Temple

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 tight 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 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 the 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 had, causing all of the commandos on its stem 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 bing his gun that fat 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 Pibbet.

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 snagged on something 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 cart wheel, 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.

Leonirdo 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 tang 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 filed wildly after the American soldier's river- bike, 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.

Renee Becker rode her Jet Raider hard, flecks of spray assaulting her face like a thousand pinpricks.