Empire of Lies

by Raymond Khoury

  As if to emphasize his words, an arrow whizzed by and implanted itself in a tree a few feet away.

  A man appeared in the pathway up ahead. Then another. Then more of them emerged from behind the trees.

  Kolschitzky stopped walking, as did Kamal and Nisreen.

  “Bashi-bazouks,” Kolschitzky murmured to them.

  Beware of what you wish for, Kamal thought, ruefully remembering what he had told Kolschitzky under questioning the first time they’d met: that the “damaged head” mercenaries were the reason that he and Nisreen were naked when caught in Vienna.

  “Stay calm and let me do the talking,” Kolschitzky added. Then he raised his arm to the men in greeting. “Easy, brothers,” he called out. “We’re on the same side.”

  The men stepped closer.

  There were six of them. They weren’t dressed in uniform. Instead, they had a ragtag look, from the loosely wrapped scarves around their heads to their flowing capes and robes. Some wore hoops through their ears, and a couple had very dark skin and African features. What they all had in common, however, was that they were armed to the teeth. Most had two flintlock pistols strapped to their waist in leather holsters, bandoliers, and several daggers and sabers.

  One of the marauders, a man with an eclectic black moustache that speared outward and eyes with all the warmth of a coal mine, stepped closer and flicked the tip of his saber at Kolschitzky and his friends, gesturing for them to show themselves more openly.

  Kamal and Nisreen understood and stepped out from behind Kolschitzky, standing on either side of him.

  The man eyed them suspiciously.

  “You say we’re on the same side,” he bellowed. “Then why are they wearing the uniforms of the infidel?”

  “They’re our spies from inside Vienna. They just managed to escape after they were discovered,” Kolschitzky yelled back.

  The man stepped closer, still studying them curiously.

  Kamal eyed him, scrutinizing him. Years of training and work had honed his instincts in how to read people, and he didn’t like what they were telling him about where this interrogation was heading.

  “Whose spies?”

  This wasn’t going well. Kamal could see it escalating badly very, very quickly. Then an idea blasted its way into his head. A desperate wild card.

  “Ayman Rasheed Pasha,” he called out, his tone forceful and challenging.

  The bashi-bazouk scowled at him doubtfully. “Who? I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He’s the special advisor to the grand vizier,” Kamal replied.

  “I know of no special advisor by that name.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Kamal replied. “But he’s the reason Vienna is about to fall into our hands, and we answer only to him.”

  The raider’s face darkened further, visibly affronted by Kamal’s insolence. “You speak with a strange accent.”

  “Years of living among the infidel will do that to you,” Kamal said. “We’ve been spies for a long time.”

  The man frowned, clearly processing what he was hearing. “You say you work for this special advisor?”

  “Ayman Rasheed Pasha, yes,” Kamal told him.

  “Let’s go meet him together then,” the man said, “and we’ll soon find out if what you say is true.” He took a few steps closer and raised the blade of his saber so that it hovered right under Kamal’s chin. “Which I sincerely hope it isn’t.”

  67

  Kamal felt relieved that they hadn’t attempted to put up a fight. The gang of bashi-bazouks turned out to number more than twenty men: rough, unruly adventurers who were just itching to spill blood.

  They were placed on horses, each of their rides tethered to one of the Ottoman raiders’ mounts. Kamal wasn’t given a chance to talk to Kolschitzky or Nisreen. All they could do was exchange looks that telegraphed their alarm at what was to come.

  On horseback now, they were made to retrace the route they’d taken, riding out of the forest and back down the bank of the Danube toward Vienna.

  Kamal was riding ahead, followed by Nisreen, then Kolschitzky, with a raider between each of them. He turned to check on her. She was looking at him pointedly, her expression loaded with a silent message before she gazed down expressively at her arm and tugged her sleeve back discreetly, exposing the tattoo.

  Kamal understood her question.

  Her look was asking, “Do we jump?”

  He shot her back a small, but emphatic shake of the head.

