Chapter 11: The Seeker's Questions

Cody walked out of the cell followed by his mom, who was leading Jamil.

"Let's go, Mahdi," Cody said over his shoulder. "We have an appointment upstairs."

"I sent my men up already," Gabir said, as he guided the Sergeant around Cody and towards the stairs by the elbow. "Two are watching the back, and two are watching the front. I'll stay with you."

Cody nodded, following his chief of security up the stairs.

Cynthia turned to the remaining men and asked, "Would you gentlemen go upstairs, too? Guard the door to the pantry or something. If someone tries to steal it, kill them. If they only try to get past you, just wound them."

"Yes, ma'am," Shawn said with a grin, jerking his head at the other two interns, before the three of them clattered up the stairs.

"I know you ladies don't need it," Manuel said, "But I found this pistol in the Sergeants nightstand. One of you might as well carry it." He set the pistol on the bed and said, "Be careful. It is loaded," over his shoulder as he headed towards the stairs.

"Ladies," Cynthia announced as the men disappeared, "This is Jamil." She pointed as she said, "Jamil, that's Briana, Amy, and Maria. In case you missed it, Jamil, I'm Mom to Cody, and I guess to anyone else that needs one. Otherwise, you can call me Cynthia. Now, everyone," she said, meeting the eyes of the other women, "We need to find some clothes that fit Jamil."

"My clothes might be a close fit, but I don't think I want her wearing them," Amy said doubtfully.

"Why not?" Cynthia asked, shocked at the unexpected statement.

"Well, look at her, Cynthia," Amy said, almost in a whine. "She's beautiful. If we dress her up nice, Brian will never look at me again." Then she grinned and said, "But, he doesn't look at me that often now, so I guess it's no great loss."

Almost immediately, all the women began opening the packs or duffels they had brought with them. Each of them had at least one change of clothes. Amy's blouse and bra fit Jamil, but Maria's pants were more comfortable. Cynthia had an extra scarf for Jamil, in case she had to go out in public.

Jamil felt a warm camaraderie building between her and these women by the time she was dressed. Jamil picked up bits and pieces of the women's histories through the chattering and joking while her ensemble came together.

"Are you the Seeker's woman?" Jamil asked Maria bluntly.

Maria blushed, and a brief wistful look crossed her face, before she quickly shook her head no.

Amy snorted at the question, and Briana exclaimed, "The Professor?"

Cynthia chuckled in a sad kind of way, and said, "I think he needs to kill some of his own demons before he can seriously get involved with anyone, Jamil."

"Why? I mean, what demons?" Jamil asked in puzzlement.

Cynthia sighed before sitting on the edge of the bed. She looked at the four women waiting expectantly for her to answer. She nodded to herself.

'These women are on our side, ' Cynthia thought to herself. 'They deserve a little insight into the man they are following.'

"Cody had a lot of ... em ... offers when he started dating. I know a mom isn't supposed to know that, but, I'm not stupid. He was more mature than most boys his age, and he drew the girls like a magnet. That maturity is probably because he spent so much time with adults, on digs with me or his father. Most people would expect a hormonally charged teenage boy to grab the prettiest girl around, and there were plenty that were willing. He didn't though. The girls he dated were usually pretty, but not always, and there were often prettier girls, in my own opinion, clamoring for his attention. I asked him about it one time. We had a lot of time to talk when we traveled. He claimed that he always picked the prettiest girl to go out with. He said his standard for pretty is just a little different than other peoples'. That got me curious, so I brought up his 'standards' in later conversations. He liked pretty hair and a nice figure just fine. However, the qualifiers that he placed on a girl's beauty was very unusual for a teenager, or most males for that matter. He gave more weight to the beauty inside than he did to the beauty outside when deciding on who was pretty."

"I could see him making those kinds of judgments," Maria said, nodding thoughtfully. "I had a crush on him when I was a kid. He was eighteen, and I was nine. It was his last dig with his dad before he went to the Marine boot camp. He was always patient with me. He answered every question I asked seriously." She smiled at a memory, and added, "I think he knew that I was just asking questions to be around him."

