by Alan Gratz
For Donald, the only real spy I know
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
CHAPTER EIGHTY
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
CHAPTER NINETY
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY ALAN GRATZ
COPYRIGHT
A CRASH LIKE A LINEBACKER COLLIDING WITH A quarterback woke me, and I shot straight up in bed. I blinked at the clock beside me, trying to make sense of the world. Red numbers glowed in the darkness. Three twenty-three. It was three twenty-three in the morning. Why was I awake at three twenty-three in the morning? Had I dreamed the crashing sound?
“Kamran?” my mother called from down the hall. “Kamran? Was that you? Are you all right?”
Thunder. No—footsteps. Feet pounding down the hall. Someone was coming for me. Half-remembered childhood nightmares seized me, and I scrambled backward across the bed in a panic, trying to get away from Voldemort, the Joker, the aliens, the demons. I fell on the floor with a thump, the bed-covers coming with me. My legs were tangled in them. I couldn’t kick free.
And then they were there. Dark shapes surged into my room, black on black silhouettes with hulking shoulders and big round eyes that flashed. My fear made me five again. I curled up against the side of the bed like I was playing hide-and-seek with my older brother, Darius, hoping he wouldn’t see me. But the demons knew where I was. They homed in on me like guided missiles.
Rough hands grabbed me. Hauled me to my feet. Threw me face-first on the bed. Somewhere, remotely, I heard my mother scream, heard my father cry out. The demons had come for them, too.
“Mom! Dad!” I cried. I kicked and squirmed, trying to get away, but my arms were wrenched behind me and bound with a plastic zip tie that cut into my wrists. The hands pulled me up again, and I read the words on one of my captors’ uniforms:
POLICE
HOMELAND SECURITY
Reality finally overrode my half-awake nightmares. “No. No! Darius is innocent!” I cried. “He’s not a terrorist! You don’t understand! They’re making him do everything!”
The DHS agents wrangled a thick bag over my head, and the already dark room went completely black.
“No! Please! Don’t!” I yelled. The black bag was close. Suffocating. My hot breath was damp on my face, and I started to panic. “You can’t do this! I was born in America! I’m an American citizen!”
The DHS agents ignored my protests. I kicked and thrashed as they dragged me from my room, down the hall, and out through the front door.
A few days ago, all I had cared about was winning the homecoming game. Getting into college. Going on a date with Julia Gary. Normal high school senior stuff. A few days ago, I had been king of the world.
Now I was a prisoner of the United States of America.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU EAST PHOENIX High School’s homecoming king and queen: Kamran Smith and Julia Gary!”
The crowd clapped and cheered, and Julia and I descended the steps to the dance floor. Julia clung to my arm like she was never going to let me go, and I grinned at her.
I spied my best friend, Adam Collier, in the crowd. He gave me a deep, flourishing bow like some duke at court, and I laughed. Even though Adam and I had joked around about the homecoming dance, I had to admit that being crowned king—especially alongside Julia—felt pretty amazing.
When Julia and I got to the middle of the dance floor for our spotlight dance, the DJ played that old Green Day song “Time of Your Life.” I put my arms around Julia’s waist and she leaned into me, laying her head on my chest.
“I am, you know,” I told Julia, tucking a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Having the time of my life. With you.” I didn’t even care if it sounded cheesy. I meant every word.
Julia stood on her toes to kiss me, which made my head tingle, like always. I loved Julia. There. I said it. I maybe hadn’t said it out loud to her yet, but she had to know it. Julia was smart, funny, and way cute. We’d been dating for two months, and I didn’t know what we were going to do when I left Arizona for West Point next year. But this was definitely not the night to think about that.
The DJ slid into a bouncing hip-hop song, and kids streamed onto the dance floor, hopping and waving their arms. Adam and some of my other football teammates and their dates surrounded us, shouting their congratulations.
“Double congrats,” Adam said, punching my arm. He glanced around at our teammates. “Did y’all know there was a college scout at the game tonight? From the University of Colorado. Pac-12! That’s big time. And Kamran put on a show for him!”
I shrugged and blushed. I hadn’t told anybody else about the scout, not even Julia, because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I was committed to going to West Point and playin
g for Army anyway. But it had still made me play harder, knowing the scout was there in the stands. I’d had the best game of my high school career, scoring three touchdowns.
“I wouldn’t have run for all those yards without the offensive line stepping up,” I said. “That last touchdown was me just following Antonio into the end zone.”
Adam scoffed. “Dude, you’re too modest. This guy’s going to the Super Bowl one day,” he told everybody.
