Dying on the Vine (12 page)

It was a breathtaking sight to a neophyte like me because it was not far short of a vertical takeoff. As the ultralight disappeared over the pine trees, Suvarov turned and saw me. His face lit up with recognition.

“My friend!” he cried. “I am so glad you have come to see us!”

He sounded genuinely pleased and his words rang with sincerity. His smile faded, though, as he saw my expression.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

I pointed to the ultralight with the green and brown wings. “Does that aircraft operate from this field?”

“Yes,” he said, still puzzled. “All the aircraft here belong to members of the Dragonfly Squadron.”

“Who does that one belong to?”

His eyes moved over my face. “That one? Why, that's mine.”

“W
ERE YOU FLYING IT
two days ago?”

“Two days ago … that was Tuesday … no, I didn't fly that day. I was at Sophia Antipolis, the science park. A company there is interested in a contract for the rapid exchange of engineering designs between their drawing office and the Aerospatiale plant at the Marseille airport.”

“You were there all day?”

The welcoming look had died by now and he was becoming increasingly cool. “Why are you asking these questions?” he demanded.

“Because an ultralight with those precise markings on the wings dropped a beehive on me. I was nearly killed.”

A smile twitched his lips. “A beehive … ? Was dropped on you? Where?”

“It was in Colcroze,” I said.

He said slowly, “Colcroze—the ghost village. You must have been the only one there. No wonder you thought the beehive was dropped on you.”

“It
was
dropped on me,” I said angrily. “I
was
the only one there—that's how I know it was aimed at me. And the ultralight that dropped it was that one.”

I pointed an accusing finger at the innocent-looking bundle of slim girders supporting a wide-span wing. He followed my finger. “Come with me,” he snapped, and we walked to one of the wooden buildings.

Inside, it had a few desks, some file cabinets, a couple of phones, and a wall cabinet holding maps and books. A huge relief map of the South of France covered most of one wall and on another were photographs and certificates.

Suvarov led the way to one of the tables where a large ledger lay open. He flipped the pages. “Tuesday … here it is … you can see for yourself: No one flew on Tuesday.” I scanned the scribbled entries. He motioned to a slight, wispy Frenchman with an old-fashioned flying helmet in one hand. “Guillaume, were you here on Tuesday?”

The man shook his head.

“Do you know who was here?”

Guillaume reflected. “I don't think anyone came on Tuesday, not that I know anyway.”

Suvarov stood, irresolute for a moment. Then he looked over the table, picking up another ledger. He turned to one of the pages that had a colored tag. “This is the flight record of my aircraft,” he said. He pointed to a column. “This shows the kilometers flown—you can see, it shows 42,017.1 entered that on Monday when I came back from a flight.” He snapped the ledger closed. “Let's look at the aircraft.”

We went outside and as we geared the ultralight, I was struck by its flimsy appearance. The bucket seat had a panel with only three instruments. Suvarov indicated one of them. “The French Aviation Authority insists that we keep close record of kilometers flown. Ultralights are relatively new and the authorities haven't yet decided how to rate them, so a lot of data is kept. This aircraft has flown 42,171 kilometers. …”

He regarded me with a very different expression. “That means it's been flown 154 kilometers since I took it out on Monday.”

“How many air kilometers is Colcroze from here?” I asked.

“About 70,” he said quietly. “Hmm … maybe you are right.”

We walked slowly back to the wooden hut. “We fly each other's aircraft occasionally,” he said, talking as much to himself as to me. “Someone was here on Tuesday and flew this aircraft.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder and his voice was hard. “I'll find out who it was.”

I believed him, not entirely because of his golden hair and bright blue eyes and general appearance of an honest man. I felt that he was angry at a person who would take his aircraft without his knowledge and use it for such a purpose.

“And now, let me show you what a wonderful machine this is,” he said.

He was a devoted enthusiast of the ultralight, a passionate and articulate flag-waver in support of what he believed to be the forerunner of a major method of transport in the future.

