed into him, sending both of them flying forward, off the roof of the command boat. They landed in a heap on the foredeck of the catamaran not far from where Renee was hunkered down at the forward end of the starboard passageway. Disoriented, Race rolled clear of where they had fallen, and looked up in horror to see that the Nazi was already on his feet. In a fleeting instant, Race saw the man’s face. It was without a doubt one of the ugliest he had ever seen long and lopsided and heavily cratered with pockmarks. It was also the picture of anger, the picture of pure unadulterated fury. But it was only to be a fleeting glimpse, for in the ‘next flashing instant, his view of the Nazi’s hideously ugly face was replaced by the sight of the butt of the man’s AK47 assault rifle rushing towards his face and then smack! he saw nothing but black. Renee whirled around just in time to see Race’s head snap violently backwards with the blow. His body dropped to the deck, hitting it hard, out cold. Renee saw the ugly Nazi standing over Race’s body, saw him suddenly snap up to look at her. Then she saw him raise his gun and smile.

The Goose seaplane shot out in front of the command boat, into the open water ahead of the fleet. Doogie was pushing forward on the throttle, trying to get the little seaplane up to takeoff speed, when suddenly there came a loud bang from somewhere to his left. Abruptly he felt the whole plane lurch dramatically and he looked out to see that there was now nothing in the place where his left-hand stabilizing pontoon should have been. Not a second later, a pair of Nazi Rigid Raiders zoomed across his bow from either side, crisscrossing in front of him, the commandos on their decks spattering his windscreen with heavy machinegun fire.

Doogie ducked. His windshield cracked into spiderwebs. Then he looked up to see one of the Nazis on the right-hand Rigid Raider heft an M 72A2 man portable rocket launcher onto his shoulder and aim it right at the Goose. ‘Oh, man …’ Doogie breathed. The Nazi fired. A puff of smoke issued from the barrel of the rocket launcher at exactly the same moment as Doogie yanked his steering yoke hard to the left. The Goose banked wildly so wildly in fact that the tip of its pontoonless left wing actually touched the water, kicking up a spectacular shower of spray. As a result, the missile from the rocket launcher shot right underneath Doogie’s elevated right wing, missing it by inches before shooting off into the tree line and blasting an unfortunate tree trunk to hell. Doogie’s little Goose continued to careen across the river’s surface, racing along on its belly and its one remaining pontoon. Just then the last Mosquito attack chopper roared in from nowhere, loosing a devastating burst of cannon fire that raked the water all around the little seaplane. ‘Goddam it!’ Doogie yelled as he ducked beneath the dashboard again. ‘Could this situation get any worse?’ It was then that he heard an ominous, but very familiar, sound. Poof. He spun in his seat.