Miss Atomos Read online

  André Caroff’s

  MADAME ATOMOS

  #4 - Miss Atomos

  Translated by

  Michael Shreve

  A Black Coat Press Book

  Introduction

  This volume collects the fourth installment of the saga of Madame Atomos, a series of 18 novels published between 1964 and 1970 in the “Angoisse” horror imprint of French publisher Fleuve Noir.1 Our introduction to Volume 1 contains a biography of its author, André Carpouzis, a.k.a. André Caroff (1924-2009). More information about Fleuve Noir and its popular brands of science fiction and horror can be found in the introductions to the other volumes translated from their imprints and published by Black Coat Press: Richard Bessière’s The Gardens of the Apocalypse, Gérard Klein’s The More in Time’s Eye and Kurt Steiner’s Ortog.

  The saga of Madame Atomos (her real name is Kanoto Yoshimuta) is about a brilliant but twisted middle-aged female Japanese scientist who is out for revenge against the United States for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—where she was born, and where her family died in the nuclear holocaust.

  Madame Atomos seeks to repay the United States by unleashing deadly new threats, such as radioactive zombies, giant spiders, a madness-inducing ray, flaming tornadoes, etc. The heroes opposing her are Smith Beffort of the FBI, Dr. Alan Soblen, and Yosho Akamatsu of the Japanese Secret Police.

  An interesting development in this volume is the creation by Madame Atomos of a younger version of herself, Mie Azusa, dubbed Miss Atomos, groomed to continue the fight when Madame Atomos eventually dies. (Or does she?)

  Now read on…

  Jean-Marc Lofficier

  MISS ATOMOS

  Chapter I

  Kanoto Yoshimuta, alias Madame Atomos, had been dead for four months. She had murdered thousands of Americans, caused panic in New York, Dallas and San Francisco and more or less terrified the entire world. Alive she had been a monster. Dead she should have been buried in the middle of the desert in a location unknown to everyone. Instead of this, Madame Atomos lay in an extraordinary mausoleum built right in the heart of the San Francisco cemetery.

  Americans are curious people. After the death of Kennedy, Mrs. Oswald received so much money that she could live the rest of her life without working2. In this strange country where the wives of criminals receive a pension, the same phenomenon occurred in the case of Madame Atomos: there was a constant flow of gifts to the headquarters of the Preservation of the Memory of Kanoto Yoshimuta. America was riddled with organizations like this, proof that it truly is a free country and that all lunatics are not systematically locked up.

  Nevertheless, sane Americans—and fortunately they are the majority—forced themselves to forget the terrible blows inflicted by the sinister Japanese woman.

  At the head of those who could not forget was Smith Beffort. Along with Yosho Akamatsu, who had since gone back to Tokyo, he had been with Madame Atomos during her final moments. And the words spoken by the dying woman with her final breath were still present in his mind: “I poisoned myself. But nothing is over, Mr. Beffort. I have prepared for the future in case of this. Catherine Lomakine will become Miss Atomos… do you remember, Mr. Beffort3?”

  He remembered. Catherine Lomakine was the daughter of a naturalized Polish-American couple whom Madame Atomos had kidnapped in order to make them obey her. So, the house of Lomakine, located at Lake Whitney, had lately been one of the last refuges of the sinister Japanese woman4.

  “When you are dead,” Beffort had shouted, “Catherine will be free!”

  “Brainwashed, Beffort! The girl is my daughter in mind. She is smarter, more terrifying and more ambitious than I… I wanted to bring down the United States… Miss Atomos wants the world! In two or three months when I’m rotting in the ground, Miss Atomos will attack humanity… Her ways will be 100 times stronger than mine, but less direct… Fear will reign on this planet that will be invaded by monsters. Babies will be born blind, deformed… It will be agonizing, Mr. Beffort… Agonizing!”

