Ground Zero

by Alan Gratz

  Baba sighed. He suddenly looked older to Reshmina than he ever had before, and her heart broke at the thought of bringing more hardship to him. She knew just how dangerous it would be to harbor an American soldier in their home. But Reshmina also knew her father was an honorable man.

  “If this man has asked for refuge, he will have it,” Baba said at last.

  Reshmina clasped her father’s hand in gratitude. Then she held Baba’s crutch for him as he helped the American soldier to his feet. Together, Baba and the soldier hobbled into the house, Reshmina trailing behind them.

  Anaa looked up from her needlework, and her eyes went wide. “Oh dear,” she said.

  “Mor jani, help me,” Baba said to his mother, and Anaa quickly stood and spread a sleeping mat on the floor. The American soldier let out a groan of pain as Baba lowered him onto it.

  “Where are we?” the American asked, turning his head. “What’s happened?”

  “This is my home,” Reshmina told him. “You are safe. I am Reshmina, and my father and grandmother are here.”

  Anaa leaned over and peered at the soldier’s wounds.

  “Thank you,” the soldier said. “My name’s Taz.” He put his head back wearily on the sleeping mat, then suddenly jerked up again. “Wait—did I lose it?” he asked. He patted at his chest until his hands found the brown stuffed animal attached to his vest.

  Reshmina blinked. She’d seen that stuffed creature before. This was the American soldier who’d led the search of their house!

  The soldier seemed to relax when he found the toy.

  “What is that?” Reshmina asked him.

  “My Tasmanian Devil,” said Taz. “He’s kind of my good luck charm.”

  Reshmina frowned. The word Tasmanian meant nothing to her. She knew the word devil, but the thing didn’t look like any devil she’d ever seen.

  “Is this what Americans think the devil looks like?”

  Taz grunted a laugh. “No. He’s a cartoon character. He spins around and destroys things.”

  Reshmina didn’t know what a cartoon was, but destroying things certainly sounded American.

  “That’s why they call me Taz,” he added. “For my Tasmanian Devil.”

  Reshmina noticed that the word LOWERY, not Taz, was sewn on Taz’s vest. Most Afghans didn’t have family names, but Reshmina knew from her teacher that many other people in the world used them. Lowery must have been this soldier’s family name.

  “And what does D-T-V mean?” Reshmina asked. The letters were tattooed on Taz’s arm.

  “Oh,” Taz said. He pulled his arm against his chest to hide the tattoo, as though he were embarrassed by it. “It means … Damn the Valley. It’s kind of my company’s slogan. This valley—it kills our friends and ruins our lives,” he said sadly.

  “Yes,” Reshmina said quietly. “It is the same for us.”

  “Will he live, Mor jani?” Baba asked Anaa.

  Anaa looked up from Taz’s bloodstained leg. “I don’t know,” she said. “He is badly wounded and needs a hospital.”

  Reshmina knew that wasn’t going to happen. The nearest hospital was in Asadabad, more than a day’s walk through mountains full of Taliban.

  Marzia came in from the front room with an armful of wet clothes. She saw the American soldier laid out on the mat, dropped the clothes on the dirt floor, and screamed.

  “Foolish girl!” Mor scolded, following on Marzia’s heels. “Now we’ll have to wash those all over again!”

  Mor froze when she saw the American soldier. Taz seemed to sense that he had been discovered by the rest of the family and stayed tensely quiet.

  “No!” her mother cried. “No no no no no!”

  Reshmina gulped. She’d known her mother would be furious. But Reshmina had to help him. It was Pashtunwali. Her mother had to understand.

  “He asked me for help,” Reshmina said.

  Mor’s eyes flashed to Reshmina. “Reshmina, you foolish girl,” she hissed, “you have brought death to this family! You have brought death to this entire village!”

  Her mother’s words stung as if she had slapped her. Reshmina tried to argue, but her mother turned and marched back into the kitchen.

  The front door banged open, startling Reshmina. A moment later, her brother’s voice came from the front room.

  “Everybody! You’ll never guess what happened!”

