Cockpit (31 page)

Later in the evening, I watched Veronika and her husband exchanging pleasantries with the vice president and some senators and wealthy backers. As the cameras flashed, Veronika pretended to be oblivious of them, yet I knew that she was constantly posing. She and her husband returned to the table and I wished them good night. Her husband hoped that they would see me again soon. I thanked him but said I was about to leave town. Long-range plans were unrealistic for me, because of my poor health. Veronika smiled distantly.

A few days later, I read that a major aerospace company was opening its doors to the public to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary. The celebration was to include an exhibition of the company’s collection of old planes as well as a presentation of the newest military jets. To brief myself, I called the public relations department and asked for recent issues of the company’s monthly, an elaborate magazine printed in color on glossy paper.

One issue featured an illustrated article on the company’s test pilots, describing their backgrounds and families and briefly interviewing each man. The pilots were in their late thirties or forties and many had served in the recent war. I focused on one, a man in his mid-forties. In his interview, he mentioned how pleased he was that the company had extended its retirement age for pilots. He also spoke of the fatigue and increasing tension men of his age had to cope with during each test flight.

I telephoned him and introduced myself as a well-to-do businessman, also in the aerospace industry. After complimenting him on the interview, I told him I would like to discuss future business opportunities with him. He agreed to meet me for lunch at a restaurant near the company’s testing grounds.

I arrived at the restaurant early and watched him pull up in a compact car. He was a short, lithe man. We introduced ourselves.

I was surprised, I said, to see one of the better known pilots in the aerospace industry driving such a modest car. He laughed and explained that, unlike airline pilots, test fliers were not unionized. Since his profession, like car racing, had been glamorized by the media, the aerospace companies had been attracting more than enough applicants. Consequently, his salary was much lower than that of a commercial airline pilot. As it was, he admitted, his wife also had to work to support their four teen-aged children. I expressed interest in the company’s forthcoming aircraft exhibition and revealed that my proposition involved the show.

When I asked if he would be demonstrating any of the new planes, he guardedly replied that he might be. I told him that a young lady friend and I were anxious to see one of the Snipe jet fighters and that if he were to show it to us I would gladly reward him for his efforts. He laughed and told me I didn’t need him as a guide. Now that the Arabs were buying them by the dozens, several Snipes would be displayed for public inspection. Kids love pilots and planes, he said, and there would be pilots in full flight gear everywhere to answer any questions.

“Still, I have a small favor to ask,” I added. “At the show, while you’re in the pilot’s seat and my girl is standing in front of the Snipe, I want you to turn on the radar.”

“To do what?” he asked.

“Turn on the radar,” I repeated.

“I can’t do that. If the radar functions while the plane is on the ground, there’s a serious radiation hazard. Do you know what radar radiation would do to her?”

“I do.”

“It would kill her.”

“That will not be your business. You will simply forget
the plane is on the ground. Afterward, you won’t remember you ever saw me and the girl.”

“Listen to me,” he said solemnly, “radar is so powerful that it can detonate an explosive.”

“My girlfriend is not an explosive.”

“But she’ll absorb a fatal dose of radiation. She’ll die a slow and horrible death. That’s a hell of a way to kill a person.”

“If you refuse me,” I said, “I’ll have someone wrap a heavy towel around her head to muffle her screams, and club her repeatedly with an iron bar until her blood soaks through the towel, and her skull, jaw and spine are smashed. Is that more merciful?” I paused. “I’ll pay you well,” I added.

He bent over the table, his drink in one hand while the fingertips of the other traced swirls and slashes on the frosty glass.

“For the last few years,” I continued, “you’ve been involved in testing fighter jets. Any defects you find are instantly corrected. Even if there is nothing wrong with the product, it is constantly being improved upon. Thousands of skilled people and elaborate computers are at your disposal. Money doesn’t matter, either. You know better than I that, although a plane is built to last only half the life span of an average light bulb, it costs about thirty million dollars. You’ve been spoiled by a world of relentless perfecting; I have not.”

