WONDER WOMAN: The Senator’s Crisis by marat
Chapter 8
It was a dark and stormy night. If that were not
such a terrible line to open a work of fiction, it would
have been perfectly apt to describe the
atmosphere around Senator Carlton’s house just after
midnight on this night. Heavy clouds lowered
over the house as the rain poured down in buckets.
Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed across the
sky. And from the security of her invisible plane,
Wonder Woman watched the spectacular light show.
The determined look on her face hid the
doubts she felt about this expedition. With the
darkened skies and, looking shining and wet amidst
its security lights, the great house itself
appeared threatening as her plane swept past.
Wonder Woman looked carefully for a possible
place to land, but the hilly landscape made landing
even an invisible plane impossible. On her third
pass over the house, she realised that a landing was
out of the question, if she was to approach the
house unobserved. The glow from the security lights
reached far out into the darkness. Beyond, there
were hills and sharp drops, revealed to the Amazon
Princess by her radar. And in this weather,
attempting a landing in that environment would be…
well, crazy.
She gave the plane a mental order to circle the
house at a discrete distance. Then she dove from the
plane. Carried by air currents toward the roof,
well lit by security lanterns placed on the roof, and
showing at least two skylights through which she
might gain entrance to the house, the
star-spangled form of Wonder Woman floated
gracefully downward in the rain. Before landing, she
circled the roof one time, looking for cameras
and finding none, at least none that covered the roof
itself. There was one on each side of the house
pointing outward from the roof, covering the
approaches to the entrances.
Dipping her powerful body, she landed gracefully
on her feet, her three-inch heels making small
clicking noises on the flat part of the roof,
She then stood in the soaking rain, looking down toward
one of the sky-lights, this one, lit from
within. She slipped under the handrail at the edge of the glass,
and then slid her body along the metal roof
toward the glowing glass. Because the angle of the roof
was not severe, she was able to slide under
control and stop herself with little sound. Lying next to
the latched frame, she peeked over the edge.
She saw the upstairs hall, lights shining
brightly within. Doors on opposite sides of the hall gave
way, she guessed, to family bedrooms. There was
one black-uniformed figure standing at one end of
the hall. If she were making an invasion of the
house by force, this would be an appropriate way of
entering.
But it wouldn’t do for the kind of entrance she
was seeking tonight. Rolling away from the skylight,
she scrambled quietly up the roof toward the
peak, and crawled again under the handrail. She moved
to the opposite end of the building. This end
was in almost total darkness.
Again dipping beneath the rail, she slid toward
the closed skylight. It was almost completely dark
within, the only source of light coming from the
opposite end of the hall, which so brightly
illuminated the other window. Her sharp Amazon
eyes discerned not even the movement of a
shadow within. This would be the perfect access
she was looking for. But she would have to be
careful about the rain. She would have to dry
herself and remove any trace of water that came in
with her.
She gently tugged on the six-foot frame of metal
and glass. It didn’t budge. Locked. That wasn’t a
problem except for any loud noise breaking the
lock would create.
Just then a roll of thunder passed over the
house. Wonder Woman knew what she would do. She
rolled over on her back and scanned the sky for
the next lightning flash. It came moments later. As
soon as it appeared, she rolled toward the
skylight and grabbed the edge. As soon as the thunder
began to peal, she pulled upward, tearing the
locking mechanism up with the frame. She was luck.
The thunder was so loud even she, so close,
barely heard the tearing and straining sounds of the
metal.
Extending her left arm fully out from her body,
she grabbed the inside lip of the frame of the skylight
and rolled into the house. Supporting her weight
by her right arm, she lowered the frame back into
place, pulling herself up to watch the lock fit
into the torn space near her hand. She then dropped
into the dark room beneath her. Looking around,
she spotted a piece of unused furniture, covered in
a white drop cloth. She yanked the cloth from
the sofa, as it was revealed to be, dust flying upward.
