Empire of Lies

by Raymond Khoury

  The drum that was struck to signal its associated distribution of food, however, did break through his slumber. They’d already slept through the meal that had followed the midday prayer; this would be the last offering of the day.

  He felt woolly-headed, and it took him a moment to process where he was. He pushed himself to his elbows, taking in the strange room, and saw her sitting by the window, staring out.

  He asked, “How long have you been awake?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He sat up. “Hatun, you need rest.”

  “I couldn’t. I kept thinking about what we were talking about last night. About what I could do to change things. To save them.” She let out a long, exasperated breath. “It always comes back to the same thing. The impossibility of going back to our own lives. I even thought we could go back to when Rasheed first got sick. In Paris, in his time. Get the forward travel incantation … and kill him. So he doesn’t ever come to our time.”

  Kamal felt saddened. “It would be safer to leave ourselves a warning.”

  “But it might get lost over the years … or we might not believe it.”

  “The result would be the same. We can’t go back.”

  “I know … but there has to be something we can do.” Her eyes welled up again.

  He went to her and hugged her. “I’m so, so sorry…”

  They stayed there, in silence, for a long moment. Then she pulled back, slowly.

  “You really should get some rest,” he told her. “Let’s go downstairs and eat first. We’ll talk about it again later.”

  Nisreen crossed over to her bed and sat down. “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t know when we’ll be able to eat next.”

  She didn’t reply. She just let out an indifferent shrug and got into her bed, pulling the sheet right up to her ears, blocking out the world. “You go.”

  The hollowness that hadn’t left his gut for days sank even deeper, but he didn’t give it a voice. Instead, he said, “I’ll bring something back for you.”

  She didn’t reply.

  The line for the afternoon meal was longer than it had been in the morning, and a crowd of those waiting for their turn to be called was milling about in the large hall outside the communal dining room. Kamal was cutting through the throng and heading for the marshal who would normally be ushering people at the back of the queue when he spotted him: Taymoor, right there, in the imaret, talking to the marshal. A couple of Zaptiye uniformed officers were behind Taymoor, farther back in the crowd—not men from his own time but local men, men he must have somehow managed to co-opt, judging by their outdated period uniforms.

  Taymoor’s face was tight with purpose, his eyes scanning the room as he spoke to the marshal.

  The marshal was nodding affirmatively.

  Kamal hissed out a curse and pulled back, melting into the crowd, trying to keep as many unsuspecting bodies between him and Taymoor. A fusillade of questions raked his brain. How was it that Taymoor was here, now? How had he followed them? Had they found his phone in the lake? And, more worryingly, how had he managed to put together a local posse so quickly? How had he persuaded the authorities in this day and age to fall into line and give him their support?

  The answers would have to wait. With one wary eye cast in Taymoor’s direction, he slipped back until he reached the hallway that branched off toward the inn; then he took off running.

  His mind was already processing the geometry of the place and possible escape routes by the time he burst into their room, startling Nisreen.

  “We have to go. Now. Taymoor is here.”

  Nisreen stared at him with sleepy, confused eyes. “Taymoor? Here?”

  “At the imaret. Quick.” Kamal grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. “Let’s go.”

  He cracked the door open, peered out.

  The corridor was clear.

  “Stay close.”

  They rushed in the opposite direction, away from the kitchen, toward the entrance to the inn, by the mosque. Kamal led Nisreen down a long, narrow passageway, his body taut, every muscle on high alert and ready for any eruption as they slipped past scores of closed doors to other bedrooms.

  They were about to climb down the stairs that led to the ground floor of the inn when some bustle coming from below caused him to freeze. He leaned close, pricking his ears, but he already knew what it was. Two police officers, men from the Zaptiye that Taymoor had somehow managed to co-opt, were heading up their way.

  “Back, back,” he hissed at Nisreen, hustling her away from the stairs and back in the direction they’d come from.

  They flew down the corridor and were just rounding the corner that led to their room when, at the far end of the long passageway, Taymoor appeared.

  Taymoor’s face crunched into a dark scowl and he took off toward them. Kamal thought he spotted a holstered handgun peeking out from under his overcoat.

  Kamal spun on himself and bolted back down the passageway, pulling Nisreen in his wake. He knew they were boxed in, knew there was only one possible way out, which was why he grabbed the first door handle they reached after rounding the corner and blew into a small bedroom that was identical to theirs.

  The room was empty, but it wouldn’t have mattered to Kamal either way. He didn’t plan on being there longer than it took to open its window.

  “This way,” he blurted as he clambered over the sill.

  “But—”

  “Come on,” he insisted, reaching out to her with his hand.

  She took it and climbed over to join him on the slanted tile roof of the arcaded courtyard of the big mosque, her eyes vivid with alarm.

  “We’ll make our way down diagonally,” he hissed. “Use the lips of the tiles for purchase and watch out for any loose ones.”

  She nodded.

  They clambered across the roof, Nisreen falling back a bit, struggling through one hesitant step after the other—then a shout from a guest of the inn pointing out of another window told them the time for any caution was gone.

  “Hurry,” he rasped.

