Empire of Lies

by Raymond Khoury

  The sun, close to its zenith, wasn’t sparing any corner of the courtyard from its merciless pounding. Its ferocity blasted Kamal and Taymoor the instant they stepped outside. Their uniforms, though of the linen and cotton summer variant, were still way too heavy for the conditions. With sweat running down the length of his spine, Kamal would have much preferred to be in his lighter, off-duty attire, but today he wasn’t there as a civilian. He and Taymoor were being fêted. Which didn’t sit all that comfortably with Kamal. They’d worked hard, to be sure. They’d put in the hours and the legwork. They’d been focused. But they’d also had a lucky break. A break that, admittedly, had saved many lives.

  Of that, Kamal was very proud.

  The courtyard was heaving with people. Kamal took in the scene, one he’d witnessed many times before. It was an impressive setting. The viewing areas were laid out on either side of the length of the courtyard. Along the east arcade were eight public grandstands, stepped but devoid of any seating. Facing them along the opposite side were two official tribunes. Those did have seating and rose more steeply, which was useful given the more substantial turbans and headgear most of those seated there would be wearing. As guests of honor, Kamal and Taymoor would watch from there, along with their superiors from the Hafiye and a number of state officials. At the far end of the courtyard, facing the Seine, two of the mosque complex’s six minarets rose proudly, the tallest landmarks in the sprawling city.

  In one corner, Kamal spotted the state television crew filming the proceedings. Armed ceremonial guards stood by the pillars around the arcade. As with all public spaces in the empire, the grandstands and the tribunes had separate male and female sections. On both sides of the huge courtyard, attendees would be corraled in segregated areas.

  Kamal and Taymoor made their way to their designated area through a stream of congratulations and pats on the back from officers of the Hafiye.

  “Tebrikler, mulasim komiser,” one of the officers congratulated Kamal. “The youngest in the department, eh? Just don’t let the expectations become too much of a burden on you.” He squeezed Kamal’s shoulder a bit too tightly.

  Kamal responded to the backhanded praise with a curt nod and moved on. He had already heard the murmurs: promotions to lieutenant inspector for both partners were in the offing. Still, Kamal couldn’t find the peace of mind to savor the moment. He kept glancing across the courtyard, scanning the faces in the women’s public stands, looking for her.

  It was almost impossible to distinguish individual faces, of course—the head scarves and veils, some less opaque than others, were intended to block that kind of scrutiny. Still, once or twice, his eyes fell on a figure that, for the briefest of instants, he thought might be her. But then something about the body language, the height, an almost imperceptible detail told him he was mistaken.

  It didn’t relieve his discomfort.

  As he caught up with Taymoor, he glanced up at the upper-level arcade and saw Mumtaz Sikander Pasha, the beylerbey of the Paris eyalet, a province that included not just the great metropolis itself but the entire ancient kingdom of France. Dressed in his ceremonial robe, his head wrapped in a bulbous turban that was only dwarfed by the girth of his waist, the governor was making his way to his box, which was already crowded with senior officials, including, Kamal now saw, the overall commander of the Paris division of the Hafiye, Huseyin Celaleddin Pasha.

  Celaleddin was tall and, given his position in Ottoman society, unusually slim. His jutting chin, always tilted slightly upward, and his sloped-back brow made it hard to tell what was going on behind the discerning eyes that now caught sight of Kamal. The commander surprised Kamal by acknowledging him with a subtle congratulatory nod. Kamal responded with a slight bow before his superior turned away to greet the beylerbey.

  Taymoor led him to their seats. After pausing to bask in the attention a bit longer, he took his seat and, with beaming satisfaction, patted the one next to him. “Front row, brother. It’s our day.”

  “Mashallah,” Kamal replied half-heartedly as he did another quick scan of the female tribune before sitting down.

  His distant attitude wasn’t lost on Taymoor. “Why the sour face?” he asked. Then his face cracked with a bawdy grin. “You got somewhere else you’d rather be?”

