Both barges' flight decks were empty—their wide, fail-less helipads bare.
Race gunned the engine.
His Pibber shot forward, hit a stray wave, bounced high into the air and then with a sudden crashing lurch, came down again, hitting the water hard.
The torpedo bore down on them,
'Pfofessor!' Doogie yelled. You got about ten seconds to do something!
Ten seconds, Race thought.
He saw the helipad barge to his left, got an idea, swung in toward it.
Eight Seconds.
The Pibber shot across the surface about thirty yards to the tight of the Wide, flat barge.
Race's eyes were glued to the barge, it was little mote than a landing pad on water—just a wide, flat helipad that floated about three feet above the waterline with a small glass-enclosed wheelhouse at its bow,
Six Seconds.
Abruptly, Race yanked his steering wheel hard to pot and the Pibber banked left through the water, skipping quickly across the waves taking air every few metres as it shot at breakneck speed in toward the helipad barge.
Five seconds,
The torpedo closed in
Four seconds
'What are you doing!' Doogie yelled
Three,
Race jammed the throttle forward as fat as it would go.
Two
The Pibber skimmed across the water on a collision course with the barge's starboard flank
Then suddenly the Pibber hit a wave and like a stunt car leaping off a rnp it Shot high into the air.
The speeding gunboat leapt out of the water, its propellers spinning in the air behind it—literally flying—and with a bone-jarring whump! its hull landed right on top of the barge's empty helipad
But the Pibber was still moving—fast—and with a scraping shrieking, ear-splitting screech, the patrol boat skidded across the empty helipad deck, kicking up sparks as it shot across it hull—shoom! the Pibber blasted off the left-hand edge of the barge and splashed down into the water on the other side where its propellers caught hold of water again and it Peeled away from the helipad barge, just as the torpedo behind it hit the hapless barge and detonated.
The walls of the barge blew out as one. Jagged lengths of steel, curving pieces of hull and a thousand shards of glass went blasting out into the air as the barge exploded with the impact of the torpedo.
Wa-hooooo!' Doogie yelled from the gun turret. 'What a goddamn ride!“
Breathless, Race peered back at the river behind them as pieces of the destroyed barge rained down on the roof of his wheelhouse.
'Whoa,' he said.
Renee Becker slid in through a side door of the command boat, cautiously made her way down a narrow white-lit corridor.
She slipped into an alcove as a door in front of her opened suddenly. Two Nazis emerged and hurried past her, carrying pistols in their hands, one of them saying, 'They're using our own EMP against us!' The two Nazis ran off down the corridor, unaware of her presence.
Renee pressed on. The interior of the catamaran was plush beyond belief—white walls with dark wooden panelling and lush blue carpet.
But she didn't care.
She was only after one thing.
The idol.
After leaping out of the water and dry-skiing across the landing pad of the helipad barge, Race and Doogie's Pibber was now whipping across the river's surface again, with Doogie firing from his turret up at the last Mosquito helicopter as it buzzed wildly about above them.
But the Mosquito was too quick, too nimble. It evaded his fire easily until finally his 20mm cannon ran out of ammo and just started clicking repeatedly.
Doogie frowned. 'Aw, shit.”
He quickly slid out of the turret, snatched up his G-11, and joined Race in the wheelhouse.
'We gotta nail that chopper,' he said, 'While it's still up there, we got no chance of beating these ys.
'What do you suggest?'
Doogie nodded at the last remaining helipad barge ploughing along the river about fifty yard to their right the one with the Grumman Goose seaplane bring along behind it;
