Empire of Lies

57

There were no further knocks on the door that night, but Nisreen hadn’t woken up either. Whatever Taymoor had given her was evidently potent and long-lasting. She was breathing regularly and yet completely unresponsive. Kamal stayed up throughout the night, by her side, checking on her, sporadically trying to wake her, then sitting back and watching with rising trepidation as first light crept out of the darkness and the sky turned gradually brighter.

Vienna was close. They were scheduled to reach the city at nine fifteen that morning, after breakfast. Nisreen was still out when he heard the bell announcing the meal and other passengers shuffling outside their cabin. He began to fret about what he would do if she were still unconscious when they reached the station.

The train glided across the broad plains that suckled on the Danube River before following a deep mountainous pass through the snow-capped limestone peaks of the easternmost edge of the Alps. Kamal sat there in silent contemplation as the dramatic scenery unfolded before him, his mind springing back to what he and Nisreen had read about what had taken place there in 1683. As the train powered through the lush highlands of the Vienna Woods, he imagined the thick forests teeming with Ottoman troops, Polish hussars, and all kinds of fighting men on foot and horseback, moving around like chess pieces before launching themselves into the massive bloodletting that would turn the ground red, and he felt a disturbing shiver. He’d soon be throwing himself right in the thick of it.

The temperature warmed up with the rising sun and the drop in altitude as the train snaked its way down to the edge of the foothills and approached Vienna. Kamal’s trepidation grew with each advancing mile, spiking once the train broke into the suburban sprawl of the big city. His imagination conjured visions of what the city endured during the siege.

The Habsburgs had turned their capital into the most modern fortress city in Europe. It already enjoyed a favorable geographic setting, with the Danube River providing a natural barrier to the north and east. By 1683, it was surrounded by a ring of twelve bastions linked by fifty-foot walls. A sixty-foot-wide ditch fronted the walls; beyond the ditch, triangular advanced gun emplacements called ravelins provided the first line of defense and kept the attackers at bay long before they could threaten the city’s walls.

To face the Ottoman attack, the Viennese had mounted over three hundred cannon on the ravelins and bastions. From there, they had a clear field of fire over any approaching Ottoman troops. It would be next to impossible for a conventional assault to breach the walls. The invaders’ cannonballs wouldn’t be able to bring them down. But the Ottomans were no fools. And they had also learned a few lessons from their earlier attempt, in 1529.

This time, they left their bases much earlier in the year. The invading force—well over a hundred thousand men—were camped outside Vienna by mid-July. And even though they rained cannon fire on the city daily, they weren’t relying on their artillery. Instead, they had brought along a small army of sappers. Five thousand of them, many of them Christian slaves, were quickly put to work digging a veritable maze of trenches and tunnels to the defensive walls of the city. Using underground mines, the Ottomans began to chip away at the fortifications with the intention of creating a large breach and using the collapsed wall as a ramp through which to storm the city.

Rasheed’s suicide bombers would ensure their success and pave the way for the slaughter and enslavement of all those trapped inside.

A low moan brought Kamal out of his reverie, and he felt a stirring next to him. He sprang across the small cabin to Nisreen’s bedside and laid a gentle hand on the back of her head.

“Nisreen?”

She moaned again and took in a deep breath, then turned her head slightly, the pained expression on her face giving the impression that it was as tiresome as moving a ball of lead. Then her eyes cracked open, barely at first, then squinting groggily, clearly disturbed by the onslaught of light.

“What did… Kamal?” she mumbled.

“I’m right here, hayatim,” he said, stroking her hair softly. “I’m right here.”

Clarity slowly seeped into her face; then the numbed tranquility was swatted away by a sudden burst of dread. “Taymoor. What’s going on? Where is he?”

“He’s gone,” he told her. “He’s no longer a problem.”

“What did you do? What happened?”

He ran through what happened before moving on to the more pressing matter of what might be awaiting them at the train station. He helped her straighten up and gave her some water. She said she felt foggy-brained and stiff and wanted to understand what Taymoor had done to her to knock her out. She thought she remembered him pressing something against her mouth and nose, and some kind of nutty smell. Kamal knew it had to be an earlier, perhaps more potent form of an anesthetic that they’d used in the Hafiye on occasions when they’d needed to grab a suspect.

There didn’t seem to be any lasting damage, and Nisreen was regaining her focus, which was all that mattered. The train was now moving slowly through the city, and Kamal saw the old defensive walls that had kept the Ottomans at bay all those years ago slip past their window. They were inside the old city now, and he needed Nisreen to be sharp if there was trouble waiting for them at the terminus.

His fears were confirmed as the train pulled into Sultan Majid Central Station and took its pride of place on a central platform in its cavernous hall. Kamal edged up to the side of their cabin’s window and leaned right up against the glass. The scene on the platform was busy and chaotic. A throng of people were waiting to greet the arrivals, including the swarm of porters and small merchants jostling for position. Among them, Kamal spotted the conductor conferring with a clutch of uniformed Zaptiye officers.

One of the officers sent the others trotting off up and down the platform. They were shouting out commands and using their whistles to round up other policemen.

“Bok,” Kamal cursed. “They must have discovered that Taymoor is missing.”

Kamal knew how precisely the Ottomans ran their rail networks. The conductor would have questioned the empty cabin and sounded the alarm after being unable to find its occupant on board.

“What does it have to do with us? Can’t we just walk away like it has nothing to do with us?”

Kamal’s frown deepened. “He sat with me at the dinner table after you left. We were there for a while talking. The stewards and other passengers would have seen us. The moment they stop us, we’ll be suspects. We don’t even have any identifying papers.”

“So we let them arrest us, and then we use the incantation to jump back a month, a year—back to a safe time. We’re in Vienna now; that’s what matters.”

“They’ll most probably separate us,” Kamal said, “and we don’t know this city. We don’t know what was here a month or a year ago. If we jump, we run twice the risk of landing somewhere fatal. Besides, I don’t want to risk us doing it apart or ending up in two different places. I don’t want to lose you.” There was little choice. “We have to go,” he added. “Fast. Before they can set up.”

He grabbed their small suitcase and waited by the door, listening to ascertain if the coast was clear, while she slipped on her shoes and adjusted her kaftan and her scarf. When she was ready, he cracked the door open and peered out. A clutch of passengers were at the end of the carriage, making their way off the train.

“Come on,” he told her.

“Wait,” she said as she grabbed his arm before he could open the door. “What if we do get separated? We need to have a plan. Just in case.”

Kamal’s mind hurtled ahead. “We’d have to jump back and meet there.”

“How far back?” She pulled her sleeve up to expose the tattoos on her forearm and pointed at the Palmyrene words for the various numbers they’d chosen. “All the way?”

“No. We’d land during the siege. We’d be trapped inside the city.”

“Then how far back?”

“I don’t know. A week. Ten days. Doesn’t matter.”

“Ten days then.”

“Okay.” He was feeling the urgency to move. “Let’s just not get separated, okay? Come on. We have to go.”

They slipped down the corridor and joined the other passengers.

At the narrow landing by the exit door, Kamal spotted two policemen on the platform, by the steps of the carriage. They were checking the papers of those disembarking and questioning them, causing a small backup.

He stepped back to get out of their line of sight, then looked around for another exit.

He glanced through the window of the opposite exit door. There was no train on the tracks alongside the ones they were on. He stepped across to it and tried the handle, but it was locked.

He muttered a curse.

“What?” Nisreen asked.

“It’s too late. We’re boxed in.”