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Moneypenny’s worst fear is not being on time. It keeps her up at night: that as the head of the Double O Section, she might have before her the cogs, the wheels, the pins, and yet fail to visualise the whole machine. At 1.25 p.m., a bomb will explode at BBC New Broadcasting House. She might not be on time to stop it, just like she didn’t stop the Egyptian Embassy bombing last month, or the shooting at the synagogue in Paris the week before that, or the hack on the International Monetary Fund two months ago. She knows the bomber’s name is Jason Kent. He is twenty-five years old, white, unemployed; he has been arrested and charged repeatedly with domestic abuse; he is connected to international far-right extremist groups, where MI6’s involvement began, leading to this partnership with MI5 on home soil. She knows all this and yet it’s quarter past one and 004 and 008 are yet to ID the bomber on site.

Moneypenny leans on the back of Aisha Asante’s chair, peering over Aisha’s head at the screens sifting surveillance footage. Beyond, the glass chamber containing Q seems thick to her with crackling electricity as the quantum computer works the data sets, its golden rods like the tendrils of an octopus pressed to some task. In reality, the tuneless hum is coming from Ibrahim Suleiman, who is monitoring the audio streaming from 004’s brain-computer interface, installed – if one could use that word – in Joseph Dryden’s skull after he suffered traumatic brain injury while serving in the Special Forces. The blast lacerated the vestibular nerve beneath his right ear, leaving him sensory neural deaf on one side, while the shockwave damaged the language centre in the brain. The hidden microphone embedded by Q Branch in his ear canal, coupled with the brain-computer interface, bypass both the cut nerve and the damaged tissue, and serve to link 004 to Q. But his ears aren’t picking up anything useful today.

‘No matches,’ says Aisha, more to herself than Moneypenny. She’s pushed the sleeves of her hot pink blazer to her elbows. ‘How can there be no voice match? No facial recognition match?’

‘Maybe Jason Kent decided against mass murder for today,’ mutters Ibrahim, messing up his already wild hair with a frantic hand.

Moneypenny stretches to hit the comms button. ‘004, 008, report.’

Joseph Dryden’s voice blooms into the underground chamber. ‘I know M ruled out evac to avoid spooking the target into early detonation, but we’re running out of tarmac here, ma’am.’

Moneypenny longs for Mrs Keator’s sharp tones, but the bastion of Q Branch retired after Bill Tanner was revealed to be a traitor and hanged himself four months ago. She raises a phone to her ear – the line is open to M at Vauxhall, and Vallance at MI5. ‘Moneypenny here – recommend evac.’

Vallance’s voice is crisp: ‘Agree.’

M’s is soft: ‘Agree.’

Moneypenny stabs the comms button. ‘008, start the evacuation. 004, keep hunting.’

Dryden says, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

Dodger Macintyre – Roger to his parents, Dodger since his schooldays at Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island – has only recently moved from the role of intelligence officer at MI6 to Double O. A pilot and a language graduate, he spent most of his life abroad, from childhood to university to operating. He expected that trend to continue as 008, not to find himself working with MI5 and Scotland Yard to evacuate the BBC.

New Broadcasting House was designed with transparency in mind: a glass-fronted curve swishing between the original 1932 building and the East Wing to create an atrium the shape of a running teardrop. The idea of transparency – a BBC funded by the people, belonging to the people, seen by the people – continues inside. Audiences glimpse the 4,000-square-metre news floor sitting in the glass well of the building in the background of daily broadcasts. There are transparent meeting rooms decorated with photographs of Doctor Who and EastEnders. Breakout spaces glow red beneath Perspex lights. That’s a lot of glass to go boom.

008 gathers people from the back-to-back booths lining the atrium, where the cyclorama of the London sky promises nothing but rain. He ignores padded doors calling for silence to tell presenters to get off the air now.

‘Maintain calm, look like you’re simply stepping out for lunch.’

He expects panic from the six thousand staff members but gets none, the broadcasters switching to back-up programmes without question. Each desk is a habitat, whether it’s a lipstick-stained KeepCup or a swivel chair with a scrap of paper taped to the back that reads Helen’s Supplied by HR – DO NOT Remove. Hot desks flap with wearied Post-its: In Use or Back in 5 minutes. Journalists grab coats or phones and follow 008, exchanging grim chatter, some clustering uncertainly beneath banners that instruct, red-on-yellow: People Gathering Point. This is where they’ve been trained to seek safety in case of a bomb threat, well away from the glass facade. But Dodger ushers the journalists on, telling them to ignore the glass lifts sheathed in orange steel, and instead file through the doors leading to the 1932 wing.

