Kamran makes a haphazard plan in his cell, as he hears the guard outside speaking to a man with a low voice—too low to belong to Mickey Hagan. He decides that he will escape in order to prove the whereabouts of Darius and the other terrorists, and then call the authorities and bring them to the location in order to prove Darius's innocence, rescue his brother, and stop the plot.

He looks around his cell for a weapon as the guard jiggles the key in the lock, preparing to open the door. Kamran realizes he looks “like some cartoon madman” (110), but he is determined. He grabs a metal food tray and backs himself up against the door to ambush the guard. 

Kamran steadies himself for the attack by imagining this as the beginning of any football game: “[Wait] for a hole to open up to run through” (111). The door opens, and a burly, African-American guard walks in. He begins to tell Kamran he is being transferred, but before he can finish, Kamran whacks him in the face with the metal food tray. The soldier goes down immediately, knocked unconscious. The guard outside is startled by the sound and the fall, and comes rushing in, gun in hand.