Temple

Metal and wooden crates lied along its walls, in the dense packs of them he saw a grey box-like object; it was about three feet high ad thee feet wide, the size of cardboard 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 had of other dive 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 fits thin h found was a small crate of British L2A2 anti-personnel hand grenades. The second thing was a kevlar box with some words stencilled across its side in English

PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY ORDNANCE ISSUE K/B6-005/C/DARPA

6 X M-22 CHARGES

Race opened the box and saw six futuristic-looking plastic vials sitting snugly inside separate foaming 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 kevlar box, and carried it and the heap of regular grenades up to Doogie in the wheelhouse.

'Ah Professor,' Doogie said when he saw the kevlar box.

'I—uh—wouldn't go throwing those babies too quickly if I were you...'

'Why not?'

Because you'll kill us too.'

What?”

They're M-22; High-temperature explosive charges.

Serious shit. See the amber liquid inside 'em. Isotopic liquid rine One Ounce of that stuff'll vaporise everything wet 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 Balore 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. The h0hld be all w6- nedd

Not a moment later the Mosquito above them made another pas pummeling the wall of the Pib with bullet holes,

But this time as it showed by overhead Doogie pulled the pin of his grenade and hurled it baseball-style with his good arm, up at the chopper's open door,

the grenade flew through the air like a missile…

... and then it dropped inside the Mosquito's door.

A second later Mosquito wailblasted out as one demented: the attack chopper pitched wildly forward, capsized over on itself and exploded into flames, before slang nose-first to the water beneath it.

'Nice throw', Race said.

Van Lewen and Renee fled down the wide starboard side passageway of the 4ornfil boat, their M-16s pressed firmly against their shoulders

They moved quickly, firing 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 of the deck before hem, with its pilot standing beside it,

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

Supermachinegun fire raked the deck all around them, splintered the wooden handrail behind them.

Van Lewen had to dive back behind the corner they had come from,

He, however, was too far gone.

He looked back at the Nazis coming towards 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—

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 Sehroeder didn't have time to gawk,

At that moment, a hailstorm of G-ii 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 e to fight off Che two Nazi Rigid Raiders.

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

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

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.