by André Caroff
“Okay, okay, you did your duty, great. Afterward you contacted the FBI, specifically Brown and he got in touch with James Edward Evans who told him I was on the way. All this is logical except the false information that someone gave you. Who was on the other end of the line?”
“A woman. She knew her job…”
“Not as well as you think,” Beffort barked, “because I was only alerted after Brown’s call!”
Burger’s jaw dropped. “I don’t understand.”
“I do! Someone made us lose more than an hour by purposefully neglecting to forward your warning!”
“No!” Soblen shouted. “Don’t tell me that Madame Atomos has managed to infiltrate the FBI headquarters!”
Beffort scowled. “If you’ve got a better explanation, doc, I’m all ears. But in all likelihood, we’re going to find someone close to out boss who’s been working for Madame Atomos for months.” He swung around to Burger. “Is your van equipped to communicate with Washington?”
“Of course.” Burger shot back. “You want to get in touch?”
“Get a hold of the office of James Edward Evans for Smith Beffort as top priority.”
Burger jumped into the van, gave orders to the operator and waited. Off to the side, Soblen was watching the flame burn in the night with unusual regularity. Its height did not vary an inch, nor its diameter and its metallic blue color remained the same.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it?” Akamatsu murmured. “Like in the good old legends of my country, Madame Atomos is spitting flames like a dragon.”
“It’s even more disturbing,” Soblen said, “because until now fire was our main weapon against the servants of the Atomos Organization. I wonder if this is not a prelude to a change in Madame Atomos’ favorite methods?”
“Don’t jinx us, doc” Beffort complained, in a worse mood because of his anxiety. “If she changes her methods of attack, we’re not going to know how to deal with her.”
Soblen stared hard at him. “What’s wrong with you, Smith? You’ve been out of sorts since we left Washington.”
“I’m scared,” Beffort admitted without any shame. “Madame Atomos has been playing with us for years, but she can easily crush us in her claws. Imagine what would happen if this fire spread throughout Nevada and then into the other western states before heading for the Midwest…”
“Easy does it,” Akamatsu said. “Don’t let your imagination get carried away, Smith. Right now it’s only a single flame that nobody’s tried to put out yet.”
Burger interrupted the three men and called Beffort into the van. He put on the headphones and said, “Beffort here. Can you hear me, Mr. Evans?”
“Loud and clear,” J.E.E. answered. What’s new, Smith?”
“A fire in the desert,” Beffort responded succinctly, “but that’s not why I’m bothering you. Can you quickly check if anyone has run away from your department?”
“Run away?”
“Someone on the switchboard willfully held back a call from Reno. It was a woman. She was on duty between 8 and 9 p.m.”
“In that case,” J.E.E. assured him, “she should still be here.”
“How many girls on the switchboard?”
“Three, but only one stays there during dinnertime.”
Beffort laughed, “I’ll bet the girls have dinner at exactly 8 p.m. See if she’s still there. After all, she might have just forgotten.”
“And if not?”
“If you don’t find her, Mr. Evans, that means that she’s been with the Atomos Organization for who knows how long and Madame Atomos knew from a reliable source exactly how we were going to attack her. And to kidnap my wife and daughter, you have to admit that you’d need first hand information.”
“Hold the line,” J.E.E. said, slightly hoarse. “I’ll get you an answer in 30 seconds, no more!”
Beffort lit a cigarette, took two drags, and then J.E.E.’s voice shook the speakers.
“She’s gone, Smith!”
“No… who is it?”
“Susan Doolittle, the general’s granddaughter. She said she was sick and went home.”
“At what time?
“8:30.”
“Right after Burger’s telephone call. No doubt about it, she’s part of the Organization. You have to find her immediately. Put Eddy Witter on her trail. He knows what to do with those poor folk given motor-brains by Madame Atomos’ surgeons. Has the girl been with you a long time?”
“Three years,” Evans sighed. He was shattered. “God only knows what harm she might have done us if what you say is true.”
