Because of the attack, Steve’s movements through the city took on more urgency; Diana kept pace easily with him. Throughout the city, horns blared; the populace was anxious, busy. They reached the War Office, an enormous building filled with people who were employed in every aspect of war, from tactical decisions to provisioning Britain’s three enormous armies—combined, a total of four million men.
They entered the vast edifice with its marble floors and stairways, and domes flowing with watery English sunlight, reminding her very little of the council chambers back home. The only war council held in recent memory had been the one in which Diana argued for Steve’s life to be spared.
Steve pulled back one of the heavy double doors leading to the assembly hall. It was not a huge room, clubby and stuffy with rows of seats on either side of the main aisle behind heavy wooden bannisters. There were paintings of men in stupendous hats on the walls. The occupants were all male, some dressed in military uniforms resembling Steve’s German uniform, decorated with rows of ribbons, only made from fabric in shades of brown; others wore tailored three-piece suits such as he wore now. The object of their ire was a kindly looking man, older than Steve, but not as old as some others in the hall.
“Stay here,” Steve said.
Diana nodded that she would. But as soon as he started down the central aisle, she proceeded to follow him, running her hand over the bannister, smiling at the dumbfounded men who were staring at her.
“Gentlemen,” said the small man. “Germany is an immensely proud nation who will never surrender. The only way to end this war and restore world peace is to negotiate an armistice.”
The majority of the assembly roared its disapproval. Diana took note—peace was an unpopular subject. More evidence of Ares’s meddling.
Steve seemed to be looking for someone in the audience. He leaned over the rail and said, “Colonel!”
Six men in nearly identical uniforms turned their heads to look at him.
“Sorry,” Steve said. “Colonel!”
Another uniformed man turned his way. He had white hair and rows of medals on his chest and he appeared amazed and relieved to see Steve. Steve nodded towards the exit, indicating the need for a private word.
The small man pressed on, addressing the group. “Our only aim at this moment must be to achieve peace at any cost.”
That brought another roar of disapproval. Then, as Steve and Diana entered more deeply into the room, the cries momentarily died down. She understood at once that they were taken aback that a woman had entered their sacred domain. Diana chose not to take umbrage. This was not her world and Steve needed to find the correct person to give the notebook to. Then he could get her to the Front.
Finally Steve took her arm and led her out of the assembly room, murmuring, “Sorry, excuse me…”
The discussion resumed. Through the open door Diana could hear the man insisting, “Gentlemen, I beg you, please, if you’ll just hear me out…”
“Why will they not let him speak?” Diana said, pulling open the door to the assembly room to observe. “He’s talking peace.”
The white-haired man followed them into the hallway. “Trevor?” he began. “What the hell were you thinking bringing a woman into the council chamber?”
Though indignant, Diana kept her cool and said nothing, preferring to attend to the immediate matter. Steve held up his hand for calm, then addressed the colonel. “I’m sorry, Colonel Darnell, but the intel I’ve brought back is very time sensitive. We need to get it to cryptography. And I need an immediate audience with the generals…”
Speaking over Steve, the man said, “You don’t just barge in here like this and demand an audience with the cabinet. Cryptography takes time and…”
Steve was persistent. “Sir, with all due respect, if what I saw—”
The small, older man who had been arguing for peace walked out of the chamber through the doorway. “Captain Trevor!” he said. “I’d heard you were lost on one of your missions, yet here you are. And you’ve brought a friend.”
He smiled pleasantly at Diana, and she smiled back. She preferred him to the challenging warrior who seemed more interested in placing obstacles in Steve’s way rather than listening to what his own spy had to tell him.
Steve inclined his head. “Our deepest apologies for the interruption, Sir—”
“Nonsense,” the man cut in. “Thanks to this young woman, the room was finally quiet enough for me to get a few words in.” He made a humble bow to Diana and added, “Sir Patrick Morgan, at your service.”
Diana inclined her head in response. “Diana,” she said. “Princess of…”
Steve broke in before she could finish. “Prince,” he said. “Diana Prince. We… she and I… we work together. She helped me get this notebook here. From Maru’s lab…”
Steve reached inside his coat and pulled out the notebook, which he presented to Sir Patrick. The man accepted it eagerly and began to riffle through it.
“I think the information inside will change the course of the war, sir,” Steve added.
Sir Patrick looked from one of the pages to Steve, his brows raised, eyes wide. “‘Dr. Poison’ herself? My God,” He turned to Colonel Darnell. “Shall we assemble the war cabinet so they can tell us more?”
Darnell hesitated, then nodded in agreement.
Steve’s relief was palpable, and Diana, content that the situation would surely soon resolve itself, silently thanked Sir Patrick for his intercession.
* * *
Inside her laboratory, Dr. Isabel Maru picked up a green metal canister from the hangar floor and carried it over to a small glass chamber on her lab bench. The chamber contained the very latest in British-issue gas masks. Chemical weapons had not been deployed in any war of the modern era, and the English had spent time and money attempting protect themselves against her increasingly lethal gases rather than developing their own. What irony it would be for them to discover that they had completely wasted their resources. If her current calculations were correct, nothing would save them.
