The desert was quiet, too quiet.
Mosul's refinery, still disguised as a humble tar-works, whispered smoke into the sky. Crescent Eyes crouched in the shadows between the storage sheds, their rifles ready, their eyes adjusted to the dark. The Sultan's orders echoed in their minds: Let them come. Let them show themselves. And when they do—cut off the serpent's head.
A low whistle sounded in the distance. Then the clop of hooves, muffled voices in a foreign tongue. A small caravan emerged, torchlight flickering over their faces. Some were tribesmen lured by British coin, others wore cloaks too fine for the desert—foreign agents with pale eyes and stiff postures. They carried crates stamped with false merchant seals. Dynamite, wrapped in cloth.
The Crescent Eyes did not move. They let the infiltrators creep closer, let them slip past the outer sheds, let them crouch at the refinery's foundations to set their charges. The agents whispered in broken Arabic, promising the tribesmen more gold once the fire consumed the Sultan's secret.
A spark flared—one man striking flint to fuse.
That was the signal.
The refinery's shadows erupted. Crescent Eyes surged from hidden pits and false walls, rifles cracking in unison. The would-be saboteurs screamed, some dropping their crates, others reaching for pistols too late. Fire lit the desert as bullets tore through flesh. Horses reared, trampling their riders. The first spark intended for destruction instead ignited crates of sand meant as decoys, bursting harmlessly in a cloud of dust.
Within moments, the night was chaos. Men shouted in English, Arabic, French. The Crescent Eyes cut them down without mercy, their knives flashing, their movements precise. This was no battle—it was slaughter.
One man tried to flee, racing toward the desert with a torch in hand. A rifle cracked, and he fell face-first into the sand, his light snuffed.
When silence finally returned, only groans remained. A handful of saboteurs lived, bound with iron chains. One of them, tall and fair-haired, glared at Selim as he strode into the torchlight.
"You Turks think this is victory," the man spat in accented French. "You have no idea what you have unleashed. London, Paris—they already know."
Selim's boot slammed into his chest, knocking the wind from him. "London and Paris will know only silence."
The Crescent Eyes dragged the prisoners into the refinery's cellar, where the interrogations began.
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By dawn, the truth was laid bare before Selim and his lieutenants. The British had not acted alone. French agents in Beirut had provided funds, Russian smugglers had carried explosives across the Caucasus, and even in Istanbul itself whispers had guided them toward Mesopotamia.
Selim rode to the capital without rest, the prisoner's words ringing in his ears. They already know.
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Abdulhamid listened in silence as the report was read. The Sultan's face was calm, too calm, as though carved from stone. When Selim finished, he looked up, eyes burning.
"They sought to strike at the heart of our future," he said slowly. "They wished to blind us before the world had even seen our fire."
His hand tightened on the armrest of his throne. "Then the serpent does not coil only in the desert. It coils here, in Beirut, in Damascus, perhaps even in these very halls. If we cut one head, another grows. No more. We will choke it by the neck, until it suffocates."
Selim bowed. "Then we must widen the Crescent Eyes, Majesty. No longer only in shadows abroad, but in the very veins of the capital."
Abdulhamid rose, robes flowing like storm clouds. "Do it. No whisper escapes us. No coin changes hands unseen. No treachery goes unpunished. From this day forth, betrayal is not opposition—it is death."
The ministers present shifted uneasily. But none dared oppose him.
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Within weeks, Istanbul itself changed. Crescent Eyes patrolled not just alleys and ports, but coffeehouses and ministries. Scribblers of foreign pamphlets vanished. Dockworkers suspected of taking British silver were found floating in the Bosphorus. In the palaces of Beirut, French agents awoke with knives at their throats and letters nailed to their doors: Leave, or be buried in Levantine soil.
The people whispered of ghosts in the night, of a thousand invisible eyes. Some trembled. Others cheered, calling the Sultan protector against foreign corruption. Either way, the shadows belonged to Abdulhamid.
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But shadows could not fight alone. The Sultan turned again to fire and word. Printing presses thundered day and night, spilling posters across Anatolia and Mesopotamia:
A single tongue, a single faith, a single destiny.
Children carried primers home. Soldiers sang chants of Turkish unity as they marched. And alongside them spread another message, newer and sharper:
Beware the serpent. The foreigner offers silver but brings chains. Only the Sultan offers freedom.
Sermons thundered with it, editors praised it, poets wove it into verses. The serpent had a name, but none dared speak it aloud. Everyone understood: the serpent was Britain, France, Russia—all at once.
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Yet even as oil was sanctified and language enforced, the empire's enemies plotted deeper. From Beirut came word of more shipments. From Damascus, a sheikh whispered of bribes to stir tribes against railroads. And from within the capital itself, Selim uncovered something darker still—letters from a minister's office, written in code not Ottoman but French.
He brought them to Abdulhamid in the dead of night. The Sultan's face, lit by a single lamp, darkened with each word he read.
"The serpent has a nest," Abdulhamid murmured, "and it is not only abroad. It is here, within the council itself."
The words hung between them like a blade. Neither Selim nor the Sultan spoke further that night, for both knew the weight of what had been uncovered. Treachery was no longer a whisper in the desert wind or a bribe in Beirut's alleys—it had wormed its way into the very council that shaped the empire's fate. When dawn's first light struck the domes of Topkapi, the capital itself seemed different, as if the stones of Istanbul waited to see whether their master would cut away the rot or let it fester.
