Wonder Woman in Moscow #4

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, these stories and characters are my own creations, unless otherwise stated. In my stories Wonder Woman is the only known superhero.

04 The Matter is in the Hat

Since he quit smoking, Warrant Officer Declan Nader had developed the lesser evil of chewing toothpicks. The habit was a symptom of an underlining neurosis in concentration. This wasn’t the kind of anxiety the average citizen might face meeting deadlines, it was the real prospect of death awaiting him around the next bend in the road.

They were travelling through the beautiful Ukrainian countryside in a small convoy. it consisted of a M977 HMTT cargo transport following a robust Caterpillar C1 troop carrier with M1009 Chevrolet jeeps lead and trailing them. A lowkey procession, the U.S. Special Forces inside the vehicles were not there to prevent an attack but to entice one.

This was why Nader sat at the front of the leading Caterpillar in sombre concentration. The wagon, behind, contained 20 large cast iron barrels, labelled ‘Flexigraph’. These barrels were in fact filled with a liquid dye, which if poured over a person or object would invisibly mark them; only detectable by a specially designed fluorescent torch.

The lush, open, green landscape of hilly farmland changed to dense forest on the descent down the valley. Either side of the road were wooded slopes which would be ideal for an ambush. Just before dusk, the sunlight still shadowed the overarching branches of the narrow winding road. Around the next bend, the first jeep slowed the convoy for a horse drawn cart ahead.

From his elevated position in the troop carrier, Nader could see the driver steered alone. There was no sign of rain, yet the cart’s cargo was covered. He urged caution on the radio to all vehicles. His instinct was right, albeit in vain. Under the canvass of the cart, a handheld bazooka fired at the road between them, blasting a crater in front of the first jeep. A mix of smoke and earth blinded their path.

Reversing was difficult on such a steep incline, but without an alternative direction, they began to do so at once. The convoy didn’t get far before the thud of a huge collision was heard around the previous bend. The rear military jeep came backflipping into the woods. It quickly became clear that the Chevrolet had been upturned by the loader of an oncoming tractor. The vehicle was pulling an open trailer with 20 armed men in brown and black camouflaged uniforms, piling off the back. The two servicemen in the jeep weren’t seriously hurt, but wisely, stayed in the vehicle.

Out of the woods, gunfire spat out at the roadside from both directions. The Green Berets immediately took up positions ready to return fire on command.

“YOU’RE SURROUNDED!” a coarse voice stated on loud speaker. “SURRENDER AT ONCE TO PREVENT FURTHER CASULTIES.”

Nader could hear the speech was coming from the woods on the driver’s side. His first thought was to concentrate the counter-attack on the leader. Nader always went for the juggler when he could. It was a sound strategy when dealing with less disciplined forces. If they could neutralise the leader, the rest may flee. Nader selected his best sniper, Corporal Ricca, to accompany him on the mission.

“You’re in command, Sergeant Crosby,” Nader told his trusty weapons expert. “Cover us on the way into the woods and hold your position.”

Opening the door, Nader gave one last order, “Give them something big to chew over!”

“Yes, sir!”

Crosby immediately manned the turret controls of the Caterpillar’s swivel cannon. He sent two shots, indiscriminately, into the woods. Huge piles of earth bellowed out of the ground. A tree collapsed, while another caught alight. There was a brief cessation of fire before the real battle began with guns a blazing. Crosby’s firepower had enabled Nader and Ricca to safely set foot into the woods. The remaining Green Berets dug themselves in around the convoy.

Through the dissipating smoke plume, once more, the bazooka operator prepared to fire on the troop carrier from the cart. Except, this time, Ricca finished him within a second of seeing the terrorist through the gunsight of his M4 carbine. Nonetheless, this didn’t prevent the operator launching the rocket in one last adrenaline induced trigger action.

The rocket miraculously exploded in front of the troop carrier as if it had hit a solid brick wall. Crosby hurriedly swivelled the turret gunsight around to view somebody in red and white lined boots standing on the roof. He followed her legs upwards to find they belonged to the shapely form of an iconic heroine in star spangled shorts.

“I don’t believe it!” Crosby gasped. “Looks like we have Wonder Woman to thank for deflecting the bazooka shell, boys!”

Cartridge shells from the gorge rained down on where the effervescent heroine had stood moments previously. The Green Berets were defending their position well, although, there was nothing they could do to prevent the enemy tractor ploughing its loader’s bucket into the back of the cargo carrier.

