by Nancy Holder
Charlie peered through his scope. The crewmen were loading the bomb bay under the supervision of an officer who was likely the commander or the pilot. There were a lot of men in the crew, six or seven by his count.
A sharp gust of black wind swept over the field. It was so cold it made Charlie cringe. A dust cloud raced across the field, and the dual wings of the monstrous bomber shivered. Overhead, the sky was roiling in shades of black and gray. Altogether an inauspicious set of circumstances. Would it delay takeoff?
A soldier near the plane’s tail used his bayonet to gesture impatiently at workers loading more bombs through a smaller door. The weapons were being stored back in the aft, Charlie realized. The bomb bay doors had to be located there, then. The bomber had surplus explosives on hand beyond any bombing run he could imagine. Under no circumstances could the team allow it to fly away. If even a fraction of that payload was dropped on a defenseless city, the death toll would be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. With four engines to power it, the bomber had to have a range of close to five hundred miles. Enough range to strike multiple cities across Europe and Britain.
The Chief shifted beside his teammates. At the sight of the huge black bomber, the tension among them had ratcheted up. This was no simple smuggling operation to get the gas bombs out of the Allies’ reach in the event of an armistice. The team’s objective had just spit into two: One, they had to get Dr. Maru and her formula; and two, they had to stop this bomber from ever taking off.
This was an altogether different game plan for a smuggler. But like so much of life, what mattered was what you did when confronted with the unexpected. And he would do what was right—no matter the cost. So much for coming to this war for profit.
The four men watched in horror for a few more seconds; then Steve gestured for them to pull back, and they headed around the back of the hanger.
Whatever I do, I must hold myself together, Charlie told himself. My hands must not shake. My aim must be true.
It had meant a lot that Steve had sought him out, still believed in him. He was determined to do all he could to keep and build that trust. But he knew the mission would be easier if Diana were part of it. One smile from her and he forgot to worry about himself. That was real magic.
Just wish she was here now, he thought, then he slipped into the shadows behind the rest of the team. I hope that wherever she is, she’s safe.
As Sammy moved with the team, he thought of Diana. Steve hadn’t offered any explanation for her absence, but somehow Sammy knew that she was all right. Indestructible was more like it. His eyes crinkled and he sent her a silent message: Wherever you are, bonne chance, chérie.
Good luck.
And then he saw something that suggested their own luck had changed.
* * *
This dark world had just become darker. Beneath glowering storm clouds, sharp winds building around her as the first few drops of rain blew sideways, Diana jumped back down to the balcony of the control tower with the Godkiller in hand. Now she could take him on. She regarded Sir Patrick through the glass. There was nothing about him that would have revealed him as Ares except for his own arrogant boasting. Nothing.
“I am not your enemy, Diana,” he said. His newly strengthened voice carried over the howl of the wind. “I am the only one who truly knows you. And who truly knows them.” He paused as if measuring her reaction. “They have always been and always will be weak, cruel, selfish, capable of the greatest horrors.”
For the first time, the Godkiller felt heavy in Diana’s grip. She took the sword in both hands, squeezing hard. She would face him down. One on one, as she had taken on so many enemies before. Her mission was just, and she held the weapon that could finish him. She must be brave. She must be the warrior Antiope had trained her to be. She must not fail.
But as she entered the room, Sir Patrick vanished into thin air. One moment he was there. The next, he was gone.
Oh high alert, she scanned the space, skin prickling, heart pounding.
“I am Diana of Themyscira, daughter of Hippolyta,” she proclaimed, more to remind herself of who she was and why she was there than to honorably identify herself to her adversary.
His disembodied voice bounced around the room. “All I ever wanted was for the Gods to see how evil my father’s creation was. And they refused.”
“And I am here to complete her mission,” she declared, ignoring him.
Then he reappeared, the same older man with the aristocratic English name. She aimed the point of her sword at him. One perfectly timed thrust of the Godkiller and it would be over. She took a quick breath, preparing herself for the attack. She would not leave here until he was dead.
Ares simply held up his hand, and the sword’s exquisite blade disintegrated in a puff of dust, right down to the hilt. She stared down at what she held in her hand and staggered back, her eyes full of disbelief. He had just destroyed the only weapon forged to kill him.
“The Godkiller,” she gasped.
“‘The Godkiller?’ Oh, child. That is not the Godkiller.” He shook his head, seemingly in commiseration, and then with two words delivered an even greater shock. “You are.”
He stepped past her, out the door onto the balcony, and she backed away, every sense screaming danger, telling her to get out of there.
“Only a God can kill another God,” he said, as if such a thing was common knowledge.
“I?” She didn’t understand what he was saying. She wasn’t a God…
He raised a brow. “Zeus left the daughter he had with the Queen of the Amazons as a weapon to use against me.”
To use…
A weapon to use…
As if she were underwater, she heard her mother’s voice: I made you from clay and begged Zeus… No, it could not be. She was not the daughter of a God. Not a weapon. Not this thing’s sister—
“You lie!” she cried, reaching for the lasso on her hip.
