Empire of Lies

1 PARIS

The dizzy, light-headed feeling was vaguely familiar.

Although Ayman Rasheed had done it before, the last time had been years ago. And the sensation was so bizarre, so intense, so overwhelming that after each trip he’d wondered if anyone ever got used to it. Not that he imagined many others knew about it, let alone had experienced it. There had to be some others, though, surely—after all, it had been out there for centuries, millennia even—but if so, where were they?

Or, rather, when?

He had no way of knowing, and he’d long since learned to avoid speculating about it. It only led down a bottomless rabbit hole of questions and infinite possibilities.

This time, though, the sensations were far more intense for the simple reason that Ayman Rasheed wasn’t in good shape. In fact, he knew he was barely clinging to life, which was why he’d had to make the jump as quickly as possible.

As his eyes struggled to adjust to the faint light of the streetlamps on the bridge looming over him, he felt the dizziness return. He muttered a curse and spat out some blood before huddling down and scanning his surroundings, alert to any potential threat, the cool air floating up from the river cutting a bone-deep chill into his naked body.

For that was how he always arrived after a jump: bare-skinned, stripped of any clothing or possessions.

The Paris he’d arrived in was very different, of course. Beyond what he could see, it was smelly, the air thick with pollutants, a stench that felt more disagreeable, even poisonous, compared with the stink from the lack of modern sewage that he’d grown accustomed to over the last couple of decades. It was noisy, too—that was the one thing that always hit hardest, even at this time of night, when the city was mostly asleep. An ambient buzz, a thrum, distant gears and pistons from cars, buses, generators, and all kinds of mechanical contraptions burrowing almost surreptitiously into one’s consciousness from everywhere and nowhere.

He’d forgotten how noisy that world was.

He coughed up more blood and felt a renewed onslaught of dizziness and nausea. This wasn’t good. He needed his strength and all of his guile to pull this off and save himself. He shut his eyes for a moment, concentrating on calming his racing heartbeat, willing his senses to fall into step and guard him from any potential threat. He just needed to get to the hospital. Just that. The rest would take care of itself. Any other outcome was inconceivable to him. After everything he’d been through, after everything he’d achieved, he couldn’t allow it all to come to a pathetic end, here, alone and anonymous, a naked, tattooed corpse curled up in a dark corner on the banks of the Seine.

He slinked back to the dark cover of a stairwell that led down from the bridge and waited. He knew exactly where he was, of course. He’d been careful to arrive in a place that would minimize the risk of discovery and, worse, obliteration. Appearing in the middle of a busy road and getting hit by a bus, for example. Or somewhere that was now occupied by something solid, like a concrete wall or a parked car. Or in a crowded building, and causing a stir. Parks were a good option: open spaces, sparsely populated, although there was always the risk that, over time, they would be developed or that trees with thick trunks would have grown there in the intervening years. Another option was to choose a historic monument: an ancient, classic building, one that was most likely to be protected and maintained in its original form, one that stood a good chance of surviving the vagaries of time with little change.

Rasheed’s first trip to this new world had been the most dangerous. He’d been curious to see the result of his work, but he’d be traveling blind. He’d never been to Paris in his time—before this had all begun, before he had ever done a time jump—and he hadn’t thought of researching it either back then. Going for extreme caution on that first jump, he’d decided to use the river as his port of arrival, thinking that in all of Paris it was the one thing he was reasonably certain would remain unchanged over time. It had been a hot summer’s day in the middle of August, so he assumed the water temperature would be bearable. And he wouldn’t have clothes to weigh him down. The only thing he had to worry about was being run over by one of the many commercial barges plying its waters, but on a Friday and close to the riverbank, it was a reasonable risk.

It had worked out fine. And preferring not to get soaked on future visits, he’d sought out other safe landing spots. He was presently at one of those: a cobblestone quay on the right bank of the Seine, tucked away from the glare of the city’s surveillance cameras, under the old Pont Royal bridge, facing the side of the Palais des Tuileries, at the westernmost end of the Louvre courtyard.

