A very short story

The screener eyed the approaching couple with growing interest. Not because they seemed suspicious, but because the woman was so stunning. Long jet black hair cascading past a perfect olive-skinned face and the faintly oriental eyes bequeathed by Mongol conquerors to so many Middle Easterners. A slim waist, shapely hips and a truly impressive pair of breasts completed the picture of his dream woman. Well at least tonight’s dream woman.

The bloke she was with wasn’t bad either, if you were the type to notice other men. Hair and complexion to match the lady’s with a neatly trimmed beard. His clothing was expensive, as was hers. The man’s platinum Rolex would have set him back a year’s pay and if those sparklers around the woman’s neck were real you could add the next couple of years’ to it as well. Even the man’s eyeglasses had an expensive look about them.

“Sir, I’ll need you to empty your pockets and ma’am I’ll need to see your bag, and I’ll need both of your passports and boarding passes”, he said as they stepped up to his screening station. The man had nothing in his pockets but his wallet, real alligator, and his passport and boarding pass. Their documents showed their names to be Andrés and Fatimah Siddig. The screener had pegged them for Saudis but their passports were American, from Atlanta.

As he looked through the Mrs. Siddig’s bag he found a zippered leather case bearing the logo of one of the most expensive hotels in London. He opened it and found a woman’s manicure kit complete with scissors and metal nail files. “Ma’am I’m afraid this can’t go on the plane. You may have heard that we’re on a higher state of alert; today being September eleventh and all.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry” the woman said. Her voice was just as amazing as the rest of her. The image that came to the screener’s mind was of liquid silver. “I bought it at the hotel shop and didn’t think to leave it at the hotel for the maid. You keep it and give it to your wife”.

“I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to keep things like this. It’ll have to be tossed.” He gestured to the wire basket in which items like that were to be placed. She nodded and he tossed it in, intending to retrieve it later and give it to his wife. He next drew out a paperback book, a current best seller, and another zippered leather case. This one was made of a much finer grade of leather than the other and had a gold monogram adorning it. He opened it and found a blood glucose meter, ampoules of insulin and syringes.

“It’s mine.” The man said, speaking for the first time. “My wife carries it for me. If you look in the pocket there you’ll find the doctor’s paperwork.”

The screener checked and confirmed that the man was carrying the correct paperwork to testify that he was and insulin dependant diabetic and that his kit was legally prescribed by a physician. Even then he made the man prick his finger and demonstrate that the glucose meter was for real.

The man spoke as he was waiting for the meter to give its result. “I’ve also just had a pacemaker put in. The metal detector isn’t supposed to interfere with it, but it will likely set the thing off so you might want to just wand me.”

The screener nodded his understanding to the man and finished inspecting the woman’s bag. He found nothing but her wallet containing her driver’s license and credit cards and a travel box of tampons. He motioned her through the metal detector and watched as the lights told him that she didn’t have enough metal on her body to constitute a weapon. He handed her belongings to her and took his wand from its holster to process her husband.

The husband passed as well, after opening his shirt to show the still recent looking surgical scar where his pacemaker was implanted. Retrieving his belongings he took his wife’s hand and they proceeded to the jet way to board their flight. The last thought the screener had of them was that money, looks and a hot wife weren’t everything. Diabetes and a bum heart were heavy loads to carry around. His wife wasn’t much to look at and his job sucked, but at least he had his health.

On the plane, a Continental 787 Dreamliner, a steward helped them find their first class seats and settle in. The flight, number 701 from London to Atlanta, took off on time, 9:15 PM local time. Since it was a late flight the meal was served as soon as they had reached their cruising altitude over the North Atlantic. The stewardess served them chicken Kiev and white wine. She later brought them complementary glasses of champagne. They watched the in-flight movie, a romantic comedy of the type that Americans call a “date movie” and then assumed a pose of relaxation. The stewardess noticed that they seemed to constantly hold hands.

Four hours later, after 1:00 AM to the biological clocks of Flight 701’s passengers, the man and woman, whose passports identified them as Andrés and Fatimah Siddig, arose and made their way to the lavatories at the end of the cabin. Looking around furtively they slipped into the same washroom. A businessman, bleary after three bourbons, turned at the sound of movement and caught Mr. Siddig’s eye. Mr. Siddig, whose real name was Mohammed Bouyeri, smiled and winked at the businessman and shut and locked the lavatory door.

“Mile High Club,” the businessman muttered as he adjusted his pillow and settled back to let the liquor carry him off to sleep.

Inside the cramped compartment “Mrs. Siddig”, whose real name was Wafa Bouyeri, sat on the toilet and opened her purse. She drew out the leather case containing the diabetic supplies and an airsickness bag which she had placed there shortly after boarding. As her husband filled one of the syringes she unbuttoned her expensive silk blouse and unhooked her brassiere. Her bare breasts still showed signs of the surgery which had transformed them from B cup to D size.

Mohammed took off his eyeglasses and popped one of the lenses out of the expensive gold frame. He gripped the piece of glass in both hands and applied pressure. It easily snapped in two along the bifocal dividing line giving him two cutting edges each as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel.

Looking his beloved wife in the eye he told her, “My dearest love. You know that you will feel no pain and we will be apart only for a little while. Wait for me at the gates of Paradise.”

“I will wait for you my only love.” She responded as she tightened her narrow leather belt around her arm, causing a vein to rise.

Mohammed picked up the syringe and injected his wife with pure heroin. A look of bliss spread across her face then she briefly convulsed and was dead. Mohammed did not know if anyone had heard the little noise that his wife had made as she died, but he felt the need to hurry, both to ensure that his mission would not be interrupted and because he wanted to join her as soon as possible.

Picking up one of his glass “knives” he made an incision on his wife’s left breast which exposed the implant. He carefully drew the bag of fluid out and placed it in the sink. He repeated the process on the right breast, a procedure that he had practiced three times on dead bodies, and placed the other implant in the sink. He then washed the blood from his hands and the implants.

Carefully making a slit in one of the implants he squeezed the fluid out of it into the airsickness bag. The contents of the other implant soon joined it. A chemical odor filled the small lavatory.

Next the man removed his shirt and took the other ampoule out of the leather case and filled another syringe from it. He injected the local anesthetic into his chest near the scar left from his “pacemaker” surgery. He did this not because he feared pain, but because what he had to do was so very important that he could not afford unsteady hands.

Taking his “knife” he slit his flesh along the scar, wincing a bit because the anesthetic hadn’t had time to take full effect, and pulled the modified pacemaker out. Taking the end of his eyeglass’s earpiece he inserted it into a slot on the pacemaker and twisted. If everything worked as it was supposed to the device was now armed.

Uncoiling the wires attached to the little electronic unit he placed them into the bag of liquid explosive. Using his glasses again he activated another control on the heavily modified device causing it’s built in defibrillator to discharge. The loop of wire submerged in the volatile mixture heated to white hot detonating the liquid bomb.

His last thought, before death was of his and Wafa’s 10 year old son, which they had deposited with relatives in Gaza after receiving the promise that he would be raised to become a suicide bomber.

The wreckage of the plane plunged into the marshland of Eastern North Carolina not far from the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

This action was repeated nine other times that morning on airliners flying into or over the United States of America. All of the planes blew up within 15 minutes of each other. On an eleventh plane, bound from Rome to New York, the bombers were stopped by a vigilant flight attendant backed up by two United States Marines who were flying home on leave.

At noon, Eastern Standard Time, a package was delivered to the Al-Jezzra office in Dubai. The package contained 11 “martyrdom tapes” made by the bombers and one tape by Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility.