Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue From the Cold War

GHOSTS BY RAYMOND BENSON

They call us spooks.

You know — spies, agents, operatives — whatever.

Spooks.

But I’m here to tell you that it’s not just spooks that occupy the darker regions of the intelligence field. Ghosts reside there as well. Lost souls that somehow fell through the cracks and disappeared into a black pit of secrets and lies, as if they’d vanished into thin air.

Ghosts.

I know this firsthand. It’s the only justification for what happened, for I now believe it’s a mystery that will never be deciphered. For years I wanted to think there was a reasonable and logical solution to the puzzle. For a so-called easy diplomatic mission, it has haunted me ever since that bizarre night. And because I couldn’t properly explain it at the time, my career took a hit. I was removed from the field and brought home to the States. The pay was slightly better, surprisingly, but the new job was most definitely a demotion. Instead of working in an exotic European locale, such as the glorious city of Vienna, Austria, I found myself behind a desk at CIA headquarters.

What really happened on the night of November fourth, nineteen-fifty-six?

The crazy thing about it is that somehow it involves the Ferris wheel. The same one used in that spy movie, The Third Man, the one that starred Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. I love that picture. I was in Vienna during filming, and I saw it three times when it played in the city. It was amazingly true to what was going on then, except I never really heard much zither music playing in the streets. You might know the scene — Cotten and Welles meet in one of the gondola cars for a clandestine rendezvous in the sky. The gondolas have roofs; like little wood cabins with windows, and large enough for fifteen people. The Wiener Riesenrad, at the time the world’s largest Ferris wheel, already had a lot of mystique since it had been built before the turn of the last century. That movie gave it even more of an air of mystery, and subsequent films and stories added to it. Today the wheel is a major tourist attraction in Vienna.

I’m ninety-four years old now. I think I’ve outlived most of the guys I knew in the Agency. Hell, I can remember when our offices were spread around D.C., long before the Langley campus was built. I spent most of my life in the CIA and, before that, with military intelligence during the war. Getting into that was easy — I had an advantage. My grandmother was from Frankfurt and she lived with us in Texas when I was growing up in the thirties, so I learned to speak both English and German fluently. The Military Intelligence Service snatched me up when I was drafted and I was stationed first in France, then Belgium, and finally Germany. I didn’t see any action. I analyzed intelligence reports. When the war was over, I had the choice to become a citizen again at the age of twenty-six, or join the organization that would eventually evolve into the Central Intelligence Agency. With the state of Europe being what it was — everyone was scrambling for pieces of divided countries — I figured that at the very least the work would be interesting. So I became a political analyst for a living.

And lucky me — they sent me to Vienna. Lovely Vienna. What a fascinating, gorgeous, vibrant place. Full of spirit, history, and the arts. It was an ideal posting, and I loved it. Officially, my job title was “Ambassadorial Assistant.” I worked in Vienna’s American sector until Austria was granted sovereignty in nineteen-fifty-five. After the war, Austria, being on the losing side, was divvied up between the U.S., France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. The capital city itself was also split into four sectors. Surprisingly, the system actually worked during the years it took for Vienna to be rebuilt and repaired. Even the Russians displayed no desire to occupy Austria the way they had other Eastern European countries, like Hungary. That was admirable, given that the Iron Curtain already dissected Berlin and was laying foundation from north to south across Europe. When Austria became its own boss again and the four superpowers dissolved their pieces of that pie, I stayed in the city and worked at the U.S. Embassy.

And that brings me to the question at hand. At my age, I know I could die tomorrow. Hell, I could kick the bucket tonight during dinner. Of all the memories I possess from my long life, there are indeed many treasured ones and also some I’d prefer to forget. And then there’s the one I wish to God I could understand before I close my eyes for the last time.

What happened to the Szalay family that fateful evening of November fourth, nineteen-fifty-six?

It was a busy morning at the embassy. A lot was going on in the world that day. I was at my desk tracking the Suez crisis, because we knew the Brits were going to join the Israelis in the war with Egypt. That whole shitstorm began during the summer, when Nasser declared the Suez Canal belonged to Egypt alone and kicked out the Brits, with whom the Arabs had already fallen out over the existence of Israel. I imagine the Brits’ colonial attitudes also had something to do with the feud. France got into the act and it was shaping up to be a war between Israel, the U.K., and France on one side, and the Arabs, in particular Egypt, on the other. Everything grew tense for the next couple of months, and finally, just six days prior to November fourth, Israel attacked Egypt.

After the fact we found out the Brit operation was called “Project Telescope.” On the fifth, the Brits dropped paratroopers into the country. Royal Marines landed on the sixth. At that time, the U.S. position on it all was to discreetly favor the Arabs. It was in America’s best interests to keep peace in the region. The Suez Canal was a major artery for the efficient flow of oil to the West. We also knew that the Soviet Union was backing the Arabs in the cause, and we didn’t want to piss them off. Eisenhower didn’t want to escalate the thing into World War Three. So America would end up trying to broker peace, which we eventually did, perhaps by dangling the possible fluctuation in value of the pound sterling over Prime Minister Eden’s head.

