‘Sarge,’ she shouted. ‘There’s a body in here.’

The man behind flashed a torch into the darkened space. Something man-sized was wrapped in black plastic. It was smeared with red and brown – and an arm was sticking out from under the covers. The medics in the team pushed forward, with kit bags already open.

‘He’s dead, ma’am,’ said the medic.

#

Special Operations Room, Lambeth, London

‘Boss,’ said Gold Commander to Tennant. ‘Air support reports the drones are heading in different directions – the helicopter wasn’t able to track them, it needed to keep sights on the flat. But one’s approaching Wembley. On screen now.’

Buggeration, said Tennant to himself. They’d missed them. Had Abu Mujahid launched them early because he knew he was about to be raided?

Tennant looked up. The top screen showed a handheld video of the skyline above West London. The video zoomed in to a black dot which came in and out of focus.

‘How far is that from the stadium?’ said Tennant.

‘About a quarter of a mile away.’ The dot didn’t seem to be getting any closer, but Tennant knew that was a trick of the camera.

‘How long until it arrives?’ he said.

‘Thirty seconds,’ said a junior officer around the table.

‘Is the electronic jammer active?’

‘Yes, sir, but it appears to have made no difference.’

Tennant thought quickly, weighing up the limited options. ‘Delay kick-off. Get the teams back inside. We may need to shoot the drone down over the pitch.’

#

Wembley Stadium, North West London

Sulaiman Khan was impatient to get to his seat as he waited in the concrete corridor for his brother to get his coffee.

‘How much longer?’ he mouthed, leaning over toward the queue.

‘You go – join you in a minute. Sure you don’t want nothing?’ said his brother.

‘I’m fine. Catch you later.’ Khan headed towards the stairs leading to his seat, his seven-year-old boy’s hand gripped in his. But when he emerged from the grey fluorescence into daylight, the scoreboard was still England 0 Hungary 0 and the players appeared to be walking off the pitch back to their dressing rooms. What’s happening? thought Khan.

He began the vertiginous descent with his son, nudging the fat man on the end to let him through. As he shuffled along the row doing the walk of shame – apologising and grimacing as he forced eleven people to stand up while he passed – something caught his eye in the skies.

Earlier he’d been watching the two helicopters buzzing above the stadium. One was TV maybe, the other for police. But the new object in his eye was smaller. It looked like his son Darren’s video drone – the one he’d had for Christmas and used for a week before smashing it into a tree. It was hovering over the stadium roof, higher than the arch of Wembley, like it was on a wire hung from the clouds.

There was a sudden popping sound, like a firework going off outside the stadium. And another. And a third. What the hell? Khan looked around – he wasn’t the only one who’d heard the noise.