Wonder Woman landed on top of the M977 and heaved the large bucket off the vehicle. An assortment of fire forced Diana to drop down to the ground off the top of the transport. The driver raised the loader. He murderously dropped it on Wonder Woman.

To his surprise, he lost the target. Raising the loader once more, florescent bands loped around the tractor driver in quick succession. Bonded by the golden lasso, the driver’s eyes followed its lead, upwards, to see Wonder Woman standing in the loader’s bucket, smiling down upon him.

“Looks like you’ve picked up more than you can handle,” Diana said with her hands firmly on her hips, “It’s time to lighten the load.” Wonder Woman tugged her lasso and the driver was unceremoniously bounced out of his seat onto the roadside.

The battle began to change in favour of the U.S. Army. The Green Berets started an offensive, running the enemy into the forest.

Further up the sloping woods, Nader was closing in on the command. Picking off the enemy had been relatively easy work. The guards defending the command were presenting more of a challenge. One was well protected around the bend of a large tree. A second was protecting the command behind a fallen bark, resting at an angle on the hill side. The leader was using a tree stump as cover next to what looked like a camouflaged tent. He too was firing rounds between shouting occasional instructions in Russian.

It was Nader’s brief to capture the leader, if possible, as the intelligence services would be eager to question him. On learning his troops were taking charge of the main battle along the roadside, Nader calculated it wouldn’t be long before the leader tried to make his getaway.

Always keen to lead from the front, the warrant officer signalled to Ricca to cover him. He passed from one tree to the next, around to the side of the lying bark. A perfunctorily shot from Ricca finished the leader’s primary cover. The guard behind tree deserted with Ricca on his case. Nader was clear to move in, except the leader was no longer anywhere to be seen.

Nader suddenly felt a muscular arm squeezing his throat with a knife pressed against his neck. Every substrate of his being reflexed backwards. He struck the butt end of his M4 into the assailant’s left temple. The hold loosened. Nader grabbed the man’s knife hand and cartwheeled him by his arm onto the ground. A skin headed opponent with a blood gashed face lay before him. The leader was no regular conscript but a highly trained soldier, who’s heel swept Nader’s feet from beneath him.

The leader darted away with Nader in pursuit. He threw off a camouflaged cover to reveal a silver quadbike underneath. On the front of the vehicle was a mounted machine gun, which he let rip. Nader dived for cover and crudely rolled down behind a tree. The leader revved the engine. He took off through the forest. Nader shot once; the bullet landed in the leader’s upper back.

Wonder Woman heard the roar of the spluttering engine. She broke the horse’s harness off the cart and mounted the beast. Following the sonic lead down the wooded hillside, she spotted the quadbike joining the road near the bottom of the valley. Diana galloped after it. She caught up quickly; the leader made no attempt to accelerate away. Wonder Woman lassoed him off his quadbike, which carried on, driverless, into a shallow river.

Wonder Woman stepped down from the horse to where the leader lay. She felt for a pulse, but correctly suspected he was already dead.

“Matvei Koslov,” Diana quietly confirmed. “So, the Fourth Reich was behind the attack.”

Back at the convoy, the Green Berets were mopping up and awaiting air support. A few soldiers stood over a band of robbers who were sitting huddled together with their hands behind their heads. A huge cheer erupted from the Green Berets when Wonder Woman joined them.

Nader greeted her: “Warrant Officer Nader, Wonder Woman. I hear we owe you a debt of gratitude. My men have told me how you intervened.”

“I only helped. Your troops had everything in hand, Warrant Officer Nader. What are your casualties?”

“Nothing more than a few scrapes. I can’t say the same for the ambushers.”

“What do you know about them?”

“They’re hired hands. Some of them swear to be Ukrainian farmers. That would account for their lack of professionalism. Whoever recruited these men, catastrophically underestimated our capability.”

“Or did they?” asked Wonder Woman, turning her piercing blue gaze to the warrant officer for the first time. “I wonder if, in fact, we’ve underestimated them?”

“You wonder?” Nader softly responded, half questioning, half not.

Diana gently smiled, knowingly, in a farewell gesture. A tough soldier like Nader thought he was long past getting awe struck by a beautiful lady, but as he watched Wonder Woman take to the sky, he felt his legs turn weaker than they ever had in any battle zone.

At the U.S. Airforce’s Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany, Sergei Noslov and Madame Zara sat sipping coffee in the canteen. Both were dressed in Airforce camouflage fatigues and berets. They peered out of the window to the Lockeed C-130 Hercules transporter plane loading in the distance.