Anyway, that was all going on in the Middle East. In Vienna, we were mostly concerned about the situation in Hungary. Although things had been quiet in that country for a week, the Soviets were going to invade the country that morning, the fourth. Needless to say, our phones were ringing nonstop. We had Hungarian refugees pouring into Austria from across the border — the first time since the war that citizens could do so. We had no idea how bad it was going to be in Hungary, but we knew it could get ugly. The Soviets were probably going to clobber the revolutionaries and punish the rest of the country for the rebellion.

Today it’s called the Hungarian Uprising of nineteen-fifty-six. The Hungarian people got fed up with being ruled by the communists. On October twenty-third, students led a protest in Budapest that became violent — and suddenly it seemed that the entire country took up arms against their overseers. In five days, all Russian troops had been pushed out and back into the USSR. The Hungarian government failed, and a coup went into effect led by the “New National Government.” Imre Nagy was appointed their first prime minister. The revolt was bloody and frightening to the rest of the world. Of course, the U.S. was on the revolutionaries’ side, but we couldn’t say so publicly.

For nearly a week, there was calm. It looked like the Soviets were going to leave Hungary alone. Hordes of Hungarians left while the borders were open.

But we knew that on November fourth the Soviets were going to strike back. In fact, we learned about it that very morning and did our best to get the intelligence where it was needed. In another week, though, the Soviets crushed the Hungarians and punished them, too. Thousands were lost. The arrests, kangaroo trials, and executions of hundreds of people went on for years. The country was under communist rule until the fall of the USSR in nineteen-eighty-nine. Today the Uprising is remembered as something akin to a Hungarian Holocaust, and the date is a national holiday.

As I was going over the latest cables from our station in Egypt, Ambassador Thompson called me into his office. As I assumed, it was about the Hungarian situation.

“The Soviets are encircling Budapest as we speak,” he said in his typically calm, soft voice. “By tonight the city will be cut off. We understand the Soviet Eighth and Thirty-eighth Armies were deployed to boost the divisions already posted in Hungary. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“What are we going to do, sir?” I asked.

“Nothing, of course. What can we do? Unless the rebels hold out — which I seriously doubt will happen — Hungary will once again be under Moscow’s control. I give them five days. A week, tops.”

“I’m afraid I agree.”

He shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound. Then he took a manila folder that lay on his desk and opened it. “I have a small task for you. We received a coded cable from Dulles this morning with the request that we handle the matter.” Thompson handed me the transcribed signal, along with a photograph of a middle-aged man with eyeglasses and a mustache. To me he looked like a college professor. His name was handwritten at the bottom. I had never heard of Tamás Szalay before that moment. Apparently he was a high-level guy in the Hungarian Working People’s Party, someone with access to all the Soviet puppet big shots like Münnich and Kádár.

The instructions, which used Dulles’s own code identifiers, said that Szalay and his family were among the refugees rushing to get out of Hungary, and the man wanted to defect to the West. He possessed extremely valuable information about the Soviet Union’s plans to aid the Arabs in the Suez Crisis in the event that the U.S. entered the conflict. It was the kind of intelligence for which men were killed.

“Szalay is already in Austria,” Thompson said, “and he will be in Vienna tonight. The problem is, the Soviets were unaware he had fled the country until yesterday. They know what he knows. They want him back. Failing that, they’ll kill Szalay to prevent him from defecting.”

“You said he’s with his family?”

Thompson nodded. “A wife, a teenage daughter, and a young son.”

“Christ. That’s not conspicuous, is it?”

“Right. Now they’re in hiding, but we have to get them out as quickly as possible. Would you mind being their contact tonight?”

“Me?” I wasn’t an operations man. I should point out that my expertise in intelligence lay in strategizing and analyzing data. I wasn’t the type of field agent who got his hands dirty. I never carried a gun. Fiction has often exaggerated what we did during the Cold War, especially those of us who were stationed in foreign cities. The spy game was mostly played on paper, or by interpersonal interaction with assets, or by observation. The cloak-and-dagger stuff was strictly for the movies and the novels of John le Carré and Ian Fleming. Thus, up to that day, my years in the CIA, while filled with many tense and worrisome moments, had never brought me face-to-face with violence.

“I’m afraid there’s no one else. Really, it’s just an easy diplomatic mission. You can handle it.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Our Austrian friends will deliver the family to you tonight at the Prater. You’ll babysit them for an hour or so, and then they’ll be picked up by one of our men. That’s it.”

“Why the Prater?” The Wiener Prater was Vienna’s long-standing amusement park, where The Third Man Ferris wheel was located.

“I have no idea. Maybe somebody decided that if they were going to appear in public, then the park would be the safest place. After all, they have children. Unless the Soviets know where they’re hiding, they can’t track them to the park. At least, that’s what we’re hoping. At any rate, extreme discretion is a priority. An Austrian asset will have all the details by lunchtime. You’re to meet him at noon.”

Thompson gave me the Austrian’s info and sent me on my way. On the surface, the assignment seemed straightforward. As long as the Szalay family could get to the Prater safely, then I could get them out of Austria with no problems.