She could see it in the dim light entering from
down the hall through the open door. She used the
drop cloth to dry the floor beneath the skylight
and to dry herself, particularly her boots.
Replacing the cloth over the sofa, she carefully
checked to make sure that the wet portions were not
too much in evidence. Most of them hung down the
backside of the couch, though there was some
evidence on the cushions. Well, that can’t be
helped, she thought. She then made her way to the
doorway, where she pressed herself against the
wall directly adjacent to the doorjamb.
Listening intently, she could discern no sound
on the floor. The powerful Amazon walked lightly to
the nearest door on the hall. It was ajar, and
she slid it open. It was a bathroom.
The Princess moved to the next door on the same
side of the hall. This one was fully closed.
Gingerly, she turned the knob and slowly opened
the door. The instant it made a small squeak, when
the door had opened to about two feet, she
stopped. She listened again for any sign that someone
had heard. There was none. She quickly entered
the room.
It was dark, but the light from the security
lamps outside gave enough of a glow so that she could
see enough. The bed was unmade and sitting on a
table near the door was a Gladstone bag. The
room was heavily carpeted, so Wonder Woman moved
freely about. She went to the closet, a
walk-in, and turned on the light.
It looked like a theatrical costume shop. Odds
and ends of clothing styles, high-button shoes, long
skirts, cardigans, and other apparel were hung
on hangers or scattered about on the floor. As
Wonder Woman drew near to the area where all
these garments were kept, she noticed that they
probably hadn’t been washed too recently.
In another corner, she saw an odd cast iron pot.
Next to it was a leather-and-cloth pouch. She was
about to open the pouch she heard sounds coming
from the hall.
All she could hear was mumbling. Even Wonder
Woman’s acute Amazon hearing could only make
out an occasional word in the deep guttural
voice she heard approaching the room. The Amazon
quickly doused the light as the voice came
closer. Whoever it was, she was dissatisfied about
something. And it was clearly a woman, despite
the unnatural deepness of her voice. The woman
stopped at the entrance to the room, and
continued her complainings
Then, ‘Olga! Come down here!’ It was the
Senator’s voice, ringing from the first floor.
The mumbling continued. Then the voice receded
down the hall, ‘Al right, all right! I’m coming!’
Wonder Woman fled the closet and made her way
into the hall. A she crossed the dark passage, she
noticed in the shadows at the end of the
building a stairwell going downward.
‘This might be the easiest way to wherever it is
I want to be,’ she thought. She went down the
carpeted stairs, emerging on the living room
level. That part of the Senator’s house was dark again,
and out of the darkness she saw much activity,
particularly for this hour of the night. Several men
wearing black uniforms were carrying large boxes
around. Who are these men? What’s behind all
this activity? What’s going on?
The Amazon Princess went down to the next level.
She peered out into the living quarters of the
house where the activity continued. Four of the
uniformed men carried two large boxes to the top of
the stairs and stacked them there. As they moved
on, the abandoned boxes tempted the Princess, a
temptation she could not resist. Quietly she
sneaked back up the stairs, and then hid behind the
boxes. When all movement on the floor ceased,
she rose and pried open one of the container.
Inside were a dozen of the Army’s new rifles for
fighting the war in Vietnam, the M-16.
Wonder Woman stared at the weapons. No private
citizen, not even a Senator, was supposed to
have access to own these weapons, she thought.
What is Carlton doing with these?
She sneaked back down the stairs, taking
advantage of the dark shroud as activity resumed. Looking
further into the bowels beneath the house,
Wonder Woman pushed further downward, moving
toward the first sub-basement.
*****
Because so many of the Senator’s guards were
busy in the living areas of the house, the first
sub-level, which housed their sleeping quarters,
rec room, and storage areas, was almost empty. The
Amazon Princess freely investigated several
rooms on that level, finding more wooden crates
containing some of the Army’s newest weaponry.
