“—too many of them!'
And then suddenly he heard Nash's voice: “Van Lewen!
Cease fire! Cease fire!”
A second later, Van Lewen's fire stopped and with it the gun battle, and in the eerie stillness that followed— bathed as it was in the harsh white light of the two attack choppers circling the tower top—Race saw that he and his companions were completely surrounded by at least twenty men, all of them dressed in black and armed with submachine-guns.
The two attack helicopters began to hover above the clearing in front of the temple, illuminating it with their powerful spotlights. They were American-made AH-64 'Apache' assault choppers—skinny, evil-looking attack birds.
Slowly, the group of shadowy figures began to emerge from the foliage at the edge of the clearing.
All of them were heavily armed. Some held compact German-made MP-5s, others carried extremely high-tech Steyr-AUG assault rifles.
Race was surprised at himself, surprised at his knowledge of the range of weapons before him.
It was all Marty's fault, really.
Apart from being a design engineer at DARPA and the world's most annoying Elvis Presley fan (all of his PIN numbers and computer passwords were the same number—53310761—the King's Army serial number), Race's “brother Marty was also a walking encyclopaedia on guns.
Ever since they were kids, right up to the last time Race had seen him nine years ago, whenever they visited a sporting goods store, Marty would be able to identify for his younger brother every make, model and manufacturer of the guns in the firearms section. The strange thing was that now, thanks to Marty's incessant observations, Race suddenly found that he, too, could identify them all.
He blinked, came back to the present, resumed his view of the phalanx of armed commandos gathered in front of him.
They were all dressed in black—jet-black combat fatigues, jet-black webbing, jet-black gloves and boots.
But by far the most striking feature of their uniforms was on their faces. Each soldier wore a charcoal- coloured porcelain hockey mask over his face a solid black featureless mask that covered everything but its wearer's eyes. The masks made the soldiers in front of Race look cold, inhuman, almost robotic.
Just then one of the masked commandos hurried over to where Van Lewen was standing and snatched his M-16 away from him, hastily relieved him of his other weapons.
Then the black-clad man leaned down toward Race and smiled through his menacing black mask.
'Guten abend,” he said wryly before yanking Race roughly to his feet.
The rain continued to fall.
Nash, Copeland and Lauren stood by the portal, their hands clasped tightly behind their heads. The Green Berets stood next to them, disarmed.
Walter Chambers stared wide-eyed and stunned at the squad of masked commandos surrounding them. Gaby Lopez just eyed them all coolly.
Van Lewen and Race were shoved alongside the others.
Race gazed fearfully at the black-clad soldiers, stared at their cold black hockey masks. He had seen masks like that before. South American riot police wore them during extremely violent protests, to protect their faces against rocks and other hurled objects.
He counted about twenty soldiers in total.
Standing in the darkness behind the circle of commandos, however, was another group of people—men and women. This new group of people were not dressed in uniforms or masks. They wore civilian clothes, hiking clothes not unlike Lauren's.
Scientists, Race thought. German scientists who had come here in search of the thyrium idol.
He glanced over at the portal, at the huge boulder wedged inside its doorway. Wires protruded from every side of it—the soft-detonating C-2 explosives.
Just then, one of the commandos stepped forward and reached up to remove his black hockey mask.
Race tensed with anticipation—waited to see the cold hard features of Heinrich Anistaze, the former Stasi agent who had led the squad of German assassins in the bloody slaughter at that monastery.
The commando removed his mask.
Race frowned. He didn't recognise him.
It wasn't Anistaze.
Rather, he was a stout, older man, with a round, creased face and a bushy grey moustache.
Race wasn't sure whether to be relieved or terrified.
The German leader didn't say a word as he brushed roughly past Race and crouched down in front of the portal.
He examined the assorted wires leading out from the boulder and snorted. Then he dropped the cables and walked over to Frank Nash.
He stared imperiously down his nose at the retired Army colonel, evaluating him, appraising him.
And then suddenly he spun around and barked an order to his troops. “Feldwebel Dietrich, bringen She she in
