Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  In the river, would be the Nazis.

  “All right, everybody,” Van Lewen said. “Speed up and stay sharp. You know what you have to do.”

  Race felt his blood rush. He couldn’t begin to imagine what lay beyond those trees.

  But he didn’t have long to dwell on it, because a second later, the six of them hit the edge of the trees at full throttle and burst out into daylight

  The Nazis were waiting for them.

  No sooner had Race and the others blasted out of the treeline than a wave of supermachine-gun fire erupted all around them.

  “Look out!” Doogie yelled, ducking, but Molke was too slow. A thunderous barrage of bullets whizzed over Doogie’s head and slammed into the young German soldier’s body, ripping his chest open, causing Molke to convulse violently before he was thrown off the back of the speeding riverbike.

  Race’s eyes went wide as saucers as he saw Molke get shot to bits right alongside him. They went wider still when he beheld the sight before him.

  Two of the three Mosquito choppers that had previously been resting on the helipad barges now hovered in the air above the water right in front of him and his team, while the rest of the Nazi fleet powered up the river behind them!

  Damn it!

  A spray of deadly 20mm machine-gun fire spewed out from the helicopters’ side-mounted cannons, raking the tree trunks behind Race, strafing the water all around him.

  “Split up! Split up!” Van Lewen yelled.

  The four American-German Jet Raiders split up instantly—two going left, two going right—and suddenly Race found himself racing across the water alongside Doogie Kennedy, who was now sitting alone on his riverbike, his wounded left shoulder caked in blood.

  Van Lewen and Renée and Schroeder shot off in the other direction, whipping out of sight behind the flotilla of river-boats.

  Race and Doogie sliced in between the Nazi boats, ducking and weaving. One of the Mosquitos wheeled around in the air above them, came roaring in toward them with its cannons blazing.

  In the face of the onslaught, Race banked away to the left and sped in between two of the helipad barges. The line of gunfire behind him pummeled the side of the nearer barge, kicking up sparks along its length.

  Race shot along the alleyway of water between the two barges, then abruptly he burst out into open space in front of them and cut right, taking air as he leapt across the bow-wave of the right-hand barge.

  He was met with the sight of Doogie’s Jet Raider racing alongside him at exactly the same speed—but underneath the hovering Mosquito helicopter and alongside one of the speeding Nazi Pibbers.

  “Professor! Quickly!” Doogie yelled as he drew his SIG-Sauer pistol with his blood-smeared left hand. “Give me cover! I’m going to board that Pibber.?”

  “What about the command boat!” Race yelled into his throat nuke. “What about the plan!”

  “The plan went to hell as soon as we came outta the trees! Come on.!”

  “All right!”

  With that, Race quickly drew his own SIG and opened fire on the two Nazi crew members standing on the stern platform of the Pibber.

  As he fired, they ducked for cover, and as they did so Doogie quickly pulled his Jet Raider alongside the speeding Pib and leapt up onto its elevated foredeck.

  Race watched in amazement as Doogie found his footing on the Pibber’s roofed forward section and took two bounding steps aft, dancing up onto the roof of the gunboat’s wheelhouse and then leaping down onto its open stern platform and blasting the two Nazi crew members to kingdom come with his SIG.

  “Professor! Get over here! I need you to man this gun!” Doogie jabbed a finger at the Pibber’s turret-mounted .50 caliber cannon.

  Race skimmed across the river’s surface, heading for the Pibber.

  On board the Pibber, Doogie scooped up a G-11 from one of the fallen Nazis and took the wheel, firing up at the Mosquito helicopter above him while still maintaining his furious speed.

  Race came alongside the speeding Pibber.

  He brought his Jet Raider in close to the fast-moving patrol boat, trying desperately to keep control as the riverbike bounced wildly on the Pib’s side wash.

  Race rode grimly, trying to keep up with the Pibber, his eyes locked onto the speeding gunboat’s side handrail, three feet away.

  That was all he wanted. To get his hands on that rail. Just then a wave of bullet holes cut across the Pib’s side—right in front of him.

