Code of Honor

Alan Gratz

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015

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Chapters 57-62Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 57 Summary

The familiar face working as part of the warehouse crew belongs to Dane; he has infiltrated the warehouse through a back door, and is now wearing a work uniform and scanning boxes like a typical employee would. Kamran is impressed by his ability to blend in with the rest of the warehouse’s work crew.

The warehouse manager, a sweaty, red-faced man named Fred Sorenson, bustles over, confused about why a news crew is in the warehouse. Aaliyah tells him she wants a shot of the warehouse for a Superbowl puff piece. Sorenson insists she just get a shot of the trucks leaving. Over the earpiece, Jimmy states that the all the supplies look normal save for a shipment of hot dogs, which got waylaid because of supposed refrigeration issues. Dane begins looking for the boxes with hot dogs, while Aaliyah asks to see boxes of particularly American foods, “a box of hot dogs, for example” (183). Sorenson asks them to leave, but before he can kick them out, Dane finds the hot dogs, and discovers that underneath a few actual boxes of hot dogs are pallets “filled with plastic explosives. C-4. Enough to level an entire stadium” (183).

Chapter 58 Summary

Aaliyah grabs Sorenson by the shirt and pushes him up against the wall. She demands to know about the C-4. He sputters an apology, insisting that the infiltrators kidnapped his daughter and are threatening to kill her. Just then, “a red stain spread across Sorenson's shirt, and with horror [Kamran] realize[s] [Sorenson had] been shot” (185). Sorenson falls to the ground; Aaliyah grabs Kamran and ducks behind boxes. Bullets whizz through the air. Aaliyah returns fire, giving Dane some information via the earpiece about six men with guns on one side of the warehouse. Dane confirms four more near the emergency exit. Jimmy confirms that they have been inside the whole time. The skeleton crew warehouse employees run for the hills. Jimmy sets off the fire alarm, as a distraction, then hears someone in the hall. According to Dane, their only option out is to try to exit through the warehouse’s ceiling.

Chapter 59 Summary

Aaliyah tosses her high heels and begins to climb up the palettes that are stacked to the ceiling. She reaches back and hauls Kamran up, grabbing his hand. Kamran looks back anxiously at the floor to see guys dressed in SWAT-like gear, moving back to investigate the boxes where they think he and Aaliyah are still hiding. Realizing that if they can't find him and Aaliyah they will go for Dane, Kamran notices boxes of frozen food below him. He struggles to unwrap them from their tight plastic wrap, but finally gets a box loose and pushes with his feet as he jumps to the next level. The box comes loose and hits one of the SWAT guys, knocking him to the ground “with a satisfying crunch” (188). Kamran repeats this act again for the second guy, who opens fire on them when he sees Aaliyah near to the ceiling. Without looking to see if the second box made contact, Kamran pushes Aaliyah up through the open skylight. He then turns around and sees one of the terrorists behind him. The man has a gun. Kamran uses some of the skills that Dane showed him in the van to try to disarm the guy, but the man is stronger than him, and the gun goes off. And then, Kamran says, “It was all over” (188).

Chapter 60 Summary

The man's mouth begins to bleed, and he slumps over onto Kamran, who catches him out of instinct before pushing him off the stack of boxes. His body thuds against the pallets before falling to the ground. Dane has his pistol out, and he signals for Kamran to move. Dane takes a running jump and lands on the boxes beside Kamran. Kamran is dazed, but Dane lifts him out of the skylight before hauling himself up. Everyone stands on the roof, trying to figure out an escape route. It’s at least 20 feet to the ground—too high to jump. Looking down, Kamran “step[s] back, feeling sick” (190) as he remembers the sound of the dead terrorist’s body hitting the floor. Aaliyah suggests a ladder, but Dane knows the terrorists will be coming up. A man shoots at them from the skylight and Dane shoots back, sending the man back through the window to the ground. Dane then calls for Jimmy, who pulls the van around. Dane makes a leap to the roof of the van, hitting it with a thump that terrifies Jimmy. He is unharmed. Aaliyah jumps next, and then Kamran stands at the edge of the roof, petrified. Dane offers words of encouragement. A terrorist climbs out of the roof with his gun loaded and shoots. Kamran leaps into the darkness.

Chapter 61 Summary

Back in the van, Jimmy peels out and the team heads for the road. Kamran hears fire trucks coming and worries about the safety of the firemen as they enter a battle zone replete with armed terrorists. Dane reassures him, and then hits a button that detonates some C-4 that Dane left behind to cover their tracks and destroy the terrorists’ explosives. As the van turns, Kamran sees a “volcano of fire and ash” (193) where the warehouse used to be.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the van changes. Kamran thinks they have saved people, but Jimmy thinks otherwise. He and Dane agree that many terrorists lying in wait means that someone ratted them out to the other side. Someone was a traitor.

Chapter 62 Summary

Aaliyah insists Jimmy is crazy for suspecting anyone in the van, but Jimmy and Dane both believe there’s no way that many terrorists were merely guarding C-4. They were tipped off.

Jimmy suspects Dane at first, calling him “the ex-Green Beret [...] with an other-than-honorable discharge” (194). Kamran begins to wonder what Dane could have done, questioning Jimmy's judgment, but then realizing that with Dane's skills, there must be some reason he isn't serving anymore. Jimmy reveals that he looked at all their files before agreeing to meet with them, and knows their dark secrets. Aaliyah accuses Jimmy, insisting he is only in this for the money, and Jimmy turns it back on her, calling her an “Arab princess” (195) and wondering about her real motivations for joining them. Kamran argues on her behalf; Jimmy suggests that Kamran might be the rat. Kamran is enraged, but Dane holds him back before he can do anything. Just then, Hagan pages in. He wants to talk.

Chapters 57-62 Analysis

As Kamran becomes more involved in the mission, he is forced into more dangerous situations that call for him to act violently. Though attacking someone threatening his life is easier for him than attacking innocent, fellow Americans, he still struggles with the violence he is forced to commit. After pushing terrorists to the concrete floor and crushing them beneath the weight of heavy boxes, Kamran “step[s] back, feeling sick” (190)—not only at the image and sound of the violent act, but also at his own capacity to commit it. He remembers the face of the man, and is connected to his humanity even though the man is attacking his friends. Kamran’s empathy makes it difficult for him to reconcile his actions with the larger mission, though he knows he has to do this in order to be a good soldier. In these moments, Kamran’s age and innocence return to the fore; at only 17, Kamran is being forced to commit acts of violence that most people never experience in their lives. The trauma of that experience lingers with him, despite the adrenaline.

Kamran is also forced to deal with the idea of betrayal in these chapters, after his team is ambushed and it’s clear that someone in the van is a rat. Again, Kamran’s naivete is a struggle for him; he wants to see the best in everyone, including his own brother, but is forced to reconsider the depths of his idealism. He and Aaliyah are both accused of being rats by Jimmy because of their ethnicity. Aaliyah is called an “Arab princess” (195) and Kamran is compared to the brothers who plotted the Boston Marathon bombing. Prejudice certainly plays a role in those accusations, and it forces Kamran to think about his own reputation and the reputations of those he is fighting alongside. The idea that one of the people supposedly helping him could be a rat forces Kamran to consider whether he truly knows anyone at all—even his own brother.