Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  Race and Van Lewen rolled the boulder aside—

  —and they were instantly assailed by the roar of a mighty waterfall.

  A light spray of water hit their faces as they were confronted by the sight of a curtain of falling water not ten feet in front of them.

  Race scanned the area around them.

  They were standing on a path—an Incan path—carved into the rockwall behind the waterfall.

  They were at the edge of the tableland already.

  The roar of the surging waterfall above them was incredible. It drowned out all other sound. Van Lewen had to shout over it to be heard.

  “This way!” he yelled, hurrying left.

  The rocky path was wet and slippery, but Race and the others managed to keep their footing as they hustled along its length behind the falling curtain of water.

  Even though they moved quickly, it still took them a full minute to reach the edge of the curtain—the waterfall above them was wide, and they had emerged from the quenko at its very center.

  Van Lewen came out onto solid ground first, skidded to a halt on the muddy riverbank.” Holy shit,” he said.

  “What is it?” Race asked as he came alongside him and looked out at the river.

  The first thing he saw was Heinrich Anistaze’s little Zodiac speedboat, cutting a ribbon of wash as it sped away from them into the wider waters of the river proper.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  And then he saw the other boats.

  “Holy shit.”

  It looked like a veritable armada.

  There must have been at least twenty boats out there on the wide brown river at the base of the waterfall. Boats of all shapes and sizes.

  Five long-bodied shallow-draft assault boats sped around the perimeter of the fleet. They were Rigid Raiders—sleek, open-topped aluminum-hulled attack craft commonly used by the SAS for high-speed raiding.

  Four Vietnam-era military patrol boats known as “Pibbers” cruised casually alongside some of the larger boats near the center of the armada. Pibbers were superfast 35-foot gunboats fitted with armor plating, turret-mounted twin-barreled .50 caliber machine-guns and side-mounted torpedo pods. Their name was a serviceman’s abbreviation of their official designation PBR (Patrol Boat River), and although the Pibber was already well known for its exploits in Vietnam, it had been immortalized in the Hollywood movie Apocalypse Now.

  Three massive helicopter landing barges surged along the river inside the circle of attack boats. On the helipads of two of the barges sat Mosquito light-attack helicopters. The chopper that had been up on the tower top earlier was in the process of landing on the third barge’s helipad right now.

  Trailing behind the middle helipad barge, however—and looking remarkably out of place alongside the three ultra-high-tech Mosquitos—was a rather battered-looking little seaplane.

  It was a Grumman JRF-5 “Goose,” a compact twin-propellered riverplane that dated back to the Second World War.

  The Grumman Goose was a very distinctive little plane, classic in its design. From the side, its bow was roughly the same shape as a Labrador’s snout—short and flat-topped but rounded at the waterline. It sat in the water on its belly with two stabilizing pontoons hanging down from its outstretched wings. Notably, the Goose had two methods of entry, a side door and a pop-up hatch in the nose.

  This Goose, however, also packed a punch—a lightweight twin-barreled 20mm Gatling gun had been affixed to its left-hand flank.

  In the center of the Nazi fleet sat the armada’s focal point—and the destination of Anistaze’s Zodiac—an enormous white catamaran.

  The command boat.

  It looked magnificent, sleek in the extreme, at least 150 feet long. Its two massive hulls were painted pristine white while its sharply slanting windows were tinted jet black. Sonar arrays rotated atop its roof. A dazzling white Bell Jet Ranger helicopter sat on the helipad that made up the stern of the giant craft.

  In addition to the helicopter, rocking in the water alongside the big catamaran, tied to it, was the meanest-looking speedboat Race had ever seen. It, too, was painted white, the same color as the command boat and the helicopter—a matching set. It sat low in the water and it had an ultra-long hull that tapered sharply to a point at the bow. A backward-slanting spoiler arched over the driver’s seat—an aerodynamic precaution designed to prevent the high-powered speedboat from being lifted off the river’s surface while it flew across the water at top speed. Race saw the word “SCARAB” painted across its side.

