Wonder Woman in Paris #5

Wonder Woman was created by Dr William Moulton Marston in 1941 and is the © copyright trademark of DC Comics. My Wonder Woman stories are only fan fiction and based, primarily, on the 1970s CBS TV show (albeit, updated to the present time of writing). However, any resources from adaptations and the comics may be utilised. All characters are entirely fictional. With the exception of Diana / Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, the story and characters are my own creation, unless otherwise stated. In my stories there are no other superheroes in the world, except for Wonder Woman.

 05 Visit the Eiffel Tower

Icy cold hands pattering her cheeks awoke Diana from her intoxicated hibernation. She gradually gained awareness of her limbs restricted by rope knots around her wrists and heels. Spatially, Diana laid spread eagle on a tilted wooden board. She was staring at the ceiling of the big top when a long grim face who she recognised as the bird keeper, looked down upon her.

“So it wasn’t a nightmare?” Diana asked, rhetorically, still half dazed by the chloroform.

“No, I’m afraid it wasn’t, dear” came the stark reply. The keeper spoke softly but with absolute menace: “I must thank you, really, for providing the opportunity for one last slaughter. In this life, I’ve only loved two things – sadism and birds of prey. I’m lucky in that I found a way of combining the two in my work.”     

He combed the back of his hand across Diana’s supple skin, “So pretty,” he said, “Would it surprise you to know I shall take great pleasure in seeing my vultures savage your body?”

“Rather them than you,” Diana replied, honestly.

The old man pulled a sour grin, “What sound judgment you have, dear.”  As he turned to leave, he soberly said, “These vultures haven’t eaten for a week, it will be over very quickly.”

In silence, Diana waited alone, stretched out on the board. She twisted her frame and tugged at the ropes, but couldn’t find enough momentum to have any effect. She then noticed conveying towards her, at the centre of the big top, six Andean condors in cages. A further five minutes passed until the click of the cages remotely unlocked the doors, releasing the birds into the arena. The vultures briefly circled Diana before descending on her in unison.

In the security trailer Adamski watched the events unfold live on the large monitor.

“Oh, turn it off, Adamski,” moaned Anya, “I hate that bitch, but I have no desire to see anybody get eaten alive by those disgusting creatures.”

“As you wish,” he complied, impassively.

Arina stood with folded arms in the corner. “The German will be watching it in his cabin, anyway. The old psycho finds it a turn on,” she commented.

A minute later there was urgent knocking on the trailer door. “It’s him,” informed Adamski, buzzing the door open.

“Come quickly,” requested the panting bird keeper, “My prey has escaped! The vultures were all over her. I couldn’t work it out, they normally go straight for the victim’s neck, but this time they went for the arms and legs. I thought they were concerned about being struck, then, suddenly, she broke loose, like they had, inadvertently, freed her! In all my years of torture, this is unprecedented!”

The four captors hastily made their way back to the big top. On their way to the board where the captive formerly lay, they noticed all six condors sitting peacefully.

Up above, a shining figure looked down from the acrobat’s swinging platform, “Looking for someone?” asked Wonder Woman. “Diana is on her way to getting the police. You see, it’s time the roof came down on the St Petersburg’s Civic Circus.”

“It's Wonder Woman,” panted the bird keeper, “I never believed those stories from the War, but it appears the American super soldier was not simply propaganda.”

“World War Two?” smirked Arina, “This cannot not be the same woman.”

“Why don’t you come up here and find out?” Wonder Woman invited.

Gamely, the Ansenko sisters charged up the rope ladders to either platform. Just as Arina reached the top, Diana swung away on the bar. At the opposite platform, she was met by Anya. Wonder Woman stood tall, placing her hands on her hips, waiting for the acrobat’s offensive. Predictably, Anya wasted no time in striking her opponent; crunching her fist into Wonder Woman’s golden girdle proved to be a mistake; the Russian knelt in pain.

“Not a good idea,” Diana said, grabbing Anya around her waist with her left hand, and swinging her off the platform by use of the bar. Wonder Woman landed on the nearest empty hanging bird cage, shoving Anya inside and locking the door. The captive Russian looked bemused at her situation, while Wonder Woman swung on to the platform where Arina was standing.

