Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  Van Lewen ducked, saw Renée dive back behind the corner they had come from.

  He, however, was too far gone.

  He looked back at the Nazis coming toward him—they were about fifteen yards away with their futuristic machine-guns spewing forth a shocking wave of bullets and in the face of their onslaught, with absolutely nothing else to call on, Leo Van Lewen did the only thing he could think to do.

  He leapt over the side.

  From the helm of his Rigid Raider speeding along the river behind the command boat, Karl Schroeder watched in horror as he saw Van Lewen go sailing off the side of the big catamaran.

  But Schroeder didn’t have time to gawk.

  At that moment, a hailstorm of G-11 fire came his way as two Nazi Rigid Raiders swooped in on him from either side, assailing his boat’s flanks with gunfire, forcing him to dive for cover.

  He hit the deck hard, and immediately scanned the floor of the boat for something he could use to fight off the two Nazi Rigid Raiders.

  The first thing he saw was a G-11, lying on the deck next to a Kevlar box of some sort. Good start.

  But then, beyond the G-11, he saw something else.

  And he frowned.

  Van Lewen flew through the air, waited for the impact with the speeding river beneath him.

  It never came.

  Rather he landed on something hard—something solid—something that felt like plastic or fiberglass.

  He looked about himself and found that he was lying on the deck of the Scarab speedboat that was secured to the rear right-hand rail of the command boat.

  Not a second later, three Nazi commandos snapped their G-11s over the command boat’s rail and drew a bead on the bridge of his nose and in that moment, as he looked up into their eyes, Van Lewen knew that his battle was over.

  The three Nazis jammed down on the triggers of their guns.

  At first, Schroeder hadn’t realized what it was.

  It was an odd-looking, backpack-sized device—roughly rectangular in shape, with a series of digital gauges on it, variously measured in kilohertz, megahertz and gigahertz.

  Frequency, measurements . . .

  And then it had dawned on him.

  It was the Nazis’ jamming device—the device that they had used to neutralize the Americans’ communications systems when they had arrived at Vilcafor.

  Stuck to the front of the device was a strip of gray electrician’s tape, on which was written in German the words:

  WARNING!

  DO NOT SET EMP LEVELS ABOVE 1.2 gHZ.

  Schroeder’s eyes had gone wide at the sight of the acronym “EMP.”

  Jesus.

  A pulse generator.

  The Nazis had an electromagnetic pulse generator.

  But why would they set a limit on the level of the pulse at 1:2 gigahertz?

  And then it had hit him.

  Schroeder immediately snatched up the G-11 next to him and looked at the specifications marked on its body.

  HECKLER & KOCH, DEUTSCHLAND

  -50 V.3.5 MV: 920 CPU: 1.25 gHZ

  In the nanoseconds of time in which the mind operates, he quickly recalled the theory of electromagnetic pulses: EMP nullified anything with a microprocessor in it—computers, radio transmitters, televisions.

  And also, Schroeder realized, G-11 assault rifles, since the G-11 was the only gun in the world to use a microprocessor—the only gun complex enough to require one.

  The Nazis didn’t want their men to set the levels on their EMP generator too high, because if they did, the electromagnetic pulse would knock out their G-11s.

  Schroeder smiled.

  And then—at exactly the same moment as Van Lewen looked up into the barrels of the Nazis’ G-11 assault rifles from his position on the deck of the Scarab—Karl Schroeder had flicked on the pulse generator and turned the gigahertz dial to “1.3.”

  Click. Click Click.

  Van Lewen’s look of resignation turned to one of complete bewilderment as each of the three G-11s above him failed to fire.

  The Nazis seemed even more bewildered. They didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  Van Lewen didn’t miss a beat.

  In a second, he had his M-16 raised in one hand and his SIG-Sauer in the other. He pulled both triggers at the same time.

  Both guns blazed to life.

  All three Nazis were hit instantly and they flopped back behind the rail, their heads exploding in identical fountains of blood.

