by André Caroff
“Maybe we should go a little faster,” Walker suggested.
“Why? Where’s the fire? You’re not being paid by the hour! When you’re three years from retirement like me, you’ll have understood that for a long time. Whether you go fast or slow, your paycheck at the end of the month is always the same.” Curtiss was a veteran of the force and that is why they stuck him with young Walker for a partner.
“So tell me,” Walker said, “this Anita Perez… wow!”
“What wow?”
“She’s really got some curves!”
“When you’re my age,” Curtiss went off, “you…”
“Okay, gramps, drop it. I’m not your age and even I was, I would still want to sleep with girls. You’re not gonna tell me that…”
Curtiss interrupted him with simple click of his tongue and said with a great deal of dignity, “A little respect, would ya? First of all, this Anita Perez is not your hole in one.”
“Oh, well then…”
Curtiss shot him a hard look. “How long have you been married, Walker?”
“Two years, but that’s got nothing to do with Anita Perez. My wife’s too fat. When it’s hot like today, her fat melts in the bed and her skin gets all sticky. I could never put up with that stuff.”
“Tell her to lose weight.”
“She doesn’t care!” He lowered his voice as if he was going to say something shameful and whispered, “She’s got nothing but sweets on her mind. It’s crazy how she eats like a bakery. At night she gets up and opens the fridge to drink a glass of milk, she says, but I hear her lips smacking when she gobbles up the Twinkies. You think it could be a sickness, Curtiss?”
“Maybe, but that’s no good reason to cheat on your wife like you do. After she has a baby, she might get as thin as a rail.”
“Or she’ll get even fatter!”
“Could be,” Curtiss said cruelly. “Hey, there’s the Ford Anita Perez was talking about.”
“Yeah and the other car is still there.”
Curtiss pulled the patrol car over to the shoulder, got out and took his binoculars out of their case. He focused them on Schindler’s car and groaned, “It’s empty, too… weird.”
Just to make sure, he looked over the landscape and suddenly saw a flame well up out of the ground. He immediately thought that stress was getting the better of him and gave the binoculars to Walker. “Look out there,” he said calmly, “and tell me what you see.”
Walker looked out at the desert, scanned around for a few seconds and found the flame. Tensing up he said, “Dang! A guy building a fire in this weather!”
“Oh, you see the guy?”
“No. He must be hiding somewhere.”
“No way, Walker. No one’s hiding anywhere. There’s a fire in the desert, that’s all. Give me back the binoculars.” Walker did so and Curtiss looked again. He stayed silent for a long time before he finally said, “At least two people have disappeared since we’ve got two abandoned vehicles.”
“How do you know they’re abandoned?”
“The Perez girl passed by here around 4:30 and it’s 6 o’clock now. Try to convince me that sane people went for an hour and a half stroll in the desert in this heat.”
“Maybe they’re lost.”
Curtiss shrugged and pointed to Schindler’s car. “That car shouldn’t be there. Call headquarters now! There’s something fishy going on here.”
Walker got back in the car, called in and handed the mic to Curtiss.
“Curtiss here. The two cars are still here and there’s no one in sight.”
“Well, what do you want?” The man on duty scowled back.
“Orders,” Curtiss said politely, knowing how to cover his back. “All I was supposed to do was check if everything was all right in the area and then call in.”
“Is everything all right…”
“No! We’ve just spotted a fire.”
“Big deal.”
“The flame looks like it’s coming spontaneously out of the ground,” Curtiss continued patiently. “I want to get the chief’s advice before doing anything.”
“Okay. Hold on.”
During the silence on the air, Walked commented, “Those bureaucrats are all jackasses.”
Curtiss did not answer. He turned around, binoculars poised, and watched the fire again. They were going to ask him for a detailed description and all that.
“Chief Burger here,” the speaker suddenly announced. “What’s all this about a fire, Curtiss?”