  Scooting around the whole motley fleet—cutting thin ribbons of white wash behind them—were about six Jet Raiders: small one-man assault vehicles not unlike regular jet-skis.

  But they were longer than normal jet-skis—maybe nine feet from tip to tail. And they were sleeker, meaner, faster. They had saddle-like seats and bullet-shaped noses, and they all sat high in the water as they moved, with only the back half of their hulls touching the water’s surface as they skimmed lightly across it, whipping around the larger boats.

  Race and the others watched as Anistaze’s Zodiac reached the command boat and the notorious Nazi field commander climbed aboard. Immediately, the big white catamaran began to power up. As it did so, the rest of the fleet began to move out.

  “They’re leaving!” Doogie shouted.

  “There!” Van Lewen said, spotting three abandoned Jet Raiders lying on the riverbank not far from the waterfall—left there, no doubt, by the members of the Nazi demolition team.

  “Come on,” Van Lewen said.

  The six of them raced for the three Jet Raiders.

  The river’s surface raced by beneath them.

  The three stolen Jet Raiders kicked up spectacular sprays of white behind them as they raced side by side across the water in pursuit of the Nazi armada.

  Race rode double with Van Lewen. He drove while the Green Beret sat behind him like a pillion passenger on a motorcycle, with one hand wrapped around Race’s waist, the other holding his M-16 ready to fire.

  Doogie Kennedy skimmed across the water to their right, riding double with the German paratrooper Molke, while Renée and Schroeder shot along the river’s surface to their left—Renée driving, Schroeder riding shotgun.

  The Nazi armada was about three hundred yards ahead of them, powering quickly along the wide brown river—looking a lot like a carrier battle group, with the big command boat in the center, surrounded by Rigid Raiders and Pibbers.

  The three helipad barges trailed behind the other boats, bringing up the rear, while the little Jet Raiders just ducked and weaved madly in between all the larger boats like flies around a rubbish heap.

  Race rode hard, wind and water pounding against his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the trees along the river’s edge racing past him in a blur of green, saw the odd stray log floating on the surface next to him.

  Don’t hit the logs, Will. Don’t hit the logs . . .

  And then he realized.

  They weren’t logs.

  They were caimans.

  Don’t hit the caimans, Will. Don’t hit the caimans . . .

  “Van Lewen!” he yelled above the roaring wind. “What’s the plan?”

  “Easy! We take the command boat, we get the idol, then we hold the boat until the air support arrives!”

  “We take the command boat . . .”

  “Once we get it, we can hold it.”

  “Whatever you say,” Race yelled.

  Up ahead, the Nazi armada rounded a bend in the river and disappeared from Race’s view. From above, the Alto Purus River looked like the undulating body of a snake, a never-ending series of twisting bends and turns.

  “All right, everybody,” Van Lewen said into his throat mike. “See those trees up ahead? That’s where we’re going.”

  Race looked forward and saw that the bend in the river that the Nazis had just rounded was comprised of a thick outcropping of trees. As he looked at the outcropping more closel
y, however, he noticed something odd about it—there was no dirt or soil at the base of the trees situated there. It looked as if the trees simply rose up out of the water.

  Then he realized. It was the rainy season, and with the advent of the annual rains, the water levels of the rivers in the Amazon Basin rose dramatically. The land upon which that outcropping of trees stood was deeply submerged—a flooded forest

  Which meant that someone traveling on a small rivercraft like a Jet Raider might be able to wend their way through the trees, rather than going around the natural bend in the river.

  Doogie’s Jet Raider shot into the treeline—Race’s right behind it—Renée’s close behind.

  Tree trunks whipped past them on either side, blurring with motion.

  The three Jet Raiders shot through the maze of thick dark trees—banking left, leaning right, skimming lightly across the waves, their long flat hulls barely even touching the surface—while off to their left, through the flashing wall of tree trunks, they could make out the Nazi armada as it powered around the bend in the river.

  Race tried desperately to concentrate as he drove. The speed at which they were traveling was utterly frightening.

  It was so fast So incredibly, incredibly fast!