The coded letters lay on the Sultan's desk like venomous snakes, their French scrawl twisting across the page. Abdulhamid read them twice, thrice, each line hammering the same truth into his heart: betrayal was not only in deserts or ports—it coiled in the capital itself.
When the lamp's flame guttered low, he spoke, his voice a razor across silence.
"The serpent thinks itself clever, hiding in silk robes and council chambers. But we will answer with a noose. From this night forward, every whisper of treachery will end with rope or blade. No trial in public courts, no appeals. Treason is poison, and poison must be drawn out quickly."
Selim bowed, face set. "Then it shall be called the Noose Policy, Majesty. A shadow law for a shadow war."
Abdulhamid nodded once. "Write it. Seal it. Enforce it."
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Within days, the empire trembled. Men who had mocked the Sultan in salons were dragged into the night, never to return. In the alleys of Galata, a banker who had funneled British silver into the docks was found dangling from a bridge, a placard tied to his chest: Serpent's coin.
In Beirut, pamphleteers vanished, their presses smashed by masked men. In Damascus, a sheikh who had promised his tribe to France was executed in secret, his replacement swearing loyalty under the Crescent banner.
The message spread faster than any poster: the Sultan was merciful to his people, but merciless to traitors. And as fear grew, so did obedience.
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Yet repression was only one side of the coin. To bind the empire tighter, Abdulhamid poured treasure into reforms.
In Anatolia, railways pushed deeper, carrying coal and steel into provinces once untouched by industry. In Mesopotamia, new schools taught children not only the Latin Turkish alphabet but also the language of machines—mathematics, mechanics, chemistry. In Baghdad, the refinery's secret fire now fed lamps along the main streets, a dazzling display of modernity that left villagers awed and foreigners uneasy.
"See," one teacher told his students, gesturing to the lamps, "the Sultan gives us light from the earth itself. Only those who cling to the past prefer darkness."
Assimilation moved hand in hand with modernization. Turkish became the tongue of government, schools, and now even the mosque pulpits. Arabic, Greek, Armenian—still spoken in homes, yes, but every year the younger generation slipped further into the new language, chanting the same slogans, reading the same papers.
Resistance still lingered in corners—priests who muttered in Greek, imams who whispered dissent in Arabic—but Crescent Eyes were never far. Slowly, inexorably, the empire's patchwork fabric was being dyed in a single color.
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But in Istanbul, the air grew heavier. Selim brought report after report: French agents bribing within the ministry of trade, British informants in the docks, Russian whispers in the slums.
Abdulhamid sat in council, listening as ministers argued over tariffs and rail lines, but his eyes moved from face to face. Which of you writes to Paris by candlelight? Which of you sells my empire for silver?
At night he prowled the palace gardens, muttering prayers, torn between wrath and sorrow. He carried the memory of a century yet to come, of how empires had collapsed not by invasion but by betrayal from within. He would not let history repeat.
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The Noose Policy deepened. Secret trials convened in underground chambers, Crescent Eyes serving as judge and executioner. Evidence was whispered, verdicts swift, sentences final.
One evening, Selim entered with a parchment. "Majesty, we have confirmed it. A member of the Imperial Council itself corresponds with the French. He warned them of the Mosul refinery even before the British saboteurs rode."
Abdulhamid's hand froze. He had suspected, but hearing it aloud was like a blade in the chest. "Who?"
Selim hesitated. The firelight glimmered on his stern face. "Halil Pasha, Grand Vizier."
The words hung heavy in the air. Halil, who had served loyally for decades, who had guided diplomacy through wars and rebellions. Halil, who had argued against oil secrecy, against the Sultan's reforms.
Betrayal had a name.
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That night, Abdulhamid stood alone in his chambers, staring at the Bosphorus glittering under moonlight. He remembered Halil's calm voice, his loyal oaths, his counsel in crises. To hang him would shake the empire's foundations. To spare him would risk everything.
At last, he whispered to the night, "I was given this second life not to hesitate, but to act. An empire cannot survive half loyal and half treacherous."
When dawn came, Crescent Eyes moved silently through the palace corridors. By noon, Halil Pasha was gone, vanished as though swallowed by the earth. No public trial, no announcement—only a sealed decree naming a new Grand Vizier. The empire understood the message: even the highest in the land was not beyond the Sultan's rope.
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Fear gripped the court, but unity followed. Ministers now spoke Turkish with zeal, praised oil as divine fire, echoed reforms without complaint. None knew who would be next, and so all became loyal—at least in appearance.
Meanwhile, Abdulhamid's vision pressed on. Oil convoys rolled north under guard, fueling locomotives that shrieked like iron dragons. Schools multiplied, their walls painted with slogans of unity. Factories multiplied, their chimneys blackening the sky. The empire moved faster, harder, sharper, as if driven by invisible whips.
Yet the Sultan's eyes never rested. He saw the shadows still stirring, the serpent shifting, its coils tightening elsewhere.
For Selim brought him one last report, delivered in the quiet of midnight. "Majesty… the serpent has not only coiled abroad, nor in ministers' chambers. It has slipped deeper. Our agents have found whispers that reach even into the harem, into the palace itself."
Abdulhamid's hand stilled on the scroll he had been reading. His gaze lifted, cold as steel.
"Then the serpent dares enter my very house."
He rose slowly, a man who carried centuries on his shoulders. "So be it. If the palace itself is its nest, then here too the noose will tighten."
The candle guttered. Shadows thickened along the chamber walls.
And somewhere in the darkness of Istanbul, the serpent stirred, unseen.