Suicide bomber threatened by wife, aborts mission

A suicide bomber, identified as Hamid (name changed) almost succeeded in blowing up the super-luxury hotel The Sultana. Yesterday he arrived at the hotel at 10:45 AM sharp. There was CCTV footage of him standing in the lobby, checking his phone. Sultana is an expensive hotel. Even in peak seasons, number of visitors entering the hotel was small. Not many people can afford it. Consequently, the hotels can’t afford security personnel. Though Hamid was clearly visible through camera, none noticed him. There was no one in the security room. The man, who cleaned the lavatory, also managed the security room ‘when he wasn’t busy’. He was on leave that day. After interviewing all the staffs, including the manager, our serious reporters concluded that during the entire time Hamid remained inside the hotel, the security room was unattended.

The footage showed that day Hamid arrived at The Sultana, to blow it up.

When he was in the lobby, Hamid took out something that looked like a pen, which later turned out to be a STD switch for the explosives tied around his body. Though the explosives were cleverly hidden under his jacket, it was exposed for a split second in the CCTV footage. Hamid took out the switch but didn’t press it. Next, he took out his cell phone from his jacket pocket. He read something in his cell phone - we suspected it was a message - then put the phone back into pocket and simply walked out of the hotel. That was at 11:00 AM.

The next day, one of our journalists spotted him loitering in the shopping mall. The serious reporter called for backup. Our office dispatched two more journalists and a cameraman immediately. When they reached the first journalist had already gone ahead with the interview. Hamid had tried to evade us at first, but gave up when he found himself surrounded.

“Why did you abandon your mission all of a sudden?” A reporter asked. “Was there a leak, sabotage?”

The man shook his fist at us, in reply.

“Was it your superior, who called it off?” Our journalists can be persistent. “What was in the cell phone? Was it a message? Who sent you the message? Can you show it to us?”

The man was obstinate. He charged at one of our reporters. Confusion followed. Large crowd gathered around us. A journalist picked his pocket and retrieved his cell phone. It was indeed a text message. We matched the time.

But it was the content of the message that didn’t quite add up. The sender was someone called Omera.

“Who’s Omera?” The reporter, who had pinioned Hamid to the floor, asked.

“My wife,” was the reply.

We still don’t have a clue how the message made Hamid abort a serious, foolproof suicide-mission at the eleventh hour.

It was just a grocery list of ten or so items. At the bottom there was a stern warning: 

‘Bring before noon, or else no lunch’.