  “Where is Catherine Lomakine now?” Smith Beffort had asked

  “In the Pacific. Atomos City is a huge floating island that can disappear under the waves in case of an emergency. You… you don’t have the slightest chance of finding it.” A minute later Madame Atomos continued, “I’m about to die, Mr. Beffort… you can be sure that in what I just said, there are as many lies as there are truths! Catherine Lomakine is dead. Atomos City doesn’t exist. And… I was only following orders!”

  Then Madame Atomos had died, leaving Beffort and Akamatsu totally confused.

  Now Beffort patiently dissected all the information. He knew that the last round of Madame Atomos’ operations dated back six months. The Japanese woman had been dead for four months and nothing had happened, but the embers could very well be smoldering under the ashes.

  If Atomos City was real, if some Miss Atomos was being secretly prepared on the island, it was to be expected that it would not take long for a new act, and preferably something that looked insignificant, to appear in the newspaper columns. And that was the whole problem. There was always weird news: three unidentified objects sped over Miami, houses had mysteriously collapsed in Colorado, a field suddenly turned yellow in Arizona…

  And besides this, President Johnson had the flu, as well as most of the members of the government, but since the Russians did too, it was nothing to fuss about, that is to say to make Miss Atomos responsible for.

  For Beffort it became a phobia—never was a man more vigilant than he was. His work suffered. Section 4 of the FBI got shaky and the Boss got sour. “Forget all this!” he barked, chewing on his cigar. “Mrs. What’s-her-name told you a whopper before giving up the ghost.”

  “She had a motor-brain in her skull,” Beffort said.

  “Okay, but no new island has been detected in the Pacific!”

  “Madame Atomos said very specifically that we didn’t have the slightest chance of finding it,” Beffort persisted.

  The Boss flopped into his chair and tried a different angle, “Reginald, you…”

  “Don’t call me Reginald!” Smith Beffort interjected.

  “You’re getting crabby,” the Boss continued unflustered, “and you’re sitting around twiddling your thumbs. Plus you look like death warmed over and you’re losing weight! I have a good mind to send you on vacation…”

  Beffort opened his eyes wide and asked nervously, “Are you joking?”

  “No. Starting right now you can consider yourself available. Find a nice girl and get to a beach. I don’t want to see my best G-man get sick.” He blew out a huge cloud and smoke and added, “But you’ll give me your address—you never know.”

  Beffort chuckled. “Basically you’re as unsure as I am about the whole thing, aren’t you?”

  “Possibly, but not to the point of getting sick over it. Go on, Smith. Pack your bags and take the first plane for Palm Beach. I don’t want to see you again for at least a month, okay?”

  Beffort labored out of the chair. He was clearly not at all thrilled. “Why Palm Beach?”

  “Because Dr. Soblen has been there for 15 days already and I think he’d be glad to see you.”

  “In other words it’s a conspiracy.”

  “Call it what you want, but disappear! Hold on, here’s the ticket. The plane takes off in an hour. Send me a color postcard. I’m collecting them.”

  Beffort left his boss’ office, and slumped back to his own. He was not pleased about leaving behind what he considered his command post for a month, but he had to admit that the Boss was right. Madame Atomos had literally sucked the red cells out of his blood. He cleaned up his desk, pocketed his cigarettes and lighter and put his hat on his suitcase so he would not forget it. Then the telephone rang and he
answered, giving his name.

  “There was a certain Mie Azusa asking for you,” the operator said.

  “Don’t know her. What did she want?”

  “I don’t know. She said she’d call back. Hmm…”

  “What, hmm?

  “You’re going on vacation, right?”

  “You already know about it? News travels fast in this cave. What else do you know?”

  “Dr. Soblen went down to the Hilton,” the girl said in strict confidence, “and a car is waiting for you downstairs.”

  “Bravo! That’s organization or I don’t know what is. And the Boss asked me to give him my address… I’m sure my room has been reserved at Palm Beach.”

  “Of course. Number 300. A view of the sea. Have a good vacation, Mr. Beffort. What should I say if Mie Azusa calls back?”

  “That she can go jump in a lake!” Beffort lashed out as he hung up.

