Wonder Woman: Trial by Ordeal
by marat
Chapter Five
Outside, it had grown dark. The street lamps glowed in the heavy night air. It was still surprisingly warm, although it was getting on toward eleven o'clock, and too humid for comfort. The apartment's drawn blinds allowed no one to see inside and only slivers of light escaped through the slats from a few of the rooms. The large two-storey window that faced northwest in the front of the building, which had nothing to cover its exposure, revealed only the apartment's dark interior of the living area and loft. But light seeped from under one of the bedroom doors upstairs. Inside, the air conditioning was running overtime, ensuring a high electric bill for next month.
Liddy and his four minions stood near the door to the bedroom. The bald chieftain was giving orders, arranging for the continuation of Operation Gemstone after his escape.
Operation Gemstone was the name given to a collection of White House activities, mostly political, including intelligence gathering, surveillance and disruption of opposition activities (particularly opposition to the war), and the infiltration, disruption, and direction of the Democratic Party's nomination process in the election year. Thus far, it had been underfunded, but surprisingly successful. Senator Edmund Muskie, who had at one time led President Nixon in the polls, had been driven out by a letter-writing campaign in New Hampshire. The Democratic candidate who would be easiest to beat, George McGovern, was still in the race and showing good strength in the primaries. Regardless of what happened from here on, the Democrats were too divided to carry on an effective campaign.
The break-in at the Watergate had been part of Gemstone, part of its intelligence gathering component. The purpose was to make sure that phone taps were working: There had been some complaints about the quality of reception from bugs installed a couple of weeks earlier. Liddy had directed James McCord to lead his burglars back into the Democratic offices to re-set the bugs.
But it had all gone wrong.
Sitting across the street in a Howard Johnson's Motel, Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, his boss, had seen the police arrive and arrest the five operatives.
Those arrested had kept their mouths shut, but soon enough, Liddy expected, trails would lead to him and Hunt. He had to get away before that happened.
Wonder Woman would be a perfect means of arranging his escape.
The heroine was kneeling on the floor across the room from the five men. Devastated by the events of the evening, she felt tears well up in her eyes as she held, caressed, and embraced her roommate. Penelope's long blonde hair was matted with blood and semen, and the Amazon tried to brush the ugly deposits away, but stopped when she realised that some of the coagulants left her only pulling on her lover's knotted, gnarled hair. The Princess of Paradise Island responded as if her tugs were painful to the unconscious girl. Penelope's eyes were bruised and closed, one of them badly swollen. Blood from a cut on the bridge of her nose had flowed across her cheek; dried now, it simply covered her face, nose to ear, with a ghastly red smear. Blood was also visible from Penelope's nostrils and the corners of her mouth.
As Wonder Woman shifted her weight on the floor, the sound of the chains linking her bracelets sounded loudly in her ears. The metallic clink of the steel rings recalled the laughter of her tormentors. Her powerlessness in the face of these enemies tore at her.
The Amazon Maid had surrendered to Liddy and his confederates because she feared they might threaten Penelope. But she had realised, too late, that her surrender, rather, would insure the assault and rape of her lover. She had seen the evidence of the coming attack in the faces of the bald, mustachioed leader and his subordinates at the moment that she felt her strength torn from her. In that dizzying moment, as the heroine's ability to protect her friend was ripped from her arms and her body with an almost sickening effect, the delight they had shown in their expressions had told her of the peril that the women faced.
Now Penelope, battered and defiled, was clinging to life. As Wonder Woman pressed her palms and fingers against her lover's face, neck, and shoulders, as she kissed Penelope's punished face, it was as if she were seeking to force her own vitality and vigour into the body of her friend. If only she could give this broken body some of her own strength.
Strength? The strength that had been taken from her, ripped away because of her own foolish pride. The Champion could feel, within her, the contained power of her own body: The long, hard muscles of her arms tight against her smooth skin held within them all the strength of an Amazon Princess, a Wonder Woman. But the fetters that linked her bracelets had rendered that power useless.
