Desperate Games

‘Listen, Mr Zarratoff, you are asking us to take over by radio control? Correct? Of course it’s possible. But you are flying at an altitude of more than two thousand metres. And I can confirm that the weather is gorgeous, and visibility excellent. There’s no cloud as far as your stopover point and your route is indicated straight ahead by the railway line and the canal.’

‘It’s true,’ murmured Nicolas, ‘it’s true, there’s the railway line and the canal.’

He had almost mumbled these last few words. The other person asked again:

‘Are you sure that everything is all right on board?’

‘Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right, with both the airplane and the pilot.’

‘And you still want us to take over by radio control?’

‘No. You’re right. I just have to follow the railway.’

‘Okay, goodbye then, Mr Zarratoff, and have a good trip.’

‘Goodbye.’

He put down the telephone and smiled more calmly at Ruth, who had not uttered a single word during the whole exchange.

‘Why these questions, darling?’ she ventured to ask after a period of silence. ‘There’s no risk of our getting lost in weather like this. I recognise the countryside below us. There’s the old village with the motorway passing close by. We came here by car just after our marriage. There’s the hotel where we slept, with its swimming pool.’

It was true, and Nicolas knew the area even better than she did.

‘You can never take enough precautions,’ he said gravely.

He was not himself any more. At that moment she also remembered the hesitations of the medical unit and asked herself whether he wasn’t seriously ill. Without revealing her anxiety, she adopted a lighter tone when she said: ‘We will be arriving in twenty minutes. I’m sure the Hudsons will already be waiting for us.’

They were the friends in whose home they were going to spend the evening and who would put them up for the night. Hudson was the director of the airfield.

He did not reply. For a few moments he had been trying to make contact with this airfield, and, not being able to do it, he started to show signs of nervousness again.

‘It’s insane to let an airplane get lost in the sky without permanent contact,’ he murmured. ‘I’m going to make a complaint about it.’

The airplane was still flying in a clear sky. She dared not make any comment, and they remained silent for a long while. It seemed however that he was becoming more and more anxious as they approached their goal.

‘We must be quite close,’ she said finally.

He did not reply. He was staring fixedly straight in front of him, without ever glancing even once towards the ground. He had maintained the same altitude, and that was another thing which surprised her. She was no novice when it came to aviation and knew very well that he should already have commenced the descent some time ago. She was about to point this out to him when he finally made contact with the station. He immediately asked a series of crazy questions: how far away were they? At what altitude were they? Could he start his descent? And at what angle? There was some delay before there was any response, and it was his friend Hudson himself who spoke:

‘It’s fine! I’m sure you recognised my voice. If it had been anyone else, he would have taken you for a right idiot.’

‘I’m not joking,’ said Nicolas, ‘can I make the descent?’

The other man could tell by his voice that he was truly not joking.

‘Of course you can. At least, if you want to have dinner with us tonight. But you’ll have to complete several circles before landing. I can see you clearly. You’re right above us.’

‘Right above?’

‘Can’t you see the runways?’

‘Right above, right above,’ Nicolas repeated like an automaton.

It was true. Ruth could clearly make out all the details of the airfield, the runways, the control tower and the hangars. But her husband had still not glanced at the ground even once. He seemed to be distracted.

‘Fine, I’m going to descend,’ he murmured in a hesitant voice.

But as the other man remained silent, he immediately became furious.