“Don’t moan about it,” Beffort said. “If Madame Atomos had given her the order, she would have murdered you in cold blood, which is not out of the question now that her cover’s blown. If I were you, I would go home in an armored car, Mr. Evans.” J.E.E. was silent. Beffort added, “You can reach me through the office in Reno. Don’t forget, this Susan Doolittle is extremely important in this affair. Witter has to get on her tail at any cost. Good night.” And he hung up. Now he had to deal with the fire.
Chapter IV
The flame had grown even higher. It was like a gleaming column that some sick architect had erected in this deserted corner of the earth to make a modern ruin of it. Except that the architect in question was Madame Atomos and the column of fire was not a ruin but a kind of living thing, born spontaneously from the ground by the magic of futurist chemistry in order to cause unprecedented disasters, the extent of which nobody could guess.
Smith Beffort walked up to Soblen and asked, “How tall is the flame now, doc?”
“About 40 feet, against 15 when we got here,” Soblen said shakily. “It has also doubled in diameter in the same time, but it seems to be growing more the last few minutes. If we don’t stop it, who can say what will happen.”
“A hard candle to blow out,” Akamatsu commented.
“General Salem’s bombers have a strong breath, Yosho,” Beffort retorted. “We’re going to evacuate and give the air force the green light. Burger?”
“Okay. I heard and I’ll evacuate.”
“Also block the highway and make sure that no one parks within a two-mile range. We’re going to send in everything we’ve got and there’s likely to be some serious fireworks.”
Burger nodded, gave his orders and the squad cars around the fire moved farther away. At the same time, the motorcycles closed off Highway 50 from Salt Wells to Frenchman while the police informed the inhabitants that a bombing exercise was going to take place. Around the test installations of Carson Sink, Fallon and the more distant Bombing and Gunnery Range of Las Vegas, it was nothing new, even at two in the morning, and they just opened their windows to keep the glass from breaking.
From Burger’s new HQ, set up to the east of Stillwater, the flame was clearly visible. Beffort was waiting for Brown to come back and used the van’s radio to contact General Salem who had been based in Elko with his B-52s after Brown’s call to Washington.
“Green Dragon to Bluebird?”
“Bluebird here,” Salem’s somewhat grating voice instantly came back. Using codes had been decided upon after the Baltimore affair in order to throw off Madame Atomos’ radio tapping.
“You can send the package,” Beffort said.
“Position unchanged?”
“No problem,” Beffort confirmed. “Your boys will deliver on sight.”
“Got it. Out!” and Salem was off the air.
Beffort jumped out of the van, looked at his watch and said to Akamatsu, “Just 15 minutes of patience and we’ll know if this fire is only a false alarm or the start of a bigger offensive.” At the prospect of action he had calmed down again, like his Japanese colleague, whereas Soblen, on the contrary, was starting to get nervous. Burger and Brown just felt like extras. They had never been struck by the Atomos Organization and had the debilitating sensation of being totally useless.
Around the forbidden zone nothing moved. The police did not know exactly what was hap
pening. They believed that Walker’s death was due to some mistake he had made, so they had no inkling at all that they were living through a dire moment.
All of a sudden, in the silence, a rumbling arose and the outlines of three B-52s broke out of the clear sky. “What?” Soblen shouted. “That’s all!”
“Don’t be fooled, doc.” Beffort said. “These planes are carrying enough bombs to wipe out Reno.”
The B-52s were flying relatively low. They made one pass, a wide turn and came back very quickly to drop a cloud of little black cigars that looked harmless. Three seconds ticked off before the explosions shook the ground. The desert erupted, tongues of fire streaked across the night and a rain of stones sizzled around the flame, which flickered before splitting in two and then four and then eight…
“Good heavens!” Soblen shouted, “Every one of those columns of fire are the same size as the first.”
Beffort swore, rushed into the van, jumped on the radio and yelled, “Green Dragon to Bluebird!”