Penelope had paid the price.
Wonder Woman heard Liddy approaching her, his heavy footsteps muffled by the shag carpeting of the bedroom. 'Stand up, Wonder Woman.'
Gently, she placed Penelope's head on the floor and, amid the rattling of her fetters, the Amazon Princess struggled to rise to her feet.
It was evidently too slow for Liddy.
He grabbed a fistful of her raven hair and viciously yanked upward, pulling from the Princess a short yelp more from surprise than pain.
Still holding her by her hair, he pulled the Amazon toward the corner of the bedroom, away from his men. He spoke evenly, looking her level in the eye, so that she could see that he was deadly serious. 'Unless you do what I want, what has happened to your friend will happen again. It will continue to happen. I wanted you to see that you are helpless to stop them from doing whatever they wish to her.
'If you assist me, you will be freed from your chains and Penelope will be released. Both of you will be able to resume your everyday lives. If you do not, their treatment of her will continue; you will be forced to watch; it will end, no doubt, with her death. If you attempt to stop us, or if you betray me, she will be killed immediately.' There was no emotion in his voice.
'I trust you understand your… situation.'
'What do you want me to do?' Wonder Woman was almost desperate for an answer to this question. Thus far, Liddy had given only the scantiest details of what he was after.
'I will shortly have a warrant for my arrest issued to the District police. I have made some arrangements for my protection, but they require that I get out of the country quickly. You will provide transportation with your invisible plane.'
'I can't…' Wonder Woman began, before glancing at the unmoving figure of Penelope. 'I….'
'Surely you understand the circumstances you find yourself in. I am about to be tried for following orders issued from the office of the President. I am likely to go to jail for several years.' Liddy's voice was kept under control, never raising it above a harsh whisper. But he clearly felt very strongly about what he felt was the wrong he was about to suffer. Obviously, the men across the room knew nothing of this. 'I'm going to be made a fall guy for higher-ups.'
'If you're innocent, if what you did was legal, it will come out at your trial,' Wonder Woman said. 'The system will protect you.'
This time, Liddy's voice rose and he fairly shouted, 'Oh, dear, Princess, where have you been the last few years? Powerful people don't go to jail; their subordinates take the fall. Rich people get a slap on the wrist; those who work for them, those who do the dirty work… they're the ones who get hard time. Sure, we all want justice. But you've got to have the money to buy it. Next to health is wealth, and only wealth can buy you justice.
'It seems Kane told me of an instance during World War II when you actually broke someone out of captivity and flew them to freedom. Think of this in the same terms.' He had resumed his harsh whispers.
'I want you to fly me out of the country tonight, within the next hour. If you do so, you will be back in time for breakfast tomorrow and all of this will just be a painful memory.'
'Where do you want to go?' Wonder Woman felt defeated. To protect Penelope, she had to do as Liddy said.
'Patagonia.'
Many hours and many miles later, Wonder Woman's invisible plane circled a stretch of plain in the heart of the mountainous South American region. One by one, lights flickered to life, illuminating a landing strip, and the beautiful pilot saw men rushing along the edges of the runway. After circling for a final time, the unique aircraft glided towards its rest, touching down soundlessly and smoothly.
Liddy and his pilot had hardly spoken a word to one another since they had left Washington. The White House operative had taken great care to ensure that Wonder Woman would have no option but to aid in his escape. And aiding this criminal festered in the beautiful heroine's mind and spirit.
The Amazon Princess had summoned her airplane and the two had boarded from the roof of her building in Georgetown. Still bearing her shackles, insuring the containment of her Amazon strength, Wonder Woman left Penelope behind in the apartment with Liddy's four thugs. They had been instructed to do nothing further to their prisoner. They were to await his communication, informing them that he had arrived safely, when they would make sure of Penelope's well-being, and leave. At the same time, after sending the message, Liddy would remove Wonder Woman's chains, and she would be allowed to return home.
