We’re still editing everything from our trip to Austria.
While we finish pulling this thing together—fact-checking, translating, erasing our digital footprints—we wanted to give you a rough outline of what actually happened. The whole trip. Start to finish.
FRIDAY — ARRIVAL & CATHEDRAL CLIMBING FOR IDIOTS
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Landed in Vienna. Tired, alert, over-caffeinated, possibly flagged by Interpol.
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Walked straight to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, because nothing says casual reconnaissance mission like 347 stone steps and a thousand-year-old crypt.
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Toured the catacombs. Stared at bones. Thought about empire. Thought about death. Bought a postcard.
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Took a long walk by the river. The air was heavy. The silence wasn’t peaceful—it was loaded.
SATURDAY — PALACES, PARANOIA & A SNAKE NAMED MAMBA
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Spent the morning at Schönbrunn Palace, where the ghosts of the Habsburgs judged us in gilded silence.
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Rented a station wagon that looked like a family vehicle and drove like a guilt trip.
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Set up encrypted communication with Alnur Mussayev. We don’t take this lightly. Neither should you.
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Stumbled into Hundertwasser House, which looks like someone gave mushrooms to a Lego set and told it to process trauma.
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Went to Prater Amusement Park. Rode the Black Mamba. Shut our eyes. Saw our regrets.
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Collapsed into a biergarten afterward. Ordered beer like it was morphine. Laughed too loud. Didn’t feel better.
SUNDAY — HALLSTATT: A TRAP DISGUISED AS PERFECTION
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Drove to Hallstatt, which felt less like a town and more like a glitch in the Matrix.
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Toured a salt mine carved into the mountain like a long, cold secret. Rode the wooden slide. Didn’t scream. Almost screamed.
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Walked the entire lakeside village. Every photo looked fake. Every swan looked complicit.
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Ate trout. A whole one. It stared at us. We stared back.
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Drank beer by the lake and said things like maybe we never go home in a way that wasn’t entirely a joke.
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Slept in an Airbnb with curtains that moved when the windows were closed.
MONDAY — THE MEETING
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Drove back to Vienna in silence. Nobody talked. Nobody had to.
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Returned the car. Bought a new shirt. Felt like we were dressing for a funeral that hadn’t happened yet.
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Wandered the market near St. Stephen’s and meandered our way to the café where we agreed to meet Mussayev.
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Then, it happened. The meeting with Alnur Mussayev. In person. With a translator. In Vienna. He talked. He chose his words carefully.
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We ate cake. It was beautiful. Chocolate. Dense. Frightening in how delicious it tasted while everything around it was loaded with consequence.
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Walked away from the table with more questions than answers and the full-body feeling that something had just changed.
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Spent the rest of the night in an Australian bar, drinking in silence while tourists screamed AC/DC lyrics at a surfboard nailed to the wall.
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Returned to the hotel. Couldn’t sleep.
TUESDAY — ESCAPE
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Left Vienna before sunrise. The air felt thinner. The streets felt like they knew something we didn’t.
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Flew to Frankfurt. Didn’t speak. Didn’t blink.
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Carried the footage, the notes, and the weight of what we heard through customs like contraband.
We’ll be publishing the chapters as they are finalized, but likely not in sequential order. Most chapters—except for our conversation over cake with Mussayev—will initially be published for paid subscribers only as we work to polish it and ready it for print.
The details from our meeting with Mussayev deserve to be read by as many people as possible, and we plan to publish that chapter for everyone to read.
This isn’t fiction. We sat down with a man who once ran a country’s intelligence service. He told us things we’re still unpacking.
Thank you for being patient while we get this right.
— Closer to the Edge
This post has been syndicated from Closer to the Edge, where it was published under this address.