Temple

It was positively huge an enormous enclosed space, about the size of an aeroplane hangar—the whole cavernous space illuminated by cone-shaped halogen lights that were attached to the ceiling's girders;

The 'floor' of the warehouse, however, was quite unusual. It was the river's surface. A long finger-like deck- way stretched out over the water, branching out at about a dozen intervals into smaller decks that an at right angles to it—mooring slots for the boats and planes that came to the mine to load up with gold.

A long, wide conveyor belt ran at ground level for the length of the central deckway. It rose out of a large square hole in the wall at the landward end of the hangar and looped back at the far end of the deckway.

Race guessed that the landward end of the conveyor belt was to be found somewhere deep within the coneshaped mine itself, probably on a loading ledge somewhere; of maybe even at the very bottom of the crater.

The way he figured it gold was loaded onto the conveyor belt down in the mine then the conveyor belt lifted it up through the long el cut into the earth, until it appeared here in the warehouse and was loaded onto a boat or plane.

The chopper's slow-moving pontoon came to a halt inside one of the mooring slots, its slowing rotor blades hanging marginally out over the conveyor belt, glinting in the glare of the halogen lights.

From his seat in the back of the chopper, Race saw four men step out from a glass-enclosed office at the landward end of the warehouse.

Three of them wore white lab coats—scientists. The fourth wore combat fatigues and carried a G-11 assault rifle - a soldier.

One of the three scientists, Race saw, was much smaller than the other two, and infinitely older. He was a tiny little man, bent with age, with long silver hair and huge round eyes Chat were magnified by a pair of thick spectacles, Race guessed that this was Dr Fritz Weber the brilliant  Nazi scientist Schroeder and Nash had talked about earlier.

Apart front the four men standing in front of the glass-walled office, the rest of the warehouse was completely deserted

heres no-one else heine, Race thought.

The Nazis must have taken everyone they had to Vilcafor to get the idol. The four men here - plus Anistaze, Ehrhardt, Cratefaee and the pilot—were all they had left.

'Untersharführer,' Ehrhardt said to Craterface as the chopper beneath them jolted to a halt, 'if you would be so kind, please take Agent Becker and Professor Race out to the refuse pit; Then shoot them and bury their remains'

Race and Renee were shoved down a dirt path that led westward through the rainforest away from the riverside warehouses.

Behind them, Craterface and the other Nazi soldier - only other soldier at the minmafshalled the foatd with thei G11s,

'Any idea how we're going to get out of this.' Race asked Renee as they walked,

'None at all,' she replied coolly.

'I thought you might have a plan or something, you know, something hidden up your sleeve,'

'No plan'

'So we're going to die?'

'It looks that way.'

They followed  the bent path and Race winced as overwhelmingly putrid smell assaulted his nose. A moment later, the lot of them came to the end of the  and Race saw a pile of garbage scattered among the fofit of the; it stretched away for about fifty yaidid 4g; of piles of discarded food and waste,

piedeg of etfii evefi a few animal carcasses,

e efuge pit;

) your eg; both of you,' Craterface growled.

They dropped to their knees, Hands on your

ey laced- their fingeig behind their heads, Chick-chick!

Race heard the other Nazi click the safety on his G-11.

en he ad: m step fOfl through the mud behind fe! ptaee the babel of the assault rifle against the back of his head,

'That isn't how it's supposed to happen!' his mind screamed.

I's going so fast. Aren't they supposed to dawdle or something?

Give you a chance. . , a chance... but— Race faced forward, away from the gun, bit his lip and shut his eyes, and gave in to the hopelessness of his situation; and for the end, It came quickly.

Bam !

Nothing happened,

Race's eyes were still closed.

The G-11 had gone off, but for some strange reason—his head was still where it was supposed to be.

And then suddenly—whump!—a body fell down into the mud right next to his kneeling form.

Race immediately opened his eyes and looked behind him and saw Craterface standing there, his gun aimed at the spot where the other Nazi's head had been only moments ago.

The dead Nazi now lay face-down in the mud with an ugly soup of blood and brains oozing out from the hole in the back of his head.

Uli! Renee said standing up and turning over to the Craterface. She hugged him warmly.

Races mind spun. Uli… ?

Then Renee slapped the big-faced Nazi on the chest, Honestly, could he have waited any longer? I was almost jumping out of my skin thesed

'I'm sorry, Renee' Cratefaced Uli said: had to wait until we were far enough from the others or they would have heard

Race turned suddenly to face the mfi

'You're BKA' he said,