He had no way of knowing that the palace itself should not have been there. It had been burned down by the Paris Commune in 1871. Except, in the Paris he had just arrived in, there had been no Paris Commune. There had been no French Revolution either. Only an Ottoman conquest that had—as he had seen firsthand on his previous visits—survived and thrived for more than three hundred years.

Thanks to him.

Only this was no curiosity trip—it was not a victory tour. It was a matter of life and death.

His own.

He scanned his surroundings and saw no one. It was Friday, the holy day of rest and congregation. The busy docks that lined the riverbanks would be shut. People would rise late, have breakfast with their families, and then, shortly before noon, they would head off to the mosques for the big Salaat el Jumu’ah prayers. But that was later. It was still barely dawn. The city had yet to awaken, and the quays were quiet.

After a spell, Rasheed sensed something off to his far left. Some movement. He crept deeper into the shadows, hugging the wall, and his chest tightened as he stifled a cough.

He waited, then peered out, slowly, cautiously.

A figure was approaching. A man out on a walk, smoking a cigarette.

There was no one else around.

Rasheed risked another look and sized him up. Height, broad size—he would do.

He slid back against the wall and tensed up, waiting. From deep inside him, another geyser of blood threatened to explode, but he suppressed it, causing a burn to tear through his lungs. He tried to still his breathing, which was rising alarmingly, not out of fear but involuntary cardiac exertion. He would have rather waited a bit longer before striking, to allow the aftereffects of his trip to settle, but the opportunity was here, now, and to wait longer was to invite more risk.

A charge of adrenaline fought back his dizziness as the man’s footfalls drew closer. When he judged them to indicate the man was within striking distance, he emerged, fast, blocking his target’s path.

The man froze in place, thrown by the sight of a powerful nude man covered in markings standing before him. And before the man could react, before his brain had even processed the strange sight, Rasheed dredged up the force to lash out. A quick side kick to the groin caused the man to falter back, his face crumpled from debilitating pain. Rasheed moved in instantly and followed the first strike with a savage haymaker to the man’s left ear that almost made him lose consciousness. His legs buckled, and by the time he fell to his knees, Rasheed was already behind him, hooking one arm around the man’s neck, his other pressing against the back of his head.

Then Rasheed squeezed.

The man struggled to free himself, but Rasheed held him in place despite the burning sensation searing through his own biceps and forearm. He could smell the stink of tobacco, which mixed badly with the dizziness that suddenly roared back into his skull. He dredged up all the strength he could muster to keep the man in his grip. Seconds dragged into torturous minutes until the lack of oxygen caused the man’s resistance to wane and his body went slack.

Rasheed stayed clamped around the man’s neck. He wasn’t after unconsciousness. He needed something more permanent.

Moments later, he achieved his goal. He dropped the limp corpse to the ground just as the feeling of choking on his own blood surged within him, making him cough out violently. He wiped his mouth with his hand and steadied himself against the wall, struggling to stay upright from the dizziness. He couldn’t let it overcome him again. He had to move fast.

He pulled the man’s clothes off—robe, shirt, sash, baggy trousers, and the loose turban that had already fallen off his head during the scuffle—then slipped them on. In a small pocket in the man’s pants, he found an ID card, a couple of banknotes, and a set of keys. He studied the card. The address meant nothing to him, but he memorized the name on it. He didn’t intend to use it, but details were important, and he knew it could come in handy.

His head still throbbing, he dragged the man’s naked body to the edge of the water. He was about to roll him in when a scream shattered the peaceful night air.

“Stop! What are you doing? Somebody stop him,” a woman cried out.

He froze and glanced across the river. A man and woman were at the base of the bridge’s stairs directly across from him. The man was now edging closer to the water, pointing at him and shouting, too.

Rasheed ignored them.

He just flipped the body into the river, turned, and made for the stairs, dredging up another gob of blood as he stumbled off into the darkness.