It was apparently a foolproof plan. Evidently, there were plenty of men here at the airstrip to make sure that Liddy remained at liberty, and, besides, the Amazon heroine only wanted to return to Georgetown as soon as possible to provide care to her friend and lover.
Wonder Woman followed Liddy across the frigid landing zone, the cold temperature turning their breaths to mist as they headed toward a camouflaged hangar. The landing lights lining the runway were one by one being extinguished, now that the invisible plane had landed. Young men in military fatigues shouted orders and responses in Spanish, and officers, decked out in dress uniforms, as if expecting a foreign dignitary, lined up at the entrance to the building.
Liddy saluted the officers smartly as he hastened toward them. 'General Guzmán, how are you?' he said laughingly. 'What do you think of my transportation?'
General Guzmán, wearing an Air Marshal's insignia of the Chilean Air Force and an emblem of a jump-qualified officer, laughed. 'I will have to study it before I can offer an opinion.'
'And what do you think of my pilot?'
All of the officers were silent.
Wonder Woman had followed several paces behind Liddy's rapid march. It was not the weight or the strength of the fetters that slowed her usual rapid pace; it was the knowledge that Men had welded chains to her Amazon bracelets. The dazzling heroine, now weakened, grew increasingly uncomfortable as she felt the eyes the half dozen officers fix on her. Her taut satin uniform, emblazoned with the eagle breastplate and the star-spangled satin tights, clung to her body like a second skin, firing the imaginings of these men and an uncomfortable self-consciousness in the powerless Amazon Maiden.
General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force, was a member of a conspiratorial group of military officers with whom Liddy had been in contact for several months. These top-ranking officers, led by General Augusto J.R. Pinochet Ugarte, had been plotting, with the aid of the United States Government and the CIA, to first weaken, and eventually to overthrow the elected Government of Chile's Socialist President, Salvador Allende Gossens. Liddy had served as an assistant to the CIA liaison to the officers.
Now, he was seeking their help to protect himself. This secret landing strip was one of several in this border region between Chile and Argentina. Liddy had carried some of the cash that had paid for its construction and supply to these Chilean officers and to their fellows in Argentina, dissatisfied with the left-leaning rule of General Alexander Agustín Lanusse Gelly. From such bases in 1973, coups would be launched to overthrow both rulers, successful against Allende, unsuccessful a month later against Lanusse.
Now, in June 1972, still remote and secret, they were depots for training and for storing military supplies.
'Tell me, Señor Liddy, is she a good pilot?' General Guzmán asked, a smutty grin working its way across his face. He licked his lips lasciviously as he looked her enticing body up and down.
'She is… very quiet.'
'I can see why. You have put her in her place.' The Amazon was taken aback by the conversation. She had expected to be freed and allowed to return to the United States; she had not bargained for this demeaning evaluation of her attributes.
Two junior officers approached the Amazon Princess from behind and took her by her arms, rushing her toward the door to the hangar. Her deep blues eyes went wide and she tried to twist her body, to dig in her heels, to resist but the officers were quickly joined by two enlisted men. The powerless Champion of All Women was dragged into the large camouflaged shelter. The half-dozen officers quickly followed, some laughing in anticipation. Liddy was the last to enter.
Inside, Wonder Woman continued to struggle in vain against the men who now held her. She vigourously wrenched herself in an effort to release their strong grip, pulling first her right arm and then her left, trying to twist herself that she might kick herself free. Everything failed. The rising laughter of the Chilean officers at her struggles finally slowed her resistance.
'She is still fiery, despite her shackles,' Guzmán said, still smiling. 'You have not broken her.'
'You have no doubt heard how independent she is. She will not be broken easily.
'But you will have lots of time.'
Wonder Woman shot a wide-eyed look at Liddy. 'You promised… I would be… freed… if….'
