A Smoke Bomb in Room 24
The moment they entered, they heard a loud sound. Foooom! The sound roared through the room, and was followed a split second later by a deafening crashing sound as all the glass in the room shattered. Almost instantly, thick, white smoke enveloped the room and billowed out into the hallway through the open door. It was a smoke bomb!
The officers bent down close to the floor, coughing and choking. At first, none of them could hear anything, but as their sense of hearing recovered from the blast, they were inundated by a multitude of sounds that filled the room and hallway, the loudest being the sound of the officers swearing.
Stealthily, Ali opened the door to the linen closet just inside the bathroom and stepped out. He tied a handkerchief over his mouth and nose and he had his bag and briefcase in his hands. Quietly and casually, he slipped right past the three officers and out of the room. He reached the stairs, descended them to the first floor as he pulled the handkerchief off his face and stuffed it in his pocket, and walked across the hotel lobby. His face showed no trace of panic or concern, and his gait was even and controlled.
Amidst the chaos in the hotel, Ali walked out the front door of the hotel without drawing the attention of either the hotel staff in the lobby or the police officers posted outside, who, after seeing windows on the second floor blow out, ran toward the hotel entrance just after Ali had exited. The moment Ali was outside the main gate of the hotel, he hailed a cab.
In Room 24, coughing and hacking made it difficult for the three officers to communicate with each other. One of the police officers managed to find his way out of the room but the other two dropped to the floor inside the room. Ali had slipped out of the hands of the police and within a few minutes, a once elegant room of the hotel had been reduced to shambles. It bore the scars of a smoke bomb detonation. The windows, which once added to the beauty of the room as they overlooked the hotel garden, were shattered and the glass strewn all over the floor and all over the garden below. The plaster on the walls and ceiling was blackened and sooty.