“I’m not testing aircraft to kill,” he responded. His fingers stopped playing with the glass.

“You’re not?” I broke in. “In your interview, you mentioned flying Snipes in Southeast Asia on low-level bombing missions deep into enemy territory. Your plane was hit twice; both times you ejected and were rescued by navy helicopters.”

For a moment, we sipped our drinks in silence. Then I continued, “The radar of those planes you flew can track simultaneously
over two dozen separate targets, such as foot soldiers, sampans, roads, railways, bridges, airports, buildings. The computer assigns priority to these targets. This is the priority system you call the ‘logic tree,’ isn’t it?”

“Yes, but …”

“Let me finish. To disregard the computer’s logic tree is called ‘overriding,’ isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“In combat, you always obeyed that logic tree, never overrode it, never assigned your own priorities.”

“No, sir, I never did!”

“The computer selected the targets, released the bombs and fired the rockets, but it was you who were cited for bravery. A lot of people died because of that logic tree.”

“A lot of pilots died, too,” he broke in.

“Quite so. Every issue of your company’s magazine carries the obituaries of employees who have died. I noticed that some of the pilots recently killed in job-related accidents were much younger than you. That fly buzzing across the windowpane may outlive you. So might my girl friend.”

“But what reason have I got to expose a perfect stranger to radiation?”

“You found reasons to machine-gun, bomb and napalm thousands of perfect strangers. All I want you to do is switch on the radar. Instead of a village, its screen will show a single, human-shaped target. After a moment too brief for proper identification of the object, you will simply switch the radar off. Your mission will be over and for it I’ll pay you as much cash as you were paid for all your combat missions put together. How’s that for a logic tree? Can you override that?”

The pilot pulled a paper napkin out of the dispenser and, taking a ball-point pen from his pocket, did some quick computations. After a moment, he pushed the napkin toward me. “Would you really pay as much as that?”

I looked at the figure. “I would,” I said. “Furthermore, there is no risk involved. This girl travels constantly in private jets, all of which are radar-equipped and any of which could have been the source of the radiation. By the time she gets ill, even Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t be able to trace her ailment to you.”

He continued to sip his drink in silence. Then he dug into his pants pockets for his car keys and got up. “On opening day, I’ll wait for you near my Snipe,” he said. “The plane is usually displayed on side runway number six. Orange and black paint job, you can’t miss it.” He leaned close to me. “I don’t care what you pay me,” he said. “I’ll activate the system in the plane and I’ll show you where the switch is which actually starts the radar, but I won’t trip that switch. That woman is your target, not mine.”

He turned and walked out of the restaurant. I watched him get into his car and drive off.

I called Veronika and told her I had only barely survived a recent attack. My doctors admitted the prognosis wasn’t good, and I had decided to settle in a small mountain village. Since I was about to step out of her life, I wanted to say goodbye, and wondered if she would accompany me to an air show near the seashore. If she refused such a small favor, I said, before my departure I would give the information about her past, as well as all the photographs I’d ever taken of her, including the ones of her with the three bums, to certain friends of mine who would find the most effective means of blackmailing her. If, however, she agreed to see me for one last time, I promised to destroy them all. Veronika agreed.

I telephoned the test pilot and confirmed that I would be bringing my girl friend to the show early in the morning. He told me to be at the gates as soon as they opened, to skip the first exhibits and go directly to his plane.

Veronika picked me up in her car. I mentioned to her that I was particularly interested in a special supersonic jet
and that they might let us look at it more closely before the crowds came. The highway was empty and it took less than an hour to reach the exhibition field. It was a cool, clear day, and, as we walked, the wind blew through Veronika’s hair and wrapped her beige silk dress about her.

The test pilot was standing near his aircraft. When we approached him, he introduced himself as if we had never met. I asked him several basic questions about the plane and he answered them succinctly. I also asked if I could see the cockpit.