Curtiss started telling his story again. Personally, he did not think it was serious, but he did think that the chiefs should also be doing something, making decisions, worrying themselves sick, instead of lolling about in their air-conditioned offices. Every time Curtiss came up against a sticky case, he acted like this and Chief Burger knew what to make of it. He let him finish his story and then spoke calmly, “One of you guys go and look for the owners of the cars and in the meantime the other go and get a closer look at the fire. There you go, Curtiss. Get to work!” Burger signed out.
Walker sneered. “I told you all these bureaucrats are…”
“Shut up!” Curtiss barked nastily. “We have to go schlepping around in this hellish heat and I’m not laughing.”
He gave Walker a wily look and asked, “Do you want to check out the fire or look for the two guys?”
Walker fell into the trap, “I’d rather check out the fire.”
“Okay,” Curtiss accepted. “Go on. I’ll worry about the guys.”
Walker walked off quickly and Curtiss sat calmly in the shade of the car, just out of Walker’s sight. Come on! Chief Burger maybe thought that he was going to run all over the desert for hours on end because of two idiotic nitwits? And with three years to retirement!
Curtiss lit a cigarette and leaned out to watch Walker marching bravely into the desert. He had almost reached the car at the foot of the dune, but there was still a good ways for him to go to the fire. Curtiss figured that it was not doing him any harm. He had energy to spare and if he went home exhausted, his wife could sleep peacefully for once.
Curtiss smoked half his cigarette and looked at Walker again as he was rounding the dune. He was far from the road now and Curtiss could only see him with his naked eye because his dark outline stood out against the yellow expanse of desert. He smiled and leaned back against the car. It was not an air-conditioned office, but it was better than nothing. A minute of total silence passed and then a strange sound struck his ears. It was like the distant howl of a coyote. During the daytime it was not normal. Curtiss stood up, looked around and then toward his partner. Walker was just a little black spot bouncing among the flames, surrounded on every side.
Curtiss knew the cry came from him. He grabbed his binoculars, focused them on Walker and saw with horror that he was burning like a torch. The fire had spread out and even looked like it was marching toward the policeman.
“Idiot!” Curtiss yelled for no good reason. “What’ve you done now?”
In the distance Walker suddenly stopped dancing, collapsed into the blaze and disappeared. Curtiss swore, climbed into the car and shifted frantically while trying in vain to control his shaking hands. The engine stalled because he had let off the clutch too fast. Then he had a hell of a time getting it started again. He finally managed it and headed straight for the dune. When he got there, he had to stop because the ground became soft. He jumped out of the car, forgetting to turn it off and closed the door. Then he started running toward the fire that seemed to be diminishing.
After 100 feet, Curtiss was out of breath and had a sharp pain in his side. He stopped, wiped the sweat that was burning his eyes and looked in front of him. Walker was no longer visible and the fire had burned down to a single little flame. It spurted out of the ground without a noise, straight and bright, with a strange bluish color. He did not know much about fire, but he knew that this color meant that the flame was terribly hot, i.e. it was burning at an extremely high tempera
ture. Otherwise it would be red.
Curtiss wiped his forehead, closed his eyes and then opened them again. What he had just seen was absolutely unbelievable, but in spite of the distance, he was sure that he had not imagined Walker’s cries or the ocean of flames surrounding him. But if Walker had burned, there should be some remains of his body. A man cannot just disappear like that without leaving a trace.
Curtiss was not sure what to do but in the end decided to get closer. He could not call Chief Burger and tell him frankly what had happened. Without much enthusiasm he got moving, his back stiff and with the uncanny feeling that someone was watching him, but there was not a soul in sight. The desert stretched out to infinity, flat as a board and except for the dune bordering the path, nothing rose up from the ground.
Curtiss reached the spot where he thought Walker had died, but the fire was still 50 yards away and there was nothing on the ground. He thought he was mistaken so he walked a dozen feet farther where he could see the fire clearly. He examined the ground at his feet and saw that the stones were smaller, almost like gravel, as if a giant hammer had crushed them or an extraordinary heat had made them burst.