“Yeah, um, I don’t think so.”
“No, I mean it,” Adam said. He pulled out his phone and brought up a photo. Fanned out on a table were four oversize silver tickets, each with a picture of the Vince Lombardi Trophy and SUPER BOWL XLIX written across the top. “We’re going to the Super Bowl, amigo!”
If anything could make me stop dancing with Julia, it was that. I took the phone from Adam and stared at the screen. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “He got them?”
This year’s Super Bowl was going to be in Arizona, right across town in Glendale. Adam’s dad was a big shot at a Phoenix bank, and he’d put in for some of the tickets the company got for being corporate sponsors. But Adam and I had never thought Mr. Collier would actually get them.
Adam beamed. “Yep. One for my dad, one for my mom, one for me, and one for you.”
I shook my head, still staring at the tickets. Beside me, Julia squeezed my arm. She knew how much I wanted this. But then I saw the price on one of the tickets and my eyeballs almost popped out of my head. Each ticket was $700. I was looking at $2,800 worth of football tickets—way more if you considered what you could get for scalping them once the Super Bowl teams were settled.
I handed the phone back, feeling sick to my stomach. “I can’t,” I told Adam. It just about killed me to say it. But my dad was an assistant professor at Arizona State, and my mom worked at a horse ranch out in Apache Junction. There was no way I could afford a ticket to the Super Bowl.
“It’s taken care of, bro,” Adam said. “Compliments of the family Collier.” Adam was an only child. I’d been like a brother to him most of my life, but still …
“No, I can’t, really,” I said again.
“Will you get this idiot out of here before he says no to a free ticket to the Super Bowl again?” Adam asked Julia.
“Gladly,” she said. She pulled me over to the snack table, ladling punch into cups for each of us. We sipped our drinks, my mind still spinning from Adam’s offer.
“You should totally go,” Julia told me, a smile in her voice. “Don’t feel guilty about it.”
I chuckled, grateful that she knew me so well. I put my arm around her and leaned down to kiss her again.
“Wooo! Yeah! Kissy-kissy!” an obnoxious voice yelled over the music. I turned around, thinking somebody was making fun of us. But it was a gang of senior boys giving an underclassman and his date a hard time. The kid who’d shouted was a senior named Jeremy Vacca. We’d had a few classes together over the years. He was the kind of guy who wore backward baseball caps and pants that sagged three inches below the waistline of his underwear. I’d always thought he was kind of a jerk, but he’d never bothered me, so I never paid much attention to him.
“Oh God,” Julia said, nodding toward the underclassmen. “Seamus Laurie and Anne Henry.”
“Who, the little guys? You know them?”
The girl, Anne, was petite and red-haired, wearing a modest white dress with a big pink bow on the back. Seamus was short and gangly, with a huge ball of curly brown hair that circled his head like a space helmet. He was exactly the type of guy who attracted bullies, and he hadn’t helped matters by overdressing for the homecoming dance. He wore a powder-blue tuxedo with a white ruffly shirt.
“They’re in the fall play with me,” Julia said. “They’re super sweet.”
Jeremy flicked a finger at Seamus’s ruffled shirt. “Nice tuxedo, dorkwad! You two look like you’re going to a dork wedding. You don’t have to marry her, you know.” Jeremy shoved Seamus aside. “Can I cut in?” He grabbed Anne around the waist, laughing in her face.
Anne scowled and tried to twist away from Jeremy, but Seamus only stared helplessly at the ground. God, had I ever been that small?
I couldn’t watch any more. I pulled away from Julia and pushed in between Jeremy and Anne. “All right, Vacca, you’ve had your fun,” I said. “Why don’t you leave them alone?”
Jeremy took a step back, looking at me like I was something his dog had barfed up on the carpet.
“And why don’t you mind your own business …” he said. “Towel head.”
TIME SLOWED TO A STOP. IT WAS LIKE WATCHING A football game on TV, when they freeze-frame the action to show you whether a guy’s feet went out of bounds or not. All the other students around us stopped dancing.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you just call me?”
Jeremy looked me in the eye. “I called you a towel head, towel head.”
I blinked. Adam appeared next to me, and we exchanged an incredulous glance. I was no 100-pound freshman Jeremy Vacca could push around. I was five foot eight, 155 pounds, almost all of which was muscle. I could wipe the floor with this guy. I knew it, Adam knew it, Julia knew it, everybody in the crowd gathering around us knew it. Even Jeremy knew it. So what made him think he could start calling me names and get away with it?
