deck and dash for the white Bell jet Ranger helicopter sitting on its stem.
He recognised one of them instantly—Anistaze.
The other man was considerably older than Anistaze fat with a thick muscular neck and a semi-bald head. Race didn't know who he was, but he guessed that he was the man Srehoeder had spoken about earlier—the Stormtroopers' leader, Otto Ehrhardt Something like that Anistaze and Ehrhardt leapt into the rear compartment of the Bell jet Range and immediately the rotor blades on top of the chopper began to rotate, And then it hit Race, They are taking the idol!
Just then, as he was gazing the activity on the stern of the Command boat Race saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye fl glint of a small shadowy figure hustling down the floated passageway of the command boat
His eyes went wide;
it was Renee
She was running down the side passageway,
heading aft holding her M16 firmly at her chest.
She was going after the idol..
By herself.
Race watched in astonishment a Renee rounded the rear cornet of the passageway and opened fire on the Nazi chopper with her M16.
A couple of the Nazi troopers standing near the chopper were hit instantly- and dropped where they stood, but the others just turned and fired back at Renee with AK-47s.
Renee ducked in the face of their Duffie and fell back behind the corner as the Nazis on the helicopter deck took off after her.
Race could only watch in horror as she stumbled backwards up the starboard-side passageway of the command boat, heading towards the bow.
She fired wildly with her M-16 as she moved determinedly—keeping the Nazis at the aft end of the passageway pinned down, until at last she was able to hunker don at the forward end of the passageway holding her attackers at bay at the other end.
It was at that moment that Race saw him.
A lone Nazi commando. Moving slowly across the wide roof of the command boat, toward Renee's position!
The man held his gun high, and moved with slow deliberate steps, out of Renee's field of vision, sneaking up on her from above.
Renee had no chance of seeing him. No way of knowing he was there.
'Shit,' Race said, looking around himself for an option.
His eyes fell upon Doogie's seaplane skipping quickly over the waves behind his boat, coming alongside it—in between his Pibber and the command boat—as it dashed forward through the fleet in search of a clear stretch of water.
Race saw the chance instantly, and without so much as a blink, he quickly leapt out through the shattered forward windshield of the wheelhouse and climbed up onto its roof.
Then, just as Doogie's Goose swept past his Pibber, Race leapt across onto the wing of the moving seaplane and danced across its length!
It was an amazing sight. The Goose seaplane, speeding along in between the Nazi command boat and the Pibber, with the tiny figure of William Race—in his saturated jeans and T-shirt and his New York Yankees baseball cap—running across its wings, his body bent forward, braced against the battering wind.
Race ran hard, his feet moving quickly but surely across the fifty-foot wingspan of the Goose.
He saw the command boat looming in front of him; saw the world streaking laterally beyond it; saw Renee up neat its bow holding off the three Nazi at the other end of the passageway; saw the one Nazi up on the big catamaran's roof, closing in on her position;
And then, like a racing car overtaking it rival, the Goose came alongside the Command boat and Race hit the edge of the left wing at full stride and leapt off
—and flew through the air
—and landed, catlike On both feet; On the roof of the command boat, right next to the Nazi who had been sneaking up on Renee!
Race didn't miss a beat, Gunih; he just hurled himself at the man, slammed into him; ending both of them flying forward, off the roof of the Command boat.
They landed in a heap on the foredeck of the catamaran not far from where Renee was hunkered down at the forward end of the starboard passageway.
Disoriented, Race rolled clear of where they had fallen and looked up in horror to see that the Nazi was already on his feet.
In a fleeting instant, Race saw the man's face, it was without a doubt one of the ugliest faces he had ever seen—long and lopsided and heavily cratered with pockmarks it was also the picture of anger—the picture of pure unadulterated fury.
But it was only to be a fleeting glimpse, for in the next flashing instant, his view of the Nazi's hideously ugly face was replaced by the sight of the butt of the man's AK47 assault rifle rushing toward his face and then smack! he saw nothing but black;