“Flying is man's oldest dream,” he told me. “Two-thirds of all living creatures can fly—is it any wonder that people want to do so too? For centuries, the most ingenious brains in history wrestled with the problem. Sadly, most of them sought to imitate the birds and flap wings. It wasn't until 1903 that two brothers who owned a bicycle shop made the first flight.”

“The Wright brothers?”

We were standing by his aircraft. I had overcome my aversion to those terrifying brown and green markings. The Dacron sheeting and the aluminum tubing and girders seemed a harmless structure as well as a pitifully weak way to challenge nature.

“Yes. From then on, aircraft developed in two ways: military applications and big airliners. You see, it's an interesting contrast to the car. American industry set out to make a car available to everybody, led by Ford's Model T. Soon, everybody had a car… life could have been different. If World War I hadn't broken out at that time, it's quite probable that everybody would have had a plane.”

I listened to him, fascinated.

“So how has the ultralight developed now?” I asked.

“Private flying was strangled by safety measures. Small private planes were safe and reliable, but these gains were achieved only at high cost. The average person couldn't afford to buy a private plane and the upkeep and operating costs were prohibitive.

“The hang glider was the answer: simple, cheap, nothing mechanical, no power, and no operating costs. It became a popular sport, then, inevitably, the people doing it wanted more—more control, more power than just the wind. So they put a chain-saw engine on a hang glider. Then came a bigger wing, then a few simple controls, then more power…”

“It must have been hard to know when to stop,” I said.

“Exactly. More progress along those lines and we would have been back to the light aircraft that we had set out to avoid!”

“But you've managed to arrest that progress and the ultralight is the result.”

Suvarov patted the aircraft beside him as affectionately as if it were a favorite horse.

“Two hundred pounds empty weight, can climb to ten thousand feet, can stay in the air three hours, can take off and land on a tennis court. In the air, I can turn off the engine and just float. I can hear dogs barking, hear music from convertibles.”

He turned to face me. “I know what you are thinking. The pilot of this machine could spot a person in a deserted village, could drop a missile of some kind on him—a hand grenade, a bomb, or even a beehive.”

I nodded. “Someone did. The ultralight is an ideal craft for the job, too, isn't it? The engine's very quiet, so you wouldn't hear it until it's almost over you. It flies low, so in terrain like Provence's, it's out of sight most of the time.”

“That's true,” said Suvarov. “Tell me, why would someone want to drop a beehive on you?”

“I'm here on a very simple job—I'm writing an article on vineyards in the south of France that are owned by English. The Willesford vineyard is the first one. The day I arrived, a man was found gored to death by a wild boar. That seems to have frightened a lot of people. I went to the winery to get some information for the article and somebody pushed me into a wine vat.”

His eyes widened, but to his credit he managed not to smile.

“Provençal folklore contains several characters like you—who attract danger and disaster.”

“That's not me at all,” I protested. “All I want to do is write an article.”

“Somebody doesn't like you. Could there be a reason for that?”

“Lewis Arundel at the Willesford vineyard says that people think I'm here to scout out land for retirement homes.”

He turned away to test the rigidity of a strut. Was he contemplating the veracity of my statement, I wondered. Did he know something, anything?

“Is that why you were in Colcroze?” he asked, fingering a support wire. “To write an article?”

“When I was on a tour through the south of France some years ago, I was taken to a few ghost villages. They made an impression on me that I never forgot. So I thought that while I was here, I might write an article on them, starting with Colcroze.”

“Except for being pushed into a wine vat, you might have thought that the beehive fell on you by mistake from a passing aircraft.” He turned to look at me again. “Is that right?”

“Highly unlikely. Anyway, it wasn't just a passing aircraft—it was an ultralight.”

He nodded reluctantly. “Mine in fact.”

“Well,” I said, brightening my tone of voice, “we've been through all that. You're going to find out who was flying the aircraft that day.”