  Tree trunks whooshed past him at phenomenal speed. Wavelets streaked underneath the bow of his riverbike. So quickly were they traveling—so lightly and smoothly on the surface of the water—that he barely had to touch the handlebars of his bike in order to bank it left or right

  Race was sitting high in the saddle of his Jet Raider as he sped along behind Doogie’s riverbike when suddenly he saw Doogie and Molke duck for apparently no reason. And then abruptly he saw why and he yelled, “Van Lewen! Duck!” and the two of them yanked their bodies down just as a low-hanging branch whistled by over their heads.

  “Thanks!” Van Lewen yelled.

  “No problem!”

  And then through the lattice of dark tree trunks ahead of him he saw daylight. Heavy, gray, late-afternoon daylight.

  “All right, everyone,” Van Lewen said. “Arrowhead formation. Doogie and Molke, you take the lead. Agents Schroeder and Becker, you’ve got the left. Professor Race and I will cover the right Okay, you all ready?” The big Green Beret raised his M-16 in one hand while he held onto Race with the other.

  Up ahead, Race saw Doogie and Molke lift their own M-16s.

  “Ready,” Doogie’s voice came back.

  The three Germans called in. “Ready-Ready-Ready.”

  “Professor?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Race said.

  “Then let’s rock,” Van Lewen said.

  The three American-German Jet Raiders burst out from the treeline in a perfect arrowhead formation right alongside the Nazi armada and in an instant Race found himself shooting across the water in the midst of four Nazi Jet Raiders.

  The four Nazis turned as one to see the three American riverbikes, total surprise in their eyes. They reached for their guns just as Van Lewen called, “Doogie! Take left!” and the two Green Berets let fly in both directions with simultaneous bursts of M-16 gunfire. The four Nazis were blasted off their riverbikes in an instant as the three stolen Jet Raiders whipped past them.

  As he shot by the fallen Nazis, Race turned in his seat to see several sets of ripples cut a beeline through the water toward them.

  The caimans . . .

  And then suddenly a line of .50 caliber bullet holes raked the water on either side of his speeding Jet Raider and he was instantly snapped out of his trance.

  He spun quickly and saw two attack boats—one Rigid Raider and one Pibber patrol boat—swing in quickly behind them, the Pibber firing wildly with its turret-mounted .50 cal cannon.

  Race gunned the accelerator and his riverbike surged forward. Behind him, Van Lewen swiveled around on the saddle so that he was now facing backward, leveled his M-16 and opened fire on their pursuers.

  His volley of machine-gun fire strafed both boats, cracking the windshield of the Pibber and nailing three of the four men on board the Rigid Raider.

  Then, abruptly, the whole fleet veered left as it rounded another bend in the river.

  “Everybody! Bank hard left!” Van Lewen yelled.

  “Left?” Race shouted, confused.

  “Through the trees again! We’ve got to get to that command boat!”

  At that moment, more gunfire rang out all around them as two Nazi riverbikes swung in behind them.

  Bullets flew everywhere, whizzed over Race’s head, and then suddenly—sprack!—Race saw a hideous gout of blood splash out from Doogie’s left shoulder as the young Green Beret was hit.

  “Arrrggghhh!” Doogie’s voice roared over the radio, but somehow he managed to keep up his speed.

  Voom-voom-voom. The three American riverbikes shot into the treeline—Renée and Schroeder first, Doogie and Molke second, Race and Van Lewen last of all.

  They were followed a split second later by the two Nazi bikes.

  Bullets smacked against the tree trunks just above Race’s head as he flew by them at phenomenal speed. Low-hanging branches rushed at him. Each time he saw one approaching, he yelled at Van Lewen—still facing backward—and ordered him to duck.

  Van Lewen was firing hard with his M-16 at the two Nazi riverbikes close behind them, but the Nazis found cover behind the trees, and after an extended burst of fire Van Lewen suddenly went dry.

  Seeing the chance, the two Nazi Jet Raiders closed in.