  Kamal shrugged. “Of course not.”

  Taymoor let out a small snort, then studied him for a moment. “You know something? We’re partners. We face danger, death maybe, on a daily basis—together. We’re supposed to share. I tell you everything—”

  “Yeah, too much maybe,” Kamal griped.

  “Protest all you want. I know you love it.” He dropped his voice. “You’re as much of a depraved luti as I am. You just don’t like talking about it. So go on, tell me, who is she? Who’s turning your balls blue?”

  Kamal had to play the game. He knew they were both lying to each other, but it suited him fine. He didn’t want Taymoor to know what strings were tugging at his heart. It was enough of a burden to keep it locked away deep inside of him; he’d never live it down if his licentious partner found out.

  So he chose to keep up the act and not answer while an ominous silence descended on the courtyard. All attention turned to its far end, where five men appeared from a portal in the arcade. They were dressed in ceremonial uniforms. The middle man, though, stood out because of his black robes and turban and his hulking, heavyset frame. Even under the robes, it was clearly more muscle than fat.

  He was also striking because of the long sword he carried.

  Kamal and Taymoor watched as the procession made its way solemnly to the center of the courtyard.

  “To be continued,” Taymoor warned jokingly, wagging a finger at his partner. “You know better than to mess with my bloodhound nose, right, brother?”

  Kamal forced an enigmatic smile—the fact was, Taymoor did have great investigative instincts. In terms of their work, this was an undeniable asset. But in terms of Kamal’s personal life, he could have done without it.

  He turned his attention to the center of the far portal, where four officers now appeared, two on either side of a fifth man, who was dressed in a simple white robe. He was blindfolded, and his hands were tied behind his back.

  The arena went quiet as the officers escorted the man to the center of the courtyard and handed him over to the first group before marching back the way they came.

  The large man with the sword stepped forward and, facing the prisoner, took hold of the man’s shoulder, guiding him to the ground until he was kneeling. Then the large man stepped back, took a sheet of paper from one of his assistants, and began to read out the execution order in a loud voice that echoed across the stillness of the enclosed space.

  Kamal had heard those same charges read out many times before—“enemy of the state,” “high treason”—as well as the verdict. He had heard them most recently a week earlier, in that same spot, proclaimed by the same executioner, the state’s executioner corps being a small, exclusive club. But this time, the words carried far more resonance for him. This time, the condemned man kneeling on the parched cobblestones of the cour d’honneur was put there by Kamal and Taymoor.

  It should have been an untainted day of great pride for him. When it came to terrorists, to barbarians who were plotting to murder innocent citizens, he never questioned whether the punishment fitted the crime. Case in point: the condemned man presently before them in the courtyard, an Algerian extremist who, along with his brother and a few others, had made his way to Paris with the intention of attacking the festival celebrating the impending marriage of the beylerbey’s youngest daughter to one of the sultan’s favorite sons. A lot of dignitaries would have been in attendance, including the bey himself. A major catastrophe had been averted, and Kamal and Taymoor had become heroes overnight.

  The executioner finished reading out the order, then started to recite some verses from the Koran. Kamal’s scowl was fixated on the condemned man, who remained impassive and wasn’t pul
ling against his restraints or pleading for his life. Kamal knew that by the time the day of execution arrived, any strength the man had left would have been sapped away by the terror of what awaited him. He also knew that the rumors about sedatives being slipped into the final meals of the condemned were true.

  The executioner finished his recitation. Then he straightened up and looked to the governor’s box.

  Kamal, and everyone else in the courtyard, followed his gaze.

  The beylerbey stared down in silence, then gave him a small, impassive nod.

  The executioner bowed his head in acknowledgment, and then he turned to the condemned man. He bent down and used his free hand to adjust the position of the man’s head, exposing his bare neck more fully. Then he bent down further and spoke some words to him, instructing the man to recite the shahada, the declaration of absolute faith.