  He hadn’t planned it this way, but they didn’t have a choice, not anymore. And being taken by the Ottoman raiders to Rasheed could be their best, and perhaps their only, opportunity to find him, get close to him, and kill him, even if it happened before they were able to warn Sobieski and the others. If they failed, Rasheed would inevitably use his time-traveling knowledge to hunt them down throughout time.

  Disappearing now also meant that Rasheed would most likely hear about it and know that something was afoot. It would also mean certain death for their Polish companion, and Kamal didn’t want that either. Besides, even if they managed to communicate enough to agree on how many days to jump back, a limited menu of options in itself, they couldn’t be sure that they would both be able to recite the full incantation before one of them was interrupted by their captors. Which would mean abandonment for the one who left and certain death for the one left behind.

  There was no question in his mind. They had to make this attempt work.

  He gave her a gesture with his hand held flat and his fingers slightly splayed, as if to say, “Calm down, we don’t need to do anything rash.”

  She nodded her understanding, all while keeping a fearful eye on their captors.

  * * *

  By sundown, the city’s walls were in sight, although there was no fighting on that side of the city, at its northwestern edge. They crossed the Danube again and trotted across the ruins of the suburbs that had been destroyed under Starhemberg’s orders in the days before the sultan’s army arrived. The first defensive mounds appeared, and they were soon riding past the frontline troops who guarded the dead zone between the trenches and the walls, venturing deep into the heart of the huge Ottoman encampment.

  Its scale was mind-boggling. Kamal had only glimpsed it when he and Nisreen had been dragged onto the wall in those frenzied moments after their first arrival in Vienna, but his mind had been too frazzled to register it. There were rows of tents spreading out as far as the eye could see, tens of thousands of them laid out in an arc fifteen miles long—enough tents to house an army of well over a hundred thousand men who had marched all the way there from their homeland.

  There were tents for everything: for the troops, for weapons, for latrines, for baths and ritual ablutions. There were even tents for ceremonial executions.

  But the sprawling encampment was far from what it must have been in those first few days of the siege.

  As they advanced deeper into the camp, their steps tracked listlessly by the deadened eyes of idle Ottoman troops, the dire condition of the sultan’s men became more and more evident.

  After months of combat and under the blazing summer sun, the camp had become a festering pit of filth and disease. Wounds were left to rot openly, with too many injured to treat. The dead were too numerous to bury and were often left for days before they could be carted away. Those who were buried were barely hidden under a thin cover of loose soil, which their bloated, decomposing bodies soon pushed back. Dead animals also wasted away openly. The camp’s cesspools were overflowing. The stench of putrefaction was everywhere, as were the swarms of flies.

  Despite that, troops all around them were getting ready for the next day’s march. Janissaries and sipahi cavalrymen were cleaning their boots and getting their weapons ready. They would be setting out in the morning, on Tuesday, for their advance across the Vienna Woods to get into position before attacking the relief army in the fields outside Tulln the following day, on Wednesday. Even in their worn-out state, they w
ould be victorious.

  The sight only served to remind Kamal of the urgency of what they needed to accomplish.

  The endless rows of tents circled the city from north to south, with the royal enclosure in the middle, where the ground facing the city walls rose up. It was there that the grand vizier’s tent came into view. It was much taller and bigger than the others, a mammoth edifice that towered over its neighbors.

  Kamal could also now see and hear the steady rise of fighting. The two bastions under attack were to his left, and, even before they appeared, musket fire and the explosions of grenades were tearing through the air. Cannon from both sides were belching death at each other, intercut by shouts of “Jesus, Maria” and “Allah” from the opposing warriors who, he could now see, were slaughtering each other on the walls.

  Seeing it from this angle was unnerving. He’d been on those walls, he’d seen the battle from the opposite side, he’d had a front-row seat to what was happening on those walls. For a brief moment, he wondered about the men who had dragged him and Nisreen up there, wondered how many of them were still alive and how many had already perished in the grinding mill of battle.

