Before she reached it, she sensed someone in the hall. She stopped and aimed the shotgun.

"Friend!" Rack's deep voice boomed above the din of the fire alarm.

Stella lowered the shotgun, now certain he had military experience.

"Get your pretty ass back into the vault," Rack said. "I don't know what the hell you're thinking, but taking this woman as a hostage isn't going to mean shit to them."

"Cover the hallway while you're standing there." Stella inventoried the office. Its standard furnishings provided no unusual options.

"That mob will rip you apart," Rack said.

"You know as well as I do they're going to loot this place, then torch it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sticking around." She rifled through a desk drawer. A private collection of Snickers bars, Cadbury chocolates and a bag of Fritos was stuffed behind a cash box. She ripped the wrapper from a candy bar and bit down. She tossed Rack a Snickers, then shoved the rest of hers into her mouth.

"You're nuts." Rack looked out the window, then lowered the blinds.

"Eat it. If you're with me, I'm not going to risk your blood sugar tanking." She glanced at the woman who was still throwing up from the tear gas.

"Who the hell are you?" Rack asked her.

"A girl who needs the wind at her back and sunlight streaming toward her." She flashed him a smile, then opened a metal supply cabinet. "I am going to get out of here." She found duct tape. "Guess this is the best I'm going to do."

"I don't like leaving everyone behind in that vault."

"You'll figure out a way to spin it before election time rolls around. If I could save them, I would. Bernie's the ranking officer-he has to stay. But the others are diplomats. They'd rather be taken hostage than fight their way out."

A chunk of brick smacked against the bent blinds. Stella didn't jump but only glanced up. She crawled over to the heaving woman and gently patted her back to reassure her while she removed her light gray headscarf. She continued talking to Rack. "If you're with me, you need to find your own costume. I'm sure there are several donors still groping around down there." Stella coughed. Smoke and tear gas were beginning to blow upstairs. "Lock the door when you go. And try to pick up one of the En-fields to add to the illusion."

Stella tied up the woman and pulled on her jilbab to begin her transformation to a modest Muslim woman. Her arms stuck four inches out of the sleeves and the hem hit between her ankles and knees, a racy length she would have to compensate for with her posture. She tied the scarf around her head, shoving every strand of hair under it.

As she was about to leave, Rack returned, depositing an armful of white clothes and an old rifle onto the desk. "Here's hoping that one of these pairs of Paki pj's fits."

"No friends with you?"

"I don't do hostages-slow you down too much." Rack thrust his arm into the sleeve. The seams ripped. He tried the other one on, but he could barely shove his large hand through the narrow opening. "I might have just screwed myself when I gave the diplomats our guns and told them to lock the vault."

Even the most hard-core rioters avoided burning buildings, but Stella took only enough time in Thompson's office to use his CIA-issue disguise kit to darken their fair complexions and to rinse color through Rack's blond hair and long sideburns. He wore a wool skull cap and a pair of white kurta pajamas that Thompson had stashed in his office, no doubt for a clandestine rendezvous. Aside from the gas mask, he made a pretty good local, albeit a large one.

Stella ran as quickly as the long, tight jilbab permitted. She put on the gas mask, pulled up the coat and bounded down to the first floor. The hallway was empty of intruders but filled with tear gas and smoke. They didn't want to risk going out a door and allowing more rioters inside. They had to find where they had broken in.

She crept into an office. The windows were partially broken, but the grates were intact. She crossed the corridor and entered another office, catty-corner from the one she had checked. She searched the ground floor in a modified star pattern, careful not to move along the same line, always staying a shade to the oblique.

Rack found her, motioning that he'd discovered the rat hole. She signaled him that she needed a moment. He disappeared into the cafeteria.

It was time to add the finishing touch to her costume: a typewriter. In a land where most people paid scribes to type their papers, she would be the envy of the other looters.

She stepped inside an office, then froze. Two men lay motionless on the floor. One wore only his underwear. One of their heads was turned a little too far to the left. Necks were not easy to break. The congressman's trained-if he's a congressman.

She grabbed an IBM Selectric typewriter. Hiking up the jilbab, she stepped over the bodies. She shuddered.

The hallway was still empty and the door that Rack had entered was shut. She put her hand on the knob, then stopped herself. Rather than enter as Rack would expect, she slipped inside the kitchen and slinked over to where she could see Rack. He crouched behind a serving counter, studying the crowd outside. She crept into the room, staying below the tables, out of sight of the protesters. Rack spotted her and waved.

The cafeteria wasn't as cloudy as the hallway, but enough gas and smoke lingered to make breathing miserable. Stella put her hand on the gas mask with the dread of someone about to jump into an icy pond. She counted to three, then pulled it off. Her reluctant body inhaled. She coughed. Her eyes wanted to clamp shut but she held them wide open. When they emerged from the window, they had to appear as if they had braved the smoke of a burning building.

She stood on tiptoe and spoke into Rack's ear. "If anyone looks at us too closely, here's what to do…"

"Ladies first," Rack whispered when they got to the window.

Stella handed him the typewriter. She wanted to hike up the jilbab so her legs could maneuver, but she didn't dare break character. A mob circled the building at a cautious distance. Thousands of eyes were watching their egress.

The windowpane was shattered and pieces of glass jutted out from the frame. She knocked away debris. Perching on the sill, she swung her legs out in tandem, then dropped to the ground.

Rack lowered the heavy typewriter to her, then jumped down. He swaggered with the rifle over his shoulder and his pants riding up on him. Stella slouched, but the jilbab was several inches too short. They were the only show to watch as they crossed the fifteen meters between the building and the crowd.

They were too exposed.

They weren't going to make it.

She tugged at Rack's pajama sleeve.

Suddenly, Rack threw his head back and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Allahu Akbar." He pointed the Enfield into the air and fired. "Allahu Akbar!" His voice boomed.

Stella held her breath.

Rack emptied the rifle into the air, then waved it above his head.

"Allahu Akbar! Allah is great!" The crowd erupted with cheers and joy shots. As they delved into the anonymous safety of the mob, Stella shouted as loudly as she could, "Allahu Akbar!"

This time, she meant it.