  The executioner then took a step back, planted his feet firmly, and, holding the sword in both hands, swung it around slowly to the prisoner’s neck, which he nicked with its blade. The prisoner, surprised, flinched instinctively, tensing up and straightening his neck—exactly what his executioner wanted; he had already raised the sword high above the prisoner’s head, and, in a fluid, lightning-quick move, he brought it down full force.

  The blade went right through the prisoner’s neck in one clean cut. One single, brutally efficient, fatal blow. The man’s head didn’t just drop: it sprang off, hit the ground, and rolled through a full turn before coming to a stop. The executioner took a swift step back to avoid getting his robes soiled as blood instantly squirted out of the headless body, which remained immobile in its kneeling position.

  Across the courtyard, shouts of “Allahu Akbar”—God is the greatest—rang out. Taymoor hissed it, too, as he pumped the air with his fist before glancing over at Kamal with a fierce glow in his eyes and clenched teeth.

  “That’ll teach those sons of whores,” he rasped.

  Kamal nodded, even though he knew it wouldn’t. Death, after all, was no deterrent to those fanatics. If anything, it was the opposite.

  As the blood flow slowed, the executioner surveyed his handiwork with no visible emotion. One of his assistants handed him a small bottle of water and a cloth, which he casually took without looking away from his victim. He poured water over his blade and wiped it with the cloth, which he then discarded onto the rigid corpse.

  A four-man crew of attendants pulling a steel cart appeared from a far alcove. Moving with well-practiced efficiency, they unfurled a white plastic sheet and placed it on the ground next to the lifeless, headless body. Three of them rolled the corpse onto the sheet and lifted it onto the cart while the fourth retrieved the head and placed it in a bag made of the same white plastic. Moments later, they were wheeling it all away.

  The courtyard could now welcome its next victim.

  Today’s ceremony would feature seven beheadings. The next three, coconspirators of the Algerian, didn’t trouble Kamal. After all, it was he and Taymoor who had uncovered the plot, identified the terrorists, and led the team that had tracked them down and brought them in after an intense, frantic manhunt.

  The final two didn’t bother him either. He had played no part in their arrest, but they were tried and convicted murderers who, high on khat, had killed an elderly couple while robbing their mansion in Saint Germain.

  The fifth prisoner, however, did.

  His name was Halil Azmi, and he was a muderis—a teacher, in this case a university law professor. Agents from the Hafiye’s Z Directorate, the ever-expanding internal security force tasked with protecting the imperial order, had arrested him along with two others, a prominent journalist and a lawyer. The three men were accused of belonging to the White Rose, an underground subversive organization that the Z agents had recently uncovered, and a closed court had deemed them to be “colluding to instigate revolt.”

  He was also her friend.

  Which was why Kamal was now scouring the female grandstands again, looking for Nisreen, his brother’s wife, hoping she wouldn’t be there as the professor was paraded in to a chorus of suppressed gasps from the public stands.

  Part of him begrudged Nisreen the unease that was needling him. He felt irritated by her ill-judged friendship, one that was spoiling his moment of glory. At the same time, he couldn’t help but empathize with what she must be feeling, knowing her friend would soon lose his life. He hoped she wouldn’t witness what was about to come, hoped it wouldn’t cement an indelible link between him, an agent of the Hafiye, and Azmi’s fate.

  His heart seized as his eyes snagged something, a pair of eyes that were looking his way, and for a second he felt her there, watching him, loathing him from across the courtyard, the last vestiges of a friendship that had started when they were children about to be obliterated forever under the scorching sun. For a moment, he froze—then the woman turned, and, despite her light head scarf that also veiled the lower half of her face, he knew it wasn’t her.

  He looked away. And with the high sun pummeling the courtyard, Azmi was positioned so that, like the others before him, he was kneeling no more than twenty kadems from Kamal.