“This had better work,” commented Nosov, intensely. “I don’t like shaving my head for your extravagant plan.”

Madame Zara pulled a sweetly delicious smirk, “Hold your cool, Sergei, your shaven head will be worth it – or otherwise needed for prison!”

He was about to respond when an airman approached them. “Agent Chandler and Flounders, you have clearance to accompany the Flexigraph to the Ukraine.”

“At last!” Nosov uttered in a less than convincing American accent.

Fortunately, Zara spoke like a U.S. native. She chatted, superfluously, to the serviceman on the way to the Hercules. Nosov kept quiet; he was out of his depth and he knew it.

There had long been an unspoken tension between Zara and Nosov. As much as he admired her, Nosov also viewed her with suspicion. The origin could be traced back to their time in the Spetsnaz. While Nosov had worked his way up through the ranks of the Army, Zara came under his command from the FSB. Although her history on paper was akin to his own, he never quite trusted her record. She was too smart and too beautiful to be believable, even if she was the most accurate arbalist he had ever witnessed.

There was also rivalry in the chain of command. Someone of Zara’s intellect was never going to blindly follow orders. At Dancing Feet, this was easily dealt with by letting her run the upstairs while he managed the nightclub. However, the current operation had brought the difference in their qualifications to the fore. Nosov was essentially an elite soldier, albeit, one who was a smart tactician – it was his plan to attack the convoy in order to lull the U.S. Airforce into a false sense of security – but he knew Zara was so much more than that. It was her contacts who got them into a high security U.S. Airforce base in the guise of CIA agents accompanying the secret transportation of Flexigraph. It would be extremely naïve of him if he didn’t question how Zara came to have such associations, or why someone with these kinds of resources had confined her role to that of a madame.

A handful of airmen greeted them on board the Hercules. They were keen to set off. They had, evidently, been waiting for the special guests to arrive. Clearance was granted within minutes. The thunderous engines of the Hercules huge quad propellers launched the plane upwards into the lazy dusk.

The airmen sat along the length of the cargo bay in a row of seats. Zara and Nosov were seated on the opposite side. Half an hour passed in quiet conversation before Zara reached down to the heel of her boot. Concealed in her hand was a shiny round disc, the size of a half dollar, which she tossed in the direction of the soldiers. It popped in mid-air like a firecracker. Frantic reactions ensued. Seconds later, the airmen were fast asleep.

Zara and Nosov had pulled up protective masks covering the nose and mouth, which were cleverly sown into their shirt collars when not in use. Zara took off her beret and retrieved a small lady size silver pistol that she had concealed inside the x-ray resistant fabric.

Alerted by the bang, the co-pilot unwittingly wandered into the bay. Zara pointed her gun at the startled officer. He quickly became overwhelmed by the knockout gas. She stepped over him on the way to the pilot cabin, while Nosov set about tying up the airmen.

“Was it anything to worry us?” the Captain casually asked.

“It depends how much you value your life,” Zara pertinently replied with her pistol pointing at the Captain’s head.

The Captain kept his cool. He warned, “You know they’ll come after us as soon as they figure were diverting course?”

Zara retorted, “That’s why we’re not diverting – we’re unloading.”

“WHAT THE???” panicked the Captain on glancing at the radar, “ANOTHER AIRCRAFT ALMOST ON TOP OF US!”

“A stealth aircraft underneath us,” Zara corrected. “Just keep straight and steady.”

Back in the cargo bay, Nosov was the barrels of Flexigraph for the literal drop off. They were conveniently netted together to the wooden boards on which they sat. Nosov located the cargo winch that he hooked to the centre of the boards.

“Ceychas zhe!” shouted Zara.

Novov pulled a lever, lowering the cargo ramp. He used the hydralic winch to lift the cradle of barrels off the floor and then down into the airspace. Nosov continued to lower the winch until the barrels reached the open hatches of the dark stealth plane below. He called Zara forwards.

“So long,” she said to the Captain. “Don’t forget to lock up!”

Zara glanced down at the dim lights in the darkness below. Without further ado, she grabbed hold of the winch cable and began lowering herself toward it. Nosov was just as quick to follow suit. Once both safely made the terrifying descent, the hatches closed, and the stealth jet was away.

“It couldn’t have gone more smoothly, wouldn’t agree, Sergei,” Zara remarked with a playful smirk. He returned a fleeting fake smile.

In the sky above them, unbeknown to all involved, Wonder Woman had been monitoring the entire operation. Hot their tail, she gave chase in her undetectable Invisible Plane.

For Part 5: click here