Cynthia's eyes darkened at the mention of Cody's military service.

"Cody saw the planes fly into the World Trade Center on 9/11 in 2001. He was eleven years old, and it changed him," Cynthia had a troubled look on her face when she softly said, "He was quieter after that. He was still a good boy, but he seemed to think about things differently after 9/11. He was still a clear-eyed boy when he left for the Marines, but he had lost an..." She shook her head, searching for a word, and then said, "Innocence, I guess, would be the best word to describe it, but that isn't quite right either. I think he lost his moral innocence in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm not talking about sexual innocence. I'm sure he lost that long before he joined the Marines. I'm talking about an innocence of the soul. He was harder ... harder inside..." Cynthia shrugged in frustration at her inability to put her thoughts into words, but said, "When he came back ... Cody's belief in man's innate goodness was gone."

There was silence in the room for a moment before Jamil quietly asked, "Did he ever recover from whatever happened to him?"

"I don't think it was just one thing that happened to him," Cynthia said sadly. "Continual exposure to how inhumane man can be to man changes a person. To honestly answer your question, the answer would have to be no. He is more sensitive in his dealings with the people that he lets get close to him now, than he was when he first returned from war. There is still a hard cynicism inside him that no one has been able to touch," Cynthia confided softly. "He doesn't see the beauty in the world, or in people, the same way he did before he went to war. I don't think he ever will again unless he finds the right person that can get through that shell. He needs someone that can lead him back to that appreciation of beauty that he lost."

Gabir and Cody were in the kitchen, poised to rush into the foyer when the Lieutenant arrived.

"Seeker," Gabir said quietly, his voice troubled. "Is something happening to you?"

"What do you mean?" Cody asked, refusing to meet Gabir's eyes.

"Manuel said that you have the sight," Gabir answered slowly. "He said that you can tell truth from lies. What you did at the road block was much more than discerning the truth. You discovered truth in Mahdi's lies." Gabir took a deep breath, and let it out slowly before continuing with, "I have never seen, or even heard, of what you did when we arrived at Mahdi's home. You didn't just ... just discover truth in lies, or get an intuition of what was truth and lie. You forced him, with your mind, to tell you the truth. You forced him to tell you something that he was terrified to say. Seeker, that is a giant step beyond telling lies from truth. What is happening to you?"

Cody shuddered at the question, and he closed his eyes. He considered how, or if, he should answer the question. He owed this man, not only for his service and dedication to Cody, but for protecting his mother in the past.

He took a trembling breath and opened his eyes. He didn't look at Gabir. Cody kept his eyes trained on the doorway they would go through, but finally he spoke.

"Have you ever felt like you are reaching for something, but something that you couldn't identify was holding you back?" Cody asked quietly. He didn't wait for an answer before he continued with, "All my life I have felt like, if I try just a little harder, I can reach some elusive point that will allow me to do more ... to see more ... to understand more. I learned to question prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is where I learned to tell the difference between lies and truth. That is also where I grew conscious of straining, mentally, to reach something just beyond my reach. I think it all started even before that. I was in New York during the terrorist attack that brought down the Twin Towers. I was eleven years old then. That changed me, somehow. I began getting feelings when I was with my mom or dad on a dig. I began acting on those feelings, and we found artifacts."

Cody shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to rid himself of memories or order his thoughts. Or, maybe both.

"I seemed to reach a different level after my father was killed," Cody continued. "That level was solidified when I retrieved the medallion from his safe. It was easier to tell truth from lies. That ... skill ... is handy when dealing with students giving excuses for incomplete assignments," he said with a strained laugh, in an attempt to lighten the intensity of the subject.

It was Cody's turn to take a deep breath, and he let it out slowly. He turned his head and met Gabir's gaze levelly for a long moment.

