CHAPTER 11: Swing Low, Sweet Paranoia

PRATER TOWER, 384 FEET OF REGRET

We had no business being there.

Drunk, sunburned, and one text away from what might have been the most dangerous meeting of our lives — we wandered into Prater like two overcooked sausages trying to enroll in clown college. We had decided the only logical thing to do while waiting for Mussayev to text us... was to ride a 400-foot metal swing.

Because that’s what normal people do.

Prater is not a theme park.
It’s a haunted rave that somehow gained municipal zoning rights.
It smells like sausage, regret, and adrenaline. There are LED lights on every surface and vaguely sexual statues holding candy floss. Animatronic tigers growl next to vomiting teenagers. It’s like if Hunter S. Thompson designed a mall food court inside a carousel that collapsed during a lightning storm.

And towering above it all — like a threat, like a challenge, like Vienna’s own version of divine punishment — was the Prater Tower swing.

This thing was visible from space.
You could see the whole city from the top. You could see your childhood regrets. You could see your own obituary.

Lukas pointed up.

“We’re doing that,” he said.

“No,” I said. “We already ate schnitzel. My body is 90% grease.”

“Exactly,” he said, “this is our penance.”

And before I could argue, we had tickets.

We were in line.

I was waiting for the next text from Mussayev while we waited — thumbs frantic, heart pounding, praying I wouldn’t have to translate a message written in Russian while suspended above Austria like a fucking weather balloon.

Then it was our turn.

Now, you need to understand this: You don’t climb into the swing.

You sit in a dainty chair that looks like it was stolen from a toddler’s tea party. Then they strap you in with something that feels less like a safety harness and more like a suggestion.

And then they launch you.

Straight into the fucking sky.

It starts slow — majestic even. You rise with dignity. You see St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the distance, the Danube curving past the skyline, the Riesenrad turning below you like a polite threat.

And then you start spinning.

Fast. Hard. Wide.

The chains stretch out like arms trying to escape your body. The wind screams louder than your internal monologue. You’re above the Earth, with only airplanes overhead, dangling by two metal rods and one bad decision.

Lukas was laughing. I was praying.
To Jesus, to Freud, to Edward Snowden.

My phone buzzed.

A message.

From Mussayev?

No. Just Google Maps asking if I was enjoying “a scenic viewpoint.”

I almost threw the phone into Hungary.

Round and round we went.

The city turned into a watercolor smear.

My stomach turned into a conspiracy theorist.

Every nerve screamed:

“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.”

“JOURNALISTS DON’T DO THIS.”

“THIS IS HOW THEY MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR.”

And then — mercifully — it ended.

We stumbled off the ride like survivors of a failed moon mission.
I kissed the ground. Lukas kissed a beer vendor. We bought two steins of Märzen and collapsed at a picnic table under a plastic palm tree.

“You okay?” Lukas asked.

“No,” I said.

“But I think I saw God.”

He took a sip and nodded. “Did he look worried?”

I checked my phone again.

Still no message from Mussayev.

Just the sound of the swing creaking behind us as the next group of thrill-seekers sat down in their seats.

And there we sat — drunk, delirious, dangling in the metaphysical wind, waiting for the real ride to begin.

Because we still didn’t know where the meeting would be.

We didn’t know what to expect.

We didn’t know if we were being tested, toyed with, or targeted.

All we knew was this:

We had been lifted higher than any sane person should go, spun in a circle of bad decisions and bravado, and dumped back onto Earth to eat schnitzel and wait for the next message from Mussayev.

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