  He put on his raincoat, donned his fedora, grabbed his suitcase and opened the door. At that very second the telephone rang. Beffort hesitated, but finally went back and answered it. “Smith Beffort is on vacation. Please contact his replacement.”

  “It’s Mie Azusa, sir. Hold the line.”

  He heard two or three crackling noises and then a melodic voice. “Mr. Beffort?”

  “That’s me. Who are you?”

  “Mie Azusa. You don’t know me, but I would like to see you as soon as possible. It’s very important.”

  A bunch of people always had something very important to tell FBI agents. Beffort was hardened. “Impossible. See the receptionist. I left five minutes ago.” And he hung up the phone without realizing that, later, he was biting his nails. But his behavior was normal. On edge for more than a year he had just been forced into relaxing by the Boss. The Smith Beffort who left the FBI headquarters a minute later had nothing in common with the formidable G-man who had battled against Madame Atomos.

  Destiny is often tortuous, but in this particular case it was absolutely Machiavellian.

  Beffort was expecting to find Alan Soblen relaxing, already tanned by the Florida sun and far from thinking about business. The little doctor had held Madame Atomos in check many times and, even though he was a levelheaded intellectual, his nerves had been short-circuited just as badly. Also, Beffort thought that Soblen had earned his stay in Palm Beach and at the other end of the runway he should have been as happy as a lark to see the airplane from New York landing.

  Soblen was waiting there, gray, tired, almost drooping. His light clothes were wrinkled, not very clean and one of his shoelaces dragged in the dust.

  “Hello,” he voice seemed to come from far away. “How are you, Smith?”

  Beffort examined him closely and said, “I’m fine, doc, but you don’t look so good.”

  Soblen waved off the remark. “I’m not used to the weather. What’s the word from New York?”

  Beffort took his suitcase and walked to the bar. “Let’s have a drink first, doc. I’m as dry as a burnt wick.”

  They sat on the bumpy stools and Beffort offered a cigarette. Against his habit, Soblen accepted and then ordered two whiskies. “So tell me,” Beffort asked cheerfully, “have you been on a little binge?”

  Soblen smiled sadly and his eyes gleamed briefly behind his thick glasses. “I’m too old for that, Smith,” he said in a strange voice that was unfamiliar to Beffort. “Besides, people aren’t too sociable down here.”

  Beffort sipped the Gilbey’s, tinkling the ice in his glass. He suddenly had a weird feeling that he could not explain. Around him life was moving in slow motion, in muffled silence, soothing but unnatural. True, the sun beat down hard and the heat did not encourage humans to be overly active…

  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” Soblen said slowly.

  Beffort nodded and looked at him more closely. The small man looked drawn. His eyes were dull; his pale lips were cracked; his pasty ears looked like butterfly wings; and his cheekbones jutted out under his dry, tight skin. “What’s wrong with you, doc?”

  Soblen sighed. “I’m not eating much, Smith.”

  “Damn,” the G-man said, “if you can’t take the weather, why are you staying here? You’re not under house arrest, right?”

  Soblen stared at him in astonishment and scolded, “Don’t yell like that.” Beffort noticed that the bartender, the waitresses and the few clients in the bar were watching him curiously. But he had barely raised his voice.

  “I’m fine down here,” Soblen continued, “because nobody cares about what I do or say. You see, I’ve been here for 15 days and I don’t have a single friend. Another drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Soblen snapped his fingers and the bartender filled up his glass so slowly it was irritating. “You should be drinking,” Soblen said indifferently, “because this heat will dehydrate you. When I first got here, I acted like you. It’s very bad for the health.” He took a sip and put his glass back down. “Why didn’t you come sooner, Smith?”

  Beffort flicked his cigarette ash in the empty air. He felt uncomfortable for no particular reason, like he was a fly in room full of spider webs. It was preposterous.

  After a pause he said, “I wasn’t planning to take a vacation, but the Boss insisted. Did he send you here, too?”

  “No. I came up with the idea all by myself.”

  “Have you been to Florida before, doc?”