  He spun instantly.

  And saw another Pibber skipping across the water toward him, with five more Nazis on its deck!

  It was coming right for him.

  And it wasn’t slowing down.

  It was going to ram Doogie’s Pibber, whether Race was in the way or not!

  Race turned to look at Doogie’s boat again, his eyes zeroing in on the handrail once again.

  Do it! his mind screamed.

  Race leapt off the Jet Raider, grabbed hold of the handrail, his legs dragging through the water behind him. He quickly swung his legs up and over the rail just as—crunch!—the second gunboat slammed into the port-side rail of Doogie’s Pibber.

  Race rolled across the deck as the entire boat under him jolted wildly.

  “Professor! Over here!” Doogie yelled.

  Race was still lying flat on his belly on the deck. He looked up quickly, saw Doogie standing in the wheelhouse waving him over when suddenly a pair of combat boots thudded down into his field of vision, cutting off his view of Doogie.

  At exactly the same moment as the boots landed on the deck—bam!—a gun went off and the owner of the boots dropped instantly, his bug-eyed face landing on the deck right in front of Race, a single bullet hole gouged in the middle of his forehead. In the background behind the dead Nazi, Race saw Doogie standing with his G-11 extended in his good right arm.

  Christ, Race thought, as he saw the second Pibber barreling along just beyond the handrail of his own boat—saw the four Nazis arrayed along its deck, readying themselves to board him.

  He snapped to look out in the other direction and saw one of the large helipad barges closing in from the other side, cutting off their escape—boxing them in.

  “This is not good,” he said to himself.

  Doogie was obviously thinking the same thing.

  He swung their Pibber left, ramming it into the Nazi boat hard, causing all of the commandos on its stern deck to lose their balance for an instant, buying himself the precious few seconds he needed to raise his G-11 and fire.

  But he didn’t fire at the deck of the Nazi Pibber, principally because he didn’t have enough time to bring his gun that far around. Rather, he trained it at the bow of the Nazi boat—where no Nazis were standing.

  “What the hell are you doing!” Race yelled.

  Doogie’s G-11 roared to life.

  An extended burst, maybe two dozen shots.

  Sparks flew up instantly all around the steel anchor at the bow of the Nazi Pibber.

  And then suddenly—smack!—the small metal latch securing the Pibber’s anchor to its housing was hit by Doogie’s fire and the anchor was dislodged from the deck and went plunging off the side of the Pibber’s bow and into the rushing water below, its nylon rope shooting rapidly over the side as it did so.

  The four Nazis on the Pibber saw their anchor drop, turned back to face Doogie and Race with their G-11s up.

  And then it happened.

  Whatever it snagged on—a submerged tree root, or maybe just a whole goddamned submerged tree—Race never knew, but whatever it was, that anchor must have shagged on some-thing big.

  It was as if some hideously strong monster had just yanked on the speeding Pibber’s anchor, because in a single shocking instant, the Nazi Pibber went from sixty-five nautical miles an hour to zero—the whole boat just snapping over on itself, ass-over-keel, as its bow was abruptly jerked down into the water.

  As the bow went under, the stern shot up out of the waves and the whole boat
did a complete floundering cartwheel, flipping over in mid-air and crashing down on the roof of its wheelhouse, smacking down into the water with an enormous explosive splash.

  Race spun to see the overturned Nazi boat shrink into the distance behind them, sinking slowly.

  Leonardo Van Lewen weaved his Jet Raider in and out of the Nazi armada, zipping lightly across the river’s surface as he alternately disappeared and reappeared from behind the various helipad barges, Pibbers and Rigid Raiders.

  Angry gunfire rang out all around him as he desperately tried to outrun the Rigid Raider assault boat and the Mosquito attack chopper that were in hot pursuit behind him.

  Strangely, there was only one Nazi on board the Rigid Raider behind him. It was the boat that he had assailed with gunfire earlier, killing all its occupants bar one.

  Truth be told, though, Van Lewen didn’t really care much for the boat or the chopper astern of him. He only had eyes for the vessel looming fifty yards in front of him.

