Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘Herr Obergruppenfuhrer,’ the technician’s voice came in over Anistaze’s earpiece.

‘Yes.’ Anistaze was still standing with Uli at the edge of the northern cable bridge. The four fingers of the Nazi commander’s left hand tapped silently on his pants leg as he listened to the voice on his earpiece.

‘Dieter is dead, sir. I repeat, Dieter is dead. I can’t see the prisoners or Unterscharfuhrer Kahr anywhere.’

‘Thank you,’ Anistaze said, staring at Uli.

‘Thank you very much.’ Anistaze’s cold black eyes bored into Uli’s.

‘Where are the prisoners, Unterscharfuhrer?’

‘I beg your pardon, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer?’

‘I said, where are the prisoners?’

It was then that Uli saw the Glock appear in Anistaze’s right hand. Renee moved silently through the boathouse, gun up. Race hadn’t come in behind her, and she wondered what had happened to him. But she couldn’t wait, she still had a job to do. The boathouse was silent, still. The conveyor belt that rose up out of the tunnel to her right sat motionless. She saw no one standing in the office beyond it. An engine turned over. Renee spun. And saw the rotor blades of the parked Bell Jet Ranger helicopter slowly sputter to life. Then she saw the pilot, lying on his side on the floor of the cockpit, oblivious to her presence, carrying out some kind of repairs on the chopper. Then suddenly with a shrill buzz the rotor blades of the helicopter snapped into overdrive and the deafening roar of their motion filled the enormous space of the boathouse. Renee almost jumped out of her skin. If it hadn’t been for the roar of the rotors, however, she probably would have heard him sneak up on her. But she didn’t. For at that moment, as Renee moved towards the pilot and the chopper with her Gll raised, something very heavy hit her on the back of her head, pitching her forward, sending her falling heavily to the ground.

‘Herr Obergruppenfuhrer,’ Uli said as he stood at the edge of the massive crater, raising his hands.

‘What are you—’

Blam!

Anistaze’s Glock went off a single shot that went thundering into Uli’s stomach. Uli doubled over at once, fell to the ground. Anistaze stood over him, gun in hand.

‘So, Unterscharfuhrer. Am I to assume that you are BKA scum, too?’

Uli rolled around on the ground at the Nazi commander’s feet, clenching his teeth in agony.

‘No answer,’ Anistaze said. ‘Well, how about this, then. How about I blow off every finger on your right hand, one by one, until you tell me who you work for. And when I am done with that hand, I shall start on the other one.’

‘Argh!’ Uli grunted.

‘Wrong answer,’ Anistaze said, aiming his gun at Uli’s hand, squeezing the trigger. The gun went off. Just as William Race, bursting out from behind the nearby corner, crashed into Anistaze from the side, hitting him at speed, knocking the Glock from his hand. But the two of them fell awkwardly, bouncing off one of the buttresses that held up the cable bridge. Anistaze’s right foot slipped over the edge of the crater and he threw out a hand that gripped Race’s arm like a vice and before Race even knew what was happening, both he and Anistaze were falling out over the edge of the mine. Down the wall of the crater. Fortunately, the earthen walls of the mine weren’t perfectly vertical but rather were slanted at a very steep angle, maybe seventy five degrees or so. As such, they still fell fast, but not straight down. Both men kicked up puffs of dirt as they slid wildly down the wall of the crater. They slid a full ninety feet before they both landed in a crashing heap on flat, solid ground. In the boathouse, Renee hit the ground, too, and for a moment she saw stars.

She rolled onto her back— just in time to see a length of piping held by the second Nazi lab technician come rushing down at her face! She rolled again and the pipe clanged against the floorboards inches away from her head. She quickly somersaulted to her feet, looking for her weapon. Her G11 lay on the ground four feet away, out of reach, dislodged by her fall after being smacked on the back of the head with the pipe. The technician swung at her again. Renée ducked and the pipe went swiping over her head, then she bobbed back up and punched the technician square in the face, sending him flying backwards into a wall. The technician’s back slammed into a control panel on the wall. He must have struck a button as he hit it, Renée guessed, because at that moment she heard an ominous clanking of machinery within the walls of the massive boathouse and suddenly—without warning—the big conveyor belt that ran down the length of the warehouse started moving. Race and Anistaze jolted forward. Both men were still in something of a daze after their ninety foot drop into the open cut mine, and they were only just getting to their feet when suddenly the ground beneath them lurched forward. Race tottered slightly, looked down at the ground beneath his feet. It wasn’t solid ground at all. It was the low end of the conveyor belt—the same conveyor belt that reached the surface inside the boathouse! Only now it was moving. Upward. Race spun—just in time to see Anistaze’s four fingered left fist come flying at his face. The German commando’s blow hit its mark and Race dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the wide conveyor belt. Anistaze stood over him and then, abruptly; the world went black. At first Race didn’t know what had happened. Then he realised. He and Anistaze— positioned on the moving conveyor belt—had just been drawn into the long dark tunnel that led back up to the boathouse.

