Death's Head Legion (4 page)

“I'm a citizen of the Freehold of Texas and I demand to see someone from my embassy,” Terah said. “You can't hold us here.”

“You are part of a conspiracy against the Reich and a spy,” the second Gestapo man said. “Your friend here is a traitor. Both of you will be taken to Germania, where you will be tried on charges of espionage and then shot.”

Deitel grabbed the first Gestapo man's coat and fell to his knees, almost taking the secret policeman down.

“Please, you can't kill me. I'll tell you everything. Just please don't kill me. I don't want to die,” he pleaded between sobs.

“Swine! Get off,” the Gestapo agent said with disgust, pulling Deitel's hands away from his lapels. He kicked the doctor in the ribs, then Terah fell atop Deitel, shielding his body with hers.

“Stop it!” she said fiercely.

“You will tell us everything, Doctor,” the second agent said. “That much is certain. In fact, you will be the first guest of our interview specialist when he arrives.”

The two Gestapo men knocked on the cell door three times, signaling to the sentry outside that they were ready to leave. On the floor, Deitel was still sobbing, “Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me.”

The moment the door closed, Deitel sat up and ceased his wailing. She couldn't have been more surprised if he'd started humming ragtime ditties.

“Wait, what?” she stammered.

“We have just a few minutes before the shift changes,” he said.

Terah looked at him, bewildered.

“Look, yes, I'm scared to death. But I'm also a noble. You don't seriously think I would disgrace myself bleating like a peasant in front of that . . . peasant,” Deitel said. “I needed to get a look at that man's watch. And these.”

He held up the secret policeman's keys and wallet.

Terah grinned. “How did you do that?” she asked.

“I am trained as a surgeon, you know,” he said, holding up his hands. “I have a quite delicate touch.”

“One day you'll have to show me how to do that.”

“Only after you tell me why it is you didn't want to settle down with Captain Rucker,” Deitel said, thumbing through the wallet. “Your feelings for him couldn't be more obvious.”

“This is hardly the time, Doctor. What's your plan?”

Deitel straightened his tie and put on his suit jacket.

“Fine, but soon. Soon you will tell me everything you know,” he said, in a faux officious tone.

Terah laughed.

“The sentry's shift will change at precisely noon,” he said. “Which is in five minutes. If there's one thing they enforce in the Reich's military, it's uniformity and punctuality.”

“That's two things,” she said.

Terah didn't see how this would help. Deitel opened the wallet flap, showing the Gestapo badge and credentials.

“As a mutual friend said, you'd be surprised how much some people are conditioned to say sir to anyone with a badge,” he said. “Besides, how could I possibly be a prisoner if I have a key?”

They waited in silence, counting until they were sure it had been at least eight minutes. Terah lay down on the cell's floor.

Taking a deep breath, Deitel unlocked the door. He shoved the badge in the guard's face.

“Help me get this one to the interview room,” he barked.

If the guard hesitated, it was only for a second after seeing the menace in Deitel's eye. As the guard stepped into the room to help lift the seemingly unconscious Terah, Deitel brought his hands together on the back of the man's neck as hard as he could.

The sentry didn't collapse. In fact, he barely winced. He wheeled about and started to pull his sidearm as Terah brought the chair down on the back of his head.

This time he went down.

“You, not so much with the hitting, but keep it up with the acting,” she said, retrieving the guard's pistol and extra magazines, then hiding them in her pockets. “Let's go.”

Deitel nodded.

“Remember, if you act with authority, you will be treated as authority,” Deitel said.

He grabbed a clipboard posted on the wall next to an office door, handed it to Terah, and tucked the stolen archival materials under his coat.

“Pretend to be writing. We walk with purpose to the front door. Look no one in the eye. Do you speak German?”

“No.”

“I will speak to you as if giving orders. Just nod. And do not smile. There's no room for it in the New Order,” Deitel said. “With any luck, and owing to the shift change, we can get out of here quietly, and without any need for bloodshed. ”

T
he German Embassy was a four-story, century-old structure with a surrounding high brick wall and what had to be a whole cotton plantation's worth of red banners with the swastika in the middle—the unmistakable brand of National Socialism. For socialists, Rucker thought, they sure understand the importance of marketing and branding. Several uniformed, Schmeisser submachine-gun-toting storm troopers patrolled the manicured grounds.