'I lied,' Liddy replied. 'I had to get away, and you were the only way to avoid airport customs.' He didn't sound sorry.
'But, what about… my friend?' Wonder Woman's heart was breaking.
'I will contact my associates that you have carried out your part of the bargain. She will be released.'
'How do I know you're telling me the truth this time?'
'She was only a means to an end. I have no further need of her. You may choose not to believe me, but the fact is that my men will be out of your apartment within two hours.'
These words somewhat lifted the spirits of the Amazon Maiden.
'But you will be the price of my liberty. And you will begin by getting on your knees in front of these men.'
'Liddy, you should know that I will never debase myself in such a way.'
'You will get on your knees… or I will not send that telegram. You will show these officers the respect a woman owes to her masters.' His tone indicated he was serious.
'You will see that stubbornness is not a virtue, Wonder Woman,' a new voice said, coming from behind the hapless heroine.
Everyone cast his gaze at the figure who had emerged from the office next to the door through which Wonder Woman had been carried. His intonation, high-pitched and loud, reflected someone used to giving orders. He was an old man, the left side of whose face was badly scarred. The tracks of the scarring disappeared under an eye patch that covered his left eye. He walked erect, but slowly, with a military bearing of long standing, and he limped noticeably, favouring his left leg. A black leather glove covered his left hand.
The clicking heels of the Chilean officers indicated that this was a man of high military rank, though his accent indicated that he was not from South America. The officers gripping the Amazon heroine released their hold and stood to attention. The snap to attention by these military men was all the more surprising because, like Liddy, he wore civilian clothes.
He slowly approached the captive Amazon Princess, a smile twisting his lips. 'You will do as your master orders, Wonder Woman. You will get on your knees.' The enlisted men holding her pressed her body toward the cold concrete floor.
As she resisted the pressure, Wonder Woman voiced her defiance. 'No man is the master of an Amazon.'
'But you are chained, Wonder Woman. The chains are a symbol of your subservience to Men,' Liddy said. 'And I understand that you learned the nature of subservience at Schloss Stössel under… now-General Kesselmann, what was it, thirty years ago?'
Kesselmann!
'Yes, Wonder Woman, look at me and see your own past. It was we who first taught you submission in our dungeons. There, for the first time, you became a whore for Men.'
The weight and strength of the two enlisted men holding her had finally driven Wonder Woman to her knees, but she stared defiantly up at Kesselmann. 'You may have used me in a depraved way, Kesselmann, but it was Fausta Grebel who captured me and brought me to you. And it was she who helped me to escape after you took me a second time.'
Kesselmann's face contorted in fury. 'Fausta Grebel was a traitor! And she paid for her treason!' He calmed himself as he continued, 'When she was captured, she screamed for mercy.'
Wonder Woman had not known what had happened to the powerful 'Nazi Wonder Woman' who had first been her rival, and then her friend.
'There was no mercy,' Kesselmann concluded.
'Because of the failure of Operation Wonder Woman… because of your escape from the heart of the Reich,' the man in the subdued civilian attire continued, his rage spent, 'I was ordered to the Russian Front, where Operation Citadel made me the man I am today. I was promoted to General, and within forty-eight hours of that promotion, a Soviet artillery barrage sent me to hospital.
'I have spent thirty years waiting for this day, Wonder Woman, awaiting my revenge. Now you are before me again, chained, helpless, and on your knees, and, this time, I do not intend to allow you to escape. These men will keep you in this place, until we are ready for you to fulfill your function. You will again learn your place is only to serve Men, not compete with them.
'Your purpose has been made clear to me by our friend Herr Liddy. You will be broken, as you were at Schloss Stössel. These gentlemen will be only too happy to help you relive that experience. And since, as I have been informed, you cannot become pregnant except at one time during the year—'
Wonder Woman shot a shocked look at Liddy, standing behind Kesselman, smiling. The former SS officer noticed the glance and allowed Liddy to interject, 'Kane thought I didn't understand what you told us. Given that he was no longer part of my plans, I saw no need to let him think otherwise.'
