Authors: Matthew Reilly
A young Nazi techniciandressed in a white lab coat and holding a
radio awkwardly in his hand—rushed out through the newly opened
door and hurried off down the
path toward the refuse pit.
Race's eyes went wide.
He was going to the refuse pit—where he would find one
dead Nazi and nothing else.
'Shit,' Race said. 'Uli…'
Decision time. He could go after the technician—and then do what?
Kill him in cold blood? Despite all that he had done so far, Race
wasn't sure if he could actually do that, kill a man. On the other
hand, he could warn Uli. Yes, that was better—much better.
And so at that moment, instead of following Ren6e into the
boat-house, Race headed off down the side of the big warehouse-like
building, in the direction of the crater and Uli.
Uli came to the northern cable bridge.
It stretched away from him into the distance, swooping fearlessly
over the vertiginous seven-hundred-foot drop, its steel-threaded
handrails converging like a pair of railroad tracks disappearing
into the distance, ending as tiny specks at the doorway to the
control booth four hundred yards away.
'Unterscharftihrer,' a voice said suddenly from behind him.
Uli spun.
And found himself standing before Heinrich Anistaze himself.
'What are you doing?' Anistaze demanded.
'I was going to see if the Oberstgruppenf6hrer and Doc tor Weber
required any assistance over in the control booth,'
Uli answered, perhaps a little too quickly.
'Have you eliminated the two prisoners?'
'Yes, sir, I have.'
'Where is Dieter?' Anistaze asked.
'He, uh, had to go to the WE,' Uli lied.
At that exact same moment, the lab technician Anistaze had sent to
the refuse pit arrived there.
He saw Dieter's body immediately, lying face-down in the mud, blood
and brains seeping out from the hole in the back of its head.
No Americans. No Uli, either.
The lab technician lifted his radio to his lips.
“Herr Obergruppenfiihrer,” the technician's voice came in
over
Anistaze's earpiece.
'Yes.'
Anistaze was still standing with Uli at the edge of the northern
cable bridge. The four fingers of the Nazi commander's left hand
tapped silently on his pants leg as he listened to the voice on his
earpiece.
'Dieter is dead, sir. I repeat, Dieter is dead. I can't see the
prisoners or Unterscharfiihrer Kahr anywhere.'
'Thank you,' Anistaze said, staring at Uli. 'Thank you very
much.'
Anistaze's cold black eyes bored into Uli's. 'Where are the
prisoners, Unterscharfiihrer?'
'I beg your pardon, Herr Obergruppenffihrer?'
“I said, where are the prisoners?”
It was then that Uli saw the Glock appear in Anistaze's right
hand.
Ren6e moved silently through the boat-house, gun up.
Race hadn't come in behind her, and she wondered what had happened
to him. But she couldn't wait, she still had a job to do.
The boat-house was silent, still. The conveyor belt that rose up
out of the tunnel to her right sat motionless. She saw
no-one standing in the office beyond it— An engine turned
over.
Ren6e spun.
And saw the rotor blades of the parked Bell Jet Ranger helicopter
slowly sputter to life.
Then she saw the pilot—lying on his side on the floor of the
cockpit, oblivious to her presencecarrying out some kind of repairs
on the chopper.
Then suddenly with a shrill bzzzzz! the rotor blades of the
helicopter snapped into overdrive and the deafening roar of their
motion filled the enormous space of the boathouse.
Ren6e almost jumped out of her skin.
If it hadn't been for the roar of the rotors, however, she
probably would have heard him sneak up on her.
But she didn't.
For at that moment, as Ren6e moved toward the pilot and the chopper
with her G-11 raised, something very heavy hit her on the back of
her head, pitching her forward, sending her falling heavily to the
ground.
'Herr Obergruppenf/.ihrer,' Uli said as he stood at the edge of the
massive crater, raising his hands. 'What are you—'
“ Blare!
Anistaze's Glock went off—a single shot that went thundering into
Uli's stomach. Uli doubled over at once, fell to the ground.
Anistaze stood over him, gun in hand. 'So, Unterscharf6hrer. Am I
to assume that you are BKA scum, too?'
Uli rolled around on the ground at the Nazi commander's feet,
clenching his teeth in agony.
'No answer,' Anistaze said. 'Well, how about this, then.
How about I blow off every finger on your right hand, one by one,
until you tell me who you work for. And when I am done with that
hand, I shall start on the other one.'