  Bullets pinged off the rail itself, ricocheting in every direction, one of them slicing through the rope that held the Scarab to the command boat.

  The speedboat immediately fell away from the big catamaran and all the Nazis on the command boat could do was hold their useless G-11 in their hands and stare at the Scarab as it receded into the wash behind them.

  On the other side of the river, Doogie Kennedy sat in the swivel chair of his Pibber’s forward gun turret, creating all manner of hell with the patrol boat’s double-barreled .50 caliber cannon.

  He spun the turret around and let fly with a hailstorm of fire, turning one of the Rigid Raiders speeding across the river to his left into Swiss cheese.

  Then he turned his sights onto one of the helipad barges in front of him—the one with a Mosquito helicopter still on it—and pummeled it with .50 cal gunfire, rupturing its fuel tanks, causing the entire boat-and-chopper combination to erupt into a billowing ball of fire.

  “That’s right! Take that, you Nazi sunzabitches!”

  Three yards behind him, in the wheelhouse of the Pibber, Race drove hard, scanning the river as he did so.

  Just then the third—and last—Mosquito attack chopper made another low pass, its side-mounted cannons blazing. Race ducked quickly. On the forward deck in front of him, Doogie swung the revolving gun turret around and loosed a deafening burst of 20mm gunfire at the chopper, but the Mosquito just banked away sharply as his red-hot tracers hit only air around it.

  At that moment, however, Race saw another Pibber gunboat swing in ominously behind them.

  No Nazi gunmen lined its rails, no gunfire spewed forth from its 20mm gun turret.

  It just kept its distance, cruising silently, hanging well back behind them, at least three hundred yards away.

  And then suddenly Race saw a puff of smoke burst out from the square-shaped pod that hung off its side and abruptly something long and white shot out of the pod and splashed down into the water.

  “Is that what I think it is?” he said, at exactly the same moment as another Nazi Rigid Raider swung in behind their boat, in between it and the Pibber that had just launched the strange object from its side-mounted pod. Four Nazis stood on the deck of the open-topped Rigid Raider, firing at Race and Doogie with Beretta pistols.

  And then suddenly—so suddenly that it made Race jump—the Rigid Raider in between the two Pibbers just exploded.

  There was no warning.

  No apparent cause.

  The long-bodied aluminum assault boat just shot up into the air in a geyser of smoke, water and twisted metal.

  No apparent cause, Race thought, except for the object that the other Pibber had just launched into the water from its pod.

  The realization hit him and Doogie at the same time.

  “Torpedoes . . .” they both said, exchanging a look.

  As they said it, another wisp of smoke puffed out from the pod on the side of the Nazi Pibber and a long white torpedo exploded out from it, splashed down into the water, and shot forward at incredible speed, heading directly for their boat

  “Oh, man,” Doogie breathed.

  Race pushed forward on the throttle of the Pibber.

  The torpedo shot through the water.

  Race guided the speeding Pibber away from it, swinging left in the water, toward the rest of the fleet, in the hope that he could put another boat between them and the torpedo.

  But it was no use.

  The nearest boats to theirs were the two remaining helipad b
arges—the one with the Grumman JRF-5 Goose seaplane trailing behind it immediately to their right, and another forward and to their left.

  Both barges’ flight decks were empty—their wide, railless helipads bare.

  Race gunned the engine.

  His Pibber shot forward, hit a stray wave, bounced high into the air and then with a sudden crashing lurch, came down again, hitting the water hard.

  The torpedo bore down on them.

  “Professor!” Doogie yelled. “You got about ten seconds to do something!”

  Ten seconds, Race thought.

  Shit.

  He saw the helipad barge to his left, got an idea, swung in toward it.

  Eight seconds.

  The Pibber shot across the surface about thirty yards to the right of the wide, flat barge.

  Race’s eyes were glued to the barge. It was little more than a landing pad on water—just a wide, flat helipad that floated about three feet above the waterline, with a small glass-enclosed wheelhouse at its bow.

  Six seconds.

