by Alan Gratz
“Nuclear?” I asked.
“No, mercifully,” Hagan said. “But the rest of the intel was good, Kamran. Very good. You saved a lot of lives today.”
“Did anybody die in the raid?”
“Seven militants. Two Navy SEALs,” Hagan said quietly.
“And—and Darius?” I asked. I almost didn’t want to know. “Was he caught?”
“He wasn’t there,” Hagan said. “Neither was the man we think is behind all this business, an Iraqi terrorist named Haydar Ansari.”
“So there you go,” I said. “This Ansari guy and Darius, they weren’t there because they’re here. In America.”
“Kamran, even if they were able to smuggle Darius back into the country, there’s no way Ansari is here with him. He’s on every international watch list from here to Australia. He’s infamous. He would never leave the Middle East. It would be too dangerous for him. And he’s too much a coward.”
“Then just Darius is here,” I said. “Please, Mr. Hagan. I’m begging you. Something else is going on.”
Hagan shook his head, but I could tell he had doubts. That he was second-guessing himself as much as I had been.
“What does your gut tell you?” I asked him.
“My gut tells me I missed dinner.”
I wanted to kick my bed again, but I didn’t. Instead I turned my back on Hagan and walked as far away from him as I could in the little room.
“Kamran,” he said apologetically. “Kamran, let’s say I do believe you.”
“Then—” I started, but Hagan cut me off.
“Let’s say I do believe you, Kamran. It’s not about my gut this time, or yours. My gut told me you were right about the code—and you were. That was the clue we needed. We averted a terrible thing, and that’s a fact. But this business about Arizona, I’ve done all I can.”
“Have you?” I challenged him. “Have you really?”
“Yes,” Hagan said coolly.
“Have you gone to the media?”
“Kamran, that’s not how we do things here.”
“Have you contacted the Forest Rangers, then?”
“No, Kamran—”
“Sent in a SEAL team?”
“Send an elite spec ops force into a national forest outside Phoenix?” Hagan said. “Kamran, be serious.”
“How far up the chain have you taken this? To your boss? What about your boss’s boss? Or his boss? The National Security director, or whatever?”
“Kamran—”
“You’re not trying!” I yelled at him.
“I’ve tried all I can!” Hagan shot back. “I’m not the one you want for an ally here, Kamran! You’ve got the wrong man. This Code of yours, this intelligence, the raid. This was a win. A big win. Just getting them to listen to me was a victory in and of itself. A victory that won me points at this agency, and that’s a fact. Points I could maybe spend pushing this Arizona angle. But no matter how many shillings I have in the bank, no matter how hard I push, there’s always going to be a wall I can’t knock over. No win is ever going to wipe my slate entirely clean. I’m always going to be the ignoramus who second-guesses himself so much he can’t write an intelligence brief without contradicting himself. Who isn’t good for anything more than sitting in on the interview of a high school student. I’m always going to be the damned fool who didn’t know his own bloody brother was a terrorist thirty years ago. That’s who I am,” he said, finally calming down. “That’s all anyone will ever remember.”
“It’s all anyone will ever remember if you let it be,” I told him.
“I’m sorry, Kamran. I—I’ve done all I can,” Hagan said, and he left me alone.
MICKEY HAGAN DIDN’T COME FOR ME THE NEXT DAY. Or the next. Neither did Special Agent Tomaszewski or any of the other interrogators. The only person I saw for the next week was my guard when he brought my meals. I paced my cell like a caged lion. I banged on the door and asked for Hagan. I left my food untouched on its metal trays.
How could Hagan just roll over like that? How could he not do everything he could to convince them of the truth? He knew there was something wrong. I could see it in his eyes. Hear it in his voice. That day I’d realized the video was filmed in Arizona, I’d said it didn’t make any sense, and he’d agreed with me. They wouldn’t have brought Darius all the way to America, snuck him across the border, and hidden him away in the Tonto National Forest just so they could turn around a few months later and make him carry a suicide bomb into the Women’s World Cup in Canada. Hagan and I both knew that was stupid.
But Darius was in America. I was sure of it. Which meant only one thing: the terrorists were planning on using Darius in a strike here. In America. And soon. Hagan knew it, too. If one was true—Darius was in America—the other was true—Darius would soon be used against an American target.
So why hadn’t Hagan done everything he could to convince them of the truth? I kicked my bed. My guard was so used to it by now that he didn’t bother to put in an appearance, and I kicked it again just for him.
Frickin’ Mickey Hagan. After all we’d been through, I thought he was on my side, do or die. But I saw now it was all just a trick. I thought he’d been my friend, just like I’d thought Adam and Julia and all the rest were my friends. But they weren’t. Not deep down. They were friendly enough when it didn’t matter, but when push came to shove, they abandoned ship. Every last one of them.
Even Mickey Hagan.
It had all been a trick. That story about his brother, all that camaraderie, the pizza and sodas, it was all to get me to open up. To pump me for information. The story about his brother was probably just made up, I realized—a way in, and a way out. It was all spy tricks. All those people who’d interrogated me, that hard-looking lady who convinced me Darius was a terrorist, they were the “bad cops,” like on TV. Hagan was the “good cop.” He came in afterward and told me I was right, told me he believed in me, just to get my help. Just to get the “good intel.” And then when he got what he wanted, he dumped me faster than Julia Gary.