With the fedora pulled down low and the collar of the jacket up, Rucker drove up to the gate in the embassy Mercedes, looking impatient and angry. It seemed the German thing to do. Chuy appeared to be tied up and unconscious in the backseat. The embassy guards, recognizing the automobile and its diplomatic plates, waved him through. Rucker gave a sloppy
sieg heil
salute as he drove past.

The parking area on the embassy grounds was out of the line of sight of the guards at the gate. A freshly planted garden ran along the wall. There were six other automobiles, a dedicated petrol pump, and a dozen fifty-five-gallon barrels of petrol.

Rucker escorted Chuy, who was bound by a mere slipknot, into the embassy, stopping at the guard desk.

These people sure love their eagles and swastikas, he thought, trying to find any sign of a bare wall underneath all the nationalistic paraphernalia. He kept his head down and his face away from the Germans in the lobby, acting like he was focused on keeping his prisoner under control.

The duty sergeant wore the black uniform of the SS, as did the lobby guards. The sergeant's desk had a stack of papers and several empty pneumatic tubes. A large telephone set allowed him to place multiple calls to any office in the expansive building. On his desk were a picture of his wife and a picture of Reichsführer Himmler. Over his shoulder, Rucker saw a portrait of the Führer himself, a stylistic rendering of the day the man seized office.

A few civilian functionaries buzzed about—clearly something was afoot. Off to the side of the sergeant's desk there was an open room for the embassy operator. Calls were nonstop.

The duty sergeant asked something in German about the prisoner. If there was anything strange about bringing a prisoner into the lobby of an embassy building, the sergeant's expression didn't show it. While Rucker had a basic grasp of elementary German, he knew his accent was terrible. No way could he pass for a native if he spoke more than a word or two. Plus he wasn't completely sure he understood the question. He kept his response short and simple, and kept his head turned away.

“Ja, ja,”
he said.

After an intolerable moment of silence, the sergeant broke into laughter. Something about a German laughing set Rucker's teeth on edge. He nodded slightly to Chuy and winked with his right eye. He'd take the two guards stationed in the lobby; Chuy would take the sergeant and the operator.

Chuy pulled the slipknot on his bindings and threw his arms out.

“Look out! He's loose!” Rucker shouted in German.

Rucker and Chuy wheeled around, and the three SS guards and the telephone operator found themselves facing the barrels of three pistols—Rucker's twin Webleys and Chuy's Beretta.

“Hands empty and up,” Rucker said.

One of the guards started to raise the barrel of his machine pistol.

Rucker stared into the man's eyes.

“Don't make me kill you,” he said coldly. But the guard took this as a sign of weakness, not sincerity. He lifted the machine pistol's barrel farther. Rucker didn't hesitate. Keeping the other guard covered with the pistol in his left hand, he fired off two shots with the one in his right hand—one shot to the head, another in the chest—and the guard crumpled.

The gunshots momentarily distracted Chuy, which was long enough for the operator to push the alarm button. The klaxon blared. That, in turn, gave the sergeant and the remaining guard an opening to raise their weapons. With no choice, Chuy and Rucker shot them down. Then Chuy slammed his fist down atop the operator's head, dropping the man, and Rucker leaped over the desk and searched for anything he could find on the whereabouts of the prisoners.

“So much for surprise,” Rucker said. “Here it is—second floor, west wing, Room 23.”

T
he alarm klaxon sent a wave of cold fear rushing through Deitel.

“Schiesse!”
he said.

Deitel and Terah looked at each other in shock.

A squad of SS troopers in full gear and Senf masks charged down the hall at them.

This was it. Caught already. Terah tried to pull the gun from her pocket, but Deitel stopped her. It wouldn't help.

“You!” the squad leader yelled in German as his squad bore down on the pair.

Not fair, Deitel thought.

