by Nancy Holder
“The fighting should have stopped.” Her voice cracked.
His heart trip hammered against his ribs. God, God; his nerves sizzled like live wires. Every second they stood here was another chance that the mission would fail. They could not fail.
“We don’t have time to talk about this.” He wanted to shout at her but he kept his voice steady. Not now. Now now. They were so close. Too close.
Below him, the German troops kept rolling the carts out of the warehouse. Time was ticking past. They had a window of opportunity that would eventually slam shut. Charlie, Sammy, and the Chief were waiting for instructions. Down there they were sitting ducks. He had to get to them with a plan now.
Her eyes were enormous, her face pale. “Why are they doing this?”
“I don’t know.” That was honest. There was no answer for that question, and he had long ago stopped asking it. He didn’t have that luxury. And neither did she. Not then.
“Ares is dead. They can stop fighting now. Why are they still fighting?” she asked brokenly.
And then he realized how hard a moment this was for her. A bitter, bitter pill. The culmination of her entire mission—she had left everything behind, risked her life over and over again—and from her view, all of it had been for nothing. Her entire identity had rested on stopping this war by killing Ares. And it had not worked. He understood how that felt. That terrible, crushing sense of disillusionment. He tuned in to her, made himself present for her, finding his way to her despite the terrible pressure of their situation.
“Maybe because it’s them. Maybe people are not always good. Ares or no Ares. Maybe it’s who they are.” He looked hard at her, aware that in his passion he was almost yelling. Saving humanity was their shared passion. That was why she had gone after Ares. The end goal was still the same. “Diana, please. I need you come with me.”
She stiffened; then she shook her head. “No.”
He was stunned. She meant it. He couldn’t let her do this. He needed her. The world needed her. “Diana, please.”
“No,” she said again. “After everything I saw, it can’t be. It cannot be.” She looked at him but he could tell that she wasn’t seeing him. She was seeing the tragedy of Veld. The horribly maimed soldiers staggering off the hospital ship. The shattered men in the trenches of No Man’s Land. Orphans. Widows. She could not have imagined such horrors growing up on Themyscira.
“They were killing each other,” she said. “Killing people they cannot see. Children. Children. No.” Her expression clouded; her expression pleaded for this to make sense. “It had to be him. It cannot be them.”
“Diana…” He struggled to find the words to snap her out of this. Not, not just that. To make their partnership whole again. To work side by side again. To be together again.
To be together.
“My mother was right. She said ‘the world of men doesn’t deserve you. She was right.” She shook her head. “They don’t deserve our help.”
“It’s not about deserve,” Steve declared, then added, more gently, “Maybe we don’t, but it’s not about that. It’s about what you believe.” When she parted her lips to protest, he continued. “You don’t think I get it? All I’ve seen out here? You don’t think I wish I could tell you that it was one bad guy to blame? We’re all to blame.” And we need your help. I need your help. Diana—
She flared. “I’m not.”
“But maybe I am.” Urgency pumped through his veins. After everything they had gone through to get here, this could not be where and how it ended. He needed her help. Desperately. “Please, if you believe this war should stop, if you want to stop it, then help me stop it right now. Because if you don’t, they will kill thousands more.” She had to know that. Had to believe that. It was the truth, as horrible as it was. It hinged on her.
She remained silent.
“Please, come with me. I have to go. I have to go.” Any second now, they would be taken prisoner, if not shot on sight. Was the team watching and waiting for his signal? Wondering what the holdup was? Come on, Diana. Come on, come on. Please.
That she was still in crisis was written all over her face. She hadn’t made the connection that to him seemed so obvious. Ludendorff was just a man who had chosen an evil path. That gave him no special power except the authority granted to him by other men. For everything he had done, every act of cruelty, he had been granted license to do so by other men. That meant he had not acted alone. But that also meant he could be stopped by men.
By them.
That was easy for Steve to grasp because he had lived all his life in this cold, cruel reality. In this world, you couldn’t blame a malevolent deity for the sins of human beings.
But in Diana’s world, you could blame a God, and your people did, for thousands of years. Diana’s mother had told her the story of Ares since she was a little girl. That idea had bored deep into Diana’s heart—into her very soul. It had given her life meaning, purpose. To excuse the entire human race for warring on each other because they were subject to the whims of a God, and to free them from the yoke of oppression by taking him on in battle.
The grace she had offered mankind was misplaced.
He didn’t want to say any of that to her. But he needed her to get past her moment of doubt so they could stop the enemy who was right under their noses. Given half a chance, Maru would inflict as much suffering as she possibly could with Germany’s new secret weapon until whole nations bowed down to the Kaiser. Steve knew that as surely as he knew his own name. And he had to do something about it. If he could have spared Diana this horrible revelation, he would have. But he needed her too much.
Shaking her head in denial, she looked at the swarms of soldiers bent on destruction and killing—moving of their own free will, not under the thrall of Ares.
“No,” she said. She was turning him down. Refusing to go on. She had had her fill.
He was staggered.
And he left her there.
He left her.
He left.