The strident voice of the Nazi officer continued, 'Since you cannot become pregnant except at one time during the year—in the spring—it will be up to us to hold you in our custody until then.
'Do you have the Führer's DNA, Herr Liddy?'
Liddy reached into his satchel and pulled out a small metal container. He handed it to the old man, who seemed to stand a little straighter, hold his head a little higher, once he received it. Liddy told him, 'It must be placed in cold storage immediately.'
Kesselmann passed the parcel to a Chilean major, who raced to the office from which the Nazi had emerged. Kesselman seemed to be reveling in Wonder Woman's predicament.
'Teach her the error of her ways,' he ordered.
The two enlisted men violently pulled the Champion to her feet, the links rattling metallically on the polished cement floor. They stretched her arms outward from her shoulders. The strong young soldiers then wrapped their own arms around Wonder Woman's bare limbs, securing them in a firm, strong grip, pulling to control the struggling Amazon. A tall, powerfully built officer stepped in front of the star-spangled heroine, massaging his fist. Wonder Woman tried to twist herself free, but before she could complete her first move, his balled right fist, as large as a softball, crashed into the side of her head.
'AAAaaaaahhhhh!' cried the powerless woman. The blow was painful, but her response was equally a result of surprise.
Almost immediately, his left fist smashed against her cheek, twisting her head obscenely about. The rapid right-left combination dazed the heroine.
Wonder Woman tried to blink clarity back to her vision, but the large, powerful Chilean officer gave her no respite, and worked her over brutally. One blow after another rained down from his fists against her struggling body, wrapping her in pain and fatigue. Finally, one last blow, this one into her diaphragm, ripped her senses from her.
'OOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhh!'
Desperately fighting for air, Wonder Woman gasped and heaved, but again, before she could even clear her head, still another smashing blow laid on her another layer of pain. But this time the attack came from a new source, from an unseen officer behind her, who drove his knuckles directly against her back in the area of her kidneys.
'GGGhhhhhaaaaaakkkkkkhhhhhh!'
Her legs very nearly gave out from under her and the two enlisted men, who had until now struggled to keep the still-potent Amazon under control, changed their grips; they released the hold which restrained the heroine, and adopted one which merely supported her. Wonder Woman's head lolled down toward her chest and her body slumped visibly in the grasp of the soldiers. The officer in front of her pulled her face upward by grabbing her raven hair with his left hand, holding her just inside the rim of her Princess' tiara. A fraction of a second later, his right hand again crashed into her beautiful visage, twisting her much-photographed and readily recognised aspect horribly. His next punch drove deep into her abdomen, burying itself almost up to the wrist and driving the wind from her body again.
There was a brief pause in the beating delivered against the Champion as a new attacker, almost as large and equally fierce, now replaced the first officer. His first blow was a right cross that landed flush on her cheekbone. Once again, Wonder Woman's head seemed to swivel on top of her neck and another cry of pain, now noticeably weaker than those earlier, was wrenched from her.
'AAAaaaaaaaaaggggggggggglllllllllmmmmmm!'
An uppercut delivered right to the point of her chin drove her head back at an extreme angle and a dribble of blood crept out from the corner of the Amazon's mouth. When she opened her lips to gasp for air a bubble of blood formed and burst and the red ooze became a stream that poured down her chin. Her deep blue eyes rolled in her head as unconsciousness threatened to overwhelm the Champion of All Women.
She fought against the darkness, though she could not even focus her eyes on her attackers. At the same time, her legs finally gave out from under her and her body collapsed in the grip of the two men who held her. The once-mighty Wonder Woman had been rendered helpless and was casually tossed to the cement floor of the hangar. She lay like a clumsy rag doll, gasping, painfully trying to fill her lungs with revitalising air. But Kesselmann was not through with his revenge. Yet another uniformed figure approached the prone woman, and he immediately dug a powerful kick into her side, one that lifted the helpless Amazon from the floor.
