Empire of Lies

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?