  The big white catamaran.

  The Nazi command boat.

  Twenty yards behind Van Lewen, the lone helmsman of the Rigid Raider fired wildly after the American soldier’s riverbike, his bullets spraying all over the place as his long-bodied assault boat bounced madly over the waves.

  Then abruptly the helmsman heard a loud whump! from somewhere behind him and he turned quickly—

  —just in time to see Karl Schroeder’s fist come rushing at his face.

  Renée Becker rode her Jet Raider hard, flecks of spray assaulting her face like a thousand pin-pricks.

  To her immediate left, she saw Schroeder take the wheel of the Rigid Raider he had just jumped onto and give her the thumbs-up.

  Once she was sure he was in control of the Nazi boat, Renée immediately gunned the engine of her riverbike and swung in front of the Rigid Raider, using it for cover against the helicopter above them as she took off after Van Lewen, joining him in his pursuit of the command boat.

  The massive Nazi command boat powered down the river at the head of the fleet.

  About a half-dozen Nazis lined its aft rail—standing underneath the rotor blades of the white helicopter that sat on the helipad there—firing on Van Lewen.

  But the big Green Beret deftly weaved his speeding Jet Raider left and right, ducking their fire, before suddenly—without warning—he whipped in behind a nearby helipad barge just astern of the command boat.

  Under the cover of the barge, Van Lewen picked up the pace, gradually overtaking the bigger boat on his nimble Jet Raider.

  In a few seconds, he came to the bow of the barge, where he took a last deep breath.

  Then, when he was ready, he yanked his handlebars hard to the left.

  Like a fighter jet swooping in after its prey, his Jet Raider swung in fast across the bow of the helipad barge and in behind the big twin-hulled command boat.

  The Nazis on the stern of the massive catamaran immediately opened fire on him, but to Van Lewen’s surprise, they were suddenly taken down by Renée—screaming in from the left on her own Jet Raider, firing hard with her M-16 as she skipped across the water.

  With the Nazis down, the two of them zoomed in underneath the bridge-like body of the catamaran, shooting into the shadows in between its one-hundred-and-fifty-foot hulls!

  The two Jet Raiders shot forward in the darkness beneath the catamaran, quickly came to the bow of the boat.

  Van Lewen pulled in close to the right-hand hull. Renée took the left. Then she watched as Van Lewen reached up and grabbed hold of the bow rail above him and hauled himself up onto the command boat’s bow, disappearing from her view.

  A second later, with a deep breath of her own, she reached up for the left-hand bow rail and began to climb aboard.

  Gale-force wind assaulted her face as she emerged from the shadows beneath the catamaran and stood up on its left-hand bow.

  She saw Van Lewen on the other bow, about fifty feet away from her, holding his M-16 up and ready.

  With the command boat powering along at the head of the fleet, the Nazis obviously hadn’t expected anyone to board them from the front, so there were no commandos up here.

  Not yet anyway.

  Renée took in the catamaran around her. It was big—really big. The superstructure mounted on top of the two enormous hulls was sleek in the extreme, aerodynamic beyond belief. It was made up of two levels, both of which were hidden behind deeply tinted slanted windows. Wide side passageways ran down both of the big boat’s flanks.

  “Where to now?” she yelled.

  “We take the boat and then we hold it until the choppers get here!” Van Lewen called back.

  “What about the idol! If we can’t take the boat, we should at least try to get the—”

  At that moment two Nazi commandos came charging out from the port-side passageway, their G-11s blazing. But they were shooting from the hip, firing high. Van Lewen just whipped his M-16 around, drew a bead on them and took them down with two brutally accurate shots.

  “What did you say!” he yelled to Renée.

  “Never mind!” she said. “Go now! I’ll cover you!”

  And with that the two of them took off down the starboard passageway.

  Race and Doogie raced across the water in their Pibber patrol boat.

  One of the Mosquito attack choppers shot low through the air above them—hovering over the top of their speeding boat, occasionally pivoting in mid-air so it flew backward in front of them and fired on them directly. It even had one of its side doors open—out of which a Nazi commando sat, firing on them with a G-11.