'UUUuuuuullllllggggggggkkkkkkkkhhhhh!!'
When she raised her battered face to try to gain her bearings, a second kick, this time roundhouse, smashed against the side of her head. Wonder Woman's entire body twisted as it was thrown sidelong across the cement, landing on her back.
The beautiful Amazon Maiden's body writhed slowly, almost sensually, on the floor, the twisting motion an attempt to reduce the pain that gripped her. A look of near-desperation covered her face, which was obscured by a swath of blood across her chin, the drying ooze smeared upward toward her right ear. Her long raven hair was tousled, swept across her eyes or radiating long strands of her black, tangled mane across the polished cement. The golden tiara that was the symbol of her royal heritage had disappeared in the sweaty disarray. Her eyes were barely open. If her enemies could have gazed into her eyes, they would have seen a despair there, a despair that had only rarely gripped this Champion of All Women. Sweat glistened on the smooth, silken surface of her body, at her neck and shoulders. Wonder Woman's long arms lay on the floor, her left arm reaching straight out from her shoulder while the right was bent at the elbow with her hand lying adjacent to her star-spangled hip. The chains that linked her bracelets formed a large semicircle enclosing her lower body, its smooth perimeter broken only at her ankles, where the strength-sapping links rested on top of the still gleaming red leather of her boots. Inside that semicircle, the Princess' perfectly formed legs lie akimbo, their spread making an inviting enticement to all of the officers present.
The Amazon's famed and well-recognised costume clung to her beaten body like a second skin. The red and gold satin of her breastplate expanded and contracted as her chest rose and fell in her torment. The satin alternately stretched and bunched ever so slightly as the heroine tried to catch her breath. The eagle's wings that embraced her ample breasts seemed to change size as her chest rose and fell, quivering as if in pain. Hippolyte's golden girdle clung to her narrow waist, the eagle's talons seeming to rest firmly on the pedestal provided by its contour. This golden belt, a gift from the Princess' mother, was, like her golden tiara, a symbol of her royal heritage. Her present status, chained by men and powerless, mocked the golden accessories that evinced her birthright. The star-spangled tights, high-cut, revealing her perfectly round and muscular hips, lay flat against the surface of her body. On the inside of her thighs, the dark satin was stained with her sweat as the shaped form curled around the Amazon girl's sex. Her once-powerful body seemed to be moving in slow motion, winding and unwinding, contorting itself in front of the officers who watched fixedly.
'Take her to her… quarters,' Kesselmann ordered. 'She will be receiving visitors tonight.' The two enlisted men who had restrained her earlier, now lifted the battered Champion under her shoulders and marched toward the rear of the hangar. Her polished leather boots slid almost noiselessly across the polished cement floor. All of the men laughed as Wonder Woman was dragged away, barely conscious.
As usual, Kesselmann allowed the officers to bid for the right of primacy. Each of the Chilean officers had a particular 'specialty' to which the helpless prisoner would be treated over the course of the next painful hours.
The battered Amazon Maiden struggled toward consciousness. Beneath her, she felt the damp cold stones of a dungeon floor. As she pushed herself painfully to her knees, she tried to grasp the enormity of Liddy's betrayal. She had allowed herself to be chained, depriving the Amazon Princess of her strength. Now, Liddy had turned her over to a collection of military officers under the command of a man who had only loathing and revenge in his heart. Kesselmann had presided over her first disgrace; he had seen her broken once; he would settle for nothing less this time.
Oh, Hera, help me! Why do men never change? Why do they persist in degrading me? Why must I face these trials? What must I do?
End of Chapter Five
Comments, questions, suggestions welcome: contact the author at mailto:marat1793@earthlink.net