#

Stonebridge, North West London

One more door. It was locked and the hydraulic opener was needed again. Another hiss, another clatter as the door fell, another flash grenade, and the team was inside a yellow sitting room.

A man was stood by the French windows leading on to a balcony. His face was blank, his mouth open.

‘On the floor,’ screamed the team leader. She moved into the room, his rifle aimed at the man’s chest. The man was Asian, aged in his twenties and wearing a T-shirt and thin jumper. There were no bulges, no wires, no obvious signs of a bomb. The man was holding a phone. And a grey box.

The man froze – he seemed unable to move. His brown eyes met the barrel of three rifles.

‘Praise be to Allah,’ he said quietly.

The team leader squeezed the rifle trigger. Those hundreds of scenarios in the crumbling concrete training houses, the simulation on videos, the fitness regime and drills, all came together in this moment of split-second decision-making. Some highly focused part of her brain instinctively weighed up the situation, judged the threat, noted the man’s refusal to surrender and assessed the box in his hand.

The impact of the three bullets threw the man’s body back against the glass of the French windows, where he slumped, a smear of crimson on the pane behind him. The ripped gash in his shirt oozed with red and his hands fell beside his body. He was still clutching the grey box and his thumb was pressing hard on its button. Whatever the grey box was for, whatever device it was connected to, the man had activated it with his final movement.

#

Wembley Stadium, North West London

Sulaiman Khan was standing now. He pulled his son close to him and watched, transfixed by the drone, now above the partial stadium roof that protected the spectators from the rain. It was almost exactly over his head. A few of the other supporters around him had spotted it too and were also on their feet, pointing. Was it the BBC or police? It dipped away from the pitch towards the stadium roof above him. Were they trying to land it up there?

And then there was a flash followed by a bang, like a lightning bolt had struck the roof. But before Khan had time to put his arms out to shield his boy, the clattering of metal was all around him.

#

Special Operations Room, Lambeth, London

The flash above the stadium was caught on one of the screens in Gold Command. There was a stunned silence for a fraction of a second.

‘The drone?’ Tennant said, keeping calm, but only just. ‘Did we hit it?’

‘No,’ said a DS. ‘Two, no, three shots, all missed. It looks like it’s detonated over the stadium roof. That will have absorbed some of the shock wave and shrapnel if it had any.’

Jesus, thought Tennant. They’d know soon enough if anyone was dead. One down. The Wembley Police operations room would take over the scene and get casualties down to ambulances on the pitch. But what about the other drone? Where the hell was it?