The heavy rains fell early that year, and the heat followed them. From Cape Passero in Sicily to the German Baltic ports, from Brest to the Elbe River, the Continent lay smothering. The great cross-country buses, an institution in German-speaking countries, a week before had been floundering and slipping hub-deep in mud on the secondary roads. Now they were leaving clouds of thick, yellow dust from Schleswig to Carinthia. Their gleaming glass roofs parboiled the American tourists who staggered out to view the ruins of the Schloss at Heidelberg and the baroque splendour of the brand-new, rebuilt State Opera House on The Ring in Vienna. Gerhard Mueller was waiting at the Goldener Hirsch in Salzburg, Austria, for the bus he was to drive. He was a short, flabby man sweating through the grey Tyrolean jacket that was his uniform. The driver who had brought the bus through the Tyrol from Innsbruck gave Mueller a limp greeting and repaired to the Goldener Hirsch for a cool drink. Mueller waited until the tourists took their pictures of the Horse Mural, and then they piled back into the big Mercedes-Benz for more punishment.