All the bright lights and gleaming screens of the twenty-first century disappear, replaced by cold stone and a brown dado that follows the Art Deco curves of the stairwell. Dodger is gambling that, by avoiding the main entrance and exit, he can avoid spooking the bomber. ‘Keep going, keep going, keep going’ – Dodger hopes his intent doesn’t show as he scrutinises each passing face, searching for the washed-out, almost invisible features of Jason Kent.

The busy hush of New Broadcasting House reminds Joseph Dryden of a Forward Operating Base. People show up here to get the job done. There is solidarity to the snaking workspaces, a sense of belonging to the same rare club, something sacred even, but held lightly, with an eye-roll at the whimsical puzzle piece sofas. Now, the thrum goes up a few notches. Dryden can smell violence in the air. It’s coming. Will the bomber wait until 1.25 p.m. as planned or detonate early? Dryden strolls past the Middle East desk, then the neighbouring section devoted to reporting on jihadism. He nods to the journalists scooping up their Tupperware and hurrying out, footfall absorbed into thick grey carpets. He takes the spiral staircase down to the news floor.

It is surreal to stand behind the glass backdrop. BBC News at One is still broadcasting. Dryden can see the presenters’ legs under the desk jiggling up and down – they’ve been alerted of the threat through their earpieces, but told to keep broadcasting until the last possible minute. The journalists around Dryden, who feature daily in the background of the news, are rigid at their monitors, watching colleagues evacuate out of shot of the cameras.

‘We should evacuate the news floor,’ he says. ‘We’re getting too close.’

‘If the news stops,’ says Moneypenny, ‘he’ll know he’s caught and detonate early. We’ve told them to cut to packaged footage. As soon as that happens, people in the background can leave. But the presenters have to stay put for as long as possible.’

Dryden says, ‘008, you got anything?’

Dodger Macintyre’s voice burrs in Dryden’s skull, patched through his neural link. ‘Negative, sir.’

A small smile makes it on to Dryden’s face. ‘004 is fine. I’d even stretch to Joe if you ID this son of a bitch for me.’

A nervous laugh. ‘Yes, sir.’

In the periphery of Dryden’s vision, a lift starts to descend from the top floor. Lifts are only to be used in an evacuation by disabled staff members. The screen flashes that the lift’s destination is the news floor. Evacuating staff wouldn’t come down to the ground floor, where there is no exit onto street level. The lift is transparent on three sides. Inside is a white man with red hair wearing a combat jacket. Not Jason Kent. Wrong man. But that doesn’t make him right, either.

‘Descending lift,’ he says. ‘News floor.’

Moneypenny holds her breath as Aisha pulls the security feed from the lift, which is playing BBC Radio Asian Network, according to the poster above the panel of buttons. The man is carrying a messenger bag with the logo of a reputable delivery company – easy to fake, and the post room is nowhere near the news floor.

‘Running his face now,’ says Ibrahim.

‘What do you think?’ says Moneypenny.

‘I’d cross the street,’ says Aisha.

‘Mm hmm. He’s getting fidgety – he’s watching people leave.’

‘They could be going for lunch,’ says Aisha.

Moneypenny bunches her fists, remembering – ‘They play radio in the lifts. Has it gone quiet?’

Aisha flips her braided hair, picking up headphones. ‘BBC Radio Asian is still playing.’

Moneypenny says, ‘004, I thought you evacuated the broadcast studios? We’re still hearing radio.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ says Dryden. ‘They’ve switched to back-up.’

Moneypenny takes a breath. She knows that. She knows the BBC never stops broadcasting. The day the radio goes quiet, that’s when you know you are in real trouble.

‘How can 004 get into that lift?’

‘He could climb the shaft, it’s all steel girders. But it’s coming to him. At alarming speed.’

‘Got the ID!’ calls Ibrahim. ‘Grant Bishop. He plays that social media terror game, points for attacks on minorities IRL. Multiple contacts with Kent.’

Moneypenny raises the phone to her ear. ‘Vallance? Anything on Kent?’