“I am,” he said seriously, then his tone lightened too. “Now, how about a flight in an ultralight?”

“What! Er, no, thanks …” I Was trying hard to think of a good reason to refuse. The craft looked fragile enough in the air—standing alongside one on the ground was all I needed to know that I wouldn't trust one with a bottle of Haut Brion 1990 let alone my life.

“It's kind of you to offer but I really can't.”

My refusal didn't insult him, in fact it amused him. He grinned at my discomfort. “It's all right. Lots of people feel nervous about ultralights when they're first introduced to them.”

“I'm glad you understand. In London, where I live, I don't even have a car. I hate mechanical things and loathe flying—I even hate underground trains, though unfortunately I have to use them a lot.”

“Don't worry about it. Maybe I'll get you to change your mind.”

“Where would you put me anyway?” I asked. “This one hardly has space for the pilot.”

“We have a couple of two-seaters in the other hangar. We just completed modifying them so we can use them for training and also as aerial taxis.”

“Taxis?” I said, appalled at the thought.

He grinned even wider. “Sure. We can whisk a person from A to B in a fraction of the time a ground taxi takes and we can land and take off almost anywhere, including many places a helicopter couldn't get near—and, of course, at a fraction of the price.”

“They are considered safe enough to carry passengers?”

“Certainly. The safety record of ultralights is far better than that of conventional aircraft. They're impossible to crash and burn, for instance.”

“Crash and burn!” I said, horrified.

“They're one-quarter the weight of a light plane and are usually traveling at half the speed. That means that if a ground impact were to occur—”

“A ground impact? Is that a crash?”

“Yes. Then the ultralight hits with only one-sixteenth the energy of the light plane. The pilot invariably walks away from an ultralight crash. Little damage is done, and anyway, the fuel tank only holds five gallons. Moreover, I can shut off the engine at five thousand feet and land anywhere within a five-mile radius. The glide ratio of ten to one makes landing without power easy.” He grinned his Dawn Patrol grin and we walked back to my car.

“It sounds very—er, safe,” I told him. “Perhaps some other time…”

I
WAS EARLIER THAN
usual returning to the Relais but I told myself that I would do a lot of cogitating in the pool. It was notably warmer today. A platoon of cicadas in the plane trees buzzed with self-importance while high in the clear blue sky a few birds floated as serenely as if they had never heard of gravity.

I must have dozed off—it was becoming a habit I must avoid acquiring, although this time I did not encounter any monstrous insects upon awakening. Instead, I had a well-honed appetite and by the time I had changed, drunk a Kir, and gone down to the dining room, the honing had reached razorlike proportions.

I was waiting for Madame to arrive with her listing of the day's catch when she came bustling up to say, “M'sieu, there is a lady who wishes to speak with you.” She batted her eyes in the classic matchmaking manner.

“Did she give a name?” I asked.

“No, m'sieu.”

“Is she—?”

“She is young, m'sieu, and attractive.”

“Ask her to join me,” I said.

Madame Ribereau smiled understandingly.

“Very well, m'sieu.”

It was Veronique Morel. She was wearing a dark blue suit with matching shoes. She looked very smart and trim but she put a hand to her mouth in embarrassment.

“I am sorry. I did not mean to interrupt your meal.”

To the French, nothing is more reprehensible than delaying, or interrupting the all-important process of eating. The French do not simply eat—they dine. It is crass behavior to disrupt that ceremony.

“You're not interrupting,” I assured her. “I haven't started yet.”

“But … I should not have—I will wait in the lobby.”

“Nonsense,” I said firmly. “Sit down and join me.”

I signaled Madame Ribereau, a close enough observer to have a waiter appear immediately with another chair.

“I really must not …” Veronique said, still spilling out apologies.

“You don't have to eat if you don't want,” I told her. “But please sit.”

Still she hesitated until I said, “It will spoil my meal if you don't.”