  “No. Never. It’s someplace I’ve always hated even though I’ve never been here. You know I’m a simple man, Smith, and I don’t like places that are too ritzy. Whenever anybody talked about Miami, Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach, it made my skin crawl. But now I’m very glad to be here. Overall, the people are pleasant.”

  “You were just saying that they were a bit unsociable.”

  Soblen finished his whiskey, gave a little smile, as if the act of moving his cheeks was extremely tiring, and said, “That’s probably why I think they’re pleasant.” He clicked his tongue. “I’d like another drink, Smith. How about you?”

  Beffort furrowed his brow. Soblen had undergone a staggering change since coming to the coast. “Drink if you want. What room are you staying in at the Hilton?”

  “302,” Soblen laughed. “You think maybe I’m going to get drunk and you’ll have to carry me back? Well, think again, Smith. For 15 days I’ve been drinking a lot and I haven’t had any trouble whatsoever. You have to fight against dehydration! Bartender!”

  Beffort gritted his teeth and waited for the bartender to refill the doctor’s glass. “Just now you told me you didn’t like Florida. If that’s true, why did you decide to spend your vacation here?”

  Soblen shrugged and mumbled, “Originally I planned to take a trip to Bermuda. I went to a travel agent by my place and bought a ticket for a month-long package tour. The next day a young lady from the agency called to make an appointment and she came to see me. She told me that the trip to Bermuda had been canceled, but that the agency could offer me a stay in Palm Beach. To compensate me and keep its clientele, they offered me a whole month at the Hilton here at half-price. Isn’t that wonderful, Smith?”

  “You were lucky as hell,” Beffort admitted. “What was the name of this agency?

  Alan Soblen rifled through his pockets. He pulled out a wrinkled business card and gave it to Beffort, saying, “It’s not the agency’s card, but the young woman’s who came to see me… pretty much the same thing.”

  Beffort took the card and winced when he saw printed in delicate font, Mie Azusa. Public Relations Manager. Southern United States…

  “Was she Japanese?”

  “Yes,” Soblen answered innocently. “She was very pretty.”

  Chapter II

  Beffort gulped down his drink and right away asked for another.

  “Hey,” Soblen observed, “you’re taking my advice. Bravo!”

  Beffort smiled at him. Now he knew that the doctor was not responsible. Something was going on. He did not yet know what, but he was certain of it and would be
no matter what happened. It was no use coming at Soblen head-on. In his present state, he could not understand. So, he lit another cigarette and asked, “Was she really so pretty, doc?”

  With an incredulous look the doctor grumbled with that kindness that only the totally drunk can have, “Come on, Smith, don’t put words in my mouth. It’s not because she came to my place that you have to suspect me of hatching up this rendezvous…”

  “That’s not what I mean, doc. I know that in this you are beyond all reproach, but since we’re on vacation and we have to do something, why not talk about this Mie Azusa?”

  His tone should have intrigued Soblen. At least, the Soblen who had battled against Madame Atomos would have been alerted instantly. It was not the case here. The little doctor played along with him as unwittingly as a newborn puppy.

  “She was a young lady, “ he spoke devotedly. “How could she not be pretty? Do you know, Smith, only the Japanese are so delicately beautiful?”

  He burped a little and Beffort asked, “Was she at the agency when you got your ticket to Bermuda?”

  “No,” Soblen was more dignified. “She’s not the kind of young lady who hangs around a shop all day. They keep her for the house calls. Didn’t you see her card?”

  Beffort stuck it under his nose and grumbled, “Look for yourself and tell me if you see agency’s name.”

  “So… what am I supposed to do about that? The room was reserved at the Hilton and half my accommodations paid for? What am I supposed to do about that?” He was starting to get drunk. His speech faltered and he was repeating himself.

  “You’re not too suspicious anymore,” Beffort said calmly.

  Soblen sat up straight on his stool, wobbling a little. “Why would I be? Who would be of a young lady who got a discount stay in a luxury hotel? Huh? You’re not jealous, are you Smith? No, I’m not suspicious! Why don’t you just… just…”