  One of them pulled up quickly alongside Race and Van Lewen’s riverbike, sped along the water on their right-hand side, and the Nazi rider immediately drew a Glock from his saddlebag. With nothing else to call on, Van Lewen swung his empty M-16 like a baseball bat, hitting the Nazi’s pistol clean out of his hand—just as the trees all around the two speeding Jet Raiders splintered violently under the weight of a burst of G-11 gunfire!

  Van Lewen and Race ducked instantly as the second Nazi Jet Raider roared out of the trees to their left and slammed into the side of their riverbike.

  Race was almost jolted out of his seat by the impact, but somehow he managed to hold on. He kept his speed up, banked quickly to avoid an onrushing tree. Then he glanced left, tried get a look at his new assailant—

  —and found himself staring into the barrel of a G-11 supermachine-gun.

  Race looked up from the barrel and saw the face of its holder, grinning evilly, smiling with delight.

  And then—SMACK!—the Nazi was crunched out of sight as his Jet Raider slammed at full speed into the center of a thick black tree trunk and his riverbike exploded into a great billowing fireball.

  Race’s head whipped around.

  It had happened so fast!

  It was as if the tree had just swooped past them and collected the Nazi on its way by.

  The other Nazi—the one immediately to their right—snapped around to look at the explosion too. Van Lewen caught him looking and in one swift movement, M-16 in hand, he jumped across onto the man’s speeding Jet Raider, landing on its saddle, right behind him!

  The Nazi rider turned in surprise. As he did so, however, Van Lewen looked forward at the river ahead of them—and his eyes widened—and then with the reflexes of a cat he ducked, just as the Nazi turned to look forward and caught the full force of a speeding branch whipping by at head-height.

  The branch plowed into the bridge of his nose, drilled itself into the back of his brain, killing the man in an instant, and the Nazi toppled backward, over Van Lewen’s bent-over body and off the back of the riverbike.

  A few seconds later, Van Lewen and Race—now on separate Jet Raiders—pulled alongside Doogie and Molke’s speeding riverbike. Renée and Schroeder were up ahead of them, racing along in the safety of the trees.

  “Doogie! You okay?” Van Lewen said into his throat mike.

  “I’ll be okay. The bullet went right through,” Doogie’s voice came back.

  While Van Lewen checked on Doogie, Race kept watch fo
r more Nazis. There were no more coming through the trees behind them. But through the flashing rush of tree trunks to his right, he could see a couple of the silver Rigid Raider assault boats racing across the river’s surface parallel to them. Armed Nazi commandos lined their decks, peering into the flooded forest, searching for them, waiting for them to emerge again.

  Van Lewen said, “All right, everybody, listen up. Doogie’s taken a hit, but he’s okay to keep going. Here’s the plan. We want that command boat, okay. The way we’re going to get it is this: you two BKA guys”—he nodded at Renée and Schroeder—“I want you two to grab one of those Pibbers. If we’re gonna hold that cruiser we’re gonna need some heavy fire support and that means getting our hands on one of those .50 cal turrets. Think you can manage that?”

  “We can try,” Schroeder said.

  “Good. Doogie. You, me and Molke are gonna go for the command boat, you up for that?”

  “I can handle it” Doogie grimaced.

  “What about me?” Race asked.

  “I got a special job for you, Professor,” Van Lewen said. “Owing to your lack of special forces training, I kinda figured you wouldn’t want to go storming any boats.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “So I thought that, instead, you could run decoy for us.”

  “Decoy?”

  “I want you to scoot around in front of those Nazi gunboats as fast as you can and draw their fire while we take the command boat and a Pibber. Once we’ve got those two boats, we’ll bring you aboard the main cruiser.”

  Race swallowed. “Okay . . .”

  As he said it, he glanced left and caught Renée’s eye. She must have seen the apprehension on his face and nodded reassuringly.

  “You’ll be all right” she said softly over his earpiece.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Then he looked forward and saw that their tree-lined sanctuary ended about a hundred yards ahead of them at a stand of half-submerged trees.

  Beyond the stand of trees, he could see gray daylight and the river proper.