* * *
Steve returned empty-handed to Charlie, Sammy, and the Chief, who were waiting for him around the corner of a building next to the airstrip. The trio was crouched in a defensive posture, facing in different directions—ready to return fire no matter where it came from. He didn’t ask them how they’d managed to cross the heavily guarded compound without raising an alarm. Charlie and the Chief lowered their weapons, and looked at him hopefully.
Sammy frowned and looked past him. “Where’s Diana?” he asked.
“We’re on our own,” Steve said curtly, and didn’t elaborate. He turned to the Scot. “What do you see, Charlie?”
“It looks like a bunch of gas bombs. But I can’t see where they’re taking them.” That dovetailed with Steve’s own observations.
“How’re we gonna get in there?” the Chief asked.
Kind of ironic, him asking that. The way in is through the gate. It always had been, in essence, a rhetorical question. Steve’s team had rarely failed to infiltrate any field of engagement they had set their minds to. But this was no time for pipes and turbans. The field was crawling with Germans soldiers, and this was no gala. This was the very serious business of war.
Steve took in their surroundings, scouting for potential shields and possible weapons. Then he signaled for his squad to form up and advance on his order.
He waited for a breach in the lines of the onrushing enemy, saw it, and gave the signal. He knew without looking that Charlie, Sammy, and the Chief immediately fell into line behind him. He was grateful down to the soles of his boots that they had stuck around for this. Heroes, each one. If only Diana—
No time for that now.
They were on the move, Steve seeking their next vantage point, where they could see what was going on without revealing themselves. A hard nut to crack under the circumstances. It would require only one sharp-eyed soldier to sound the alarm.
A couple of things were working in their favor
, though: an air of frenzy in the compound, as if everyone was rushing to meet some critical deadline. Another positive: the soldiers were wearing gas hoods, which limited their field of vision.
Steve took a deep breath as they gained ground. When they halted, he slowly let it out. It was time to puzzle out a strategy and get ’er done.
Then Sammy gestured to some German soldiers lying unconscious—Diana’s doing, Steve guessed, before she checked out.
“I’ve got an idea,” Sammy said. “Come on, guys.”
They ran in concert toward the fallen soldiers.
BOOK III
WONDER WOMAN
“The secret to happiness is freedom… and
the secret to freedom is courage.”
—Thucydides
18
The world of men was hell. And they had built it themselves.
Diana looked down from the balcony of the control tower at organized chaos. The soldiers scrambling around were like insect drones serving their monstrous queen. Pandora’s box had been opened, and men, not evils, had bounded out. Men were the evils. This was the chapter Diana would add to the story of her people if she were ever so fortunate as to see her homeland again.
Her fists were balled. Her mind reeled. For what seemed like a very long time, she felt nothing. But slowly, inexorably, the world outside penetrated her numbness. The chill wind from the storm. The even colder drops of rain. The crash of thunder coming closer. Then the stink of chemicals and the insanity of mechanical noise. She had traded away paradise, and for what?
She had been such a fool. Not a hero on a quest, but a deluded, hapless wanderer. How certain she had been of her truth, the truth of the Amazons—that they had been created to bring peace to this world by destroying Ares, who held humanity in thrall. That was their story, the only story she had ever known. Her thoughts arranged and rearranged themselves in her mind. Have I gone crazy? Did I misunderstand? Was my mother’s story only a lullaby to calm a restless little girl to sleep? But then why the training? And the hiding? Our home was concealed, our powers cloaked from the eyes of the world for a reason.
Why else, but to defend ourselves from these… goblins if ever should they find their way onto our shores. And they did. And they cut the greatest of us down without hesitation.
Steve was the first.
Steve Trevor. The first man to touch the sands of her home. The first man who had touched her. She had to believe that he was good. Or else she was the greatest fool in this horrible realm.
She reminded herself of Veld. He had risked his life to save the villagers. He had asked, begged, pleaded for her to help him save more people like them. And she had let him go.
My foreordinance. What do I really believe?
She blinked, hearing someone inside the control tower. She turned. Through the balcony windows she could see a male figure, his back turned to her. For a moment she thought that Steve had returned one last time to ask her to do her duty. This time she would say—
—She would say…
That was not Steve. He was too short. And he wasn’t wearing a German uniform. As if sensing her presence, the man stiffened but didn’t turn around. She remained on the balcony, on her guard.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
Keeping his back to her, the man said in English, “I’ve been waiting for you to see the truth.”
That voice. Not German, nor American—he had a British accent. And it was a voice she recognized. But it didn’t make sense that he would be here, and out in the open like this.
“Sir Patrick?” she said, wary, confused.
Slowly turning, Sir Patrick calmly gazed at her through the pane of glass. Something was not right. Had something happened? Why was he so calm?
She stared at the kindly gentleman who had worked so hard to help Steve, his men, and her get to this heavily fortified German stronghold, but who should be back in England with Etta Candy. They had spoken on the phone only yesterday, and they hadn’t checked in since. He had forbidden them to undertake this mission. And yet he seemed unsurprised to see her.
She tried to understand why he wasn’t undercover himself. Why he was smiling while he stood in the heart of this German weapons facility.
And suddenly, inexplicably she knew. Every sense fired as she the truth crashed down on her.
