Death's Head Legion Read Online Free Page A

map. He saw the top of the fire escape shaking as the Germans started climbing.
    â€œFine. I’ll race you,” he said to himself.
    Rome’s inner city streets had an advantage—they were designed when most of the traffic was by foot or cart, placing the buildings closer together than in modern cities. He leapt across the chasm between two buildings and made his way across the rooftops, swinging down onto a balcony and running through an apartment and out to a second story lanai. He vaulted over the railing, landed in the back of a cart being pulled by a donkey, then scrambled to the ground. Behind him he could hear the Germans struggling to keep up. One was way ahead of the others.
    Fine, deal with the jackrabbit first.
    Turning into an alley, he came to a halt and pressed himself against the wall. As the German rounded the corner at a dead run, Rucker threw a forearm that caught the man in the neck. His legs whipped out from under him and the back of his head hit the stone street with a sickening thud.
    One down. Four left.
    Why am I running anyway? he thought. They had his friends and they were after the Spear. They should be running from him. At the least, he should be following them.
    Rucker took off at a sprint right back the way he’d come, passing between two Germans so caught off guard it took them precious seconds to realize what they’d seen. As he rounded another corner into an alley, bullets pinged off the wall next to him.
    The tailing two Germans, following the sound of the gunshots, found the alley just as Rucker was out the other end, which opened up on a wine barrel manufacturer’s loading dock.
    The nice thing about a .45 caliber, as opposed to the 9mm, was that it brought to bear a hell of a lot more foot-pounds of energy on impact. A shot from a Lugar or Walther, with its mere 350 foot-pounds of energy, would have just penetrated the wood of the chock that kept the line of wine barrels from rolling. A shot from one of the Webley .45 pistols, however, sent the chock spinning away, freeing four of the barrels to fall from the second story into the alley below, where one of the four Germans had just come to a halt trying to determine which way Rucker had gone.
    A fifty-nine-gallon oak barrel weighs about 120 pounds when empty and six hundred pounds when full. These barrels were empty, so the German only suffered multiple broken bones and a massive concussion instead of a terminal case of flatness.
    Two down, three to go.
    Do the math—greenhorn or experienced, these were SD men. Getting either of those fanatics to talk would be damn near impossible. He needed one to lead him back to their rendezvous point. To do that, they’d need to think, think, think—
    Got it!
    The gunfire just seconds before sent Roman citizens scrambling in every direction, which separated the last three Germans. Good, Rucker thought, watching them in the middle of the street from the second story balcony of a building adjacent to the barrel maker. He whistled to get their attention, gave them a single-digit salute, took off across the balcony and leapt down to the street. He was a good fifty feet ahead of the lead German and a hundred feet ahead of the other two.
    Rucker’s nose found it before his eyes—a stable. Coming up on his left. Without slowing, he leapt head first and caught a wooden pillar, using his momentum to swing his legs around and in through a raised door used for the delivery of bales of hay—a ninety-degree turn with no loss of speed.
    The lead German saw Rucker’s detour, and motioned for the other two to hold back. He drew his pistol and cautiously peered around the main stable door into the darkened stables.
    He went in alone.
    The two Germans outside watched and waited, pistols at the ready, now nervous about this man who was picking them off one at a time. They heard a scuffle, a slap, the whinny of a horse, and then came a scream before a horse charged out