He went behind me up the narrow, thin steps, and stood on the top step, while I sat in the pilot’s seat. Leaning into the cockpit, he pointed at the instrument panel and console, and, in a detached voice, described the functions of various switches. When he got to the radar control switch, his hand hovered over it. I nodded. Taking out of my pocket several packs of well-worn bills, I separated the packets and spread them on my thighs. He fanned through each packet quickly, stuffed them inside the zippered compartments in his flight suit, and activated the radar system.

With camera in hand, I leaned out of the cockpit and shouted down to Veronika to stand directly in front of the aircraft’s nose so that I could take pictures of her. I mockingly told her there was no danger of being caught in the propeller. When she was in position, she waited impatiently, pacing in a small circle around the spot where I wanted her to pose.

After snapping several pictures, I called down and asked her to lift her hair above her head with both hands. She complied and the camera clicked. Then I told her I had to change the lens. She nodded. I sat back, and tripped the switch. Instantly, the hazard light began flashing. The silvery radar display indicator brightened and the luminescent dots at the center of its screen began to coalesce into a blurred shape, like rapidly multiplying cells.

I glanced at Veronika through the jet’s open canopy.
Posed against the peaceful green field veined with white runways, she had no idea that invisible missiles were assaulting her body and brain.

I turned to the pilot. His face was flushed. He stared at the screen’s dim glow as though it reflected something horrible. I switched the radar off, and the screen darkened, then went black.

We descended from the cockpit and I said goodbye to the pilot. He did not answer, but stared at Veronika, who came over to thank him. She and I left and, hand in hand, walked across the field, passing the other planes, which were already surrounded by the first wave of visitors.

On the way back to town, Veronika asked about my health and departure date. My health had deteriorated, I said. I was leaving soon. I could bear the thought of never seeing her again only because I knew a part of me would always be with her. Nothing would please me more, I said, than to know that there would be days and nights when, unable to sleep, she would recall our arrangement and how it had ended.

Whenever I am in a large city, I often go for walks around three or four o’clock in the morning. I feel like a solitary visitor in a vast, private museum. At that hour, one can easily imagine that mankind is nearly extinct. The only signs of life are occasional: a solitary bum slouching along the sidewalk, a speeding taxi, a couple crossing a distant street. All this makes me feel that I am one of the few survivors left to contemplate the urban remains—deserted glass and steel structures, as yet untouched by time. Sometimes I am still up at dawn, the gradual increase of noise and motion reminding me that I am not alone.

I know that behind the countless walls in the thousands of buildings that fan out around me, flaccid bodies, winding in their blankets and dreams, begin to open their eyes, stretch their aching limbs, detach their bodies from brief embraces, and begin the daily ritual: soon they will grope toward narrow doors and shuffle out onto dirty streets.

One morning, just as the sun was beginning to give the city color, I stopped in front of a building I had never noticed before. It was in a part of town I enjoyed most. I decided to take an apartment in it. Later that morning I asked to see layouts of the various suites. I noticed that one plan perfectly matched my specifications. Its windows had the correct exposure and it was near the service elevator. When I asked the superintendent to see it, he suggested one on the next floor down, explaining that the one I wanted was occupied by an old bachelor who had lived there for years, paid the rent religiously and went out only twice a week. The super joked that only death could move that old crab from its hole.

I tipped the super generously and promised him more if he would let me know when the old man vacated the place. As I was leaving, the super urged me to consider the apartment below, repeating that it would be a waste of time to count on the tenant’s moving.

I found out the bachelor’s name from his mailbox and had him put on a number of mailing lists to receive illustrated brochures from retirement villages and information from Florida real-estate agencies catering to senior citizens. In addition, every week I sent him pamphlets proclaiming the advantages of spending one’s old age in the Sunshine State. In case he might be attracted by a drier climate, I mailed brochures of retirement colonies from southern California and sent him the latest issue of
Arizona Highways,
as a complimentary inducement to subscribe. Twice a week, he received a manila envelope from me, stuffed with newspaper clippings that were vivid evidence of the rising rate of crime against elderly persons living in the city. Other items dealt with the criminally negligent medical treatment offered to the aging, the skyrocketing cost of city life and, above all, the lethal effects of pollution.