She saw no-one standing in the office beyond it— An engine turned over.
Renee 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 presence carrying 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.
Renee 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 Renee 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 Oberstgruppenfuhrer,' 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, Unterscharfuhrer. 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 perfectly 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, Renee 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.
Renee 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, Renee 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.
