Just then, a man pushes past you. He has a gaunt face and a beard flecked with grey. He’s dressed in black, and he has a backpack slung over one shoulder. He also tries the door.
‘It’s locked,’ you say, wondering who this man is. Then he turns to face you and you stifle a gasp, because you recognise him: his name is Qasim, and he used to work in the grocery shop you live behind. He wanted to marry Aunty Rahama, but she wasn’t interested.
He’s changed from a playful young man into some sort of a ghoul – a shadow with bones. His skin is waxy and his eyes look narrow and lifeless. Not a flicker of expression crosses his face as he glances at you.
You duck your head and walk away quickly, hoping he hasn’t recognised you. Then you hide behind a parked car and watch.
Qasim stalks once around the building, then stands outside the front, looking up at it. Suddenly, you see what has caught his eye: the back of a red hijab just near one of the first-floor windows.
Qasim moves until he is directly beneath that window. He slips his backpack down and hides it behind a rubbish bin right under Rahama’s window. Then he walks away from the building. He looks neither left nor right. He doesn’t hurry. He just slips one hand inside his pocket and walks away, like a man who knows exactly what he’s doing.
You can only guess that Rahama’s about to start broadcasting your interview with Zayd. You can only guess why someone might deliberately leave a backpack by the broadcasting building right before a major story comes out. Both of those guesses lead to a terrible conclusion.
You run to where the backpack is hidden and, with sweating hands, carefully tug the zip open.
What you see makes your stomach flip: three used Coke cans, held together with black electrical tape; some looping yellow and red wires; and a battery and phone, also strapped on with more tape.
It’s a homemade bomb. When Qasim calls the number of the phone that’s attached to it, he will trigger a massive explosion.
Your blood thumps in your ears. You want to flee, but you force yourself to breathe and look at the bomb. Your friend Mahadi’s family has an electronic repairs shop, so you’ve seen the inside workings of lots of gadgets before.
This bomb is less complicated than your average toaster. You can see the wires going into the power source. If you lift the tape and unhook those wires then there will be no charge, so the phone call won’t work – the bomb won’t explode. Easy. Except that if you’re wrong … you’re dead.
You could get away instead and try to warn Rahama – but would she hear you and get out of the building in time? And what if Qasim is still somewhere nearby, hears your shout, and comes after you?
You have only seconds to decide.
To try to defuse the bomb, go to scene 4.
To try to raise the alarm from a distance, turn to scene 7.
To read a fact file on journalists at risk click here, then return to this page to make your choice.
You use your nail to lift a corner of the tape that binds the bomb together. You know you can defuse it. You just hope you can do it fast enough.
Sweat is making your hands slip on the plastic tape, so you wipe them on your shorts. Then you peel back the tape again, trying to move as steadily and quickly as you can, because if Qasim calls the phone before you get those wires off the bomb, both you and Rahama – not to mention everyone else who happens to be nearby – will die.
The tape is tacky, gluey – your fingers are sticking to it. You ball it up to get it out of the way, then give one more little tug and see the wires connecting to the battery. Yes.
You are praying under your breath, verses from the Qur’an, to help steady you and guide you as you begin to untwist the wires, when – slam!
You are knocked sideways onto the ground, but not by a bomb blast. Qasim has found you. His knees are on your chest. You feel your ribs bending to cracking point under the pressure. Qasim leans over you. The whites of his eyes are yellow.
‘I know you,’ he says slowly. ‘Rahama’s nephew. Trying to play the hero, huh?’
He spits in your face. The warm liquid trickles over your cheek and into one ear. You twist your head uselessly.
Qasim lifts a phone out of his pocket. You think that he’s going to ring the number of the phone strapped to the bomb, and you pray you got the wires loose enough in time, but instead, he speaks into it.
‘I have someone useful here. The target’s nephew.’
Allah, save me, you think. You don’t want to be useful to al-Shabaab. You want to be no one to them.
You struggle under Qasim’s knees until two men come and throw you into the back of a white van.
They lean into the van and use black electrical tape to strap your wrists together behind your neck, then your ankles together. Then they loop rope behind you between your wrists and ankles and tighten it, pulling you back like a bow ready to fire.
The van roars off. Every jolt of the road sends shooting pains through your limbs. The plastic floor of the van, now slick with your sweat, knocks against your head as the shadows of buildings flicker past. You think of Jamilah waiting at home for you, and tears start sliding into your ear. You think of Rahama, and your heart
