Doogie froze when he heard the words. Then he snapped around in horror as he saw four Nazi commandos hurry off in the direction of the river in response to the command.
He didn't know much German, but a stint at a NATO missile facility outside of Hamburg had provided him with at least a basic vocabulary of commonly used German military terms.
“Das Sprengkommando” was one of those terms.
It was German for 'demolition team'.
From the cover of the portal, Van Lewen fired a grenade from his M-203 launcher. A second later, an explosion blew out from the trees near the Nazi positions, showering the area with mud and leaves.
'Sergeant!' Cochrane yelled.
'What!'
'We're fucked if we keep this up! They've got too much firepower! They'll just stay out of sight until we run out of ammo and then we'll be trapped inside this fucking temple!
We have to get off this rock!'
'I'm open to suggestions!' Van Lewen yelled.
“You're the sarge, Sarge,' Cochrane shouted back.
'All right, then,' Van Lewen frowned. He thought for a moment, then said, 'The only way off this tower is the rope bridge, right?'
'Right,' Reichart replied.
'So somehow we have to get back to that bridge, right?'
'Right.'
Van Lewen said, “I say we skirt round the back of this temple and go down to the edge of the tower top. Then we hack our way through the foliage back to the rope bridge.
We cross the bridge and then we drop it behind us, trapping these assholes on the tower.'
'Sounds like a plan,' Reichart yelled.
'Then let's do it,' Van Lewen said decisively.
The Green Berets readied themselves for the dash out of
the temple's doorway. Race just tried to stay close to them— whatever the hell they did.
'Okay…' Van Lewen said. 'Now!”
And with that the four of them burst out from the entrance to the temple, their guns blazing, and raced out into the rain.
Their guns roared.
The Nazis in the treeline ducked.
Van Lewen and Reichart turned the corner first, headed towards the rear of the temple.
Seconds later, they rounded the rear corner—so that they were now shaded by the temple from the Nazis' fire—and found themselves standing on the flat stone path at the peak of the muddy slope that Race had seen earlier, the path that contained the unusual circular stone.
The slope beneath them was completely covered in mud and it stretched steeply down and away from them for about fifteen metres, ending at a small rocky ledge that formed the very edge of the tower top—a ledge that over looked a sheer three-hundred-foot drop. To the left of the ledge, however, was a stand of thick trees and foliage foliage that led back to the rope bridge.
Cochrane and Race rounded the corner behind the others.
They both saw the steep muddy slope instantly.
'I think this is gonna be harder than we expected,'
Cochrane said to Van Lewen.
Just then, like a shark rising from the depths of the ocean, the Mosquito attack helicopter burst up out of the fog beneath the ledge and hovered right in front of the four Americans, its side-mounted cannons spewing forth a devastating wave of gunfire.
Everyone dived for the ground.
Tex Reichart moved too slowly. The fusillade of bullets ripped into his body mercilessly—-one after the other after the other—keeping him upright long after he was dead.
With every shot that went into him, star-shaped explosions of blood sprayed out onto the wet stone wall behind him.
Buzz Cochrane took two hits to the leg, shouted in agony.
Race hit the mud hard—unscathed—covered his ears against the roar of the helicopter's fire. Van Lewen just fired fearlessly back at the Mosquito with his M-16 until finally in the face of his relentless fire, the helicopter banked away and Reichart's body—released from its grip—fell face-down into the mud with a loud splat.
Unfortunately, Reichart had been holding the idol.
As his body hit the ground, the idol in his hand was instantly dislodged. It bounced to the ground and immediately began to slide down the steep muddy embankment…