  The professor wasn’t cowering. He held his head high and seemed oblivious to everyone in the crowd. Instead, he was staring stoically at the official tribune.

  Kamal couldn’t help but meet his gaze, couldn’t tear himself away from the man’s eyes, which seemed to have zeroed in on him, a silent, accusing glare that triggered a pounding inside the agent’s ears that drowned out the executioner’s voice along with the sound of his blade as it cleaved the air before slicing through the professor’s neck.

  Which was when Kamal’s mobile phone buzzed in his pocket.

  As did Taymoor’s.

  3

  For Sayyid Ramazan Hekim, being summoned away from the family that Friday wasn’t hugely unwelcome. The week had been a dark one, and he knew it would only get worse once Nisreen heard the inevitable confirmation that the execution of her friend Halil Azmi had been carried out.

  He would have liked to be with her at that moment. But, at the same time, he knew there was nothing he could do to comfort her. They’d already said all that needed to be said. Better to leave her with the kids. They would distract her.

  Ramazan wasn’t as strongly affected by Azmi’s fate as his wife was. He hadn’t even met the man. He didn’t know many of his wife’s law colleagues, and recently he’d purposely avoided them. But Nisreen had on several occasions related their dissenting views on what the state had become, and he knew they would attract trouble, trouble he was fully determined to steer clear of. He and Nisreen had argued about that, of course. It was one thing to disagree with what the sultan and his cronies were doing; it was quite another to be publicly vocal about it. Ramazan felt his primary duty was to his wife, his children, and the patients under his care. Sometimes, late at night, he would wonder if that meant he was reasonable and cautious or a coward. He stoically pushed back against the latter and prided himself on the former. It would all eventually pass—such periods of political strife always did. And when they did, he would have kept his family safe.

  Under normal circumstances, this would have been the end of another week of routine, and the next day would have ushered in a new one. Ramazan knew routine all too well. He liked routine. Routine was order. Routine promoted peace of mind. It was the life he’d chosen. After all, being an anesthesiologist wasn’t particularly exciting. It wasn’t particularly glamorous either. In fact, it was quite the opposite: an invisible career. For even though he held his patients’ lives in his hands when they were in the operating room, even though they voluntarily relinquished all control of their bodies and minds to him, he’d long since got used to the fact that, afterward, they always remembered the names of their surgeon, never their anesthesiologist.

  In the current climate, being anonymous was probably a good thing.

  Today, however, as he walked down the halls of the cardiothoracic wing at the hospit
al that was part of the Hurrem Sultan Külliye on the Île de la Cité, Ramazan sensed something far from routine was brewing.

  “You say he walked in early this morning, alone, in bad shape and coughing blood—but we don’t know anything about him?” he asked, moving briskly alongside Moshe Fonseca, a surgeon he’d worked with frequently.

  “Nothing beyond the fact that he needs surgery rather urgently,” Fonseca replied.

  The sprawling complex, the largest külliye in Paris, had more humble origins as the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, which dated back to the seventh century. It had grown a lot since the Ottomans had taken over the city. Like all külliyes, it was funded by a voluntary charitable endowment, known as a waqf. Charity was highly encouraged by Islam, and large waqf complexes became a key part of the Ottomans’ colonization of foreign lands. These pious bequests by the imperial family and the ruling class ranged from hostels, mills, factories, and caravanserais to entire villages and included all the revenue that these properties generated.

  The Hurrem Sultan had been founded by the wife of a sultan and was named after her. Like the largest külliyes, it also housed a mosque, school, bathhouse, hospice, inn, and public soup kitchen. Its hospital was one of the most advanced in Paris, and Ramazan had a solid reputation as its star anesthesiologist.

  “We don’t even know his name?” he asked.

  “He hasn’t said a word,” the surgeon replied. “But that’s hardly the most unusual thing about him.”

  “What then?”

  Fonseca gave him a loaded sideways glance. “You’ll see.”