This week, a Pakistani woman said she saw a tall man in a white robe and matching turban hit his head on a low doorway. This changed what people thought they knew about where Osama Bin Laden was.
When the woman saw that the entrance led to a recording studio, it made her even more suspicious about who the man was.
She went up to him without saying who she thought he might be so as not to raise any suspicions.
"Are you okay?" she asked in a quiet, innocent way.
He said, "No." "How can I feel better? I'm Osama Bin Laden, and I just hit my head on this low doorway."
"Really?" she asked, thinking about the $25 million reward for turning him in and her chance to help bring justice to the world.
"Yes," he said. "Since I left Tora Bora, I haven't been doing well. It's hard for me to even get out long enough to make my audiotapes."
"Oh, my goodness," the woman said, "everyone thinks you're in a remote area near the Afghan border."
He told her, "You'd think they'd know better." "I don't know how a spoiled rich boy like me could have lived this long without a dialysis machine to keep me alive and takeout food."
She agreed, "That makes sense."
"Yes, it does, but there's no chance the police will figure out where I am because every time I record a tape, we filter out city sounds like horns and sirens."
She said, "That's very smart." "You'd think that when they see that the tapes have been edited, they'd figure out that you're somewhere with background noise."
"Just hope they don't figure it out. I don't want them to be able to guess my next move."
"Oh, that was a surprise!" she said. "Want to talk about it with me?"
"He told her, "No, because then it won't be a surprise anymore." But, just look. I won't sneak around Karachi forever. I want to enjoy the city life in the world's more developed capitals. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to my recording session."
Then he gave her a wave and went back into the doorway, but this time he remembered to duck.
The woman was so shocked that she couldn't breathe, so she ran to the nearest police station and told them what happened.
Police started looking for Bin Laden right away all over Karachi, and they said they would keep looking for him as part of their somewhat porous terrorist dragnet.
They were surprised, though, when Bin Laden called the police headquarters the next day and offered to turn himself in.
When asked why he had decided to do this when the police, many of whom are devout Muslims, were doing everything they could to keep him from being caught, he said, "I don't know." "I just can't take it anymore. Every day I had to hide because I was afraid to go outside and talk to a stranger who might tell on me. I also had to spend all my time with my four wives, even though I could have been sitting in a topless club in America, like the martyrs I sent to fly planes into American buildings right before they died. Worse yet, one of my wives told me I might have misunderstood the Koran because, as she reminded me, "Islam" means "peace." God bless me, I didn't do it, because if I did, I'd have to turn myself in."
The police told him, "Well, if you insist."
Osama said, "I'll let you know for sure in a day or two." "I don't want to do it and then regret it later, especially when I'm being hung," he added.
The Pakistani police officer said, "That makes a lot of sense, revered sheikh." Then he said something that would have made Pakistani President Musharaff, who was much smarter than him and a loyal American ally in the war on terror, very angry. "We have to search the whole city for you. Tell us your address before you hang up so we can avoid it."