“Süleyman, we didn’t tell you to bring the entire population of your homeland here as immigrants. Who are these people?” Mark asked.

Süleyman shrugged, hiding a sly smile beneath his expression.
“You asked, and I delivered. These are Leheb’s parents and relatives.”

From the number of children in the group, Mark immediately recognized they were from the East. Among the dark-haired children and teenagers of varying ages, one man caught his attention—an aged figure with a sunken face, wrinkled skin, and thinning, graying hair.

He stood with his head bowed like a child ashamed before his father. When he lifted his gaze and noticed all the police officers staring at him, he quickly looked down again in embarrassment.

But even that brief moment was enough for Mark to realize who he was. The man looked so much like an older version of Leheb that there could be no doubt.

When Mark remarked to Süleyman, “They probably don’t speak German. You should have brought a translator,” the old man raised his head and replied, in German that was not fluent but perfectly understandable:
“We all speak German. We already have citizenship.”

“All these children are yours? Taking care of so many must be difficult,” Süleyman said—only to immediately fear his words might sound like, Why have children you can’t raise? especially in reference to Leheb.

He quickly added, “I mean, where we come from, there are big families too. Houses are always loud and chaotic.”

From the father’s demeanor, Mark sensed they had taken a step closer to making Leheb talk. The man looked as though he wanted the ground to swallow him whole—proof that he did not approve of what his son had done.

The guard opened the door. Leheb stepped inside, and the expression on his face made it clear he had not expected what awaited him. For a moment, both sides simply stared at one another in silence.

When Leheb took a few steps forward and offered a small, sincere smile, his mother and siblings began to move toward him.

Their elderly father, however, spread his arms wide, signaling them not to take another step. Only then did he walk toward his son.

His longing eyes told of years spent apart.
Everyone assumed the scene would end in an embrace.

But something entirely unexpected happened.

The father struck him—so violently that the sound seemed to echo off the walls.

“Damn you, child. I’d rather have a stone than a son like you!”

Süleyman intervened, forcefully pulling the furious old man away, yet his rage showed no sign of subsiding.

“Anyone who touches this cursed boy will not step foot in my home again!”

The joy in the family’s eyes dissolved into tears.

His mother took a hesitant step forward, wanting to cradle her bloodied son, but the volcanic glare of her husband froze her in place, reducing her to choking sobs.

A mother’s heart could not forsake her child, terrorist or not—she wanted to hold him, drown him in her embrace.

But her mind reminded her of the price she would pay for defying her husband.

Caught in the middle of this cruel dilemma, the old woman collapsed where she stood.

Even unconscious, she muttered, “My Leheb… my son…”

The devil hunters exchanged troubled looks, as if silently asking, What now?

They both interpreted the father’s violent rejection as a promising sign—proof that he condemned his son’s actions.

Yet, such an extreme reaction could destroy everything, for in this tension, Leheb might cling to his wounded pride rather than confront his own guilt.

Mark made his decision. He would move the family to another room and bring them back one by one under the pretense of interrogation—so the father’s authority would remain unchallenged.

One by one, the siblings were brought in, and lastly the mother. Each time, Leheb returned with reddened eyes, as if emerging from the storm of some inner ocean.

Yet it remained unclear—whether that storm would carry him to the harbor of remorse or back to the dark port of hatred.

Süleyman placed his hands on the table, leaned forward, and asked:
“Is it enough now? Will you help us? Tell us who gave you these orders. Who are they?”

With a trembling voice, Leheb replied:
“I told you… I don’t know.”

“I’m sure you know something. Tell us what you can,” Süleyman said.

When Leheb gave no response, Süleyman continued,
“Fine. Then let’s see if you can remain this silent when your father gets here.”

“No, I don’t want to talk to him!” he shouted, but fell silent instantly when the door opened.
The moment he saw his father, his head dropped.

Just like in classic interrogation rooms, a single lamp hung overhead, casting half the table in shadow.
At one end sat Leheb, at the other, his father.

Whenever he sat at such a table, Leheb felt like a computer with altered formatting—his memory sealed away, his hard drive inaccessible.

The mental walls he had built felt like steel, impossible to breach.

He knew the tricks: the “good cop, bad cop” routine, the whisper of one officer suggesting that his actions had some logical justification, hinting he could blame the other officer.

But today, everything was different.

His internal motherboard—his thought system—could not decide how to reformat itself.
Or rather, his intellect had shut down; only emotion remained operational.

After giving his son a brief look, the father turned his face aside and said:

“Do you remember how you would fly into my arms when I came home with the truck? You’d hug me, kiss me, and then go straight to the cab, climbing into the driver’s seat. Wherever your imagination took you, you’d press the gas all the way down, making that sound—‘Hannnn, hannnn’—as if you were racing toward the ends of the earth.”

As Leheb listened in silence, his amygdala—the emotional center—flared, clashing with the frontal lobe, the seat of reason.