Another series of explosions shook the desert. The B-52s had just emptied their cargo. Through the grilled window Beffort saw that there were now 16 huge flames in the forbidden zone.
“Bluebird here,” Salem said.
“Stop your operation, Bluebird! The cure is worse than the sickness! I’ll call you later. Over and out.” Beffort dashed out of the van and abruptly found himself in the open air, but with a burning wind that was spreading the 16 columns of fire. On every side, the police were backing away from the heat and Highway 50 was under direct threat. It was a vision of hell. The flames shot into the sky with incredible force, like the deafening roar of a volcano about to erupt, and the fire zone extended now for half a mile.
“How are we going to put them out?” Akamatsu shouted.
“I don’t know,” Beffort howled over the loud rumbling that filled the night. “This time I think nothing can…” He suddenly stopped talking, stood stupefied with everyone else watching the phenomenon. With no warning, the 16 columns of fire just disappeared. There was nothing left. Nothing but the starry night and as far as the eye could see, no flame was visible.
If it were not for the deaths of the Jenkins, Schindler and Walker, you would believe that it had all been a nightmare.
At the same time in California, in Sacramento to be precise, a night watchman was making his fourth round inside Foley’s Department Store—a five-story square building stuffed with merchandise from the top to bottom. At Foley’s they bought and sold everything that could be bought and sold at a profit. The store had only been open for six months, but it was doing extremely good business. Tom Adams (that was the name of the night watchman) did not earn a dollar more for all that, but he was happy and almost proud to be working for such a dynamic business. Adams was a former fireman. That was why Foley’s management had hired him. As everyone knows, a fire is the worst disaster that can hit a department store.
Incidentally, it would be worthwhile to note that there were all kinds of firefighting provisions at Foley’s. Thus, the ceilings on every floor had numerous sprinklers, well camouflaged as decorations, and could flood the store with tons of water in case of emergency.
Of course, Adams was not the only night watchman to be walking the store. He was in charge of the basement and he figured that it was enough seeing that the store had two floors of basement. In the first basement they stored the household goods and garden equipment, as well as hardware. In the second were the shelves restocked every day by the new deliveries from the warehouses in the suburbs. Basically, when Adams finished his round of the two floors, it was time for him to start another. It was not a cushy job.
Adams punched in at the reporting station in the second basement, went up the north staircase and crossed the entire first basement, where he had to start from the south side. A little organization imposed by the head of security on the basis of who knows what standards, but Adams submitted willingly. He had followed orders all his life, so he was not about to start showing initiative now.
He punched in at the south station, went to the bathroom and smoked half a cigarette while watching the stairs where the head of security (a former fire chief) would sometimes pop up to see if everything was all right. Adams had no desire to be caught smoking. It happened to one of his friends two months ago—he was unemployed now.
Adams carefully extinguished his cigarette, waved away the smoke and stuck the butt in the pack hidden behind the toilet with his matches. He went back, grabbed his flashlight and walked down the middle aisle between the rattan armchairs and wire fences. That was when he smelled it. The smell of burning, slightly scented. He immediately thought that he had not stubbed out his cigarette completely and the pack was slowly burning behind the toilet. If his boss went down there, his goose was cooked.
He rushed into the restroom, saw with relief that nothing was burning and started laughing all alone. Then he wondered where the smell was coming from and almost choked on his laughter, rushing into the basement more worried than a second before. Near the elevator, the smell was stronger. Adams ran down the stairs to the second basement and was horrified to see that almost the entire floor was in flames. Considering that he had been there only ten minutes ago, it seemed impossible that the blaze could spread so quickly and yet it had. Adams panicked, rushed forward, was pushed back by the flames and then ran back yelling, “Fire!”
An arm sprang out of the shadow of the stairwell and hit Adams hard in the throat. The guard stopped clean and collapsed. A man dressed in black and wearing short black boots dragged Adams into the basement. He took a short break before throwing the dead weight into the flames. After that, being sure that no one would sound the alarm too soon, the servant of Madame Atomos headed back to the boiler room and disappeared through a door opening onto the sewers.
