“Oh, I am sure within what you refer to as your religious belief system you firmly believe that he will. In mine, we say murdering, or being an accomplice to the murder of large numbers of civilians does not get you into heaven. It would ensure you are sent somewhere else for all eternity. Someplace far less pleasant.
“If my understanding of your religion is even close to correct he must sacrifice himself in some fashion, or devote his life to the cause of furthering Islam. I don’t think he has done that, at least not yet. I intend to ensure he lives a very long and happy life. He may ultimately forget about achieving either of these things.
“Believe it or not, I want everyone to live long, happy, and peaceful lives. As for your son, I want him to stay right where he is. He does appear to be very happy. Maybe I will wait until he graduates and have the people I work for buy him a Fellowship somewhere in this country.
“Now, you are probably wondering what I mean by all this? How will I ensure he stays and doesn’t run back home?” rhetorically asked the interrogator with an annoying grin.
He paused for a moment while fingering the controls on his tablet device, “I will ensure that he has some new friends that move into the vacant apartments near him and they will stay there for some time. These four people will be his neighbors,” he showed the display then his eyebrows raised and lowered quickly in a taunting fashion.
“Two of these women will take up residence per apartment surrounding your son. He will have some new neighbors for him to tutor in their University studies. Did you know your son likes to tutor only female students? Of course you did. Maybe they can all walk to class together. After all, they live so close to campus.”
The four women on the display were very attractive college age coeds, “These two were born and raised Roman Catholic, and the other two are of Jewish heritage, although far from Kosher. They seem to love pork for some reason. Hell, we may have chosen them for just that reason. All of them are of very questionable morals, even by California standards,” the interrogator chuckled as he spoke, obviously entertaining himself.
The cavalier manner this man had when speaking of his son was making Dr. Joba angry. He could not let the man know this line of discussion had disturbed him. He would not give away anything to this man, no matter the cost to him or his son. The cause was worth more than either of their lives. Perhaps this man was making these things up. Those women could live anywhere. This had to just be a script designed to throw him off-balance, surely that was it.
Dr. Joba let out a small laugh himself and was instantly upset for letting any kind of emotion out in front of the interrogator.
“Is something funny about all this?” asked Phillip, keying in on the weakness.
He thought for a second about engaging in conversation with this annoying man. He decided that he was intelligent enough to not let sensitive information out, and perhaps even run a ruse that would confuse or annoy this arrogant little man, “My son would not care about such women. Except, perhaps, maybe for some carnal pleasure. He most certainly would not eat pork, under even the most extreme of circumstances,” replied Dr. Joba.
“Really? Hmmm. Perhaps you are right. Or, perhaps it has been a long time since you have spoken with your son, security being what it is these days. He, like you, is studying nuclear physics. He, like you, has amazing grades.
“He, unlike you, has been seeing just one woman for the last year or so. I understand that you have more than one wife. He, on the other hand, has interest in only one. We found a lot of emails between them. I have a much better, more revealing, picture of her if you like?
“No, ok, well now I know part of you is thinking he just does this for those carnal rewards you were talking about, or to keep up appearances, but I have a lot of love letters he has emailed her. These letters seem to indicate otherwise. She, in fact, seems to be the sexually aggressive one in the relationship,” he said.
“Now back to our discussion about you. Your life is not the same as it was a few days ago. It just isn’t. Let me explain just how different it is. You are now a prisoner of War.
“It is a War we did not start, but we will win. You will remain with us for a long period of time, potentially for the rest of your life. For how long is not for me to decide. But, I can offer some influence on your level of comfort. I can also assure you that you will live to the end of your natural life, and we will make sure that you live as long as your body is able. It will be a long and healthy life, what with our doctors being as good as they are.
“It will NOT be a life you are used to. No more research, no more science, no more sun, very little access to books, really very boring. Unless you work with me,” Phillip stated.
“You threaten me and my son and then you expect me to care about what you want?” Dr. Joba snapped.
“Oh, we will never harm either of you. I am not here to threaten that any harm come to anyone. In his case, I merely assure you he will not ever be lonely. These women would never harm him. One was recently treated for a venereal disease. I hope he avoids her, the fact that three of these four call pork their favorite meat is merely humorous to me for some reason,” said Philip with a most annoying smirk on his face.
Dr. Joba thought perhaps this man wasn’t lying. How could he know this information unless these women were on their government’s payroll? Perhaps they were there merely to cause his son eternal problems when seeking paradise, perhaps they sent them in to purposefully temp him.
Dr. Joba was getting very angry. He had never considered that they might have found his son or stooped to this level, “You have treaties you must adhere to. Do those documents not include passages about how prisoner’s families should be treated?”
“Again, you misunderstand, or perhaps you aren’t as intelligent as I was led to believe. We would never force him to do something. If he eats pork again, or violates other values you hold dear, that he may not share, it won’t be by force, but by his personal choice,” said Phillip.
“Again?” Dr. Joba was not a man of emotion. Rarely did things other than pure logic get into his brain. Today he was tired, and his thoughts were racing. At that moment he only cared about his son. His only other thought was about sleep.
“Turns out once we were bombed, and we determined who was behind it, his name came up on a list, and we went from occasional surveillance of the boy to watching him 24 hours a day. He and his girlfriend, Kimberly is her name by the way, were at iHop just this morning. Did you ever eat at iHop when you lived here while going to University? I love their pancakes. Anyway, this morning your son had some very greasy sausage along with his eggs. I believe the dish was called the Smokehouse Special. I suggest that if you want to see him again, and perhaps help him see what you would call the error of his ways, well perhaps someday that could occur, but if it can, and how soon is really up to you,” said Phillip.
Dr. Joba sat for a moment, thinking. He loved all of his children but how could this man help him without causing his lifetime of sacrifices to all be for nothing. Perhaps he should ask what it was this man wanted. Perhaps he should engage just a little. There may be a way to do this, perhaps the help that they want is something that would be ok to provide and still ensure his position in Paradise. “What do you want from me?”
His mind was now racing. Perhaps he could even give the appearance of helping, fool them a bit, and get to see his son. Then he could warn the boy. Perhaps he could pass a message his captors would not understand to help the cause even more.
“Now that’s much better. I knew we could all be reasonable. I want to know how much more special nuclear material your country has on-hand, right now. In other words, how many more of these bombs can we expect coming our way?” asked Phillip.