CHAPTER 6: Krasnov Visits the Habsburgs

FOLLOWED BY LUNCH AT WIENER GRILL HAUS

There was no shade left in Vienna. The sun beat down like it had been hired by the Kremlin. We’d been walking for ten minutes when it became clear: Schönbrunn Palace wasn’t just “a nice place to visit.” It was an ordeal. A sprawling imperial fever dream that stretched so far into the distance, we weren’t sure if the end was real or just a mirage shimmering in the heat haze. The kind of place where royalty once roamed and peasants once pissed themselves if they got too close.

We arrived on foot, like fools, melting on the pavement while camera-toting tourists spilled out of Ubers and tour buses with matching hats and water bottles clipped to their belts. We had no hats. No sunscreen. Just a backpack, a dying phone battery, and a finger puppet of Donald Trump.

Let’s clarify that: a rubber Trump head with squinty eyes, orange-tinted skin, an open-mouthed scowl, and a weirdly squashed comb-over. No googly eyes. No body. Just a disembodied head that fit snugly over your finger—especially your middle one. We called him Krasnov, in honor of the KGB codename Alnur Mussayev had claimed was once assigned to Trump during his alleged recruitment by the KGP. It was a joke at first. A prop. Something to ease the tension of a trip laced with paranoia, history, and dead drops. But somehow, holding it up in front of imperial palaces made it feel less like satire and more like prophecy.