On the bulleting board in many of the rooms, she
found copies of her photographs from the recent
issue of the Star. It seemed these men were
particularly interested in her recent encounter
with the well-armed, black-garbed men in front of the
Air and Space Museum.
But the stairs continued downward beneath the
great house.
The Amazon had free access to all of the
storerooms on the second sub-level. The kinds of weaponry
and explosives shocked her. It looks like the
Senator is preparing for a world war, or at least an
invasion of Virginia, she thought to herself.
There were enough weapons and supplies for a force of
at least dozens of fully armed troopers. She had
seen more than a dozen moving around upstairs.
How many men does he have around here?
She walked uncomprehendingly through 002 and saw
the bitchbender. She saw the room where she
had been attacked by guards with cattle prods.
None of this registered any familiarity. But this time
she noted their locations, their proximity to
other rooms.
The one important thing here that doesn’t make
any sense is the reason for all of this equipment, she
puzzled. What is it all for?
The answer to that question had to be somewhere
in the Senator’s offices within the house. And
going to those areas would be dangerous. The
fearless Amazon made her way back upstairs,
determined to get that information.
She stood in the darkened stairwell, staring out
past the indoor garden at the men moving quickly
and with purpose about the main floor. Through
an open door she saw the library. She did not
remember meeting the Senator there during her
first visit.
For a moment, there was quiet on the floor. All
the black-uniformed men had moved elsewhere in
the house. Wonder Woman leapt up the last flight
of stairs, moved to her left along the dark walls,
looking for--? Who knew what? The front door
opened and the sound of the guards returning
spurred her to a decision. A door, invisible
from the front entrance because of the shrubbery of the
garden met her searching hands. Unlocked. She
pushed it open and stepped inside.
Quickly closing the door behind her, she turned
to look around. The room was brightly lit from the
security lights outside. It was cramped, with a
desk and several filing cabinets. Papers were strewn
about the desk, though not haphazardly. Above
the desk and along the wall opposite were more
bookshelves. There were no books here, however,
but studies, pamphlets, dossiers, files, and
government publications. She looked over the
ones most evident on the desk. FBI reports on the
Weathermen (Maybe I should keep this for my
report to Steve.), the SDS, the Black Panthers, and
other groups. Another stack had CIA reports on
domestic groups (This is odd: The CIA is forbidden
to engage in any domestic activity.) and
military intelligence assessments of even more groups. On
the cover of one folder Wonder Woman saw the
Senator’s own handwriting: COINTELPRO. What
was that?
Wonder Woman turned to the filing cabinets
behind her. She saw that they were organized
alphabetically. She tugged at the ‘C’ drawer.
Locked. Well, if COINTELPRO was something the
Senator was involved in, it might give her some
information she would need. The rain had stopped
temporarily and any thunder was too far away to
cover any noise she might make. Nevertheless, she
had to risk it. She took hold of the locking
mechanism at the top of the cabinet, punched her fingers
through the thin metal surrounding it, and
pulled it from the cabinet. The whole operation took only
seconds and there was hardly any sound to
register her action.
She reached down and opened the drawer. There
was only one file inside. By the light coming from
the windows, she read, boldly stamped on the
outside, COINTELPRO.
What she read horrified her. Here was the
President’s plan to use FBI, CIA, military Intelligence,
DIA, and other agencies of the federal
government to investigate, infiltrate, and in some cases direct
the actions of various groups, including such
legitimate and nonviolent organisations as the ACLU,
the ADA, and even college organisations. It even
hinted darkly at some of the things which had been
told her when she was in the Senator’s power
about how the White House would control and direct
public opinion.
Wonder Woman decided that this file was
necessary evidence in her investigation. She had friends
in the media, especially at the Washington Post;
they would know what to do with it. Before she did
anything else, she needed to get this to her
invisible plane. She checked the windows. One was
unlocked. The ground outside was soaked from the
rain, and it was drizzling again. She knew her
plane was circling the house at a safe altitude,
but she needed to get to it.