  Abruptly, Race yanked his steering wheel hard to port and the Pibber banked left through the water, skipping quickly across the waves, taking air every few meters as it shot at breakneck speed in toward the helipad barge.

  Five seconds.

  The torpedo closed in.

  Four seconds.

  “What are you doing!” Doogie yelled.

  Three.

  Race jammed the throttle forward as far as it would go.

  Two.

  The Pibber skimmed across the water on a collision course with the barge’s starboard flank.

  Then suddenly the Pibber hit a wave and like a stunt car leaping off a ramp, it shot high into the air.

  The speeding gunboat leapt clear out of the water, its Jacuzzi jet drive spraying supercharged water streams through the air behind it—literally flying—and with a bone-jarring whump! its hull landed right on top of the barge’s empty helipad!

  But the Pibber was still moving—fast—and with a scraping, shrieking, ear-splitting screech, the patrol boat skidded across the empty helipad deck, kicking up sparks as it shot across it until—shoom!—the Pibber blasted off the left-hand edge of the barge and splashed down into the water on the other side where its jet drive caught hold of water again and it peeled away from the helipad barge, just as the torpedo behind it hit the hapless barge and detonated.

  The walls of the barge blew out as one. Jagged lengths of steel, curving pieces of hull and a thousand shards of glass went blasting out into the air as the barge exploded with the impact of the torpedo.

  “Wa-hooooo!” Doogie yelled from the gun turret “What a goddamn ride!”

  Breathless, Race peered back at the river behind them as pieces of the destroyed barge rained down on the roof of his wheelhouse.

  “Whoa,” he said.

  Renée Becker slid in through a side door of the command boat, cautiously made her way down a narrow white-lit corridor.

  She slipped into an alcove as a door in front of her opened suddenly. Two Nazis emerged and hurried past her, carrying pistols in their hands, one of them saying, “They’re using our own EMP against us!” The two Nazis ran off down the corridor, unaware of her presence.

  Renée pressed on. The interior of the catamaran was plush beyond belief—white walls with dark wooden paneling and lush blue carpet.

  But she didn’t care.

  She was only after one thing.

  The idol.

  After leaping out of the water and dry-skiing across the landing pad of the helipad barge, Race and Doogie’s Pibber was now whipping across the river’s surface again, with Doogie firing from his turret up at the last Mosquito helicopter as it buzzed wildly about above them.

  But the Mosquito was too quick, too nimble. It evaded his fire easily until finally his .50 cal cannon ran out of ammo and just started clicking repeatedly.

  Doogie frowned. “Aw, shit.”

  He quickly slid out of the turret, snatched up his G-11, and joined Race in the wheelhouse.

  “We gotta nail that chopper,” he said. “While it’s still up there, we got no chance of beating these guys.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  Doogie nodded at the last remaining helipad barge plowing along the river about fifty yards to their right—the one with the Grumman Goose seaplane being towed along behind it.

  “I suggest we get up in the air with it,” he said.

  Seconds later, their Pibber swung in alongside the wide, flat helipad barge.

  The two boats touched for a moment and as they did so,

  Doogie leapt across onto the landing deck of the barge.

  “Okay, Professor!” he yelled. “Your turn!”

  Race nodded, left the wheel of the Pibber—just as the entire patrol boat jolted wildly under the weight of a stunning impact.

  Race fell to the deck, looked up in time to see one of the two remaining Nazi Pibbers ram the left-hand side of his boat again.

  On the helipad barge to the right of the two Pibbers, Doogie whipped up his G-11 and pulled the trigger—but for some reason, it wouldn’t fire.

  “Damn it! Shit!” he yelled as he watched Race and the other Pibber drift away from his barge.

  Race was in Hell.

  Gunfire rang out all around him as the Nazis on the other Pibber opened fire on his wheelhouse with pistols from close range. The forward windshield of his Pib shattered and a storm of shards rained down all over him.

  Then suddenly he felt another lurching thump as the second Pibber rubbed up against his port-side rail.

