The Nazi armada was about three hundred yards ahead of them, powering quickly along the wide brown river—looking a lot like a carrier battle group, with the big command boat in the centre, surrounded by Rigid Raiders and Pibbers.
The three helipad barges trailed behind the other boats, bringing up the rear, while the little Jet Raiders just ducked and weaved madly in between all the larger boats like flies around a rubbish heap.
Race rode hard, wind and water pounding against his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the trees along the river's edge racing past him in a blur of green, saw the odd stray log floating on the surface next to him.
Don't hit the logs, Will. Don't hit the logs…
And then he realized.
They weren't logs.
They were caimans.
Don't hit the caimans, Will. Don't hit the caimans…
“Van Lewen!' he yelled above the roaring wind. 'What's the plan?'
'Easy! We take the command boat, we get the idol, then we hold the boat until the air support arrives!'
'We take the command boat…'
“Once we get it, we can hold it.'
'Whatever you say,' Race yelled.
Up ahead, the Nazi armada rounded a bend in the river and disappeared from Race's view. From above, the Alto Purus River looked like the undulating body of a snake, a neverending series of twisting bends and turns.
'All right, everybody,' Van Lewen said into his throat mike. 'See those trees up ahead. That's where we're going.'
Race looked forward and saw that the bend in the river that the Nazis had just rounded was comprised of a thick outcropping of trees. As he looked at the outcropping more closely, however, he noticed something odd about it—there was no dirt or soil at the base of the trees situated there. It looked as if the trees simply rose up out of the water.
Then he realized. It was the rainy season, and with the advent of the annual rains, the water levels of the rivers in the Amazon Basin rose dramatically. The land upon which that outcropping of trees stood was deeply submerged—a flooded forest.
Which meant that someone travelling on a small river- craft like a Jet Raider might be able to wend their way through the trees, rather than going around the natural bend in the river.
Doogie's Jet Raider shot into the treeline—Race's right behind it—Renee's close behind.
Tree trunks whipped past them on either side, blurring with motion.
The three Jet Raiders shot through the maze of thick dark trees—banking left, leaning right, skimming lightly across the waves, their long flat hulls barely even touching the surface while off to their left, through the flashing wall of tree trunks, they could make out the Nazi armada as it powered around the bend in the river.
Race tried desperately to concentrate as he drove. The speed at which they were travelling was utterly frightening.
It was so fast. So incredibly, incredibly fast!
Tree trunks whooshed past him at phenomenal speed.
Wavelets streaked underneath the bow of his riverbike. So quickly were they travelling—so lightly and smoothly on the surface of the water—that he barely had to touch the handlebars of his bike in order to bank it left or right.
Race was sitting high in the saddle of his Jet Raider as he sped along behind Doogie's riverbike when suddenly he saw Doogie and Molke duck for apparently no reason. And then abruptly he saw why and he yelled, 'Van Lewen! Duck!' and the two of them yanked their bodies down just as a low-hanging branch whistled by over their heads.
'Thanks!' Van Lewen yelled.
'No problem!'
And then through the lattice of dark tree trunks ahead of him he saw daylight. Heavy, grey, late-afternoon daylight.
'All right, everyone,' Van Lewen said. 'Arrowhead formation. Doogie and Molke, you take the lead. Agents Schroeder and Becker, you've got the left. Professor Race and I will cover the right. Okay; you all ready?' The big Green Beret raised his M-16 in one hand while he held onto Race with the other.
Up ahead, Race saw Dgogie and Molke lift their own M16s.
'Ready,” Doogie's voice came back.
The three Germans called in. 'Ready-Ready-Ready.“
'Professor?'
'As ready as I'll ever be,' Race said.
'Then let's rock,' Van Lewen said.
The three American-German Jet Raiders burst out from the tree-line in a perfect arrowhead formation right alongside the Nazi armada and in an instant Race found himself shooting across the water in the midst of four Nazi