She connected the fitting on the top of the canister to one in the side of the chamber, then turned the wheel on the canister’s valve.
General Ludendorff’s imposing figure filled the space; as regal as a king, he watched with her as the newly created gas hissed into the containment vessel. A virulent mist filled the chamber and enveloped the gas mask.
Let it work.
Maru clenched her hands and held her breath. She hadn’t slept in three days. The Fatherland—and the general—were counting on her to perfect an aerosolized weapon so insidiously caustic that there was no defense against it. A weapon that would turn the tide of the war and bring Germany’s enemies to their knees. A weapon with her name on it, which would kill millions. She had run the calculations hundreds of times, testing on paper her chemical formula against the molecular structures of the mask’s components. But the results of paper tests could be misleading. Sometimes in real life what should have happened didn’t, for reasons unforeseen. But with General Ludendorff by her side, success must be hers.
As she and the general looked on, the mask began to disintegrate. The glass lenses cracked; the rubber turned brittle; the metal deteriorated. The sequence of events and their severity seemed unchanged from the previous formulation of the gas. Maru had a moment of doubt. How many failures would Ludendorff overlook? How many failures would his superiors overlook? The general’s neck was on the block, same as hers.
It’s got to work.
Then, unlike the previous formulation, the gas continued to eat away at the mask. The glass lenses cracked even more, the straps broke away from their buckles, the rubber turned to black dust, and the chromed metal became bubbling green jelly. She could barely contain her glee. At last, success.
I have earned it.
Dr. Poison imagined the gas deployed on the battlefield, dropped by aircraft, or buried with explosives underground; there would be no escape. It was the ultimate weapon, unstoppable, a work of genius. The caustic effects of the gas didn’t stop with the steaming, rotting mask—the containment chamber’s glass walls began to show hairline cracks.
Maru reached for the electrical switch on the side of the chamber. She flipped it, igniting a single spark, which caused the highly flammable gas to spectacularly combust in a blinding flash.
Elated, she looked to the general for approval. He was beaming at her with immense pride. She had done it. She had done it. She would help him win this war. Imagining the moment when he informed the Kaiser that she had come through, she giggled.
And his smile, his approval, made it all worth the sleepless nights and the worry.
I’ll do even better, she thought. I’ll never quit improving my ultimate weapon. No army on Earth will stop us. The world will be ours.
He had made a believer out of her.
* * *
Alerted to the crucial intelligence Steve had stolen from the Germans, Colonel Phillip Darnell, Sir Patrick Morgan, General Douglas Haig, and the rest of the British war cabinet crowded with Steve and Diana into a small conference room in the War Office. The walls were covered with maps, photos of Ludendorff and Dr. Maru before her face was injured, and photos of the notebook pages. A terrain map was thumbtacked in the center of the assemblage.
Diana stood near the door, watching, listening to the men discussing the implications of the gas Steve had described. After a few minutes she walked over to the section of photographs. She saw gas bombs, a plane like the one she had freed him from, and a large building called a hanger. Now and then one of the men would glance her way. Steve would say things such as, “She’s all right. She’s with me. I’m vouching for her.” She remembered arguing for his freedom in the courtyard outside the throne room. Their positions were somewhat reversed although these men had no equivalent to the Lasso of Hestia to demand the truth from her.
After a time, there was a shift in the room as the men gazed expectantly at Darnell, who had returned. “Cryptographers had no luck,” the man said ruefully. “It seems like a mixture of two languages. But they have failed to determine which two languages.”
Diana honed in on the photos of Ludendorff, gazing at his intense face, his hawklike eyes, then turned her attention to Maru’s notes. She scanned them. Oh. Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that before?
“Ottoman and Sumerian,” she announced.
The men turned to look at her in obvious astonishment. She was a trifled confused.
“Surely someone else in this room knew that,” she said, studying their faces.
Rather than being appreciative, General Haig seemed offended by her remark. As if the fact that she was the one to supply the information devalued it.
“Who is this woman?” he demanded.
Darnell glared at Steve as if it was a question he too wanted answered. The Amazons would have welcomed more information about the war from any quarter.
“She’s my… secretary,” Steve said.
Having discovered what that post entailed, Diana was none too pleased. But as before, expediency was the mother of calm.
“And she can understand Ottoman and Sumerian?” General Haig said dubiously.
“She’s a very good secretary,” Steve assured him. Laughter bubbled around the room.
“See her out,” the general said. Steve was just about to point out the obvious—that they needed Diana—when Colonel Darnell did it for him.
“If this woman can read it, sir,” the man protested, “we should hear what she has to say.”
General Haig seemed to consider the proposition, then nodded in agreement. “Yes, very well.”
Steve glanced her way as if he found it embarrassing that she observed how narrow-minded the men of this world could be.
Diana scanned the pages again. The subject matter was more puzzling to her than that actual translation. “It’s a formula… for a new kind gas…”
The men in the room stirred, intent now, giving her their full attention.