Down below, the bird keeper ordered Adamski to shoot Wonder Woman. The bespectacled head of security began firing shots from his semi-automatic. However, Diana had caught this development while she was in motion, and deflected two hits with her bracelets while touching down on the opposite platform. Although the bullets could easily have struck Arina, it didn’t stop the determined assassin from grasping Diana’s lower arms. The amazon princess found the same corresponding hold. For a moment the two women stared at each other, appearing locked in one another’s grip until Wonder Woman showed the equilibrium was an illusion; she quickly forced the Russian to her knees by tightening her grip.

“Argh,” the Russian cried out, bowing her head in shock.

“You’re not so strong,” Diana mocked with a glint of poetic justice in her radiant blue eyes.

As with her sister, Wonder Woman slung Arina into an empty cage, while Adamski took the opportunity to climb the rope ladder. Halfway up, once more the tactical security chief aimed his handgun at the heroine. In her peripheral vision, Diana was aware of the threat, removing her golden tiara and hurling it at the rope ladder. The dynamic tiara sliced right through the ropes, sending Adamski crashing to the ground with a thump.

As she reattached the boomerang like tiara, Diana noted the bird keeper had vanished. Wonder Woman reopened the cage and grasped Arina by her leotard straps. 

“You’re going to tell me everything you know about Boris Sidorov’s operation in Paris,” the heroine commanded.  

A pensive Christopher Dalton fled down the autoroute in his Cadillac CTS-V Coupe. A dishevelled Karen Harris sat quietly by his side. She hadn’t talked since being freed from the clutches of Boris Sidorov, the night before.

“It might seem bleak now, kid,” said Dalton, “but I know you’ll find the strength to get over whatever crap they laid on you. You’ll soon be on a plane to the States with your family waiting for your safe return at the other side.”

Karen’s pale face stared, impassively, through the windscreen as the Cadillac met the tail end of a traffic jam. Dalton was about to continue with his supportive lecture when the girl muttered, “It’s today at The Eiffel Tower.”

With some surprise, Dalton queried, “What’s at the Eiffel Tower?”

The petite girl turned to Dalton and said, “The assassination”, with a sudden marbling glow, and she leaped out the stationary vehicle.

The young frail agent ran through the standing traffic. She would have been easy to pursue for the athletic Dalton, if she hadn’t managed to knock an unsuspecting motorcyclist to the ground. The famed Trailblazer scrambled away on the stolen motorbike up through the near fields,

“Damn, I knew I should have locked her in,” groaned Dalton, smacking his fist off the top of the nearest car.

A man wearing a trilby black hat with a bushy beard made his way through the dignitaries in attendance on the top level of The Eiffel Tower. Pushing in front of reporters, he just caught the mayor of Paris introducing the former French Resistance child messenger, Jacques Mosseau.

Now a weary octogenarian, Mosseau shuffled up to the microphone stand, “I thank the mayor for his kind words. The gusts up here, today, are enough to knock an old man over, but there is no place I’d rather be to accept this medal of honour. Through all our struggles of occupation, we’d look up at this beacon of hope and liberty. Indeed, it’s been said Hitler conquered France but he never conquered the Eiffel Tower.”

While the war hero continued to talk, several Andean Condors swept into the enclosure and began harassing the confined audience. Panic was invertible, allowing the man with the bushy beard to place a transmitter in Mosseau’s jacket pocket. Stepping up to the microphone, the same man was intent on making his own speech.

“Now behold, world,” he boomed, “As the Fourth Reich takes its belated retribution on this wartime adversary. Watch as these specially trained vultures drop Jacques Mosseau off the very tower he so adores.”

Curiously, as he spoke, a moustached cripple clipped his crutches together and flicked a switch, which released a spinning circular blade. His intent became clear when he started cutting through the observation platform’s safety bars, which ensure people can’t climb over the railings.       

“Thanks for the easy entry, Egorov,” said Wonder Woman landing on the railings, “but I prefer to make my own entrances.” 

Like thunder, Wonder Woman’s pointed boot heel cracked into to Egorov’s chest collapsing him against the nearest wall. She picked up his cutter and snapped it in half. Looking towards the stand, Diana spun her lasso into a loop, casting it around the shoulders of the bearded speaker.    

Wonder Woman took to the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen don’t worry about the birds. They are my friends and mean you no harm. They were being used by this man, Boris Sidorov.”

She ripped the fake beard from her lassoed captive, “The birds were trained to prey on any creature carrying this tiny transmitter. May I, Monsieur Mosseau?” Diana asked, taking the device from the war hero’s pocket, “Only, I re-instructed these birds - as you can see - to peacefully perch nearby the transmitter.”