'Argh!' Uli grunted.
'Wrong answer,' Anistaze said, aiming his gun at Uli's
hand, squeezing the trigger.
The gun went off.
Just as William Race—-bursting out from behind the nearby
comer—-crashed into Anistaze from the side, hitting him at speed,
knocking the Glock from his hand.
But the two of them fell awkwardly, bouncing off one of the
buttresses that held up the cable bridge. Anistaze's right foot
slipped over the edge of the crater and he threw out a hand that
gripped Race's arm like a vice and before Race even knew what was
happening, both he and Anistaze were falling out over the edge of
the mine.
Race and Anistaze fell.
Down the wall of the crater.
Fortunately, the earthen walls of the mine weren't per fectly
vertical but rather were slanted at a very steep angle, maybe 75
degrees or so. As such, they still fell fast, but not straight
down. Both men kicked up puffs of dirt as they slid wildly down the
wall of the crater. They slid a full ninety feet before they both
landed in a crashing heap on flat, solid ground.
In the boat-house, Ren6e hit the ground, too, and for a moment she
saw stars.
She rolled onto her back—
—just in time to see a length of piping held by the second Nazi lab
technician come rushing down at her face! She rolled again and the
pipe clanged against the floorboards inches away from her
head.
She quickly somersaulted to her feet, looking for her weapon. Her
G-11 lay on the ground four feet away, out of reach, dislodged by
her fall after being smacked on the back of the head with the
pipe.
The technician swung at her again.
Ren6e ducked and the pipe went swiping over her head, then she
bobbed back up and punched the technician square in the face,
sending him flying backwards into a wall.
The technician's back slammed into a control panel on the
wall. He must have struck a button as he hit it, Ren6e guessed,
because at that moment she heard an ominous clanking of machinery
within the walls of the massive boat-house and suddenly—without
warning—the big conveyor belt that ran down the length of the
warehouse started moving.
Race and Anistaze jolted forward.
Both men were still in something of a daze after their ninety-foot
drop into the open-cut mine, and they were only just getting to
their feet when suddenly the ground beneath them lurched
forward.
Race tottered slightly, looked down at the ground beneath his
feet.
It wasn't solid ground at all. It was the low end of the conveyor
belt—the same conveyor belt that reached the surface inside the
boathouse!
Only now it was moving.
Upward.
Race spun—just in time to see Anistaze's four-fingered left fist
come flying at his face. The German commando's blow hit its mark
and Race dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the wide conveyor
belt.
Anistaze stood over him and then, abruptly; the world went
black.
At first Race didn't know what had happened. Then he realised. He
and Anistaze—positioned on the moving conveyor belt—had just been
drawn into the long dark tunnel that led back up to the
boathouse.
Up in the boat-house, Ren6e fought with the technician as the
deafening roar of the Bell Jet Ranger's rapidly-spinning rotor
blades echoed throughout the cavernous interior space.
The tech swung at Ren6e with the pipe again just as she leapt
backwards and the blow missed, but as she moved, Ren6e saw that the
pilot over in the helicopter had seen
what was going on over by the conveyor belt and was now looking
directly at her!
The pilot began to shimmy out of his awkward position on the floor
of the chopper—just as, at that exact same moment, the young
technician who had gone to the refuse pit to search for Uli
appeared in the doorway of the boathouse!
Ren6e saw them both. And then in one fluid motion, as she ducked
underneath another blow from the first technician, she pulled two
grenades from her belt—the grenades Uli had retrieved from the dead
Nazi at the refuse pit— yanked out their pins, spun and hurled them
across the boat-house together!
The two grenades skidded across the floor, fanned out at different
angles—one heading for the helipad pontoon and the chopper, the
other heading directly for the young technician standing at the
doorway.
One, one thousand…
Two, one thousand…
Three, one thousand…
The tech in the doorway realised what the object bouncing toward
him was a second too late. He tried to move at the last moment, but
he wasn't fast enough. The grenade exploded. So did he.
The second grenade bounced onto the helipad pontoon a.nd came to
rest directly underneath the sleek white Bell Jet Ranger. It
detonated—abruptly, powerfully—shattering the chopper's bubble in a
nanosecond, killing the pilot on its floor instantly. The blast
also blew the helicopter's landing skids to hell, obliterating
them, causing the whole chopper to drop four feet straight down and
crash down onto the pontoon. It came to rest on its belly, its
rotor blades still whipping around above it in a blur of speeding
motion.