  Kamal saw Taymoor appear from another window and yanked Nisreen closer—but her foot hit a loose tile, which scraped out of its slot and made her slip. Kamal bent down and just managed to grab her as a wave of tiles clattered noisily down the roof before crashing into the courtyard, causing incensed shouts to ring up from below.

  Kamal glanced up to see Taymoor at the window.

  The two agents’ eyes met—two burning glares, years of friendship turned into cold enmity.

  “Come on,” he told Nisreen as he pulled her up.

  He led her across the rest of the roof, scurrying low and fast until they reached its lip.

  In the courtyard below, angry worshippers were cursing up at them with raised fists, their anger at the disrespectful intrusion further inflamed by the realization that one of the culprits was a woman. Kamal tuned them out. Instead, he gripped the edge of the roof and swung over it, hung down from its lip with his fingers, and let go in one fluid move. It was a big drop onto solid paving stones, and he hit the ground heavily, his knees bent to dampen the shock. He threw himself sideways to spread the impact sequentially across five points of body contact, just as he’d been trained, before rolling back onto his feet and running a quick mental check of his body. He was sore but uninjured.

  Nisreen popped her head over the edge, further angering the mob and looking unsure about the jump. Kamal ignored the growing swarm of men converging on him and waved her down.

  “Hang down and jump,” he shouted up at her. “I’ll catch you. Do it.”

  She hesitated for a second, then climbed over the edge, dropped down, and let go. Kamal caught her and they both tumbled to the ground just as the first of the men stepped forward and grabbed him by the shoulder. Kamal sprang to his feet and shoved the man back, hard—only to have another worshipper step in and throw a wild punch at him. Kamal leaned away to avoid it and countered with a clean upper
cut to the man’s rib cage that dropped him to his knees. A third, younger man stepped into the fray, screaming wild profanities at Nisreen, but a kick to the kidneys followed by a jab that caught him squarely on the ear quickly silenced him.

  The crowd was now enraged, their yells intensified, but for a moment they held back, stunned by Kamal’s savage reactions.

  Kamal knew he had to move quick.

  “Step back, you sons of dogs,” he growled at them, jabbing a forceful finger in Nisreen’s direction. “I’m with the Hafiye and this woman is under the protection of the sultan, you hear me? Step back or suffer the consequences.”

  The hard conviction in his tone sent a ripple of hesitation through the mob, long enough to buy them an opening. Kamal had already turned to Nisreen, and, with a quick flick of the hand for her to join him, they were cutting through the crowd, his scowl poisonous, his hand clasped tightly on hers, the men parting grudgingly to let them through.

  A couple of doubting, younger hotheads stepped forward to confront them, but they were soft and, like the others, lacked Kamal’s years of training. He cleaved a path through them with a couple of surgical blows, and before the others could process what was really happening, he and Nisreen were storming out the gates of the mosque and into the street.

  Quick scan left, right—a typical Parisian afternoon, only not as they knew it. Fewer people and vehicles, which made Kamal feel more exposed than he would have liked. But at least prayer time meant there was a cluster of worshippers converging on the mosque from all sides, which helped make Kamal and Nisreen’s presence less visible to the two Zaptiye officers Kamal spotted outside the entrance to the public kitchen down the street.

  Kamal led Nisreen down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, away from the kitchen and the inn. They kept their heads down and hugged the walls as they scurried away, moving as quickly as was reasonable so as not to attract attention.

  Without looking back, Kamal dove into the first side street, Nisreen hot on his heels, then turned into another, zigzagging away from Taymoor and his men, moving deeper into a town that felt as disturbingly foreign as it felt familiar.

  51

  The past they’d landed in was different from what they knew in so many ways, and, given their predicament, some were proving useful; others, less so. Right now, the lack of surveillance and communication technology that Kamal and his brethren in the Hafiye had used to such devastating effect was firmly at the top of the former camp.

  Back in the time they’d come from, Kamal had little doubt that he and Nisreen would have most likely already been captured. Even if they’d made it out of the inn, the Hafiye would have had the area locked down with heavy surveillance; street cameras, perhaps even an aerial drone, would have tracked their every move, the entire digital cordon monitored on all kinds of screens by a crack team that would have coordinated men on foot and in chase vehicles and tightened the noose around them until they had nowhere to run.

  But here and now, there were no mobile phones, no handheld radios, no GPS trackers. Any agents pursuing Kamal and Nisreen would have been reduced to individual pawns, foot soldiers directed by verbal commands that weren’t based on any kind of live surveillance data, let loose to rely on their wits to try to pick up their quarry’s trail.

  The lack of technology had allowed him and Nisreen to get away.

  They kept moving for well over an hour, ducking into narrow streets and passageways, avoiding major roads where agents in passing cars might spot them. It was harrowing and draining, but it had to be done. They needed to put as much distance as they could between themselves and Taymoor.

  They also needed a place to hole up. They couldn’t risk another charitable waqf inn; they needed something less obvious and more anonymous, and for that they needed money. On that front, an idea had sprung into Kamal’s mind back at the inn, when he’d first looked down at the courtyard of the mosque.