He looked up worriedly and saw that the fire was quickly forming a half-circle. A flame rose up in the middle of the blaze, twisted around, stretched out and started zigzagging toward Curtiss. Panic took hold of the old officer. He did not try to understand and did not wait for what was in store. He simply turned tail and ran. A flame shot up suddenly on his right, another on his left they started encircling him quickly, like pincers closing in.
Curtiss ran faster in spite of the pain in his side and his burning lungs. He jumped onto the open path before it was too late and sprinted for the dune. He knew perfectly well that it was a matter of life and death and in his desperate panic he drew upon energy that he thought he had lost forever.
Still running he turned around and saw with horror that the three streaks of fire had come together and were roaring down his trail. Now it was like a torrent flowing over the rocks at full speed. Curtiss could already feel its terrible heat. He screamed, made a last ditch effort, dove into the car and sped off like a rocket. The car rushed over the stones while the flames died on the dune. He reached the highway and sped off toward Reno.
Behind the wheel of the patrol car, old Curtiss was still screaming.
Chapter III
When they found him at the city limits, passed out in his car in a private parking lot, they took him to the hospital. The doctors brought him around, but it took some time before Curtiss was in any condition to talk. He had suffered a violent emotional shock. His teeth were chattering and he could still see the terrifying vision of the flames roaring and chasing him.
Chief Burger did not enter the room until the night. He pulled up a chair, sat next to the bed and offered Curtiss a cigarette. Then he said softly, “I took a drive out there. The fire’s still burning and the sector’s closed off. Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“It’s unbelievable… unbelievable!”
“Don’t get worked up. Just take your time and tell me what happened. Don’t think about how unbelievable it was. I know you well enough to believe you.”
Curtiss was touched. He did not know this side of Burger. He had always imagined him as one of those heartless types, thinking only about their career. In short, Burger’s attitude did more to calm him down than all the doctors’ tranquilizers. He was almost completely calm when he told his extraordinary adventure, waiting a little apprehensively for Burger’s reaction. But the latter just scratched his nose and asked, “You say the flames were running after you?”
Curtiss nodded. He had nothing more to add. Burger sighed, put out his cigarette and stood up, pulling down his jacket. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that this is more of Madame Atomos’ work.”
Curtiss jumped. He had not thought about the sinister Japanese woman for even a second and yet this was typical of her.
“I’m going to inform Washington,” Burger continued. “This is out of our league.” He walked to the door, opened it and before leaving said, “Still, you were damn lucky!”
Curtiss sunk into his pillow. He entirely agreed.
Brown watched the FBI twinjet land, drove his Chevrolet to the alternative runway and waited for the airplane to stop before driving up to it. He had only seen photographs of Smith Beffort but he recognized him instantly, maybe because he was with Yosho Akamatsu and Dr. Alan Soblen. The trio had kept Madame Atomos at bay for years and there was no one in America who had not heard of their exploits.
Brown walked up and introduced himself, “Brown, local FBI director.”
“Nice to meet you,” Beffort said. “This is Dr. Soblen and Mr. Akamatsu. Do you have a car?”
“It’s here and I reserved rooms like you asked.”
“Thanks, but we’ll go to the hotel later. For now we’d like to see what’s going on. This fire, what exactly is it?”
Brown spread his hands. “You have to see it to believe it. The flames are coming directly out of the rocks in the middle of the desert and we don’t know what’s feeding it. As I’m sure you know, three men and a woman have been burned up.”
“Have you found their bodies?”
“No, but a summary investigation gave us their names. There was a young couple, Carole and Jamie Jenkins, on vacation in Reno and a businessman named Schindler, who’d lived in Reno for a long time. The third man was a police officer, Walker. One of his colleagues witnessed the tragedy and only escaped alive by hotfooting it out of there.”