“Stop with those ridiculous interpretations. Don’t tell me he’s speaking emotionally because he’s being threatened by the police. We followed your logic—what did it get us?

You still can’t explain how that godless, God-hating professor could belong to our organization.

While the organization brands anyone as an infidel for not praying, for delivering soft messages, how are we supposed to interpret the man mocking God to His face?”

The neurons in the frontal lobe began shifting sides as they listened to the unspoken signals from the amygdala.
In the hippocampus—the memory hub—anti-organization neurons dragged a scene to the forefront of Leheb’s mind: the moment he was wounded.

When Leheb had said to the professor, “There’s no one here. Come, we can pray together,” Berisha first burst into a mocking laugh, then unleashed curses against God.

Leheb, enraged, had grasped the man’s throat tightly. Looking straight into his eyes, he said:

“I’m warning you for the last time. Get a grip. We did it. Soon, with the burning icon, the religious will devour each other, chaos will break out, and you won’t need to hide anymore.”

Unable to breathe, the professor’s face reddened and then turned purple.
When he regained control, he charged at Leheb.

With his back turned, Leheb spun around, finding himself face-to-face with a knife, a pair of blood-red eyes, jug-like ears, and a triangular jaw—as though a demon stood before him.

That image replayed in his mind again and again.

Had he not struck the knife aside at the last second—redirecting its trajectory—he would have been the one lying on the ground, bleeding.
Even so, the blade skimmed him, slicing flesh.

The real battle was not between Leheb, the police, or the professor.
It was between neurons.

The father’s final words only fed the fire:

“I always thought you were the one who took after me the most. I used to imagine that when you made those engine noises, you were my co-driver—and that one day, you would take the driver’s seat yourself.

Maybe you don’t know, maybe you don’t remember, but I left Qabil behind and came all the way here just so that dream could come true.”

His father’s final words were enough to make Leheb raise an eyebrow and glance at him.
But the true neural storm was only beginning:

“When the regime changed, everything changed with it. Wherever I drove, every armed group in every city demanded money under some invented pretext. They renamed bribery and called it ‘city tax.’

I worked endlessly, yet what remained in my pocket was almost nothing—but I kept silent, and continued driving.

Then, as the civil war escalated, they began forcing me to transport weapons. We couldn’t resist them; who could we complain to?

More than once, I carried guns hidden among the cargo.

But one day, I saw a city controlled by the men I delivered weapons and goods to.

The streets were filled with the dead and the wounded. As I drove through, I was ashamed to call myself human.

People threw themselves in front of the truck, desperate for help. I barely made it through the city alive.”

The old man took a deep breath, lifted his head, and looked at Leheb.

“The people who did this to our cities were not the ‘infidels’—the Americans, Russians, or Germans you claim must be killed.

They were born and raised in our own land.

You’ll say they were supplied and manipulated by infidels. And I’ll tell you: you may be right.

But remember—those infidels were nonbelievers; they were not people of scripture who sought peace, reason, and reconciliation.

Haven’t you realized yet, son?

The world is no longer a place where Muslims and Christians, Arabs and Germans, Russians and others fight for supremacy.

Just as we have among us men who feed on blood, war, and hatred—who know no limits when it comes to selfishness—you will find their counterparts among Germans, French, or any other Christian nation.

The world has now been divided into the good and the wicked, the idealists and the destroyers—and that is where the true war lies.”

Seeing the faint, ambiguous smile beneath his son’s moustache, the father asked:

“You tell me—how many of them did you stand beside for the dawn prayer?
Do you not know that the ones who seized our truck and home were not living in Berlin, but in Qabil?

You’re still unmarried at this age, while those men—your so-called brothers—have multiple wives, forcing helpless women into servitude. Is that Islam?

Our beloved Prophet married multiple women after the age of forty—when a man’s desires diminish—not for lust, but to bring tribes closer to the faith and to answer questions that could not be asked openly.

He lived in poverty until he died. He gave what he had to the poor or spent it for the revival of Islam.

So tell me—thanks to your masters, how many have found guidance?

In this age, who would convert to a religion preached by robbers, tyrants, and murderers?”

The organization-aligned neurons launched one final attack:

“You’re just saying this to look good to the infidels. They welcomed us into their country, so now you’re paying a debt, aren’t you?”

“You didn’t understand what I implied earlier,” the old man replied.

“Every country wants to build a future for its own people. That’s normal.

What is not normal is that saboteurs, under some excuse, meddle in our homeland through refugees like us—using us for their interests.

God gave you a mind. If you don’t let yourself be used, no one in this country can force you to do anything you don’t want.

But if you crave to be a hero—if you want an easy shortcut to power—then someone will use you.

Drug lords, arms dealers, terrorist organizations—they will all use you.”

Seeing his son’s silence, sensing his mind being battered between opposing currents, the father delivered his final words:

“I didn’t tell you all this so you would hate our country. Believe it or not, those who seized my truck and condemned us to starvation serve the same masters as your leaders. Despite the intensity of our arguments, I never imagined you would someday abandon us without a word.”

