“Everything okay?”
“I think so, but we’re being followed.”
“Oh?” I looked behind the family. I didn’t see Ernst. “Where is…?”
Szalay turned and motioned back to the trees. It was dark back there. “He… he’s with the other man who brought us.”
That didn’t sound right to me, but I figured Ernst knew what he was doing.
The boy continued to jabber about the wheel. He was nearing tears as his mother tried to comfort him. Szalay turned to him and shook his head. No, they were telling him. No time to ride the Ferris wheel. The boy became hysterical. He started to scream and cry and throw a tantrum. We were attracting a lot of attention.
I looked at my watch. “Actually, you have some time, if you’d like. It might be better than standing here.” I glanced toward the building at the base of the Riesenrad. There wasn’t much of a line to buy tickets. “My treat.”
He spoke to his wife in Hungarian, and then they decided to take me up on my offer. It would be a nice present for the children. After all, they didn’t know when they’d ever be in Vienna again. When they told their son, he immediately settled down and was happy.
I walked them to the other side of the platz to the ride’s box office, pulled out my wallet, and handed over enough Austrian schillings to buy four tickets. I gave them to him and said, “Here. Wrap yourself good. It might be cold up there.”
Luckily, there weren’t many people waiting. When business was slow, the management allowed small parties to take over an entire gondola rather than stuffing the car to the maximum. I went up the stairs with them and watched the Szalays get in gondola number four by themselves. The couple sat, but the girl pressed her nose to the window. Because the boy couldn’t reach it, Szalay stood and picked up his child. He stood in plain sight through the pane. I didn’t want him to do that. I waved at him to sit down, but he didn’t see me. The operator started the ride. Gondola four jerked and then rose slowly along the circle to its next position before the wheel was stopped to let on more passengers.
There was nothing more to do for twenty minutes, so I left the structure and went back to the platz. Gondola four glided to its next position. I thought the timing would work perfectly. It would have been nice to be able to communicate with Ernst the way field agents could later with increasingly sophisticated radio devices. But that was not yet possible in nineteen-fifty-six. I lit a cigarette and stood in the same spot where I was before, watching the Ferris wheel go round.
Curious about my Austrian asset, I eventually turned and walked around the pavilion toward the park’s perimeter, where the trees created a shadowy, more inconspicuous area. It was from there that Ernst had escorted the family to me. I couldn’t see him, so I threw down my cigarette and strode closer. Once I was already amid the trees and didn’t find him, I figured Ernst had already left the premises. He hadn’t been required to stay, but I remember thinking he probably should have made sure the completion of the handover went smoothly.
When I moved to return to the platz, I saw a man lying on the ground, curled around the base of a tree. I quickly ran to him and saw that his throat had been slashed. Ernst. In the shadows his blood appeared black, and it was everywhere. I swear I felt my stomach jump into my throat. It was the first time since the war I’d seen something like that. Staying crouched, I snapped my head around in all directions, fearing that I was to be the killer’s next victim. But no one else was in the proximity. No car idled at the curb on Ausstellungsstraße, the avenue on the other side of the trees. I was alone with Ernst’s corpse.
Though I never carried one, I wished I’d had a gun. The so-called easy diplomatic mission had turned into something else entirely.
Once I was confident my own life wasn’t in immediate danger, I remembered why I was at the Prater. I stood, ran back to the platz, and gazed at the wheel. Gondola four was at the very top, high above Vienna, where the passengers could look out and see almost the entire city laid out on both sides of the ride.
I spied a pay phone near the front entrance arch, where guests obtained maps and information about the park. There was time, so I trotted to it, inserted the correct amount of coins, and called the emergency number I’d been given. The real personal assistant to the Ambassador answered. I told him I needed to speak to Thompson, but he said I was to tell him whatever I had to say. He knew all about what was happening that evening. When I relayed the news of what had happened to my Austrian asset, he said, “For God’s sake, where is Szalay now?”
I explained about the wheel.
“Christ. All right, stay there. Wait for the family and proceed with the plan. Your driver will be there in… what, ten minutes?”
“That’s right. About when the family gets off the ride.”
“Take them right to the rendezvous point. I’ll try to get a field officer there immediately.”
I hung up and went to center of the platz so I could check the wheel’s progress. Gondola four was at the three-o’clock position. It wouldn’t be long now. I went into the Riesenrad building and maneuvered my way to the staircase used by passengers exiting the ride. From the foot of the steps I could see the lower gondolas as they approached the loading platform. I’d be able to see the family as they disembarked.
Despite the brisk evening air, sweat soaked my shirt. Somewhere in the park was an assassin, maybe more than one. I told myself there was the possibility that murdering Ernst had nothing to do with the Szalay family, but I doubted it. The killers were Soviet agents sent to terminate the Szalay family. Somehow they had gotten wind of Ernst’s plan. That meant they could be anywhere in the park. Did they know what I looked like? Did they see him hand over the family to me? It was possible. They got rid of Ernst first, and they were merely waiting for me to reappear with the Szalays. I thought that if I hadn’t moved to a spot where other people could see me, I might have been dead already.
Gondola four was in sight now at the five o’clock position. It was next to reach the loading platform. My watch indicated we had five minutes before the van arrived. I noted the wheel operator staring at me. When we made eye contact, he asked in German, “May I help you?”
I pointed to gondola four and answered, “Waiting for them.” Then I noticed the windows. I didn’t see the daughter or Szalay holding his son. Despite the twinge of panic, I figured they must have all sat after a while. The operator waved me up so that I could stand on the platform and greet my friends. I stood in place and watched the gondola inch closer.
The ride came to a halt, and the operator opened the doors.
The gondola was empty.
I immediately repositioned myself so I could again examine the car’s number on the front to make sure I had the right one. Sure enough, a white number four was painted on the exterior. I went back to the operator and asked, “What happened?”
“What?”
“Where are the people that were inside this gondola?”
He seemed confused. “Some gondolas are empty.”
“I saw the family get in. I was here! A man, woman, girl, and a boy.”
The operator shrugged like it was none of his business. He shut the door and started back to his controls.
“Wait! You can’t move the wheel. There’s been—”
“What?”
My first thought was that I should try and shut down the Ferris wheel and find out what the hell just happened. Then I remembered the instructions—extreme discretion was a priority. I couldn’t let anyone know that I’d been there to help spirit away a defecting Hungarian family that the Russian death squad wanted to kill. And then there was the complication of Ernst’s body lying in the trees not a hundred yards from where I stood. So I stammered, and said, “Maybe I’m mistaken. They’re in the next gondola.” The operator shook his head and then pulled the lever to start the sizable motor that powered the behemoth. Gondola four began its journey around the circle again.