  Pasoon! He was back. A chill ran down Reshmina’s spine. She had never feared her brother before. But lately, Pasoon had grown angrier and angrier about the Americans. If he saw Taz in their house now, there was no telling what he would do.

  Reshmina ran into the front room to intercept her brother.

  “The Taliban ambushed the Americans and the ANA, just like they said they would!” Pasoon crowed. He circled the room, wrapped up in the memory of what he’d seen. “They killed them all and dragged their bodies away!”

  Reshmina bit off a gasp. The Taliban wouldn’t distinguish between soldiers and their translator—especially not a female one. That meant that Mariam—

  Reshmina hiccuped a sob, and then swallowed her grief. She couldn’t let Pasoon think she was crying over dead Americans.

  “They even shot down an American helicopter with an RPG!” Pasoon said. He mimicked the sound of a rocket-propelled grenade streaking across the sky. “Shhhhhhhhhhh—”

  Pasoon paused before he could say “Boom.” Over Reshmina’s shoulder, he caught sight of Anaa, Baba, and Marzia huddled in the next room. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Reshmina tried to move to block his view, but Pasoon pushed past her. Reshmina raced after him but it was too late. Her brother stopped and glared down at the American soldier, his face twisting into an angry scowl.

  “What is that doing here?” he cried.

  “He’s wounded. He can’t see,” Reshmina said. “He needed help.”

  “Did you touch him?” Pasoon cried.

  “No! He followed me here!” Reshmina turned to her father for help. “But it’s Pashtunwali to help him, isn’t it, Baba? To give him refuge, even if he’s an enemy?”

  “So is revenge!” said Pasoon. “Or have you forgotten that they killed our sister?”

  Reshmina glanced over at Taz. It was clear that the American didn’t understand what the family was saying, but he could sense they were arguing.

  “He didn’t kill her,” Reshmina said.

  “If he didn’t do it, his people did!” Pasoon said. “He probably killed somebody else’s sister. We should turn him over to the Taliban!”

  “No!” Reshmina cried.

  “Enough,” said Baba. “This man has asked us for our help, and so we will help him.”

  Reshmina raised her chin to her brother, triumphant.

  “I can’t believe it!” Pasoon cried. “They’re the terrorists here. All of them. They just call it a war. And you let one of the terrorists into our house! If you’re not going to tell the Taliban, I am.”

  “No, you’re not,” Baba told him. “While you live under my roof, you live by my rules.”

  “Then I no longer live under this roof!” Pasoon yelled, and he stormed out the back door.

  Reshmina started to follow him, but Anaa reached out for her hand.

  “Let him go, Mina-jan,” she said. “He just needs to blow off a little steam.”

  Reshmina nodded. Pasoon had often stormed out after arguing with Baba, and he always came back.

  But what if this time was different?

  “Reshmina?” Taz asked at last. “Are you there? What’s going on?”

  “I am here,” Reshmina said in English. “My father offers you refuge in our house.”

  “I thought I heard someone say Taliban,” Taz said. “He’s not going to turn me over to them, is he?”

  Reshmina translated Taz’s question for her father.

  “Tell him that even if there are only women and children left alive to fight in our village, we will not let the Taliban take him,” Baba said to Reshmina. �
��He is under our protection now.”

  Women and children might be all that were left, Reshmina thought, along with a few old and wounded men. The very people they were swearing to protect Taz from were the village’s sons and nephews and brothers who had left to join the insurgents in the mountains.

  Reshmina translated her father’s assurances for Taz.

  “I—Wow. Tell him thank you. Manana,” Taz said in badly accented Pashto. “Thank you.”

  “There is no guarantee the Taliban will respect Pashtunwali,” Baba said, “and the longer this man stays here, the longer he is a danger to himself and us. He must be returned to his people as soon as possible.”

  “My friends will come looking for me,” Taz said. “The other soldiers who were with me.”

  “The other soldiers are dead,” Reshmina told him. She hated to be so blunt, but she didn’t have the words to say it more gently. “So is an Apache,” she said. She didn’t know the English word for helicopter, but she knew Taz would understand. Her teacher had taught her that the Americans named their flying deathships after other tribes they had conquered.