From the ground outside, she leaped to the roof,
taking advantage of the darkness at the corner of the
house. Once on the roof, she used the stronger
winds to glide on air currents while calling her plane
to her.
*****
She returned to the great house after depositing
the COINTELPRO file in her plane. Like a moth
drawn to a flame, Wonder Woman sought the danger
of the house, hoping to gather further
information on the activities of the
conspirators. She returned to the study from which she had taken
the file, entering through the open window on
the ground floor. She continued to search through the
drawers of the cabinets, the loose files on the
desk, and the drawers of the desk. Everything else she
turned up would be expected in a Senator’s
private study. Any further information would have to be
found in another part of the house.
The library. Looking out across the hallway, she
saw no one at all moving about on the first floor.
Creeping into the dark, she raced to the indoor
garden, using its cover to approach the library. As
she came to the double doors, she entered the
brightly lit part of the house. But, again, there seemed
to be no activity at all on the first floor.
Slipping into the library, she closed the door
behind her. She looked over the shelves of books rising
to the ceiling. In the centre of the room was a
highly polished, very ornate desk. The sleek Amazon
moved directly to it and searched the drawers
until she found a thick file marked ‘Chappaquiddick.’
The file had the official stamp of the FBI on
it. Why would the FBI be investigating Senator
Kennedy’s auto accident? Glancing quickly
through the file, she saw that it included interviews with
local police and media, people who had been at
the party with the Senator, and others. Attached to
the last page, a letter from J. Edgar Hoover
ordering that the investigation remain secret and top
priority, was a note handwritten by Senator
Carlton, indicating that President Nixon wanted this
investigation continued. What was going on at
the White House?
Returning the file to the desk, the Amazon
Princess continued to search the drawers, looking for
further information to answer all the questions
forming around these unexplainable events.
In the bottom drawer of the desk, she found a
dew file boxes. One was marked ‘Papers, H of R.’
Another, ‘Papers, Second Term.’ She removed the
box marked ‘Pres.’s letters.’
Opening the box, she discovered several
compartments, each with the name of a President providing
the filing system: ‘LBJ, 1967-8,’ ‘LBJ, 1968-9,’
RMN, 1969-70.’ From the backmost file, Wonder
Woman pulled out a handful of the most recent
letters. She sat down at the desk and began to read.
What she uncovered devastated her. The President
was undertaking an effort to sabotage the
Presidential campaigns of his Democratic rivals,
to use agencies of the Federal Government like the
IRS to harass those who opposed him, and was
even considering establishing a secret police unit in
the White House. And these letters had no
machine-generated signature. Each had a personal note
from the President thanking the Senator for his
work and the genuinely friendly signature, ‘Dick.’
The Princess of the Amazons took two of these
most incriminating pieces of evidence, folded them
carefully and placed them inside her golden
belt. They were not visible as she rose from the desk.
This was all that she needed. All she need do
now was get out of the house. But as she stood by the
desk, an unfamiliar sickness passed over her.
*****
She had been seen. It was only a momentary
glimpse by a guard entering the stairwell from the
second floor, but her costume was unmistakable.
The Senator had been notified and he called Olga.
‘Bring what’s left of your brew,’ he ordered
her.
It took a few minutes for the witch to arrive,
during which time the Princess found the documents
from the President. Olga was carrying her cast
iron pot and several small vessels each containing a
small amount of a greenish gelatin.
‘She’s in the house. Stop her. Hurt her.’
‘In what condition would you like her, sir?’
Olga’s eyes were shining.
‘Alive. But in excruciating pain.’
‘That spell may use up the last of her essence.
You’ll have to find some other way to control her,’
Olga said quietly.
‘That contingency is already well known,’ the
Senator replied, thinking of Wonder Woman’s golden
lasso.
The witch sat down with the pot before her. She
removed the three pieces of green substance from
the coloured bowls she had brought with her. She
placed one in the pot, then set another next to her.