I kicked the bed again, and my food tray skittered across the floor. I didn’t care. I knew the truth now. I was all alone in this. In everything. All alone except for Darius, trapped in some cave somewhere in Arizona.
Maybe, I thought.
No. No doubts, no second guesses. I remembered our Code of Honor, the one that lady had thrown in my face like it was the reason Darius had turned traitor. Be loyal. I knew who I was loyal to: Darius. Darius was innocent. He was being held in Arizona by terrorists and didn’t know where he was. Never give up. If Mickey Hagan couldn’t believe that—wouldn’t believe it—I would. I wouldn’t give up. I wouldn’t let go of the truth.
But what was I going to do with the truth?
Mickey Hagan had been my ally—my voice at the CIA. When I’d stuck to my guns about the code in the videos, he’d been the one to convince his superiors I was right. I was sure that Darius was being held prisoner in Arizona, that he was going to die in a very real, soon-to-happen suicide attack right here in America. Darius was going to die, and who knew how many more people with him. He was going to die and everybody was going to think he really was a terrorist.
But here I was, helpless. Trapped in this cell. A prisoner of the United States government—the very country I wanted to help defend. I had to do something.
But what, Kamran? I asked myself.
The answer came to me with perfect clarity.
I had to escape.
IT WAS CRAZY. STUPID. IMPOSSIBLE. ESCAPE FROM A US government facility? Me?
But I had to try. Darius was my brother. I had to do everything I could to help him, or …
Or die trying.
I nodded, like I’d been talking to myself. Like I’d been having an argument, and had finally been convinced.
I had to break out of here and get to Arizona. Find Darius in the mountains outside Phoenix.
And then what, genius?
And then tell the authoritie
s. Take them there. They’d arrest me. Put me back in a cell. But it wouldn’t matter. I’d tell them right where Darius was, exactly how to find him and this Ansari guy or whichever terrorists were with him. Even if the authorities didn’t believe me, they’d come for me, wherever I told them I was, and then they’d see—they’d see there really were terrorists right here in America. Right in the mountains outside Phoenix.
I was starting to sound a little crazy, even to myself. But I had no other choice. Mickey Hagan had abandoned me. Given up. Crawled back into his hole of regret and self-doubt. But not me. I wasn’t going in there with him.
I was ready to get out of my hole.
I heard murmuring outside my door.
I quickly put my ear to it and listened. My guard was talking to somebody with a big, deep voice. Not Hagan. Somebody new. I had no idea what it was about, but I heard the jangle of keys. The guard was going to open my door.
My eyes roamed the room half crazily, searching for something to use as a weapon. I looked up at the camera in the corner. I can’t imagine how I looked in that moment, my back to the door, eyes bulging out of their sockets, unshaven, unbathed. Like some cartoon madman. They’d see me. Whatever I did, they’d know. But I had to get out of here. Get back to Arizona. Find Darius. Stop the terrorist plot.
The metal food tray. My eyes locked on to it, and I snatched it up like it was a fumbled football. I hefted it in my hands, taking the weight of it. Not too heavy. But when swung at a face …
The guard’s keys jangled in the lock, and I flattened myself against the wall, ready to strike.
THIS WAS IT. MY ONLY CHANCE TO ESCAPE. MY ONLY chance to find my brother. To save Darius. I had to. I was the only one who could do it. My breath came short and quick, and a bead of sweat rolled down the hollow of my back.
No. Relax, I told myself. Breathe. Do like you do when you’re standing behind the quarterback, waiting for the snap. Waiting for a hole to open up to run through.
I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. I embraced the anticipation. The adrenaline. Let them fill my head like white noise, let them push out everything else but my goal. No distractions, no doubts, no second guesses. On the football field, there was nothing but me and the defense, and here, now, there was nothing but me and that guard.
Me, the guard, and the metal tray I was going to brain him with.
The door opened. The lights flickered on. A burly, broad-shouldered African American soldier stepped inside.
“Kamran Smith?” the soldier said. “I’m here to transfer you to another—”
I swung the metal tray like a club, aiming right for his face. They met with a jarring clang and the soldier went straight down like he’d been clipped in the back of the legs.
“What was that?” the guard in the hall said. He was drawing his gun as he came into my cell. I put my shoulder into the door like I was hitting a tackle dummy, slamming the soldier between the door and the frame. He dropped his gun and staggered, but he didn’t go down. I hit him with the door again. And again. He finally fell on top of the first guard, unconscious.
I was panting. I glanced up at the camera again, sure my attack had been witnessed. I waited for the yells, the alarms, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat thundering in my ears. I took a step toward the door, and my legs almost gave out, like I’d just run a hundred wind sprints. But I didn’t have time to collapse. I didn’t have time to calm down. If I wanted to save Darius, I had to get out of here. Now.
I peeked out into the hall. Empty.