19
On the airfield, Sammy, Charlie, and the Chief quickly put on the uniforms and masks of the unconscious soldiers Sammy had spotted. Costumed from head to foot, they would blend in perfectly. No one would realize they were undercover enemy soldiers until it was too late—perhaps, with any luck, not even after the mission was complete. What happened next could not matter. What was important was what was happening now.
Able to walk freely, they rapidly progressed around the side of the hangar toward the big black plane. It was massive. No one gave them the slightest notice or challenged their right to approach it.
Steve pointed with two fingers, and Sammy moved quickly to the cargo door and disappeared through it, into the fuselage. Steve rounded the nose of the behemoth, taking in its position relative to the other planes on the field and weighing the odds that it could make a successful emergency takeoff. It was possible, he decided, depending on the weight of the bomb load and the side wind conditions. As he returned to the flank of the plane, he saw the Chief peel off from where he stood with Charlie, darting inside the gaping hangar.
* * *
Inside the plane, Sammy moved past the neat rows of tightly packed gas bombs and shifted to a position where he could watch the workers load even more without getting in their way. Did any of these people realize what would happen if this plane went down? Doomsday, pure and simple. It was insanity to move such a huge quantity of gas like this. Had they even considered the danger, or did they care? So many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of German soldiers had already died—fodder for the ambitions of the Kaiser.
Around him, more bombs came aboard. Sammy was grateful for the gas mask, even though it smelled horrible and was baking hot. The mask concealed his revulsion and his nervousness. He had been on many missions with Steve and the team, but his silver tongue was his best weapon. The necessity of silence put him off his game.
He kept watching, studying the plane’s innards, drawing a mental diagram he could relay to the others. Wires, levers, room for the whole
team aboard—
And then his heart jumped into his throat. A mechanical timer was wired to one of the clusters of bombs—something they’d need to detonate the explosives if they didn’t intend to drop them. If they intended to set the bombs off in mid-air.
Over a target.
A city.
Filled with innocents.
Dear God in heaven.
* * *
In his German uniform, the Chief moved unremarked through the hangar to the map of Europe pinned on the wall. There was a big X marked over London, England.
Their target.
His blood turned to ice. That was where the bomber was going. They were going to drop the bombs on a densely populated island from which there was no escape, not for military personnel or civilians. Infants, mothers, grandfathers. The King of England himself. Where they could kill over seven million people. A massacre. If he and the team didn’t stop it, this truly would be the War to End All Wars.
No one must drop those bombs. No one.
The team had a new objective.
And failure was not an option.
* * *
Acting as if he knew what he was doing, and that what he was doing was absolutely necessary, Steve climbed up on the lower wing of the bomber and pried open a panel on the exterior of the fuselage. His goal was sabotage, and he was looking for cables he could cut, something that would wreck the flight controls.
The panel opened onto a fairly deep enclosure, but there were no cables inside, no fuel lines either. He had studied the plans of all the known German warcraft, but this gigantic bomber was a big unknown.
A muffled voice from behind him said something in German. He pulled his head out and looked down at a soldier holding a Luger pistol. Steve couldn’t hear the words, and before he could respond anyway, the German raised the pistol and took aim at Steve’s chest.
Charlie moved in behind the German and brought down the steel-shod butt of his sniper rifle. It made a clank against the back of the man’s helmet; the Luger and his head hit the ground at the same instant. Steve nodded his thanks.
Hoisting the body up between them, they began to carry it into the hangar. It looked like two German soldiers helping a third who had passed out or was injured. As they neared the hangar’s doorway, a chill, steady wind began to rise. It buffeted the legs of their trousers.
As they stepped under the towering doorway, Steve glanced over the back of the unconscious man and saw Dr. Maru and a squad of soldiers walking purposefully across the airfield toward the bomber. Sammy was still inside! Steve and Charlie hurriedly dumped the soldier out of sight.
Steve exited the hangar, waved an arm over his head to get the Chief’s attention, then gave him the hand signal for withdraw and regroup. The Chief complied, then stuck his head into the cargo hold, and in seconds he and Sammy were moving at a brisk pace around the front of the plane. As they walked away from the bomber, Maru and her entourage arrived at the cargo door.
When the team reunited, Steve waved everyone back into the shadows. For the moment, they could only watch and wait.
* * *
I? The daughter of Zeus? He must be lying.
Diana swirled the Lasso of Hestia once overhead, then threw it over Sir Patrick’s head. He made no attempt to avoid it, and as the loop dropped around him, it glowed brighter than she had ever seen. It was nearly blinding.
“I compel you to tell me the truth!” she shouted at him, jerking the noose tight around his chest.
The lasso’s golden energy coursed back and forth between them as he gazed into her eyes. “I am,” he said flatly. “What I’m saying is true. I am not the God of War, Diana. I am the God of Truth. Mankind stole this world from us and ruined it day by day. And I, the only one wise enough to see.”
He put his hands on the lasso. Energy shot through it and burst into Diana. His voice filled Diana’s ears as the vision faded. “I was too weak to stop them. All these years I have struggled alone, whispering into their ears. Ideas, inspirations for weapon, formulas.”
