Death's Head Legion Read Online Free

“Stale sausages in the morning and rough rogering at night.”
    Skorzeny leaned forward. “The only question before you is, do you plan to come with us peacefully or do you plan to make it difficult?”
    Rucker didn’t miss a beat.
    â€œOh don’t be so stupid. Of course I plan to make it difficult,” he said, shooting up from his seat and with a kick sending the chair into the stomach of the guard posted behind him. He grabbed his pistols and, with them in his hands, lifted the front of the desk and flipped it over, toppling Skorzeny backward.
    Rucker rolled over the desk, spinning 180 degrees, and landed on his feet. He zeroed in on the hard one with the machine pistol, and though his shot went wide, Fortune was with him. The bullet hit the man’s weak-side shoulder and sent him spinning left, his finger pulling the trigger of his MP-40 in reaction to the pain. The four guards to his left scrambled for cover from his accidental fire as the man went down in pain from the muzzle energy imparted from a .45 caliber round. In this case it was 480 foot-pounds of energy, as Rucker used his own hand-loaded .45 ACP rounds, which carried a stronger punch than factory rounds.
    Skorzeny and the guard who’d taken the chair in the stomach were just recovering. Rucker spun to his right and sprinted toward the nearest window, firing a shot to break the glass. He holstered his revolvers just before he reached the ledge and dove out.
    Suicidal idiot, Skorzeny thought for just a second. But no. If he wanted to die, he would have stood his ground and fought to the end.
    Skorzeny and his men rushed to the window.
    Rucker had grabbed one of the ropes used to haul mortar and bricks up the scaffolding and was swinging out toward one of the conifers. He let go—still a good forty feet off the ground—and fell through the branches, letting them break his fall all the way to the ground.
    Not graceful, Skorzeny thought, but effective.
    Oh, very graceful, Rucker thought, coincidentally, feeling the small explosions of pain in his ribs and along his arms with every impact on every branch until the final impact on the ground. He made a point to remind himself later: just because Daniel Boone had jumped off a cliff, broken his fall by crashing through the branches of a large tree, and walked away uninjured, it didn’t mean he could.
    He pulled himself off the ground, almost threw up, and then saw Skorzeny and his goons still in the fourth floor window. With great pain he pulled himself up and limped off across the campus park to the side streets.
    Skorzeny’s men couldn’t get out the door fast enough.
    Skorzeny watched Rucker until he disappeared around the corner. Helmut was still on the floor, stoically applying pressure to his gunshot wound. He would need medical attention.
    â€œWell played, Captain,” Skorzeny said in English.
    As Rucker ran though the streets of Rome, he did the math. Five well-trained plainclothes killers right on his tail. Dr. Renault was in the German Embassy. Likely the trap was closing on Terah and Deitel. They probably already had Chuy.
    He passed a street cart vendor making his way up the avenue toward a tourist section, and as he sprinted past he grabbed a city map while dropping a copper coin.
    As with air combat, Rucker needed altitude. Altitude and speed were life for a pilot. Sprinting through a back alley with the sounds of the pursuers on his six o’clock echoing off the sidewalks and cobblestones, he scanned the horizon. Come in out of the sun, he thought. He vaulted atop a refuse bin and leapt to the railing of the second-story fire escape. He didn’t have time to think about how he’d just smashed his finger or the bruising his knee took. Up and over the railing and up the fire escape as the first bullets struck all around him.
    He reached the ceramic tiled roof on the fifth story and spun around, taking in his route and a quick glance at the