Mustafa Pasha is the Vizier-i Aezam — the Grand Vizier of the Empire. He is the mark of a plot that would raise a ruse against his life at Topkapi Palace, the design being to draw out the responses of those charged with his protection. This action against Mustafa Pasha was to be set afoot before his meeting with the Kavalan of Egypt, appointed for two days thence.
Mustafa Pasha the Vizier-i Azam is a figure of prominence in the Ottoman Empire, marked for assassination by Hamit the Quartz of Damascus, who would thereby wreck the peace talks with Egypt. In answer the party contrived to shield him by making him the bait at Yedikule Fortress. They carried out a decoy operation, bringing the true Vizier in quietly, dressed as an ordinary prisoner, and lodging him within the fortress; a decoy, meanwhile, was escorted with a measure of fanfare to the Yedikule Fortress. The prisoner's true identity was withheld from the Mansur Enforcers, the better to guard against moles in their number. The party's labours came to their end in the taking of Hamit, who was afterward interrogated once his memory of the encounter had been wiped away with Bergüzar's memory-erasing scroll.