Vallance says, ‘Still nothing since he alighted from the Tube at Oxford Street.’

‘How’s that possible? How can a terrorist just disappear from our surveillance?’ says Ibrahim, before answering himself: ‘It’s not possible.’

Moneypenny swears. Another jab at the button. ‘004, the man in the lift poses a lethal threat.’

Joseph Dryden says, ‘Understood,’ and walks with long, easy strides through the anxious journalists towards the lift. No time for aerial heroics, though he likes Aisha’s faith in him. He doesn’t think the target will blow himself up inside the lift alone – he’d get structural damage, sure, but no fatalities. He figures the target will step out onto the news floor, in sight of the running cameras and surrounded by journalists. Dryden moves just feet from where the lift will open. He sits on a desk and takes out his phone, as if idling while waiting for a colleague to meet him. He crosses one leg over the other. Allows his foot to tap. Three floors. Two. 1.23 p.m.

‘008, monitor the street,’ he says. ‘This may be a tag team.’

One floor.

008 says, ‘Good luck’ – but Dryden isn’t focusing on voices anymore.

The lift doors sigh open.

Dryden stands up and draws his gun from his shoulder holster, training it in one fluid motion on the man who takes a tentative step from the lift and freezes, blue eyes wide as overly pumped balloons.

Grant Bishop registers the reality of this six-foot-four Black man in a three-piece suit with cropped hair carrying fourteen stone of muscle, who could be an actor or a bigshot producer, but is in fact holding a real weapon and saying loudly but levelly as people dive beneath desks, one muffled scream among them – ‘Police, hands up.’

Bishop squints, then his hand darts inside the messenger bag.

Dryden fires.

Brain matter splatters in a red mist to the back of the lift. The doors ding shut and the lift rises, carrying forensic evidence to the floor above.

‘Everybody stay down,’ says Dryden, his voice warping in his own ears, swallowed by the fearful quiet. He harnesses his weapon and kneels by the corpse. A hole the size of a five-pence piece through the forehead of the skull leads to a two-pound coin crater at the back. He delicately wraps his fingers around the target’s thin arm and lifts the flap of the bag.

It is empty. The fool was playing out a deadly bluff fatal only to himself. But that means . . .

Dryden shouts, ‘Dodger, it was a decoy! Evacuate!’

He sprints up the spiral staircase, racing past a model of the TARDIS. He’s just paces now from the glass doors leading to the plaza. Outside, journalists form orderly lines beyond the security bollards around All Souls church. Dryden picks out Dodger talking with a huddle of MI5 agents and police. He sees, but cannot hear through the glass, a police dog bark at what looks like a drain.

‘008,’ he says, ‘come in 008—’

Dodger Macintyre doesn’t hear his radio over the buzzing mobile phones and the journalists talking to camera –breaking the news. Then he realises a dog is barking, and remembers what three barks means. He pushes through officers congratulating him on 004’s success. He bumps into the back of the dog’s handler. The dog is pawing at a grated ventilation shaft in the paving, which would connect with the Tube.

‘Get back!’ shouts Dodger. ‘Everyone back!’

But the bollards are up, and traffic is shooting by, penning people to the spot, and the crowd is too big to corral. Dodger checks his watch: 1.25 p.m. He hauls the grate open.

The bomb is duct-taped to the roof of the tunnel. He swallows – he can hear himself swallow. It is a big enough IED to bring the floor of the plaza and everyone standing on it crashing down into the Tube. He has to get the device away from the public.

They evacuated All Souls.

Dodger rips the bomb from its silver straps.

‘Bomb! Move!’

He is sprinting towards the church, past the luminous yellow jackets of policemen and the distraught frozen faces of journalists and the blinking lights of cameras – into the tranquillity of All Souls. He lobs the bomb down the nave and it explodes mid-air, thrusting him out through the doors, hurling policemen off their feet, spraying stained glass, caving columns, ringing bells.

Dryden is running with the dead man’s blood on the soles of his shoes, leaving a long streak as he skids to a halt in the lobby.

The glass doors of the building turn to sand, knocking him down. He hugs his head, inside of which Moneypenny’s voice clamours for a report. Dryden swallows dust. He stands up. Runs through the smoke towards the steps of the church.

Moneypenny presses her hand to her mouth, nails digging into her cheek. She wasn’t on time.