Still no pain, just the heat and damp. He was still holding the rifle; his finger was still on the trigger. And as his hand sliced into the floor, scraping off the flesh on his knuckles, his finger slipped. The gun skidded over the paving slabs, kicking back into Muhid’s arm, skittering around as a burst of bullets arced along the floor and a flight of spent cartridges were scattered around his body. The burst lasted a second, maybe two, before his hand lost its grip. And then the pain and the burning and the smell of the concrete and more banging, this time into his own body. And more burning. And then darkness as the policeman’s bullet entered under his chin and tore up through his brain.

#

CTOC, St Pancras, London

‘Ma’am, reports of a shooting. It’s…’ There was a pause.

‘Yes, confirmed one of the suspects is down. Taken out by firearms. Believed to be Muhid.’

Gabriel breathed. It felt like the first time in hours. ‘Civilians?’

‘Thought to be one dead, ma’am.’ The sergeant’s voice was concerned. ‘Another dozen injured, mostly in the legs. He was shot but released a burst of gunfire on the ground before he died.’

A mix of emotions swept over Gabriel. She’d been right. Her instincts, her knowledge of Abu Mujahid, hadn’t let her down. But at what cost. One dead? A dozen injured. And there was another one out there. Asad. The Somali student whose parents had rung the university because they were worried about their poor little boy. The poor little boy that was about to let a rifle loose on thousands of innocent people.

She returned to the screens, staring at, evaluating, every face.

#

Wembley Stadium, North West London

Asad clutched the rucksack to his chest as he stared at the river of supporters flowing from the stadium and down the concrete path of Wembley Way towards him.

Inside, right now, he felt nothing. A sense of calm had descended after the first boom echoed around the buildings, and had remained through the burst of gunfire that told him Muhid had begun.

That sense of destiny, that feeling that nothing mattered, that he was on a roller coaster, or a runaway train, had grown stronger. He no longer felt nerves, just a stillness.

Abu Mujahid had told him to stand in clear ground, to fire upon the approaching masses fleeing the stadium, to rake the lines with bullets, showing no mercy to these enemies of Islam. Each body was a step towards Paradise.

But when the moment came, he froze. The moment he opened fire was the moment everything would end for him, and start again in Paradise. He could wait a few seconds longer, experience the living world just a few moments more. Now they were seventy-five metres away, but still he could pause. Fifty metres. Twenty. Then ten and now they were on top of him, pushing him along towards the Tube station and he had missed his opportunity. He was now part of this terrified, grimly determined funnel of humanity. The press of the bodies shook him out of his paralysis. He had messed up.