  They soon reached the part of the camp that surrounded the command enclosure. It sat on higher ground, with Kara Mustafa’s tent at its highest point, directly across from the two bastions that were the focal point of his attack. Kamal had read how the grand vizier had been able to observe the progress of his men in the trenches and on the walls right from the comfort of his silk-covered quarters.

  The royal enclosure was very different from the rest of the camp. Most striking was how markedly cleaner it was. Kara Mustafa’s tent was palatial in size and resplendent in its rich fabrics, a marvel of green silk ornamented with gold embroidery and precious stones. As they trotted past, Kamal looked through the guard posts and saw some of what he had read about in the Paris library: the splendid gardens with fountains and peacocks, the tents housing the grand vizier’s favorite horses, the black eunuchs guarding the sprawling tent where he kept his harem. There was even an ostrich roaming the grounds.

  The head of the bashi-bazouks stopped to ask one of the royal guards something. Upon hearing the answer, he turned around, scowled at Kamal, then grudgingly waved his men on. The troop moved on and trotted past the grand vizier’s compound until they reached an adjacent enclosure that, while smaller, looked just as luxurious.

  Kamal’s senses were tingling.

  They had reached their target destination.

  A boluk bashi, a captain of the janissary guards, stepped up to greet them. The leader of the raiders dismounted and conversed with him. Then the captain led him past a couple of guards, and they disappeared into the enclosure.

  After a few minutes, they reappeared, and, with a nudge of his head and some hand signs, the captain instructed the guards to take in the prisoners.

  They dismounted and were led into the enclosure, one guard escorting each of them, leaving the raiders and their visibly displeased leader outside.

  Another huge tent sat at the center of the enclosure, its fabric rich with appliqués and embroidery of floral patterns laid out in a series of arches.

  They went through the outer curtain, through the small vestibule area, and then through another curtain and into the main body of the tent.

  It was huge, larger than the living room of any Parisian home Kamal had ever visited. The ceiling and walls, which were supported by thick, polished mahogany poles, were draped with luxuriant patterned fabrics, and the floor was covered by several layers of rich carpets. A bed-like divan, studded with precious stones and arrayed with fluffy cushions, occupied pride of place at the far end of the room, while an ornate table littered with notebooks and maps sat off to one side. Oil lamps diffused a warm, soft glow across its cavernous space, while candles of jasmine and lavender infused the air with their balmy scents.

  And standing before them at the center of it all was the man whose machinations had caused them to risk everything and travel back in time.

  The tall, imposing figure was bedecked in a panoply of opulence, from the bulbous, elaborate turban that topped his head and the magnificent robes he wore right down to the fine slippers that covered his feet, layers upon layers of the finest silks tailored to perfection and elaborately embroidered with threads of gold. Across his waist, a wide belt held a janissary yataghan whose pommel was adorned by a constellation of precious stones that rivaled those on the rings of his fingers.

  Clearly, Ayman Rasheed had come a long way since his days as a prisoner of war at Camp Bucca.

  He said nothing at first. He just stood there and gazed upon his prisoners, giving each of them a brief but intent study with eyes that radiated shrewdness and guile. He didn’t recognize them, of course. He hadn’t yet traveled forward in time to when they would meet in Paris. That was still decades away.

  His evaluation seemingly complete and his brow furrowed with curiosity, he sucked in a deep breath and spoke.

  “What have we here?”

  68

  The man standing before Nisreen looked very different from the ailing man who had riveted her with his story from his hospital bed in Paris.

  It was Ayman Rasheed, of course. Of that she had no doubt. But this Ayman Rasheed was a younger, slimmer, fitter version of the man she’d met. It wasn’t just his appearance that was dramatically different. This man was in the full prime of his life. Contrary to the drugged, vulnerable patient she’d met, he exuded a chilling sense of power and confidence.

  A power that, she fully realized, would allow him to take away her life with a snap of his fingers.