  “The Taliban killed them all and took their bodies,” Reshmina said. “I am sorry.”

  Taz lay back, stunned. “The other American? Him too?”

  “I think so, yes,” said Reshmina.

  Tears welled in the corners of Taz’s blackened eyes. “That guy was my brother,” Taz said. “They all were. And today, of all days.”

  “The Afghans? And the woman also? Mariam? She was your brother?” Reshmina asked.

  “Not really my brothers. I trained with those men, that woman, for a long time. They were like my family. My people. Do you understand?”

  “Your tribe,” Reshmina said.

  “Yes,” said Taz. “My tribe.” He wiped his eyes. “Tell your father my radio is broken, and if my people think the Taliban killed me and took me away, they won’t come back here looking for me.”

  Reshmina translated for her father, and Baba nodded. “I must go and tell the other families in the village,” he said. “They must know what we have done. Then I will go to the ANA base and tell them this American is here. They can let the Americans in Asadabad know.”

  Reshmina looked at her father in surprise. The base was almost five kilometers from here. It would be a hard journey on foot for anyone, let alone a man on a crutch.

  “Someone else should go, Baba,” Marzia told him, speaking up for the first time since she’d seen Taz.

  Their father shook his head. “It must be me. Our family has offered this man refuge. He is our responsibility.”

  Reshmina felt a jumble of emotions. She would have gladly gone in Baba’s place, but no family would ever send a daughter to an army base alone. Pasoon could have gone instead, but he had made it clear he no longer stood with his family.

  Reshmina turned back to Taz and explained in English what her father planned to do. Taz thanked him again and pulled the strip of cloth that read LOWERY off his uniform with a loud ripping sound. “Give this to your father,” he said. “I’m special forces, assigned to advise the base he’s going to. Tell him to show this to the Afghan soldiers there, and they’ll know I’m really here.”

  Baba took the strip of cloth from Reshmina. “Keep Zahir in the room whenever one of you is with the soldier,” he said, and she understood. Neither she nor Marzia nor Anaa nor her mother would be allowed in the same room as Taz without a male member of the family as a chaperone. Zahir was hardly a helpful escort, but he still counted.

  Baba left the house, and Taz lay back to rest. Anaa sent Marzia for hot water and a cloth to clean Taz’s wounds, and Mor called angrily from the kitchen for the firewood Reshmina was supposed to have collected.

  “The firewood!” Reshmina said. Twice today her chores had been interrupted. “I’ll be back,” she told Anaa, then said the same to Taz in English.

  He was already asleep.

  “Marzia and I will watch over him,” Anaa told her, and Reshmina ran out the back door.

  The goats bleated at her, angry they hadn’t been taken up into the mountains to graze. Reshmina stopped. Where was Pasoon? When her brother wanted to go somewhere and be mad, he disappeared into the hills with the goats and didn’t come back until he’d calmed down.

  What if this time he really had gone to join the Taliban?

  No. Reshmina couldn’t believe he’d do it. Still, something itched at the back of her brain. Today had been different in so many ways—the raid, the woman translator, the American soldier in their home.

  What if Pasoon seeing Taz really was the last straw for her brother?

  There was one sure way to know.

  Reshmina ran around the side of the house, her heart hammering in her chest. Halfway along the wall sat an upside-down white plastic bucket. Reshmina climbed on top of it, reached as high as she could, and found the little hole in the wall where Pasoon always hid his toy airplane.

  It was empty.

  Reshmina knew Pasoon had put the plane back after the Americans left. Of the few things Pasoon owned, that toy was the one thing her brother would never leave behind.

  If it was gone now, Pasoon was too.

  Gone to join the Taliban and tell them Taz was alive and hiding in their home. If Pasoon got to the Taliban before their father got to the ANA base …

  Reshmina hopped off the bucket and sprinted for the goat path that led up into the mountains. She didn’t go back to tell anyone where she was headed. She didn’t have time.

  Reshmina had to catch her brother and stop him from joining the Taliban.