Up in the boathouse, Renée fought with the technician as the deafening roar of the Bell Jet Ranger’s rapidly spinning rotor blades echoed throughout the cavernous interior space. The tech swung at Renée with the pipe again just as she leapt backwards and the blow missed, but as she moved, Renée saw that the pilot over in the helicopter had seen what was going on over by the conveyor belt and was now looking directly at her! The pilot began to shimmy out of his awkward position on the floor of the chopper—just as, at that exact same moment, the young technician who had gone to the refuse pit to search for Uli appeared in the doorway of the boathouse! Renée saw them both. And then in one fluid motion, as she ducked underneath another blow from the first technician, she pulled two grenades from her belt—the grenades Uli had retrieved from the dead Nazi at the refuse pit— yanked out their pins, spun and hurled them across the boathouse together! The two grenades skidded across the floor, fanned out at different angles—one heading for the helipad pontoon and the chopper, the other heading directly for the young technician standing at the doorway. One, one thousand… Two, one thousand… Three, one thousand… The tech in the doorway realised what the object bouncing toward him was a second too late. He tried to move at the last moment, but he wasn’t fast enough. The grenade exploded. So did he.

The second grenade bounced onto the helipad pontoon and came to rest directly underneath the sleek white Bell Jet Ranger. It detonated—abruptly, powerfully— shattering the chopper’s bubble in a nanosecond, killing the pilot on its floor instantly. The blast also blew the helicopter’s landing skids to hell, obliterating them, causing the whole chopper to drop four feet straight down and crash down onto the pontoon. It came to rest on its belly, its rotor blades still whipping around above it in a blur of speeding motion. As they rose through the darkness, Race and Anistaze struggled. Race fought hard—as hard as he physically could— throwing punches wildly, some hitting, most missing. But Anistaze was by far the better fighter, and soon he had Race flat on his back, pinned to the ground, vainly fending off his blows. And then Anistaze drew a Bowie knife from a sheath down by his ankle. Even in the darkness of the steeply sloping tunnel, Race saw the long glistening blade as it came rushing down toward his face. He caught Anistaze’s wrist with his hands, held the blade at bay, but the Nazi had all the leverage and the blade came closer and closer to his left eye— abruptly, harsh white light assaulted both of them and just as suddenly ,the steep slope of the conveyor belt dropped level beneath them, causing both men to lose their balance and giving Race the chance to swipe Anistaze’s knife clear. He looked quickly about himself. He was inside the boathouse again! Only now he was travelling horizontally on the conveyor belt, still pinned underneath Anistaze. Unfortunately for both of them, however, the conveyor belt was now drawing them toward the rapidly spinning blades of the Bell Jet Ranger helicopter, which now—owing to the fact that it had lost its skids in the grenade blast—whipped round like a horizontal buzz saw barely three feet above the moving conveyor belt! The rotor blades were ten feet away. Spinning fast. Nine feet. Anistaze saw them too. Eight feet. Race saw Renée struggling with the technician over by the wall. The roar of the chopper’s blurring rotor blades thundered throughout the cavernous warehouse. Seven feet. And Anistaze decided on a horrifying new tactic. With tremendous strength, he yanked Race up by the lapels and held him out at arm’s length so that Race’s neck was level with the speeding blades of the helicopter. Six feet. Renée was still fighting with the first technician. In between blows she saw Race and Anistaze fighting on the conveyor belt, saw Anistaze lift the professor onto his knees and hold him out from his body. Her eyes went wide with horror. Anistaze was going to decapitate Race with the blades of the chopper! Five feet. And she saw the control panel on the wall. The panel that started and stopped the conveyor belt… Four feet. Race saw the rapidly spinning rotor blades behind him, saw what Anistaze was trying to do. Three feet. He tried to move, tried to fight. But it was no use. Anistaze was just too strong. Race looked into his assailant’s eyes and saw nothing but hate. Two feet. Certain death was approaching. Race yelled in desperation.