Leheb wanted to say, “Father, wait, don’t go,” and embrace him, but the organization-aligned neurons mounted one last defense and held him back. The father stood up and walked toward the door—only to find William standing there. He stopped and stared at him for a moment.

In the hippocampus, the neurons searched—like an internet engine—comparing the visual input to archived images. And they found a match.

About fifteen years earlier, hundreds of refugees had crowded onto a boat.
The vessel, unable to withstand the raging sea, capsized.

They were in international waters. In that moment of life-and-death struggle, the old man kept his wife to his right, and little three-year-old Leheb strapped to his back.

The boy, unaware of the horror, thought he was playing horse with his father,
and wrapped his arms tightly around his neck—and that grip saved his life.

Though the man could hardly breathe, he filled his blood not with oxygen, but with hope—
desperate to save his wife and child. Because he knew how to swim, he survived the first minutes, then hours, with the help of a life jacket he found.

But as night fell and his strength faded, he believed he would never see dawn— and would sink, like the others, into the deep with his one precious child and his wife.He was half-conscious. Little Leheb kept falling asleep and slipping toward the water. And each time, the father woke first—then woke his child.

“With one last effort, my son,” he would say, lifting him onto his shoulders again.

But little Leheb cried endlessly, as if saying, “What kind of game is this? I don’t want to play anymore.”

Even the water his parents had saved—refusing to drink so they could give it to him—had run out.For the first time, the parents welcomed their son’s crying. Because his crying meant he still wanted to live.

The man cast a glance over the endless blue sea and saw no one left afloat.
He understood then— the screams for help from a few hours earlier had turned into the silence of death.

Leheb’s mother realized the time had come for the final sacrifice. She said to her husband:

“He keeps slipping into the water. The life jacket won’t hold three of us. You’re exhausted. Let me go—let me sink.”

She hadn’t even finished her sentence when the man thundered:

“We set out together. If we die, we die together.”

At the point when hope had been extinguished, the father looked into Leheb’s sweet brown eyes, his curly hair. The first thought that came to him was to wrap the life jacket around his son— to give him a chance at survival.

But then he imagined his child surviving all alone, devoured like a lamb at the wolves’ table called the world. He abandoned the thought. And he did not allow his wife’s hand to slip from his.

The last thing he saw was a shape moving against the setting sun. His mind, collapsing into darkness, could not understand that the shadow on the horizon was a boat.

Hours passed.
As consciousness returned, he heard voices calling,

“Father, father.”

His mind, still locked in a drowning man’s logic, could only interpret it as death—
and entrance into paradise.

When he opened his eyes, he saw his beloved son before him, and behind the child,
a handsome youth with blue eyes,light blond hair,and pale skin.

Leheb’s father was certain—the young man he had seen over a decade ago
was the same person now standing behind his son in the interrogation room.

Only one difference: Back then, he had been simply young.

Now, with slightly graying hair, he sat somewhere between young and middle-aged.

As his son looked at him in confusion—“What is it, father?”—the old man said:

“You must be the young man who saved us from drowning. How could I forget your name?
You’re Williams.”

The brave activist said, “Believe me, I save dozens of refugees from sinking boats every week; I couldn’t possibly remember all of you.”

But after thinking for a moment, he added,

“Yes, yes, I remember now. We rescued you, your son, and your wife. In fact, some of her frozen fingers had to be amputated because of gangrene.

How could I forget that tragedy?

No one else survived.We photographed the corpses washed ashore, and your frightened eyes staring at them—images that helped push the media to focus on the issue.

We couldn’t prevent every tragedy afterward, but we prevented most of them.”

William said, “Wait,” and pulled out his phone. He searched for a moment, then showed the screen to Leheb and his father.

“This is a photo from the day I rescued you. A fainted father, and a wife and child clinging to him—an image that captured what family means. It showed a man who had given up on his own life, saying, in essence, ‘Let my wife and son live.’ If we had arrived a few minutes later, you would have suffered the same fate as the others.”

Most of the neurons in Leheb’s frontal lobe echoed the same thought:

“Shame on us. This man risked everything to save us.
And how did we repay him?”

Hearing the conversation, Süleyman intervened:

“I remember they suspended you for entering another country’s waters without permission, claiming you damaged their reputation.”

“Yes, but later I was reinstated by court order,” William replied.

In Leheb’s mind, the neurons chanted in unison:

“What would anti-refugee groups say if they heard this? Look, William—had Leheb succeeded, the continent would have plunged into chaos. Didn’t we tell you not to risk your life for these ungrateful people?”

But the demon circulating through Leheb’s veins managed to sway some neurons:

“It’s all a script. They staged this drama.
Your father just played the role assigned to him.”

The fair-minded neurons answered:

“Our father never lies.
And if you don’t believe, you can check the news articles William mentioned.”