He went through a few more photographs that showed the tattooed drawings. They also seemed random. One was a diagram showing the inner workings of some kind of box that had a long handle coming out of it and coiled cylinders inside it. Another was a diagram of a mechanical contraption that had a crank handle, what looked like a rotating barrel made up of several cylinders, and various springs and pins linking them. A few others showed schematics that involved vats, cylinders, tubes and valves linking them, and fire—and these registered with him. Sizzling with curiosity now, he kept going until, a couple of images later, he came across something else that triggered a burst of recognition.
At first, it looked like just another list of names and places. “Thomas Savery / Salisbury Court / London,” “Denis Papin / Paris 75 / London 87 / Marburg,” and a few others. In his haste, he was about to flick to the next photo when he made the association and realized what he was looking at. He swiped back to the drawing of the vats and the tubes.
Savery, Papin, and some of the other listed names, like Huygens and Newcomen, were centuries-old inventors who had pioneered the steam engine.
The tattooed schematics depicted early versions of it.
The inventors—English, French, Dutch—had all moved to Vienna not long after its fall to the empire in 1094.[3] Like many scientists, they had been attracted by the sultan’s offers of unlimited funding and resources. They were all part of the Ottoman industrial revolution, a golden era for the empire that had begun during its victorious sweep across Europe in the late seventeenth century and had changed the world.
The inventors in question had collaborated on creating the first steam-powered trains, which had a dramatic effect on shortening travel times between Istanbul and the far reaches of the empire, allowing the efficient shuttling of troops and military supplies. This had played a huge role in the conquest of Europe after the fall of Vienna.
Why did the stranger have those names and schematics tattooed across his torso?
Ramazan mulled it over in the darkness, deciding he needed to investigate further. On tired feet, he padded to the family living room, where he sat at the low desk and switched on the computer. He scrolled through the pictures he’d taken of the tattoos again, still wondering about them. He was having second thoughts about running queries through the government-controlled Hafiza Internet search engine, which was the only one available in the empire. Abdülhamid’s tight controls meant that only government-approved websites and content was authorized to be online. Anything else was blocked. Even so, Ramazan knew that he still needed to be careful about what he typed into the search box. Everything accessed online would go through the authorities’ filters. Websites, email—every keystroke would be suspect and analyzed by algorithms, and there was no way to evade them. The Internet was heavily censored and monitored—goals easily achieved, since the state was also the only internet provider across the empire and everything passed through its servers. A small group of rebellious coders had tried to spread a VPN by putting it on discs distributed on the sly, but that soon ended after the authorities caught them and had them publicly flogged and locked up. The VPN discs that were still in circulation were highly prized until the government’s coders figured out a way to flag anyone using them. Arrests followed. No one was using the discs anymore.
Ramazan hesitated, pondering his next move. It was very late, he’d had a long day, and he was exhausted and weary. But there was a stubborn curiosity flickering deep inside him that he couldn’t extinguish. He shrugged and decided that his queries shouldn’t raise any red flags, then started typing the words into Hafiza methodically and cautiously. Most of what he inputted yielded nothing. Many of the names gave no result; it was as if those people had never existed. A few, like Baruch Spinoza, were obscure writers and political thinkers whose work had been officially discredited centuries ago. But then the result from one of the queries he entered shot a spike of dread through him: “3NG / 1diatomite / min sod carb” turned out to be an abbreviated formula for manufacturing dynamite. Which triggered a sudden, unexpected association in Ramazan’s mind regarding one of the schematic diagram tattoos he hadn’t recognized before that moment: he was now sure that it depicted an ancient, plunger-type blasting detonator.
In a panic, he killed the browser window and jabbed the computer’s power button. He watched the screen die out, then shut his eyes, furious at himself. Researching dynamite couldn’t be good. Not good at all. He might have some explaining to do. Which was not something anyone looked forward to. His heart was now kickboxing its way out of his chest, his mind ruing his overzealous curiosity—and yet he still couldn’t ignore the question gnawing at him: What did this all mean?
Ramazan couldn’t make sense of what he had uncovered—he wasn’t even sure he wanted to anymore—but it only added to the portentous feeling he had about the man. The tattoos could point to a dangerous psychotic, someone who should be reported to the authorities. An enemy of the state. If they asked, he could always excuse it that way. He was being a patriot. Then again, the tattoos could be dismissed as no more than the eccentric markings of an original or deranged mind, his odd outburst further proof of his imbalance. That was what a rational, calm mind would have concluded, and Ramazan was a rational, calm man. Too rational and too calm, perhaps. But he was also an intelligent man and an instinctive one, and, faced with what he had seen, he was finding it hard to dismiss them. Something didn’t feel right. And in some strange, unfamiliar way, it didn’t just scare him.
It excited him.
Sayyid Ramazan Hekim didn’t get excited too often.
There was a hidden story locked away inside that man. Ramazan thought about the dynamite again and wondered if the man wasn’t a threat to the people, to the city, to the empire. He had to find out more. He needed to investigate. And if the man did turn out to be an enemy of the state, one intent on causing death to the innocent, and if Ramazan were to be the one to flush him out and get him locked away before he could strike, it would be a massive coup. It would be life-changing, especially when it came to his marriage. He’d reap the praise and the high esteem that his brother Kamal had been basking in since the arrests. Even more important, he might even get to savor the kind of admiration Nisreen once held for his brother. He’d be the hero, without any of his brother’s taint.
The prospect was electrifying.
He checked his watch. It was almost five. Dawn wasn’t far off.
“What are you doing up this late? It’s the middle of the night.”
Her voice snapped him out of his reverie, and he looked up.
Nisreen was there, leaning against the doorjamb, looking half asleep with her tousled hair and eyelids that were struggling to stay open.
“I—I couldn’t sleep. The surgery was—it took forever,” he said, trying to smother any hint of deceit from his voice.
“Oh. Is your patient all right?”
“Yes. Well—yes, I think so. He is.”
She seemed momentarily confused. Then her features relaxed somewhat. “Good.” She studied him, then asked, “Are you going to stay up?”
“No. I mean—I don’t know. It’s…” He made a show of checking his watch again. “Actually, I should head back soon. He’ll be coming out of sleep, and I really ought to be there when he does.”
There was a lag in Nisreen’s reaction. He wondered if he should stay, be with her on this troubled night, comfort her. But he didn’t want to talk about Azmi’s death, which the conversation would inevitably drift to. And he needed to find out more about his mysterious patient. If there was something sinister to uncover, something that might turn him into a hero, his window of opportunity wasn’t unlimited.