RUSSIA: After seven days in a Moscow safe house the Chechen suicide bomber was ready. Last Wednesday, she was given a bomb in a sports bag and driven into the city centre by the woman dubbed "Black Fatima", the head of a suicide bombing ring still at large in Moscow.
The bomber's motivation was simple, her father and husband had been killed fighting the Russians in Chechnya.
Her first choice of target, it was revealed in a landmark confession yesterday, was Moscow's main branch of McDonald's, in Pushkin Square, half a mile from the Kremlin.
But the bomber, Zarima Muzhikhoyeva (22), the first Chechen suicide bomber ever captured alive, thought the blue uniforms of the security staff meant they were policemen.
Instead she spent several hours wandering up and down Tveskaya, the city's most glittering shopping boulevard, looking for an easier target.
Finally, in the early hours of last Thursday, she chose the chic Mon Café, one of the few places still open. She sat at a table, took a deep breath, opened her bag and pushed the little button on the bomb. Nothing happened.
She got up and went outside, setting the bag down and fiddling with the wiring, before coming back inside the café.
Sitting at the table, she once again took a breath. And pushed the button. Still nothing.
"I pushed the button 20 times," she told police interrogators. "But the bomb wouldn't explode." She was interrupted by a waitress who told her to either order something or leave. Muzhikhoyeva shouted that she had a bomb and would kill everyone.
The waitress went into shock, but a Chechen man, who happened to be sitting at the next table intervened. He told Muzhikhoyeva she should be ashamed of herself. Confused, the bomber stumbled out of the café.
"The waitress is off work. She is still shocked," said a Mon Café manageress yesterday.
"All the staff who worked that night have been given leave." A few blocks down, police caught up with Muzhikhoyeva outside another café.
She was arrested. A few hours later a bomb disposal officer was killed trying to defuse the bomb.
Muzhikhoyeva's arrest has been a breakthrough for a city traumatised by the bombing, 10 days ago, at the Tushino rock festival.
That bombing, which killed 14 teenagers, was carried out by two Chechen women who, like Muzhikhoyeva, were in their early 20s and had both lost close family members in the war.
Her interrogation has confirmed fears that the rock concert killing was no accident. Muzhikhoyeva was trained at a Chechen mountain village and then smuggled to Moscow. There, her handlers told her Russian civilians are now prime targets.
And the bad news for Moscow is that the majority of 36 women known to have been trained as suicide bombers are still out there. As is the ringleader who Russian police call "Black Fatima".
Police have begun hacking into the mobile phone network, and also arresting all Chechens living in Moscow without a residence permit. A grainy photofit of "Black Fatima" - complete with dark glasses - is being run by Moscow newspapers.
But this is nibbling at the edges of the problem: The bombers' network is still in the city.
In Chechnya, the rebels are midway through their summer offensive. The Kremlin has refused talks with the rebels, who have said they will boycott meaningless provincial elections scheduled for later this year.
With the war deadlocked, and the bombers still active, this promises to be a summer of high anxiety for Muscovites.