  Brandon stopped to catch his breath. The narrow stairwell was well lit, with white walls and gray steps outlined in what looked like glow-in-the-dark paint. Railings ran down both sides, and at each floor there was a metal door and a small sign telling you where you were.

  This was Stairwell A, and right now Brandon had it all to himself. It was hot and stuffy, and there was a tinge of smoke in the air. Sweat beaded on Brandon’s forehead, and he wiped it away. He was only on the 87th floor.

  It was time to get moving again.

  Brandon wasn’t in bad shape. He loved skateboarding for hours every weekend, and at third-grade field day last year he had won the obstacle course race—forward and backward. But walking up steps in this heat was more tiring than any of that.

  Brandon’s foot splashed on the next step, and he froze. Something clear and wet was running down the stairs from above. It looked like water, but Marni’s husband had said a jet plane accidentally hit the building. What if this wasn’t water at all, but something more dangerous? Like jet fuel?

  Whatever the stuff was, more of it came cascading down the stairs, creating a little waterfall, and suddenly Brandon was surrounded. He couldn’t go up or down without splashing through it, and he had to go up, to get to his dad.

  Hand squeezing the railing, heart thumping, Brandon bent down low to sniff at the liquid.

  Nothing. It didn’t smell like anything. Especially not gas. Brandon actually liked the smell of gasoline—it reminded him of go-carts and fishing boats—and this liquid had no hint of gas. It was water, Brandon guessed. Maybe from the sprinklers that had to be going off wherever the fire was.

  Was Windows on the World on fire? Was his dad all right?

  Brandon felt another terrible pang of guilt at having left without telling his dad. Was his father up there somewhere, searching floor after floor to find him? Was he calling 911 to tell them his son was lost?

  They were a team, and Brandon had let the team down. Again.

  Brandon’s dad had done his best to keep them afloat after his mom died. His dad had often gone the extra mile too, like when he’d bought Brandon a new skateboard even though money was tight, or when he’d stayed up late helping Brandon with his math homework.

  Brandon wanted so desperately to tell his dad he was sorry. For running off today, for getting suspended, for everything he’d ever done to make things harder for him.


  He would just have to make it back up to Windows on the World and tell him.

  Brandon set his teeth and lifted a foot to climb to the next step. He was careful not to splash whatever was running down the stairs onto his jeans, just in case.

  At the next turn in the stairs, there were cracks in the wall. At the turn after that, the walls had fallen down on the stairs.

  Pieces of drywall lay on the stairs in huge, smashed chunks, blocking Brandon’s way. Both railings were useless now—one was torn off, the other buried. The metal studs that the drywall had been attached to stood bare and exposed, and red and black wires hung where the fluorescent lights used to be.

  Brandon felt panic rising in him. This was bad. Really bad. Was he getting close to the spot where the airplane had hit? What if he couldn’t get past it?

  Brandon made himself calm down. He was just going to have to climb over the wreckage. He could do this. He grabbed an exposed end of drywall and hauled himself up. The water flowing down the steps turned everything into a slick sludge and Brandon’s sneakers slipped as he climbed, but he was making it.

  He was almost to the next flight when the piece of drywall he was clinging to snapped off in his hand. Brandon went flying, slipping and tumbling head over heels back down the stairs. He whacked his head and banged his shin, and with a thunk that rattled his teeth he slammed into the wall of the landing, right back where he’d started.

  “Crap,” Brandon muttered. “Crap crap crap crap crap.”

  He lay sprawled among the broken drywall. One whole side of him was scraped up, and when he wiped his nose, he came away with blood. There was a nasty-looking purple bruise starting on his shin, and the left side of his stomach was sore when he tested it.

  Brandon put his head back and closed his eyes. Except for the smoke and the gritty, nasty drywall, he might have been back in the cement drainage ditch where he’d first learned to skateboard—right down to the trickle of water soaking his butt through his jeans. All that was missing was his helmet and pads.

  But the thing he’d learned about skateboarding was that if you gave up after you took a fall, you were never going to be a skater. You always crashed, even when you got good at skateboarding. That was just part of it. Every skater ate pavement. You learned how to fall.