  To their right rumbled one of the helipad barges, boxing them in, cutting off any escape in that direction.

  As he drove, Doogie fired up at the chopper with his G-11.

  He was trying in vain to get up into the forward gun turret of their Pibber, but the blistering suppressing fire from the chopper was keeping him pinned down in the wheelhouse.

  “God damn it! I can’t get to it!” he yelled as the Mosquito whipped by overhead again, the loud roar of its rotors quickly followed by the impact of about a million armor-piercing rounds banging into the roof of the wheelhouse.

  “We have to do something about the chopper!” Race shouted.

  “I know! I know!” Doogie yelled. “Professor, quickly! Go down below! See if you can find any grenades or something down there!”

  Race obeyed instantly, threw open the hatch at the forward end of the wheelhouse and hurried down into the belly of the gunboat.

  He found himself standing in a bare, small room with gray metal walls.

  Netting and wooden crates lined its slanted walls. In the center of the room he saw a gray box-like object. It was about three feet high and three feet wide—roughly the size of a card table—and at first glance he thought it was just another crate, some kind of ammunition container or something.

  But it wasn’t a container at all. On closer inspection, Race saw that it was attached to the floor.

  Then he realized. It was a diver’s hatch. In Vietnam, Special Forces and the SEALs had preferred to use Pibbers ahead of other river boats because they alone had these special hatches concealed in their hulls. Using them, frogmen could enter the water without the bad guys knowing where they’d been let off.

  Race quickly began searching the various racks and shelves for weapons.

  The first thing he found was a small crate of British L2A2 antipersonnel hand grenades. The second thing was a Kevlar box with some words stenciled across its side in English:

  Race opened the box and saw six futuristic-looking chrome-and-plastic vials sitting snugly inside separate foam-lined pockets. Each vial was quite small—about the size and shape of a tube of lipstick-—and they were all filled with a strange kind of lustrous amber liquid.

  Race shrugged, grabbed the box, and carried it and the crate of regular grenades up to Doogie in the wheelhouse.

  “Ah, Professor,” Doogie said when he saw the Kevlar box. “I—uh—wo
uldn’t go throwing those babies too quickly if I were you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll kill us too.”

  “What?”

  “They’re M-22s. High-temperature explosive charges. Serious shit. See the amber liquid inside ’em? Isotopic liquid chlorine. One ounce of that stuff’ll vaporize everything within a two-hundred-yard radius, including us. These Nazi assholes must have been the ones who stole that shipment of M-22s from that truck in Baltimore a few years back.”

  “Oh,” Race said.

  “We won’t be needing that much firepower,” Doogie smiled, grabbing one of the more conventional L2A2 hand grenades. “This should be all we need.”

  Not a moment later, the Mosquito above them made another pass, pummeling the walls of the Pib with bullet holes.

  But this time, as it shot by overhead Doogie pulled the pin on his grenade and threw it baseball-style with his good arm, up at the chopper’s open side door.

  The grenade shot through the air like a missile . . .

  . . . and then it disappeared inside the Mosquito’s door.

  A second later the Mosquito’s walls blasted out as one and the little attack chopper pitched wildly forward, crumpling over on itself and bursting into flames, before slamming down nose-first into the speeding water beneath it.

  “Nice throw,” Race said.

  Van Lewen and Renée raced down the wide starboard side passageway of the command boat, their M-16s pressed firmly against their shoulders.

  They moved quickly, sweeping their guns from side to side, until suddenly they burst out into open space—out onto the aft helipad deck of the big catamaran.

  Van Lewen immediately saw the white Bell Jet Ranger chopper sitting on the deck before them, with its pilot standing beside it.

  The man saw them instantly, reached for his gun. Van Lewen dropped him, turned right—just in time to see a squad of six more Nazi commandos come charging out from the interior of the catamaran, their G-11 up and firing.

  Supermachine-gun fire raked the deck all around them, splintered the wooden handrail behind them.