Or so I thought.

I met the asset at Trześniewski’s, one of my favorite cafés. They served small rectangular open sandwiches of fresh bread and various spreads. It was a Viennese mainstay since before the First World War. The man gave his name as “Ernst.” It probably wasn’t real. He looked about my age, had blonde hair, and was as Austrian as they come. Being in public, we spoke German.

“There has already been one attempt on Szalay’s life,” he told me. “It happened last night in District Twenty-Two. Two assassins attempted to shoot into the car they were in while it was stopped at a street light. Luckily, our man in the car behind them engaged the attackers in gunfire. Szalay and the family got away safely.”

“Jesus,” I said. “How come we didn’t hear about that?”

“I’m sure the police are trying to figure out what really happened. All they found were two dead men lying in an intersection.” Ernst shrugged. “Vienna’s a rough town these days.”

We talked about the logistics of getting the family out of the park and into an unmarked van that would take them immediately to Salzburg, and from there, into West Germany and the American Zone. Since the Riesenrad was in the southwest corner of the park, near the front entrance, I thought it best that we meet in that vicinity. Just across from the attraction, on the other side of the circular Riesenradplatz, stood a small pavilion containing restrooms, a snack bar, and an ice cream parlor. Ernst thought that was perfect. Ausstellungsstraße, a major east-west avenue, ran just north of the Prater main entrance. At the given time, the van could pull up to the curb and I could herd the family into it quickly.

“As long as you’re not seen by the opposition, that should work fine,” my Austrian colleague said.

“One last question. Why are we doing this at the Prater?” I thought it was a reasonable question.

Ernst shrugged. “It’s what I was told. Maybe the family wants to ride the carousel and eat some cotton candy.”

The temperature outside was nippy but not terribly cold. The park would soon close for its regular hiatus through winter. On the fourth it would close at seven, and that’s when the van would arrive to pick up the Szalay family. Ernst promised to have them at the designated spot at six-thirty, just as it was becoming dark. He didn’t think that thirty minutes of exposure was too bad, but unfortunately that was the way the timing had to work. That was fine, or so I thought.

That afternoon, I did as much fact-finding as I could regarding the presence of Soviet hit squads in Vienna. All I found out was what we already knew. They were indeed in the city, but I had no idea how many or who they were. Nevertheless, I was confident the handover would go smoothly. It sounded easy enough: collect the family from Ernst at the amusement park, maybe have an ice cream with them, and then walk them to the street corner to catch the van. My part would take less than two hours of my time, including the travel to and from my home and the Prater. Easy.

I was at the park by six-fifteen. It wasn’t very crowded due to the chilly weather. Much of the place had been hit by bombs during the war, and it had taken a while to rebuild everything. The big wheel had been damaged, too. The Prater reclaimed its former glory around the same time as Austria reentered the global community as a sovereign nation. Most of the attractions were back, along with newer things. The Riesenrad looked brand new, although they’d reduced the number of gondolas in order to spread them out more around the wheel. Part of the attraction was a small building that housed an exhibit telling the park’s history. Passengers had to buy tickets, go through the minimuseum, and then climb the steps to the platform where they boarded a gondola.

Taking my position by the ice cream parlor, I lit a cigarette and stood as if I was waiting for someone — which I was. There’s no entrance fee to the park itself; it’s only if you want to go on the rides or play games that they charge you money. The wheel was right in front of me, as big as the sky. Unlike most Ferris wheels, this one rotated very slowly, so that riders could stand in the gondola, look out the windows, take pictures, or whatever. It was also possible to arrange to rent the “dining car,” which was decked out with a tablecloth-covered table, candles, and waiters. Perfect for a special occasion.

I kept my eyes moving, noting the faces of the people as they strolled through the Riesenradplatz on their way in or out of the park. Some went straight to the Ferris wheel. By the time I’d finished my cigarette, it was six-thirty. And, right on time, Ernst appeared from behind the pavilion. He spoke German again. “I have your package.”

I didn’t see anyone but him. “Oh?”

He jerked his head toward the trees that lined the park behind the pavilion. “I wanted to make sure everything was okay. I’ll be right back.”

Ernst left me and I waited another minute. Then, the man I recognized as Tamás Szalay came around the corner of the building with his wife and two children. He was shorter than I’d imagined, but he was definitely the same man. The wife was even smaller, but she was pretty in a conservative Hungarian way. Her head was wrapped in a scarf to ward off the chill. Szalay’s eyes darted fervently around the Riesenradplatz. The daughter appeared to be fourteen or fifteen, but I knew from the file she was only twelve. Her eyes were wide with excitement at the lights and colors of the amusement park. The boy, probably six or seven, was just as fascinated. Now standing near the base of the Riesenrad, he pointed to it and set off a string of Hungarian at his parents. He wanted to ride the wheel.

“Hello,” Szalay said to me in English. We clasped hands. His was moist from nervousness. I asked him if he spoke any English. He shook his head. I tried German. Szalay made the universal sign with his fingers—“a little.” His Russian was much better than my Hungarian, so we settled on that.

“Long journey?”

“Yes.”

“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.

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.