Ludendorff was not Ares. Sir Patrick was.
This seemingly frail, aged man was her sworn enemy, and the enemy of all her people. The duplicitous warmonger who reveled in death and destruction.
No. This made no sense. She was wrong. He was just a man. And a man of peace at that. In the War Council, he had argued that the Armistice must be made. While they were in Veld, he had forbidden Diana, Steve, and the team to interfere in any way before that Armistice was signed.
And then he made sure to send us to the Front. And to tell us about the gala knowing full well that we wouldn’t listen to him when he told us not to go. That we would do everything in our power to find and infiltrate this base.
He manipulated our every move because he knew that we would do what good people do. We would risk everything to protect the world. Except that I—
I lost heart. But this is my chance. This is my foreordinance. He is Ares, and I must destroy him. It begins here. The story of my fate.
“You’re right, Diana,” he said with an unctuous smile. “They don’t deserve our help.”
His smile widened at her surprise as he tossed her own words—her mother’s words—back at her: Either he had been hiding in the shadows, standing close enough to listen in on the conversation she’d just had with Steve—her disdain of humanity—or he had powers of hearing beyond imagining. More proof, then, that he was the God she sought. And that she had a chance to redeem herself. Here. Now. If she was right. She had been wrong once, and killed a man—admittedly a very evil man—in fulfillment of her mission.
Eyes glittering, Sir Patrick paused as if to savor the moment. As if he had been anticipating it for millennia.
He rendered his final verdict: “They only deserve destruction.”
“You. You’re him,” she affirmed.
“I am,” he said, raising his chin and taking on the rightful bearing of a son of Zeus. He was brother to the exalted pantheon of Olympians he had slain. “But I’m not what you thought I was.” With a sweep of his arm he motioned at the airfield, the planes, the armed men scurrying in gas masks. “You blame me, but the truth is… all of this… I did none of it.”
Liar, she thought. You are the father of lies, and of betrayal.
She reached for the Godkiller—but she had left it on the roof, with Ludendorff. As she whirled around and headed for the roof, his smile followed her like a fist of black cloud.
* * *
Charlie, Steve, Sammy, and the Chief hunkered down inside the open doorway of one of the field’s outbuildings. Frustrated, they observed the seemingly endless parade of masked soldiers moving crate after crate of gas bombs out of the hanger, but they had yet to find Dr. Maru’s lab or Dr. Maru herself. If they didn’t get her notes and, preferably, her, she would take everything with her that she needed to resume manufacture of her lethal gas bombs in another lab.
Charlie raised his rifle to his shoulder and peered through the scope. After diligently scanning the area, he shook his head and said, “I can’t see where they’re taking the gas.”
Steve slipped out of the doorway and waved for everyone to follow. Charlie kept his Lee–Enfield ready, lowered his head, and brought up the rear. Steve was moving them closer to the hangar itself. It wouldn’t be the first time they had fought in close quarters, but he still preferred long-distance targets. Ironically, while this lot was faceless, he’d have felt a lot better if they weren’t wearing masks. Their ghostly appearance took him back to Edinburgh and nights by the fireside listening to tales of ghosties and ghoulies.
More gas-masked soldiers appeared from around the next corner, marching directly in front of them. Moving
as one, the team took cover behind a stack of wooden crates. The pounding of the Germans’ feet vibrated through the ground. So many, stamping about like bizarre clockwork figures in their masks, the faceless enemy. Where would it all end?
From his vantage point, Sammy took in the grim hustle of the rank and file and wondered at the need for urgency. There was a reason the Germans were trying to get the gas out of here so fast. Did they plan to lock it away before the Armistice was signed? Use it for revenge or to weaken the Allies as much as possible before they were forced to lay down arms as part of the peace process? Sell it to the highest bidder? No good could come of it, no matter what they did with it.
Motion in his peripheral vision startled him.
Oh, no. No.
His lips parted in a silent shout as he raised his hand to point across the airfield.
Suddenly it all made terrible sense.
And from the looks on the others’ faces, they were just as stunned as he was.
* * *
Charlie looked to where Sammy had indicated and muttered a multisyllabic curse in Gaelic. What the hell?
“What is it?” the Chief asked.
“The future,” Steve replied grimly.
An aircraft as huge as the Loch Ness Monster was being towed along the airstrip by a chugging truck. Never in his life had he seen a flying machine so gigantic. He’d never even dreamed you could build a monster like that. A black biplane, it was easily seventy-five feet long. It was mounted with four huge engines, and the blades were whirring. The Germans were actually going to fly it. Unless the good guys had a few tricks up their sleeve, their side was outgunned. We need a mad scientist or two of our own.
Then he saw that the door in the side of the fuselage was open, and he put two and two together. He didn’t like the result. The masked soldiers and workers in coveralls were taking the weapons from their crates and very carefully passing them to crewmen crouched inside the plane. They were going to fill that behemoth with ugly death and it was going to lift off with an unbelievable arsenal of mass destruction in its belly. A plane that size could carry a hundred bombs. Maybe more. And it could still fly? The aerodynamics of such a beast were beyond his ken, but this much he knew: he was staring at a doomsday machine.