I hoped perhaps I had made a mistake. The Szalay family would be in the next car. But I knew it was a futile dream. I’m really good at numbers, and I remember it was unequivocally gondola number four that the Szalays boarded.
The next car held six teenage couples, who laughed and carried on as they bolted out and ran down the stairs. The operator looked at me, and then I shrugged. “I guess they already got out. I’ll look for them in the park.” He nodded and went back to his job. I went down the stairs and through the museum to the platz, dazed and frightened. I spent the next minute circling the Riesenradplatz to make sure I hadn’t missed them after all. Of course, they were nowhere in sight.
I stared up at the huge Ferris wheel, moving now against a starry sky. The park would be closing soon.
Where did they get out?
There was the other platform where passengers booking an extended stay in the dining car boarded, but it was closed and dark. The strutted structure that supported the wheel would be no way down. Climbing the exterior would be extremely hazardous. Children couldn’t possibly do it.
Where did they go?
My God, they had vanished.
But that was crazy. I told myself over and over that it simply wasn’t possible. There was a logical and reasonable explanation for what happened.
I noted I was panting, desperately trying to catch my breath. I looked at my watch. Seven on the dot. I moved out of the park and tried to walk nonchalantly to the corner of the entrance and Ausstellungsstraße. The van was there. The driver saw me coming alone and frowned. I opened the passenger door and stuck my head in. I’d never seen the man before.
“They’re gone. I lost them somehow.”
“What?”
I got in the car and closed the door. “Drive and I’ll tell you. You can bring me back for my car.”
So I told him the story and he said, “They’ve got to be there. They are somewhere in that park!”
“Maybe so, or maybe they’re already out of it. I am. They could have been shoved into a vehicle in the amount of time it took me to find you. I swear, I put them in that gondola, watched it go all the way around, and then the thing was empty when it reached the bottom. I have no idea what the hell happened. It’s like some kind of Houdini trick.”
The driver was silent. He took me back to the parking lot, where I found my car and went home. I dreaded going to the embassy the next morning. I knew how my story was going to sound. I had really blown it. My first and only field operation and I screwed it up royally. In the end, it was acknowledged that I shouldn’t have been sent to do such a delicate diplomatic task, but that I was to get a slap on the wrist. Hence, the move back to the States.
The Szalay family was never heard from again. They truly had disappeared into one of the black holes that existed all over the map in those days. You never knew when you were going to step into one of them, and there was no clue what happened to you when you did. I chalked it up to the nature of the beast—the world of spooks and ghosts. With denizens like that, you have to expect the unexplainable.
The rest of my career was uneventful. I was a good analyst. I did solid work. I retired with a pension. I often thought about the Szalays, though. My dreams of the Wiener Riesenrad turned into nightmares. All I saw were horrific images of the boy crying. Ernst’s slit throat. The number four gondola. The excruciatingly slow-turning wheel. The faces of that hopelessly lost family.
Ghosts.
That was the Cold War for me. It was an enigma that haunted me the rest of my life.
And I never watched The Third Man again.
ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS
A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author of thirty-two novels and two collections of short stories. His novels are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages.
His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers Association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window was also nominated for that prize. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year and has been nominated for seven Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. He’s won both the Steel Dagger and the Short Story Dagger from the Crime Writers Association in the U.K.
His most recent novels are The Kill Room, a Lincoln Rhyme novel, and XO, a Kathryn Dance thriller, for which he wrote an album of country-western songs, available on iTunes and as a CD.
Readers can visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com.
Raymond Benson is the internationally acclaimed author of thirty published titles. The fourth book in his most recent thriller series—The Black Stiletto: Secrets & Lies—recently appeared, preceded by The Black Stiletto, The Black Stiletto: Black & White, and The Black Stiletto: Stars & Stripes. The fifth and final chapter in the saga will be published late 2014. Raymond was the fourth—and first American—author of the official James Bond novels (1996–2002), and his work is currently collected in the anthologies Choice of Weapons and The Union Trilogy. His “rock ’n’ roll thriller” Dark Side of the Morgue was a Shamus nominee for Best Paperback Original P.I. Novel of 2009. Raymond is also a prolific tie-in writer, the most recent work being Homefront—The Voice of Freedom (cowritten with John Milius) and Hitman: Damnation. For more information, you can visit www.raymondbenson.com or www.theblackstiletto.net.
Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels and whom the Boston Globe has called a “master of the modern thriller.” A Russian Studies major at Yale, he did graduate work at the Harvard Russian Research Center and wrote widely on Soviet politics and intelligence before publishing his first novel, The Moscow Club, which was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the ten best spy novels of all time.
Killer Instinct was named Best Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers, and a major motion picture based on Paranoia was released in 2013, starring Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and Liam Hemsworth. His novel High Crimes became a hit movie starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, he lives in Boston. His most recent book is Suspicion (Dutton, 2014).
John Lescroart is the author of twenty-four novels, fifteen of which have been New York Times bestsellers. Libraries Unlimited places him among “The 100 Most Popular Thriller and Suspense Authors.” With sales of over ten million copies, his books have been translated into twenty-two languages in more than seventy-five countries, and his short stories appear in many anthologies. John’s first novel, Sunburn, won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award. Dead Irish and The 13th Juror were nominees for the Shamus and Anthony Best Mystery Novel, respectively; additionally The 13th Juror is included in the International Thriller Writers publication “100 Must-Read Thrillers of All Time.” Hard Evidence made “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Ultimate Reading List.” The Suspect was the American Author’s Association 2007 Book of the Year. John’s books have been Main Selections of the Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, and Book of the Month Club.