“What’d I ever do to you?” I asked him. I really wanted to know.
“It’s what you and your kind are doing to my country, camel jockey.” Jeremy turned to his buddies, and they snickered.
Adam launched himself at the guy, but I threw out an arm to hold him back. I pretended it didn’t bother me, that I didn’t care what some idiot like Jeremy thought. But the truth was, it hurt like a sucker punch to the stomach. I’d heard it all before, of course. Towel head, camel jockey, sand monkey, rag head, and a couple worse ones I won’t repeat. My dad’s white, but my mom’s Iranian. Me? I couldn’t look more Middle Eastern, even though I was born right here in Phoenix. I’ve got thick black curly hair, heavy black eyebrows, a strong nose, olive skin.
When I was six years old, there were these older kids on my block, Steve and Ben Hollis. One day I went over to their house and they started calling me names, like Jeremy here. I’d never heard those names before, and I had no idea what they meant. I don’t think Steve and Ben did either, really—they’d probably just heard some adult somewhere ranting about people who looked like me, and they were trying it out. But I knew the words were mean. I knew that they were insulting me. Laughing at me. I ran home in tears. When Darius found out, he went over to their house and beat the snot out of them. He got in big trouble with my parents for doing it. I was grateful, but still kind of stunned. It was the first time I’d realized how hard it was going to be, growing up Persian American. To this day, that kind of name-calling always hits me so suddenly, so hard, it makes me feel like I’m six again, running home in tears to Darius. Every. Single. Time.
Adam still wanted me to let him get at Jeremy, but I shook him off. I fought my own battles now.
“What’s your problem?” I asked Jeremy.
Jeremy shouted so the crowd all around us could hear him over the music. “My problem is that our homecoming king is the brother of a terrorist!”
I laughed out loud. Darius? A terrorist? Adam and the other guys around me chuckled, too.
“You got the wrong guy, Vacca. My brother graduated from West Point. The United States Military Academy? Maybe you’ve heard of it. He’s an Army Ranger. You know what you have to go through to become a Ranger? Soldiers die training to be Rangers.” I felt the pride fill my chest as I thought of Darius. “He’s in Afghanistan right now with the Third Ranger Battalion Special Ops, protecting your butt from terrorists.”
“Kissing terrorist butt, more like,” Jeremy said. “Maybe if you’d been home watching the news before the dance, not being a big sportsball hero, you would have heard: your brother’s a traitor to his country. A terrorist.” Jeremy turned to his friends.
“Once an Arab, always an Arab, you know?”
I threw myself at him. I rammed Jeremy hard enough to drive him out into the middle of the dance floor, where a circle opened up for us like it had for my first dance with Julia. I punched Jeremy in the stomach, got a glancing blow in on his face, but he didn’t go down. He wrapped an arm around my head and tried to punch me. All around us, people were yelling and cheering, the music was thumping, the colored lights were flashing. Jeremy’s friends jumped me, pulling me away, punching and kicking me, and then Adam and the rest of the football team were there throwing punches, and the crowd was chanting fight, fight, fight, and I was punching back, hitting anything that moved, and then Mr. Philpot was there pulling us all apart, and Mr. Marks, and Señor Serrano, and then it was over.
TEN MINUTES LATER, I SAT OUTSIDE THE PRINCIPAL’S office with Adam and a couple of my teammates. Julia had gone off in search of some more ice for my split lip, which was hurting really bad. Jeremy and his friends were inside the office now, getting chewed out so loud we could hear Mrs. DeRosa through the wall. Jeremy was definitely in trouble for saying the things he had, but we were all probably going to be suspended for fighting.
I didn’t care. It was worth it to defend Darius. He and I had a code. A code of honor. We looked out for each other, no matter what. Just like me and Adam. I nodded to my friend in silent thanks for sticking up for me, and he nodded back. Nothing more needed to be said.
The door to the main office opened, and my stomach sank at the sight of a familiar face.
“Oh, man,” I muttered. “They called my mom?”
Mom was wearing her work clothes: blue jeans, yellow Western-style shirt, cowboy boots, white Stetson hat. I had the fleeting thought that Jeremy would no doubt be disappointed to learn my mother didn’t wear a head scarf.
I slumped down in my chair. I didn’t need my mom to come pick me up from school—especially from the homecoming dance. What was I, twelve? I was a senior in high school! I had my own car, for crying out loud. One of my teammates snickered, and I knew I was never going to live this down. Some homecoming king I was.
“There you are, Kamran joon,” Mom said. She used the Persian word for “dear” whenever she was worried about me or Darius.