Suddenly Diana saw Dr. Maru in her laboratory, her worktable strewn with balled-up pieces of paper. Then Ares/Sir Patrick glided past her, whispering into her ear. Maru’s face lit up and she plucked one of the wads of paper, unfolded it, and smiled. She mouthed the words, “I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”
Ares spoke again to Diana. “But I don’t make them use them. They start these wars on their own. All I do is orchestrate an armistice I know they cannot keep in the hope they will destroy themselves.”
The God’s goal was to bring about the end of the world, just as Steve had told the Amazons back on Themyscira. When she had left in search of a monster…
…and found her destiny.
The wind whipped around the control tower, gusting through the open window, making the entire structure sway. Diana stood fast, one end of the Lasso of Hestia in her hand, the other around Ares’ chest—crackling and snapping with golden energy. He clutched the lasso; instantly they were transported to No Man’s Land and the full horror of the war. Proof of mankind’s ability to turn on itself. All around them: apocalypse, madness, all caused by mankind, incapable of stopping themselves from destroying each other—and the beautiful world.
As suddenly as she and Ares had appeared at the Front, she saw Ares, younger, more vital, in the battle armor of the ancients surrounded by lightning and thunderbolts, power such as she had never seen. Locked in combat with the King of the Gods; then Ares falling backwards. Next, Ares as he appeared now—a mortal man who had aged, crouched huddled in a cave, shivering, without clothing, and alone.
“But it has never been enough until you. When you first arrived, I was going to crush you.” He let that sink in before he continued. “But then I felt something I haven’t felt for thousands of years.” He waited another beat. “Stronger. And I knew that if you could see what the other Gods could not, then you would join me and with our powers combined, we could finally end all the pain, all the suffering, the destruction they bring.”
Instantly they were transported to a beautiful, lush forest unsullied by war, no sign of people anywhere. She smelled the fresh earth and sky, felt the radiant sunlight on her face. It was as perfect as Themyscira. Then he took them to the horror of No Man’s Land—gray, stark and devastating.
Then they were back at the airfield. Ares ran his finger along the lasso, toying with it. Golden energy arced into that finger; it flowed up his arm, shoulder, and neck. He was feeding on it. He was glowing, transforming…
“It is because of you,” he said with a smile. Golden light shone behind his teeth. “All of these years, I’ve been struggling to regain my power, to cleanse the Earth of the blight of man—only to realize that the very weapon my father created to destroy me… not only could restore me to the God I once was, but was actually the thing I needed most.”
Diana’s pulse pounded in her temples. She didn’t understand, but she desperately needed to. The King of the Gods and her mother… Hippolyta had given birth to her in the ways of mortal women? Could this actually be true? If that was the case, every single Amazon on Themyscira must have known as well. Why had she, Diana, not been told? How could her mother send her to the world of men without telling her?
I am the daughter of a God? She tried to believe it, tried to make the pieces fit. Zeus was Ares’ father, too. Was she then this monster’s half-sister? That cannot be. I was born into a community of peace-loving warriors. My essence is not the same as Ares the War Glutton, the Curse of Men.
Trembling at the thought, she kept a firm hold on the lasso. Then fire erupted from his hands. He turned them back and forth, examining them, and he ran them hand along the magical rope. Energy crackled; the lasso threw cascades of sparks onto the floor. He grinned at her.
He’s trying to confuse me. He is the Father of Lies.
“We could return this world to the paradise it was before them,” he said. “Forever.”
Once again, they stood in the sweet
, green forest— devoid of man and all his atrocities. Without men, the entire world would look like this. Without them—
“I could never be a part of that,” she told him, her tone defiant.
He sadly shook his head. “My dear sister…”
He returned them to the control room. “I don’t want to fight you.” Then his face hardened. “But if I must…”
He grabbed the lasso with both hands. A tremendous blast of energy erupted from the rope, from within him; it billowed like a fireball, engulfing the control tower. In the next fraction of a second the entire building exploded, sending its zigzag support struts flying. Without the supports, there was nothing to hold the structure’s tall legs together, and they buckled and gave way. The ruins of the tower fell to earth in a sickening rush, crashing on the ground and shattering. Diana fell along with the mass of debris, landing in a smoking pile of it; the impact knocked the breath out of her.
* * *
The airfield was rocked by a deafening explosion; Steve and the others were thrown to the ground. They’ve detonated the poison bombs, Steve thought. But if that had been the case, he would be dead.
German soldiers scattered in a panic. The compound was under attack, but from whom and where? There had been no sound of an aircraft flying overhead, so it couldn’t have been an Allied bomb. There had been no distant boom of a cannon, so it couldn’t have been an artillery shell. It was conceivable that the explosion was an accident.
An accident at a site that stockpiled the most deadly weapon ever devised. That was something even more terrifying. The Germans pulled their gas masks tighter on their faces, making sure they had a good seal. But Steve had seen Veld. The destruction had been near-instantaneous.
What if it had been Maru’s lab? He pictured poison gas billowing overhead, riding the wind across Belgium. He had no idea if the masks they wore would keep out the gas or they had been designed to protect the rank and file.