While Wonder Woman had been speaking, the French counter-terrorist police - a RAID unit - flooded the top level with manpower. She handed Sidorov over to the officers, and was about to take flight, when she noticed Christopher Dalton and Karen Harris approaching.

“Hello, again,” said Wonder Woman to Dalton, “I assume Diana Prince informed you of the terrorist plot from St Petersburg’s Civic Circus?”

“No – I hear a RAID unit has swamped the circus – it was, in fact, my feisty young associate, Karen Harris, whose single minded conviction led me to the tower.”

A relieved Karen smiled for the first time since her release, “Glad to meet you, Wonder Woman, I owe you my life. On the night I was captured, I found a document detailing the planned assassination of Jacques Mosseau up on this tower, today.”   

Dalton took over, “When you caught Gregori Egorov attempting to shoot my hired private investigator, Pierre Lavoie, Sidorov decided it was better exchanging Karen for Egorov, than to murder her too.”

“Instead, they tried hypnosis to make me forget,” Karen continued, “but it was only when Chris and I were caught in traffic that I recalled the information – and I Just bolted – I had to be here, rather than on that plane”

“Thankfully, effective hypnosis is harder to achieve than what people think,” Wonder Woman stated, joyfully, placing her arm around the petite agent.

The RAID officers were about to take Boris Sidorov away when he noticed Karen Harris with Wonder Woman. He went pale at the sight of the girl.

“No, the Trailblazer, get her away from here,” Sidorov warned, “SHE’LL KILL US ALL!”

“What do you mean?” asked Wonder Woman, looking puzzled.

Raising his large handcuffed hands before him, Sidorov explained, “We planted a bomb inside her, it’s over her heart so you wouldn’t detect it. It goes off within five minutes of reaching a height of two hundred and fifty metres.”

Karen dropped to her knees with a scream, weeping uncontrollably.

Dalton clutched Sidorov by his jacket, “You’re scum, Sidorov. You knew we’d send her home, so you planted the bomb inside her, to take down whatever plane we put her on.”

“Is there way of stopping it?” Wonder Woman intervened.

“There’s a chance it won’t go off if you can get her to the ground in less than a minute. Throw her off the side, Wonder Woman," Sidorov urged, mercilessly, "otherwise we’re all doomed.” 

The frightened girl’s eyes met Wonder Woman’s. “NO! NO!” yelled Karen, “I won’t be…”

The young desperate agent bolted off through the crowd. She headed for the opening made by Egorov, earlier, and without hesitation, she flung herself off the Eiffel Tower. Although Wonder Woman followed her, the internal bomb exploded Karen into a fireball before she reached the ground.

A few months later, the mood was still sombre at the I.A.D.C’s secret European headquarters underneath Disneyland Paris. Christopher Dalton was sat in his office pouring another helping of bourbon when Diana Prince arrived.

“Now the French authorities have finished with my assistance in the case of the St Petersburg’s Civic Circus, Steve Trevor has an assignment for me in Rome. The mysterious bird keeper is the only one still at large, and Steve thinks I may find out more about this Fourth Reich movement in Italy. I’m leaving today.”

Unshaven and bedraggled, Dalton replied with his head down in his drink, “You won’t assist me, though, will you? You won’t tell me where I can find Wonder Woman.”

“Not this again, Chris, I don’t tell you because I can’t tell you. You owe Wonder Woman your life.”

“NO, DAMN IT!” growled Dalton, hurtling his glass across the room; splattering on the wall. “She’s no hero! I’ll never forget the look in the eyes of Karen Harris when she knew Wonder Woman was about to push her off the Eiffel Tower to save herself. She may still be alive if Wonder Woman hadn't have been there.”

Diana sighed, “It wasn’t like that Chris,” she said, firmly, “You’re grieving, you need help. Let me book you in with the base's psychiatrist before I go”.

The aggravated agent relaxed back into his chair, and managed to nod in agreement.

After Diana left, Dalton poured another drink, while making a phone call to the States.

“Hi, babe, remember me, the one who got away?” he said cheerfully, “I have an unofficial favour I’d like to ask you. I want you to tell me everything we know about the so-called super heroine, Wonder Woman, especially her history with one of our agents named Diana Prince. Will you do this little favour for me – for old times sake?

“Why? Because if it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to find out WHO, or WHAT, Wonder Woman really is and expose her lies to the world!”

THANK YOU FOR READING!

DECEIVER