Kamran is crowned homecoming king and celebrates with girlfriend Julia Gary and best friend Adam Collier at the school dance.

Video footage surfaces appearing to show Darius Smith attacking the US Embassy in Turkey, shocking the Smith family.

A second video shows Darius speaking on behalf of al-Qaeda, and news crews immediately flood the Smith family's driveway.

Homeland Security agents raid the Smith home, searching every room and interrogating the entire family about Darius.

Kamran notices Darius say "Sith Lord" in a video and realizes his brother is sending him a secret coded message.

DHS agents pull Kamran from his bed in the middle of the night, zip-tie his wrists, and place a bag over his head.

CIA analyst Mickey Hagan visits Kamran's cell privately and reveals he believes Darius is innocent and wants to decode the videos together.

Kamran and Hagan decode Darius's messages and confirm the codes have accurately predicted real-world terrorist events.

Hagan disappears for a week without contact, and Kamran decides the only way to save Darius is to escape the facility.

Kamran knocks out two guards with a food tray, steals a gun, disguises himself as a mail boy, and escapes the building.

Kamran runs outside and spots the Washington Monument; Hagan's covert team immediately pulls up and takes him in.

The team infiltrates Kendall Food Services, discovers pallets of C-4 hidden beneath hot dog shipments, and is ambushed by armed terrorists.

The team enters a terrorist cave near Superstition Mountain and locates Darius, alive but emaciated and unrecognizable.

Kamran and Darius wake up gagged and bound with heavy explosives inside a moving Super Bowl halftime stage.

The Super Bowl stadium is evacuated before the bomb explodes, and Bashira Ansari is captured after a fight with the Smith brothers on the field.

Code of Honor follows Kamran Smith, a popular Persian-American teenager whose life collapses when his brother Darius appears in al-Qaeda propaganda videos. Homeland Security raids the Smith home and eventually takes Kamran into custody as a suspected collaborator. Inside a government facility, CIA analyst Mickey Hagan emerges as Kamran's only ally, helping him decode secret messages that Darius has been embedding in the videos. Growing convinced that Darius is held captive in Arizona and a massive attack is imminent, Kamran stages a daring escape and joins Hagan's covert team. The team races to intercept a bomb plot targeting the Super Bowl, ultimately locating Darius alive in a desert cave before both brothers wake up strapped to explosives inside the stadium itself. Through courage and brotherhood, they stop the attack, expose the true mastermind, and are finally cleared.

The headline events driving the story from homecoming night to the Super Bowl.

Jeremy Vacca calls Kamran racist slurs at the homecoming dance, and a brawl breaks out on the dance floor.

Julia shows visible fear when Kamran approaches her at school and asks him for space without a real explanation.

Adam tells Kamran he also believes Darius is guilty, devastating Kamran and effectively ending their friendship.

Kamran finds the handwritten Code of Honor under Darius's bed and resolves to become his brother's only ally.

Kamran calls Agent Griggs to report Darius's secret code, but she dismisses him entirely and hangs up.

Kamran's father announces the family should leave America and change their names to escape their association with Darius.

A masked man spray-paints "terrorist" on the Smith house while reporters push over the fence into the family's backyard.

Agent Tomaszewski questions Kamran about prayer beads and Darius's internet searches on accommodating Muslim customs in military service.

Hagan tells Kamran the story of his brother Conor, a radicalized IRA member who died in a bombing of his own making.

Kamran identifies what he believes is Superstition Mountain in the hazy background of one of Darius's videos.

Terrorists are intercepted near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with stadium blueprints and explosives, foiling the Women's World Cup plot.

The team stops at a West Virginia hotel and Kamran sees himself labeled a terrorist on late-night television.

Aaliyah tells Kamran she pursued intelligence work after being isolated at her boarding school following 9/11 because of her Arab heritage.

Dane tells Kamran about his PTSD symptoms, his other-than-honorable discharge, and urges Kamran to always live by his code.

Police handcuff both brothers at the Super Bowl; Darius and Kamran smile at each other and recite their Code of Honor.

While the larger terrorist plot unfolds, Kamran suffers a series of personal betrayals that strip away his ordinary life one piece at a time. His girlfriend Julia recoils from him in fear, his best friend Adam publicly sides with suspicion, and his family's home is vandalized while his father considers fleeing the country entirely. Inside the government facility, Special Agent Tomaszewski presses Kamran about his family's faith and Darius's private life, while Hagan deepens their bond by sharing the painful story of his own radicalized brother in Northern Ireland. Along the way, secondary breakthroughs shape the mission: a Women's World Cup bomb plot is foiled using Darius's codes, the team suspects a traitor after a hotel ambush, and Kamran bonds deeply with Aaliyah and Dane over shared experiences of prejudice and personal sacrifice. The pool closes with the Smith brothers handcuffed at the Super Bowl, defiantly reciting their childhood Code of Honor to each other.

The personal losses, quieter revelations, and bonds formed along the way.

Kamran discovers his West Point application has been rejected after his congressional nomination is rescinded because of Darius.

A video showing Darius standing by while an American journalist is beheaded by al-Qaeda is broadcast on national television.

Kamran is drugged on a plane during transport and wakes up handcuffed and hooded in an unknown interrogation room.

Hagan and Kamran decode Darius's finger-tapping pattern in the first video and identify it as a warning that danger is approaching.

Hagan connects Darius's Rostam and Death Eater reference to a real-world theft of Mesopotamian artifacts, proving the codes are genuine.

Kamran and Hagan decode a new video and realize Darius is signaling that he will be used as a human bomb.

The team's hotel room is struck with tear gas and live gunfire; Aaliyah blows a hole through the bathroom wall to escape.

After the warehouse ambush, the team turns on each other and locks suspicion onto Mickey Hagan as the likely traitor.

Dane moves ahead of the team and silently eliminates multiple snipers positioned around the terrorist cave before signaling the others to enter.

Darius holds Kamran at gunpoint inside the cave as a woman in a black robe steps forward and identifies herself as the Black Widow.

Kamran holds a gun to Darius's head in a bolt-hole; Darius explains his innocence and reveals that Jimmy is the traitor.

Kamran shoots a terrorist sneaking up behind Darius inside the cave, taking a human life for the first time.

Darius cannot disarm the Super Bowl bomb, and a security guard who responds to their warning is shot dead by a sniper.

Kamran recognizes ESPN anchor Emily Reed's voice as Bashira Ansari and shouts her true identity in front of her live camera crew.

Mickey Hagan visits Kamran after his release, delivers a Vice President's West Point recommendation, and invites him to join a new counterintelligence team.

Pool 3 traces the turning points that force Kamran to grow from a naive teenager into a battle-tested young man who has killed, grieved, and forgiven. His West Point dream is shattered almost immediately after Darius's videos surface, and each escalating revelation—a beheading broadcast, a code warning of self-sacrifice, an interrogation room far from home—deepens the personal stakes. As Kamran and Hagan crack each layer of Darius's hidden messages, the evidence shifts from damning to heroic, building toward a series of violent confrontations inside a desert cave. There, the truth finally breaks open: Darius is innocent, Jimmy is the traitor, and Kamran must take a human life for the first time to protect his brother. The pool closes with Kamran unmasking the real villain on live television and receiving a new mission from Hagan, signaling that his journey—shaped entirely by a childhood code of honor—is only beginning.

The key discoveries, moral reckonings, and emotional shifts that define Kamran's transformation.

Alan Gratz

Novel

Fiction

Guide