Meanwhile, the fire gained ground surprisingly fast, almost without emitting any smoke but producing a hellish heat. Upstairs on the ground floor, another guard smelled the burning odor. Since this smell was slightly scented, he hesitated a moment before finally continuing his round. The odor was coming from the basement and the basement was Adams’ job. To each his own, right?
The guard walked by the elevator shaft, noticed a shimmering reflection, leaned over and saw that the shaft was on fire. He jumped back and pulled the alarm. An ear-splitting siren went off in the department store, the nearby streets, the police headquarters and the fire department.
From this moment on, a lot of people knew that Foley’s was burning like a torch and the neighborhood’s destiny, perhaps the entire city’s, depended on the speed of the rescue. Foley’s was surrounded by buildings and outdated worker residences in narrow streets that the fire could easily spread through. The situation was serious. By the time the firemen arrived, it was even more serious because the store was burning like tinder in spite of its metal frame, its ceilings constructed to pour out tons of water and its impeccable security team.
Also in California, but farther to the south around Salinas, a young woman was driving back home. She was a veterinarian and was coming from a farm where she had helped a cow give birth. Her name was Marie Long and she loved this flourishing country, never ceasing to admire the immense forests and the fields of wheat, rye and corn and she still loved it, even when it was dry like it had been during this scorching month.
Marie Long lived in Dos Palos, not far from the San Joaquin River. She was married to a doctor and had three children with whom she was absolutely content. This was certainly the reason she was singing merrily even though it was late, as she maneuvered the winding little road that led back to Dos Palos. To her right was the forest. To her left were the meadows where hundreds of heads of cattle were sleeping under the stars. Like this, even in the middle of the countryside, Marie Long was never completely alone and she was perfectly happy to be driving on a deserted road at two in the morning.
All of a sudden, coming out of a hairpin turn, the young lady ran into a forest fire. She knew that i
t was serious when she saw the road blocked by burning trunks and the glowing debris that flew through the night, whistling like bullets. It was amazing. Usually a forest fire was seen from afar, from where it began, especially during the night, but this one seemed to have started and spread spontaneously, at breakneck speed, without her seeing any glow in the sky before taking the turn.
Marie Long realized that she could not get around it and that she had to tell someone right away. She turned around and headed for Mandera, where Highway 99 cut through. She would find help there if no lookout post spotted the fire before. When she reached the other end of the turn, she slammed on the brakes in front of a curtain of flames. The forest had caught fire on this side, too, with lightning speed. The trees were twisting and crackling under the biting flames and finally falling and kicking up huge sparks that would carry the blaze farther and farther.
Very quickly all the vegetation on the side of the road was burning and Marie Long had to abandon her car. She ran into the meadows where the dry grass cracked under her feet and started running with the cattle when the blaze spread like wildfire across the pastures. There had been no wind, but the fire was moving at high speed, catching up with the cattle and surrounding them with its burning tongues. At the same time, the air became unbreatheable. An awful gust blew out of the blaze while the animals bellowed in excruciating pain as they disappeared among the flames.
Marie Long thought it was not possible. She could not die like this, so stupidly. She was young. Her husband and children were waiting for her at the house. She had to get home. She had to…
She ran wildly into a hole, felt her hair and dress catch fire, kept screaming while she was buried in a curtain of flames and she collapsed…
All around, the forest, farms and crops, animals and men were turned to ashes solely at the will of Madame Atomos.
Chapter V
In Washington, Eddy Witter and his team were actively searching for any trace of Susan Doolittle. First of all, Witter followed the usual channels and, without much hope, went to the girl’s house. No one answered the doorbell, as expected. Witter and his men forced the lock and entered the little studio so quietly (it was almost 1 a.m.) that they seemed more like robbers than investigators. Witter was acting without authorization, totally outside the law, but when he went up against the Atomos Organization, the G-man did not bother with mere formalities.