"I will answer your questions Gabir, both the one you asked, and the one you didn't ask," Cody said. "I don't know what is happening to me. I think the stress of losing my dad pushed me to a different ... level I guess is as good a label as any. Finding out that his death probably wasn't because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time pushed that level just a little farther. Everything that happened in South America, and needing to protect those kids, ratcheted it higher. Learning what happened to Maria and her dad just added to ... to whatever it is that is pushing me. Then, on this trip ... My mom is in danger this time. The atrocities these people have carried out, and the innocents' lives that have been destroyed..." He shook his head angrily before continuing with, "Everything that is happening, all of it, is adding more to the pressure that is straining inside me. So, I don't know what is happening to me. I feel like my mind is a wound that has a bandage on it, and the bandage is being ripped off. I have an idea, or a theory that..."

There was an urgent knock at the front door that echoed through the foyer to the kitchen. Both men looked at the doorway expectantly.

One of Gabir's men motioned the Sergeant towards the front door with his rifle, before moving behind the door. Another of Gabir's men was standing, just out of sight in another room.

"We'll talk about it later, if we get a chance," Cody whispered to Gabir.

Gabir nodded, his shoulders tense as he focused on the sounds in the foyer.

Sergeant Mahdi counted to ten so he could steady his nerves before opening the door.

"Welcome to my home, Lieutenant," Mahdi said jovially.

Lieutenant Salim Al Khoury looked up from an open folder as the door opened and urgently asked, "He wasn't with the convoy? The man Frost, he wasn't with the convoy?" he clarified.

"No, sir," Sergeant Mahdi said hesitantly, holding the door wide, and hoping the Lieutenant would get inside quickly.

"The Adjutant got the full dossier on Frost and forwarded it on to me," the Lieutenant continued excitedly, looking back down at the folder. "That Professor Randall, that I told you about, is Professor Cody Frost's mother. That is the connection we've been looking for. He must have hidden among the convoy's personnel. The Adjutant is coming tomorrow with a full company."

"Won't you come in, sir?" the Sergeant asked, trying to feign excitement. "Maybe something that I saw in the convoy will fit with something in the dossier, and we can stop the heretics for good," he said, his voice almost sounding frantic to the others.

The Lieutenant didn't answer, but stepped through the door absentmindedly, and handed the Sergeant a picture while still looking at the folder.

"Is that the leader of the convoy?" the Lieutenant asked, as he continued to read something else in the folder.

"Yes, sir. That is Professor Cynthia Randall. That's who was in charge," the Sergeant said nervously, still not able to close the door. The Lieutenant had stepped over the threshold, but the door was still blocked.

"Hmm, I wonder where they are staying tonight," the Lieutenant mused, while still looking at the papers in the folder.

"They shouldn't be hard to find, sir," the Sergeant said, desperately racking his brain for a way to get the Lieutenant all the way into the house. He grabbed a thought flitting through his brain and continued. "I can send someone to watch them for tonight, after we find them. That will leave us free tonight to question the prisoner."

The Lieutenant looked up with a wicked grin, and said, "That is a very good idea, Sergeant. That is why good sergeants are so important in any organization," before stepping fully into the room.

The Sergeant closed the door. The man standing behind the door dropped his rifle into position, aimed at Salim's back. Another man stepped through a doorway and aimed his rifle at the Lieutenant. Two more men stepped through a second doorway. One of them held a pistol. The other was the man in the picture, Professor Cody Frost.

"Welcome to my parlor," Cody said with a cold smile. "Why don't we forget about questioning the prisoner for now. We can have a little talk, just between us guys."

"Sergeant?" the Lieutenant said, his tone of voice demanding an explanation.

"Sergeant, not a word," Cody said softly.

Sergeant Mahdi's mouth had automatically opened to answer the Lieutenant. It had audibly snapped closed at Cody's words.

"You are not in charge here, Lieutenant," Cody said coldly. "Why don't we go downstairs. We can talk down there without being interrupted, and I am sure there are many things that you would like to ask me."