“Hydrogen-based, instead of sulfur.” She was sounding out the words, interpreting them.
A shudder rippled through the room. The War to End All Wars had seen the modern introduction of many horrors, including the use of poisonous gas four years earlier. The gases had “improved” over time, becoming more lethal, more devastating.
“Gas masks would be useless against hydrogen,” Colonel Darnell said.
Diana continued, “The book says they plan to release this gas at… the Front…” Her heart skipped beats. The Front was their destination. Surely this was more proof of Ares’s influence.
“When?” Steve cut in anxiously.
She scanned the pages. “It doesn’t say.”
“Sir,” Steve said, “that is the evidence we need. You have to find out where they’re making this gas. Burn it to the ground. Destroy it.”
“Ludendorff was last seen in Belgium,” Darnell said.
“We can’t be sending troops into German-occupied Belgium as we are negotiating their surrender,” General Haig said dismissively.
Steve was shocked. That was the first he had heard of a possible German surrender and he hadn’t dreamed that it lay within the realm of possibility, given how dismissive the War Council had been of Sir Patrick’s efforts to discuss an armistice. He took a moment to process that.
Then he realized that even if a peace were struck, that didn’t negate the necessity for their side to contain this weapon of mass destruction. The Germans could simply stockpile it until the next time they felt like taking over the world. And there was no guarantee that the Germans would surrender. They hadn’t surrendered yet. It was vital to humanity that this ultimate weapon be removed as a threat.
“Sir,” Steve continued, “I’ve seen this gas with my own eyes. If it is used it will kill everyone on both sides.”
General Haig cut him off. “That’s what soldiers do, Captain.” His voice was stone cold, his face as expressionless.
Diana was appalled. Sir Patrick gave her an apologetic look, as if asking her to understand the harsh realities of war.
“Send me in,” Steve pushed. “With some logistical support. At least give me the chance to take out Ludendorff and his operation out myself.”
“Are you insane, Trevor?” Haig snapped back. “I can’t introduce rogue elements like this this late in the game.”
“But General…” Steve began.
But before he could press his argument, Sir Patrick spoke up. “Now more than ever,” he said, “the Armistice is of paramount importance. We must get it negotiated and signed. That is the best way of stopping the war.”
No, it is not, Diana thought. Ares will not allow it.
“You will do nothing, Captain Trevor,” the general declared. “That’s an order.”
Diana looked to Steve. He knew she was waiting for him to defy the general as she had defied her mother. In her mind, it was the only way to save mankind. He would be sorry to disappoint her.
“Yes, sir,” Steve said. “I understand, sir.”
Diana’s eyes widened. Heat painted her cheeks. She gazed around the room of satisfied men who sat here far from battle and made plans to send others to their doom. Her eyes locked on Steve, who was acquiescing to this monstrous crime with less force than she had once exerted on her mother to miss a day of school.
“I don’t,” she said.
“Diana, I know it’s confusing,” Steve began.
She squared her shoulders and raised her chin, staring at him as if he were a complete stranger—which he was. He was not a hero, as she had assumed. He was a weakling.
“It’s not confusing. It’s unthinkable,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” the irritated general bit off. “Who did you say this woman was?”
“She’s with me,” Steve replied. “With us.”
Diana stood her ground. “I am not with you.” She directed her ire at General Haig and the others. “You would knowingly sacrifice all those lives, as if they mean less than yours? As if they mean nothing? Where I come from, generals don’t hide in their offices like cowards. They fight alongside their soldiers. They die with them on the battlefield.”
“Diana, enough,” Steve barked. He turned to the general and said, “My apologies, sir.”
Diana balled her fists. “You should be ashamed.” She turned on them. “All of you should be ashamed.”
Shaking with anger, she stormed out of the room and rushed down a flight of marble stairs. She was revolted; she couldn’t get out of there fast enough. The depth of Steve’s spinelessness sickened her. She would find Ares on her own.
She would find him in this vast, clogged, confusing world—
“Diana, wait!” Steve called to her back.
She wheeled on him, betrayed and furious. “That’s your leader?” she said. “How could he say that? Believe that?” She pointed at him. “And you! Was your duty to simply give them a book? You didn’t stand your ground. You didn’t fight.”
“Because there was no chance of changing his mind! Listen to me…”
“This is Ares and he isn’t going to allow a negotiation or a surrender. The millions of people you talked about? They will die. My people?”
Steve spoke over her: “We’re going anyway!”
She stopped. Took that in. “You mean you were lying?”
He almost smiled. “Diana, I’m a spy. That’s what we do.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do I know you’re not lying to me right now?”
Steve grabbed hold of Diana’s lasso, wrapped the end of it around his wrist, and looked into her eyes. The lasso began to glow.
“I’m taking you to the Front,” he said. “And we’re probably going to die.”
Steve seemed surprised at the last part.
Diana shook her head, but she couldn’t help a small smile in return. Still holding on to the lasso, Steve said, “This is a terrible idea…” He let go of the rope. “We’re going to need reinforcements.”