  Their circuitous route across Paris would lead them past several other mosques—the city was dotted with them, whether new constructions or converted churches—and it was outside the first of those that he asked Nisreen to wait. He didn’t like leaving her, but walking in alone was less likely to arouse suspicion.

  The dusk prayers were still a way off, and the mosque’s courtyard was deserted. Kamal advanced cautiously and saw what he was after: a sadaqa tasi—a charity stone—in the shadows of a corner of the arcade. Keeping a wary eye about his surroundings, he approached it.

  The sadaqa was a stone pillar slightly taller than he was, and it had a hollow niche near its top. Its purpose was simple: it provided an elegant method of performing one’s duty of sadaqa—charity. Sadaqa, as ordained by Islamic tradition, was deemed essential for the stability and well-being of a community, as well as critical for every devout follower’s eternal salvation. The pillar allowed the rich to donate money anonymously: they only needed to reach up and place money in the niche. Those in need would later approach it and take only what they needed, ensuring they left the rest behind for others in need. The system helped save the poor from having to go begging and face humiliation, while it provided the rich with an elegant, unboastful way to perform their religious duty. The pillars were often hard to notice, tucked into quiet corners of mosques or their courtyards to afford discretion to those giving as well as those taking, but they were always there.

  Kamal was well aware of the etiquette regarding the taking side of the system, but right now etiquette would have to take a back seat to survival. He felt little shame at cleaning out the pillar’s niche, which he also did to four others in mosques that they crossed on their hotfooted and improvised trek to safety. By the end of it, they had enough money to pay for tramway tickets across town to the Christian ghetto tucked into the shadows of the hill of Montmartre.

  Montmartre was one of the few areas in the city that had remained mostly Christian. Its religious roots ran deep: a bishop named Saint Denis was decapitated there by the Romans several centuries before the advent of Islam. A small priory still occupied the site where he was believed to have died, while a much larger Benedictine monastery covered the rest of the hill cresting the community that had grown around its base.

  Kamal was familiar with the neighborhood’s future incarnation from his investigative work; besides threats from Arab Islamists, the Hafiye of his time had also dealt with Christian terrorists. The grievances that had given rise to their plots weren’t present in the Paris he and Nisreen were currently in, which hadn’t yet experienced the empire’s economic crash after the collapse of the price of oil. The grievances were a reaction to the xenophobic, heavy-handed policies of Abdülhamid III and his incendiary, divisive rhetoric, which reactionary elements in America had exploited and fed with propaganda and funding. Before then, as in the time that Kamal and Nisreen were presently in, the Christian and Jewish minorities across the empire had coexisted comfortably alongside the Muslim majority, even though they were, in many ways, second-class citizens. And, as was common for minorities, they tended to congregate and live in close quarters, as the Christians did at Montmartre.

  In the time they’d come from, hiding there would have been a bad move. The Christian community was riddled with informants desperate to ingratiate themselves with the state. In the time they were now in, things were different. The Christians had yet to be stigmatized by the sultan’s populist backlash and weren’t paranoid about their security. The neighborhood wasn’t hostile to outsiders, and its businesses welcomed Muslims and Jews. Which was why Kamal and Nisreen didn’t stick out or feel overly exposed when they walked into a small, simple inn, posing as husband and wife.

  There, they could finally rest their weary legs and catch their breath.

  But for how long?

  52

  Dinner was a simple but filling affair of dane, which consisted of mutton and rice, followed by zirbaç, a sweet pudding made from raisins, plums, and almonds. They ate alone at a small family restaurant a stone’s throw from the in
n, avoiding any unnecessary interaction, barely speaking to each other out of both tiredness and a desire to ensure they weren’t overheard. Nisreen barely touched her food, and Kamal, she noted, was kind enough to only mention it once. Even though her body was clearly craving it, she didn’t have the energy to eat. She barely had energy to breathe.

  The break from the fear and the running had allowed all the horrors of the previous night to come storming back. The sadness that had been pushed aside by the rush for survival had returned, so profound and debilitating that she could barely lift a finger. Her husband and her children were gone forever. It was impossible to accept. She kept going over it, again and again, her mind refusing to process it and scrambling for some way out of it, something she missed that could bring them back. Perhaps more than the grief that was tearing her apart, it was this crippling sense of helplessness about the cruel finality of it all that was killing her.

  They retreated to their room. They needed a wash and a change of clothing, but it would wait. They were both too wiped out to do anything more than just collapse on their beds and stare at the ceiling.

  Nisreen was the first to break the silence.

  “It’s never going to end, is it?” she said. “They’re going to keep coming after us. I mean, you know what they’re like; you know how they work. They’re never going to give up.”

  “No, they’re not. Not given what’s at stake.”

  “So this is how we’re going to live from now on? Constantly looking over our shoulders and worrying about who might turn up?”

  Kamal shrugged. “We can go to another time. Try to lose them again. Make sure we don’t leave a trail this time.”

  “But we can never be sure, can we? There’s always a chance that they’ll track us down again. There’s no limit to how many agents they can send back to all kinds of past times to find us. Which means there’ll always be that fear, that doubt.” She rolled onto her side to face him. “I can’t live like that. I won’t live like that.”