  She tried to remain calm and keep her fear in check, despite the fact that everything about the scene was deeply intimidating. Kamal was to her immediate right, then Kolschitzky. Behind each of them stood one of the guards, beefy men standing at full attention and coiled to strike at an instant’s notice. Rasheed had the janissary captain by his side.

  His question hung in the air for a moment; then Rasheed pressed on. “You told those men you were my spies. You claimed to be working for me, inside Vienna. We both know that’s not true. So I ask you … who are you?”

  She hesitated about replying, then glanced across at Kamal just as he spoke.

  * * *

  Kamal had never met Rasheed before in person. All he had to go on were the portraits of him he’d seen in the books at the library, images of lavish oil paintings capturing a hero of the empire at his peak.

  The Rasheed facing him was very much that man. And he required answers.

  During the ride over to the camp, Kamal had fretted over what was to come. He’d used the time to think about what he might do and how things might play out, running the various scenarios through his mental grinder.

  Now was the time to go with the gambit he’d cooked up on that ride. He knew it wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could come up with.

  “Please forgive the deception, pasha,” he told him in a respectful, calm tone, “but we had to say it to be brought to you.”

  “And here you are,” Rasheed replied. “It still doesn’t answer my question.”

  “My name is Kamal Arslan Agha, and these are my companions. We’re travelers. Just like you.”

  The reply caused Rasheed’s face to crease with curiosity. “Oh?”

  “Yes. What you discovered in Palmyra, the words that were carved into a wall? They’re what brought us here, too.”

  The curiosity gave way to surprise. Rasheed obviously hadn’t expected it, and yet he seemed to be controlling his outward reaction expertly. He glanced across at the captain standing beside him, then spoke.

  “Interesting,” he said. “So you must have made quite a journey to get here. A risky one at that.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And what made you take that risk? What did you need to see me about?”

  Kamal drew on his experience to keep his breathing level and his eyes unruffled. “We came here to warn you, pasha
. Others know about the secret, too. And they’re going to use it to come here to try to kill you.”

  Kolschitzky had been watching silently, and his expression morphed from confusion to anger. “What?” he roared. “You lying son of a bitch. You tricked me—”

  The guard next to him flicked his hand up and gave him a hard slap to the side of his head, cutting short his outburst.

  “Do behave,” Rasheed told the Pole. “I’m struggling to find a reason to keep you alive as it is.” He paused for a breath, waiting to make sure his point and his glare sank in, then turned to Kamal. “These travelers … why would they want to kill me?”

  Kamal focused on maintaining his composure and avoided looking at Kolschitzky. “To stop you from doing what you’ve set out to do. To stop you from changing history.”

  He couldn’t resist glancing at the Pole. Kolschitzky was seething with rage.

  “That’s odd,” Rasheed replied calmly. “Because that’s exactly what he claimed, too.”

  It was Kamal’s turn to feel bewildered. He gave Nisreen a quick sideways glance. Her expression was still inscrutable, but Kamal detected a crack of concern she couldn’t conceal.

  Before he could ask him whom he was talking about, Rasheed nodded to the captain standing beside him. “Bring him in,” he ordered.

  Kamal felt his pulse rocket as the janissary left the tent, then came back in with another prisoner, with a fourth guard escorting him as well.

  It was Taymoor.

  His mouth was gagged, his beard was unkempt, and he looked haggard and disheveled. He’d evidently been there for quite a while, and not as a cosseted guest. He was also missing his left leg at the knee, and was using a long stick as a makeshift crutch.

  Taymoor’s eyes flared wide as he spotted his old partner and Nisreen.

  “Leave us,” Rasheed told the captain in a matter-of-fact tone. The janissary gave the prisoners a once-over, then left the tent. Rasheed turned to Taymoor’s guard and flicked him a hand signal. The guard pulled out a yataghan and held its blade right up against Taymoor’s throat while using his other hand to loosen and pull down the piece of cloth that had been preventing Taymoor from speaking.