As they rose through the darkness, Race and Anistaze
struggled.
Race fought hard—as hard as he physically could— throwing punches
wildly, some hitting, most missing. But
Anistaze was by far the better fighter, and soon he had Race flat
on his back, pinned to the ground, vainly fending off his
blows.
And then Anistaze drew a Bowie knife from a sheath down by his
ankle. Even in the darkness of the steeply- sloping tunnel, Race
saw the long glistening blade as it came rushing down toward his
face.
He caught Anistaze's wrist with his hands, held the blade at bay,
but the Nazi had all the leverage and the blade came closer and
closer to his left eye—
—abruptly, harsh white light assaulted both of them and just as
suddenly, the steep slope of the conveyor belt dropped level
beneath them, causing both men to lose their balance
and giving Race the chance to swipe Anistaze's knife clear.
He looked quickly about himself.
He was inside the boat-house again!
Only now he was travelling horizontally on the conveyor belt, still
pinned underneath Anistaze.
Unfortunately for both of them, however, the conveyor belt was now
drawing them toward the rapidly-spinning blades of the Bell Jet
Ranger helicopter, which now—-owing to the fact that it had lost
its skids in the grenade blast— whipped round like a horizontal
buzzsaw barely three feet above the moving conveyor belt!
The rotor blades were ten feet away. Spinning fast.
Nine feet.
Anistaze saw them too.
Eight feet.
Race saw Ren6e struggling with the technician over by the wall. The
roar of the chopper's blurring rotor blades
thundered throughout the cavernous warehouse.
Seven feet.
And Anistaze decided on a horrifying new tactic. With tremendous
strength, he yanked Race up by the lapels and held him out at arm's
length so that Race's neck was level with the speeding blades of
the helicopter.
Six feet.
Ren4e was still fighting with the first technician. In between
blows she saw Race and Anistaze fighting on the conveyor belt, saw
Anistaze lift the professor onto his knees and hold him out from
his body.
Her eyes went wide with horror.
Anistaze was going to decapitate Race with the blades of the
chopper!
Five feet.
And she saw the control panel on the wall. The panel that started
and stopped the conveyor belt…
Four feet.
Race saw the rapidly-spinning rotor blades behind him,
saw what Anistaze was trying to do.
Three feet.
He tried to move, tried to fight. But it was no use.
Anistaze was just too strong. Race looked into his
assailant's
eyes and saw nothing but hate.
Two feet.
Certain death was approaching. Race yelled in desperation.
'Arrggghhhh I I'
One foot.
At that precise moment, Ren6e ducked another blow from the
technician and swung in swiftly behind him, then she grabbed him
roughly by the hair and banged his head hard against the control
panel on the wall.
The conveyor belt stopped on a dime.
Race stopped, too—the nape of his neck jolting to a halt an inch
from the speeding blur of the helicopter's rotating blades.
Anistaze's face went blank in surprise.
What the fucks?
Race took the opportunity and kneed the Nazi hard in the
crotch.
Anistaze roared.
Just as Race grabbed him by the lapels!
'Smile, motherfucker,' Race said.
And then he dropped down onto the conveyor belt and rolled quickly
backwards, underneath the chopper's blur ring blades, using his
newfound leverage to yank Anistaze forward, neck-first, right into
the buzzsaw-like blades of the helicopter!
The rotor blades of the chopper sliced through Anistaze's neck like
a chainsaw through butter, removing his head from his body in a
smooth, frictionless cut.
An explosion of blood splattered all over Race's face as he lay on
the conveyor belt, still holding onto Anistaze's lapels.
Race quickly discarded the body—yecch!—and rolled himself off the
conveyor belt.
He shook his head. He couldn't quite believe what he
had just done. He had just decapitated a man.
Whoa. o.
He looked up and saw Ren6e standing over by the control panel,
standing astride the unconscious body of the Nazi technician. The
tech had been knocked out cold by the blow she'd given him against
the control panel.
Ren6e smiled at Race, gave him the thumbs up.
For his part, Race just fell limp against the floor,
exhausted.
No sooner had his head hit the ground, however, than Ren6e was at
his side.
'Not yet, Professor,' she said, pulling him to his feet. 'No
resting yet. Come on, we have to stop Ehrhardt from deto nating the
Supernova.'