“Make way!” the storm trooper leader ordered.

It took half a second to process. Deitel pushed himself and Terah against the wall. The squad ran past them and around a corner.

They looked at one another in confusion and then came to the same conclusion.

“Rucker,” they said together.

Deitel let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

“Gott in himmel,”
he said. “One more scare like that and I'll have a stroke.”

Chuy tackled him from behind then, slamming Deitel into the office to his right. With Deitel and Terah in the small office, the three of them heard gunshots from elsewhere in the building. Then Rucker busted through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

“Oh, way to go, y'all. Playing hard to get,” Rucker said. “Didn't I tell you not to talk to any strange Gestapo men?”

Terah gave him the Italian chin brush gesture, their version of the single digit salute. When in Rome, after all.

They heard the trample of more boots and doors being kicked in. Chuy was checking the window.

“Great rescue,” she said. “You know, Kurt was doing a fine job until you decided to come in here, shoot up the place, and set off that damn noisemaker.”

“Oh, pardon me,” Rucker said.
Kurt
? So it was like that?

“Now what?” Deitel asked.

“Now we get rid of these boys and go get Professor Renault. Any idea where they're holding him?” Rucker asked.

“Renault isn't here,” Terah said. “We have to get back to the Ciampino Aerodrome. When they picked us up, Deitel overheard their agents talking on the telephone to their controller, someone named Skorzeny.”

Rucker shook his head. “Yeah, I know Skorzeny all right.”

“This Skorzeny has Professor Renault on a Lufthansa airship, the
Graf von Götzen
,” Terah said. “That skeleton-looking interrogator is with him.”

The boots were getting closer.

“We can't go back that way,” Rucker said, taking off the overcoat and fedora.

“We're right beside the parking area,” Chuy said. “There's our car.”

The four climbed out the window and stood on each side along the ledge.

“Now what?” Deitel asked, trying not to look down. It was only twenty feet, but he hated heights.

“Now this,” Rucker said, pulling Deitel along with him as he jumped. The soil in the garden cushioned their fall. To his credit, this time Deitel didn't scream. Chuy and Terah followed, both landing gracefully.

“Let's get back to the
Raposa
and catch up with them before Renault spills what he knows,” Rucker said.

A guard came around the corner about a hundred yards away with a
wehr
-wolf on a leash. The guard shouted for them to halt and then, not surprisingly for a German sentry, let loose the
wehr
-wolf. Just to be an even bigger bastard, Rucker thought, the guard opened fire with his machine pistol without seeing if they complied.

Rucker grabbed Terah's arm and drew a pistol with the other hand. “Everyone in the car, now! Chuy, you drive!”

The animal was charging right at Rucker. The
wehr-
wolf—
wehr
being German for war—was one of the earliest and most successful transgenic creatures the Reich had spawned. Rucker had dealt with them before and he knew how deadly, relentless, and intelligent the creatures could be. It was built like a wolf but was easily a third again as large. Its coat was brown and gray with subtle tiger stripes, part of its mixed genetic heritage. It had the cartilage armor of a wild boar and the intelligence of the smartest breed of dog.

Ignoring the guard's fire—the 9mm MP-40 submachine gun was a terrible distance weapon—Rucker drew a bead on the
wehr-
wolf as it charged. He fired two rounds, hitting it dead center between the eyes. The thing didn't even skip a step.

Okay, he thought, they've added some rhino or something into the genetic stew now.

Rucker reached inside his leather jacket and pulled out two grenades. A loud siren sounded, screaming throughout the compound. More guards and beasts would be coming.

He unscrewed the cap and yanked the plug at the base of the first potato masher with one hand—pulling them like in the motion pictures with his teeth was a good way to lose teeth, after all. He tossed one about halfway between himself and the charging animal. He pulled the primer on the second grenade but held it, silently counting as the internal fuse burned.

The first grenade went off and knocked the
wehr-
wolf off its feet, ripping a good portion of its face off . More guards arrived. Shots ricocheted and zinged all about Rucker. At this distance. with them firing 9mm carbines, he knew the worst danger was that they might accidentally hit him.