Anistaze stood over him and then, abruptly, the world went black.
At first Race didn't know what had happened. Then he realized. 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, Renee 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 Renee with the pipe again just as she leapt backwards and the blow missed, but as she moved, Renee 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!
Renee 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 realized 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 and 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 Renee 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.
Renee 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.
