Confusion muddied the guard’s features. He glanced at Huda and muttered something that Ally couldn’t understand. When Huda replied, her words skittered out timid as lambs.

“Excuse me.” Ally leaned past Huda and held out her diplomatic ID card. It was stamped with the foreign ministry’s gold seal.

“Diplomasiya.” Ally hooked her thumb toward her chest. “I am diplomasiya. I go to the hotel. Now.”

The guard inspected the ID warily. Ally smiled again, but this time in the icy manner of a princess accustomed to having her demands met. Her confidence worked. The guard tapped his forehead in a quasi-salute, clicked his heels, and waved them on. The boom gate lowered behind them. Ally giggled nervously.

“Yes, sir, I am diplomasiya. What do you think? Am I bossy enough to be a VIP?” Ally forced another chuckle, even as a voice inside her head said, Calm down; act like you belong.

The hotel rose before them—fourteen stories of gray concrete with white balconies like rows of shark teeth. A long banner rippled in the wind. “Iraqis will give their lifeblood for Saddam Hussein,” it read. Ally stopped chucking and folded her flighty hands in her lap.

A doorman bustled from the marble lobby. He wore a red turban around his head, billowing white pantaloons, and curly-toed shoes, like he were Aladdin. Ally touched Huda’s arm.

“Please, just drop me off in front of the lobby. The hotel will have drivers who can take me home. Don’t worry about me.”

A side door opened. Two men in poorly tailored suits slipped out. Their oiled mustaches, heavy boots, and barely concealed handguns screamed secret police.

“We’re here now,” said Huda. “It’s too late.”

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 9

The doorman threw open the door to the lobby. Huda waited, but Ally didn’t step inside the hotel. Like a woman on the edge of a cliff, Ally bent her head and stared at the mosaic of tiles at her feet. After a moment, she straightened her spine and trod purposefully onward. Her heel landed squarely on the pigeon chest of George H.W. Bush, cemented into a doormat.

Huda scurried in Ally’s wake. Her legs were not as long, and she had to step twice on the American president before she made it into the lobby. Inside, the air was cool. The towering marble walls were smooth as glaciers. Four enormous chandeliers hung overhead.

“Is it just my imagination?” whispered Ally. “Or have we found Superman’s Fortress of Solitude?”

“Not Superman,” murmured Huda. “A castle in a fairy tale.”