The second guard was still lying half in, half out of the door, and I dragged him inside by the arms. I stood over the two men, looking down at their unconscious faces. Oh my God. What was I doing? What had I become? A couple months ago my life had been high school, football practice, Julia, Adam, West Point applications. It all seemed so insignificant now. So far away. But as insignificant as it was, if I walked out that door now, if I ran, it was all gone for good. Football and college and girls and all the rest of it. If I ran out that door, there was no going back. Not ever.
I pushed the fear down deep. No distractions. No doubts. No second guesses.
I took the first guard’s gun from his holster, locked the soldiers in my cell, and ran.
I WAS TWO CORRIDORS AWAY FROM MY CELL WHEN the alarm went off. It wasn’t loud—not like a house alarm meant to scare away crooks. It was more like a persistent, low beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. In a way, it was more ominous than a blaring alarm. It was like the little flashing red light up near the ceiling every few feet was saying, “I just wanted to let you know: Kamran Smith escaped from his cell. But we’re not too worried about it. We know we’re going to catch him. Carry on.” Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
There were doors all down the hall. Closed doors, without windows in them and each marked only by white numbers on little black plastic squares. Were these more cells? Were my parents behind one of these doors? Some other prisoners? That’s what we were. Me and my parents, and anyone else being held here. We weren’t “guests.” We were prisoners of the United States government.
Whatever was behind those doors, I was in perpetual fear that one of them would open and someone would step out and grab me. Or worse, make me use the gun.
The gun. I looked down at the gun I’d taken from the guard. It was cold and black, with more buttons and switches on it than I thought guns had. Could I really shoot someone with it if I had to? Would I?
There was a turn up ahead. Another corridor. An emergency exit sign pointed left. The way out. That’s what I wanted. I had to get outside the building and run. Run all the way back to Arizona from wherever it was they had taken me—New Mexico, or Colorado, or California, or wherever—and find Darius before it was too late. For him, and for whoever it was he was supposed to kill.
I slinked down the hallway. I was almost to the end when a radio squawked around the corner. I was just about to run into a guard!
I grabbed the handle of the first door I found and tried it. Locked! I lunged for the door across the hall. It opened. The lights flickered on automatically as I threw myself inside. I was in a little office break room. Refrigerator, cabinets, coffeemaker, microwave, table, two chairs, trash can, soda machine. The smell of burned coffee and liquid cleaner.
A door opened and closed nearby. They were searching the rooms! In a panic, I looked for any place I could hide. The cabinets were all filled with shelves and packed with random mugs and paper plates and half-empty boxes of coffee filters. The trash can was too small to fit inside, the table too tiny to hide under. Idiotically, I threw open the door to the refrigerator, thinking I could hide in there. I couldn’t, of course. I’d have to dump all the soda cans and plastic tubs full of moldy old lasagna and half-eaten cans of soup in the trash and find some place to hide the glass shelves. And then, you know, probably suffocate.
I spun around, trying to think what to do. Where to go. I still had the gun. I could hide behind the trash can, wait for whoever it was to come inside, and shoot them. Run past their dead body, and out the exit, and disappear.
I stared at the gun in my hand. It was heavy. Heavier than I thought a gun would weigh. A lot heavier than all the water pistols I’d played with as a kid.
Too heavy.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot an American soldier in cold blood. Even if they were coming to take me back to my cell. Even if I was never going to see daylight again.
Not even for Darius.
Another door closed. Footsteps close by. The squawk of a radio. I was busted.
And then an idea came to me. A memory, really, of another time there had been alarms, and chaos, and panic. A crazy, stupid idea that would have been funny if I hadn’t been freaking out. I opened the refrigerator and grabbed the half-empty soup can. At my sixteenth birthday party, Adam had put a can of soup in the microwave without knowing any better and almost burned my house down.
I hurried over to the microwave and tried to shove
the can inside, but there was a spoon sticking out the top and it wouldn’t fit. I took the spoon out and almost tossed it in the sink before I realized it was better in the microwave. More metal, more sparks. I tossed it in with the can and yanked open drawers, stuffing more silverware into the microwave. When it was full I slammed the door closed and punched the button for popcorn.
Vmmmmmmm. The microwave lit up and started humming, the can and all the silverware rotating inside. I could already hear the metal popping and crackling as I ducked behind the trash can.
The door opened. A soldier in fatigues stepped inside, his gun held out in front of him in both hands. His eyes went straight to the sound of the microwave the moment it burst into flames. The soldier recoiled. The sprinklers in the room came on, suddenly dowsing everything with rain. The fire burned on, the microwaves still bouncing crazily off all that metal. Another alarm—shrill, and far louder this time—pierced the air. The soldier lunged for the fire extinguisher on the other side of the room.
I burst from where I was crouching behind the trash can and ran. Out into the hall. Around the corner. A glowing green exit sign above a door beckoned, promising escape. I didn’t look back to see if the soldier was following me. I banged through the door, expecting to see a starlit field, a parking lot, a road.
But I wasn’t outside at all. I was still inside. I was in a stairwell, with simple concrete stairs going up and down.
The door clicked shut behind me, muffling the sound of the alarms, and I saw the words painted on it:
SUBLEVEL 22.
I had twenty-two flights of stairs to climb just to reach the ground floor.