The third she held in her hand as she began
chanting. She swayed as she chanted, the words, in
some unknown tongue, becoming less and less
distinct. She brought her hands together over the
green piece of gelatin, then rubbed them and
continued chanting. Instead of falling to pieces, the
gelatin seemed to become hard and formed into a
stick under her rubbing. She placed it in the iron
pot and did the same with the second piece.
Taking the two green sticks, she began a new
chant, rubbing them together and against the third
piece in the pot. Soon a green flame appeared.
*****
The pain was almost unnoticeable when it first
seized her, a vague discomfort. Gripped by the
reading, she did not notice the growing intensity
within until she stood up. She stumbled against the
desk. She took a single step forward, then
staggered. Before long, she doubled up in pain, trying to
walk. Finally all she could do was rock back and
forth, resting her hip against the large, heavy desk.
She squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth
and pressed her lips together. Her arms wrapped
around her body and the pain made her dizzy.
Unable to move forward or back, she no longer
thought about her next step. All Wonder Woman
could focus on was the inferno raging inside her
body. She fell to her knees, and as she did so, the
intensity of the pain ravaging her sharply
increased again. The powerful Princess from Paradise
Island shot upright and, in doing so, lost her
balance. She tumbled onto her back, without failing to
hit the chair first. It too tumbled to the
floor.
*****
The sound of the chair crashing to the floor of
the library caught the attention of one of the guards
standing near the indoor garden. He raced to the
closed door, threw it open, and was shocked at the
sight of the beautiful Amazon writhing on the
floor, her knees drawing up to her chin, then her body
straightening and rolling over on its back and
from side to side.
‘Senator! Captain Lauer! She’s here!’ he called.
Instantly the hallway was filled with the sound
of men running toward the library. More footfalls
were heard on the stairs, and soon two dozen
black-uniformed security men were gathered around
the helpless heroine, who had absolutely no idea
of their presence. All Wonder Woman could feel
was her insides on fire, the sense that every
internal organ was being devoured by a relentless and
unquenchable blaze. She continued to roll on the
floor, a sight many of the men watching regarded
as sensual, and even erotic. Her long naked
legs, from the tops of her leather boots to the hem of her
satin tights shone with perspiration. Her bare
upper chest and beautiful face were likewise soaked
with sweat, tears streaming from her tightly
clamped eyes. But despite her obvious pain, no sound
escaped her lips.
‘Well, well,’ the Senator chuckled. ‘Looks like
we’ve got ourselves an intruder. Get Olga here!’
One of the guards stepped into the doorway and
called the witch. It took a few minutes for her to
arrive. When she did so, Senator Carlton noticed
that the three green pieces of essence were still
burning, and then shot a glance at the writhing
superheroine before him. He reached down and
removed the Amazon’s magic lasso from her hip.
He stooped and wrapped the loop of the lasso
around Wonder Woman’s neck and pulled it tight.
‘Olga, you can put the fire out. Save the bit
that you have left for later. Do you have enough to kill
her?’
‘Killing is easy,’ Olga replied. ‘Any small
amount will do for that.’
‘Stand her up!’ he ordered the guards.
Wonder Woman was pulled roughly to her feet by
two of the guards. As they stood on either side of
her, each one firmly holding one of her arms,
the Amazon Princess slowly recovered from her trial by
magic. The pain slowly subsided, and she
gradually stood more erect. Her face was still a mask of
pain, but her eyes soon fluttered open and began
to focus on the men surrounding her.
She stood slightly bent at the waist, her
shoulders rounded, her head hanging. Her knees were
together and the toe of her right boot sat on
top of the toe of her left. Although she was the most
powerful woman in the world, she looked
exceedingly weak and helpless at the moment. The fire
inside was dying and it would be a few minutes
more before she would recognise the danger of her
situation. Slowly her mind cleared. And the
first thing it felt was the control of her golden lasso.
End of Chapter 8
Comments, questions, suggestions welcome::
contact the author at marat1793@comcast.net