  He snapped around and saw the Nazi Pibber looming large alongside his boat—saw three commandos on its stern deck holding Berettas, readying themselves to board his Pib and kill him.

  He spun, looked the other way, and saw that the gap between his own boat and the helipad barge with Doogie was now at least thirty feet wide. Too far away.

  He was on his own now.

  He drew his SIG.

  What are your options, Will?

  Can’t see many.

  The first Nazi leaped over onto his Pibber.

  Race whirled around instantly and dived forward—through his boat’s shattered windshield and up onto the Pibber’s elevated foredeck—just as the Nazi opened fire with his pistol, his bullets pinging off the windshield’s frame inches above Race’s head.

  Race went sprawling on the foredeck of the Pibber, out’ of the line of fire, at least for the moment.

  He heard the sounds of the other Nazis landing on the aft deck of his boat.

  Shit.

  He looked aft and saw the heads of the four Nazi commandos coming forward. He instinctively rolled away from them and abruptly something sharp hit his back.

  Race turned.

  It was the Pibber’s anchor.

  The Nazis were still coming forward.

  Do something!

  All right . . .

  Race quickly aimed his SIG-Sauer at the anchor’s rope and fired.

  The bullet cut the rope just above the anchor and the stainless-steel weight instantly dropped free from it, clattered down onto the deck.

  Race then yanked off his Yankees cap and wedged it firmly between his teeth.

  The first Nazi appeared in the wheelhouse, raised his Beretta and fired.

  Race dived clear of the bullet, scooping up the anchor rope in his hand as he did so, and then, without so much as a second thought, he rolled quickly across the foredeck toward the bow of the boat.

  The steel foredeck around him erupted with bullet holes as he rolled but the bullets missed their mark.

  For at the exact moment that the four Nazis appeared in the wheelhouse of the Pibber, William Race rolled his body off the bow of the patrol boat and fell down into the speeding water below.

  Race hit the water hard—back-first.

  He kicked up a spectacular spray of wash as he bounced wildly on the speeding surface, skipping over it at phenomenal speed, trying desperat
ely to keep his grip on the anchor rope. Occasionally his entire body would spring up off a wave and bang against the side of Pibber’s bow as it carved knife-like through the water beside him.

  Race bit down firmly on the brim of his cap, held onto the rope as hard as he could.

  It was a rough ride—bruising, belting, battering—but he knew if he didn’t do one more thing, it was about to get a lot worse.

  He heard the heavy thump-thump-thump of Nazi boots on the foredeck above him. If they saw him hanging from the bow, he was a dead man for sure. They would shoot him where he hung.

  Do it, Will!

  All right, he thought. Let’s do it.

  Race steeled himself against the speeding waves beneath him, squeezed his eyes shut against the spray that assaulted his face. Then he adjusted his grip on the anchor rope and stiffened all of his muscles at once.

  And then he allowed himself to sink into the water, under the speeding bow of the Pibber!

  His legs went under first.

  Then his waist, then his stomach, then his chest.

  Slowly, his shoulders edged under, followed by his neck. Then, with a final, deep breath, Race allowed his head to go under the surface.

  The world went eerily silent.

  There was no roar of outboard motors, no thumping of choppers, no clatter of automatic gunfire. Just the constant vibrating hum of boat engines echoing across the underwater spectrum.

  The steeply slanted gray hull of the Pibber filled Race’s field of vision. Small specks of God-only-knew-what rushed past his face at a million miles an hour, disappearing into the murky green darkness that lay beyond his flailing feet.

  Slowly, deliberately, hand over hand, Race lowered him self down the length of the anchor rope, heading aft along the hull of the Pibber, holding his breath for dear life—while still holding onto his cap with his teeth!

  He was about a third of the way down the length of the hull when the first reptilian shape materialized from the green darkness around him.

  A caiman.

  It swooped in alongside the speeding Pibber, opening its mouth right next to his flailing feet, and with a rattlesnake-quick snapping motion, lunged viciously at his sneakers.