“Tell us on the way,” Beffort said more curtly than he wanted. “Right now, take us to the site.”
Madame Atomos’ last attack was barely a month ago and had targeted the city of Baltimore2. No one could have foreseen that the sinister woman would strike again so soon, although it is true that freeing Mie Azusa-Beffort and her son Bob must have thrown her into a terrible frenzy.
“Has anyone tried to put out the fire?” Dr. Soblen asked as he sat in car.
“No,” Brown replied. “After what happened Chief Burger and myself preferred to wait for you to take any action.” He drove off, left the airport and headed for Wadsworth. The dashboard clock showed midnight. It was a clear night, almost bright, and the area was extremely calm. The affair was being kept so secret that Brown and Burger had even managed to keep the journalists out of it. For the moment everything was happening behind closed doors, which was a great advantage for the start of an investigation if you thought about the mass reactions that Beffort’s work usually set off when Madame Atomos attacked the USA.
“Why Nevada?” Brown asked gloomily.
“Because it’s one of the states that Madame Atomos wanted,” Dr. Soblen responded. “She had granted our government six months to give her California, Nevada and Arizona and to evacuate South Vietnam unconditionally. The time passed and none of her demands were met, so our enemy is back on the offensive.”
“And it’s only the beginning,” Akamatsu added. “This little fire, in a very short time, might burn down the whole state.”
Brown remained silent, already overwhelmed by the responsibilities that he would surely be facing. Beffort understood his apprehension. Whenever Madame Atomos resumed her criminal activities, it usually cost thousands of lives. “Tell me how all this started,” he said.
Brown explained in detail what Curtiss had told Chief Burger, adding that the police had cordoned off the fire at a distance without, however, closing down Highway 50 to traffic as much as possible. While he was talking, the car crossed Salt Wells and entered the desert zone. He pointed toward the northeast and said, “Look! You can see the fire there.” He strained his neck and added, “The flame’s a lot higher than at the start of the evening.”
It was true. The flame was climbing around 15 feet high and must have been visible from very far away. Beffort, Akamatsu and Soblen just looked. They did not need to talk to each other to know that the fire could only be the work of Mada
me Atomos.
Disturbed a little by the three men’s silence, Brown pulled over to the side of the road and turned to Beffort. “As you can see, our operation is low-key. On the highway there’s only one team of motorcycles to keep the rubberneckers moving, but radio patrol cars are set up farther away.”
Beffort nodded, opened the door and got out. Akamatsu and Soblen did the same. Brown was left alone in the car. “The fire’s still far from here,” he said. “On foot…”
Beffort cut him off, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll meet you back here in an hour. In the meantime, contact General Salem and tell him to be ready to send in his B-52s. I’ll give the signal myself. Where’s Chief Burger?”
“He set up his HQ at the base of that dune.”
“Okay. See you later, Brown.”
Beffort and his partners melted into the shadows and Brown made a U-turn. On the way to Reno he was thinking that Beffort was even faster than his reputation made out. One hour after his arrival and he already had the Air Force in the game.
Beffort, Akamatsu and Soblen reached Burger’s HQ in no time and identified themselves. The Chief of Police got out of a van covered in antennas and walked up to them, looking surprised. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I wasn’t expecting you before tomorrow. Washington led me to believe that you weren’t in the US.”
Beffort stiffened up. “Wait a second, how did you get in direct contact with Washington?”
“I called them,” Burger answered, astonished by the question.
“Didn’t you contact Brown first?”
“No… to tell you the truth, I never thought of it. I left the hospital where I was talking with one of my boys…”
“Curtiss?”
“Yes. He’d had a real shock…”
“We know all about it,” Beffort interrupted again. “I want to know the name of the person who told you I wasn’t in the United States.”
“I don’t know. The latest orders from the government are that if anyone finds a possible clue…”
