SSIS returning a count of rows from MySQL table

[Jill Blesch]

I'm sure this is a simple question but here goes. In An SSIS package I want to return the number of rows from a MySQL table where the id is equal to a variable. I'm using an SQL task with input parameters and a result set. And I get a generic error message "Error: 0xC002F210 at Validate Contacts, Execute SQL Task: Executing the query "set @counter := select count(*) from contacts w..." failed with the following error: "Fatal error encountered during command execution.". Possible failure reasons: Problems with the query, "ResultSet" property not set correctly, parameters not set correctly, or connection not established correctly.
Task failed: Validate Contacts" What am I doing wrong?

The SQL statements that I'm executing are:
set @counter := select count(*) from contacts where id = @var_contact_id;
select @counter;

And the resultset is set to Single Row
and the Result Set Result Name is @counter mapped to an SSIS defined variable.