Hacked

by Tracy Alexander

  Even though I didn’t know what she was planning, the fact that I’d helped meant that I was an accessory to murder. But it wasn’t the law that I was scared of. No way could I carry on being me, if I had blood on my hands. Kids … would-be doctors … mums with toddlers … old men like Ted and Isaac … Slain. I would never recover. And even if I did manage, after years of counselling, to come to terms with what I’d done (assuming I wasn’t jailed for life) I’d be branded a killer. My mum – a killer’s mum, El – a killer’s sister.

  Incredible – all of it.

  More incredible was the fact that a commander and an inspector were sitting wasting time with me when there was a nutter on the loose …

  ‘How did she get away? You had her.’

  ‘She had a head start, thanks to you, Dan.’ The commander’s smile was ever so slightly less sincere.

  ‘At least I found her.’

  ‘Don’t expect any praise.’ He got up and went to leave the room.

  ‘Can I go?’ I asked.

  I may as well not have spoken. The commander looked at the inspector.

  ‘Chuck him in a cell,’ he said.

  She looked at me and repeated, in a formal tone, the legal jargon you hear on the telly.

  ‘Dan Langley, we are detaining you for questioning on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism …’

  I was under arrest.

  34

  They took my watch and the laces from my trainers and a few bits of crap from my pockets. It was humiliating, being treated like I’d stabbed someone, or threatened a corner-shop owner with a bat.

  ‘Let me help,’ I said, but no one listened. ‘I can help. I know Angel.’

  The cell was a room with bare walls, a shut door with a flap to speak through, a buzzer (in case of emergencies) and a bed that was actually a wide shelf, with a thin blanket. Nothing to do but think.

  I couldn’t tell when noon came and went. No one came to let me know what had happened. Had Angel blown up Tower Bridge? Was I partially responsible for carnage? Bodies floating in the Thames? I could see any image I felt like conjuring up in my head, thanks to the years of shooting people on X-box. I banged on the door.

  ‘Has she done it?’ I asked through the grill. ‘Has she bombed London?’

  ‘Any questions’ll have to wait till you’re called for,’ said the voice.

  I pleaded with an empty corridor.

  Dad had promised he wouldn’t leave. Maybe he was on the phone to a better ‘brief’ than Graham Sommers, trying to negotiate my release. I wanted Mum and El to come and take me home. I tried to count seconds and then minutes, to fill the time. I banged again and eventually the same policeman sauntered along – I could hear his footsteps … slow, a stroll. I asked to go to the loo. He reluctantly let me out and accompanied me down the corridor. The urge to run was overwhelming. I had to pee while he watched. It almost wouldn’t come. I thought of Ty in his hospital gown. More than anything I wanted to be normal. A boy with a girlfriend (with red hair, who goes volunteering) and mates. A boy who should be revising for his GCSEs. When we got back to the door of my cell I didn’t go in straight away. I had the idea that if I crossed the threshold that would be it. Forever. People disappear. They do. I could end up in a secret court. My family could campaign for years. Mum would be grey. Dad would have a heart attack. El would qualify as a solicitor at a ridiculously young age to fight for my freedom. But I would probably already be dead. The commander looked capable of a cold-blooded murder. At least he did when he left.

  Not knowing was unbearable.

  Sleep would be good, I thought. You can’t think, and time passes. I sat on the edge of the bed – the plastic cover creaked. I didn’t want to put my head on the mattress. Lice, bed bugs, other people’s hair, dribble, vomit, poo, pee, tears. I forced myself to lie down, but I stayed rigid, trying not to touch.

  Let it go, Dan.

  I summoned enough self-control to do a bit of yogic breathing and let my head, and then the rest of me, collapse onto the scratchy blanket. I shut my eyes tight. It was at least twenty-eight hours since I’d slept.

  35

  The door swinging open woke me. I had a nanosecond of disorientation and then sat up fast, flipped my legs over the side and stood.

  ‘Can I go?’ I asked, before I remembered the other pressing question. ‘Did she do it?’

  The officer didn’t answer either.

  ‘I’m taking you back to the interview room.’

  ‘Please,’ I said to the back of his uniform as we walked down the corridor with no windows.

  He shook his head. I didn’t know what that meant, so I tapped his shoulder.

  ‘Watch it, lad,’ he said, turning round. His face wasn’t angry as much as bored.

  ‘Please, can you just tell me whether Angel fired the missile?’

  ‘No … she didn’t. Lucky for you.’

  I smiled. Couldn’t help it.

  Phew!

  The relief felt physical, like the blood was running freely again round my body after hours of only limping.

  He left me in the same room as before. There was a clock: 5.19 p.m. The door opened and in walked Dad. Without thinking I got up and we had a hug. Rare as horse feathers – one of Grandad’s sayings.

  The inspector came in afterwards and gave me the good news. Free to go. Possibility of more questioning at a later date. No charges at this point. No return of phone, computer or laptop until thoroughly autopsied. Watch, laces and pocket detritus returned.

  ‘Are you saying Dan’s in the clear?’ asked Dad.

  ‘I wouldn’t go as far as using the word “clear”, but I can say that our priority is to locate the individual responsible for the threat.’

  ‘Without Dan, you wouldn’t know anything about Angel,’ said Dad.

  Go Dad!

  ‘Dan’s courage in coming forward has been noted,’ she said. ‘Although the outcome may have been more positive if Angel hadn’t been forewarned …’

  The inspector disappeared before I could point out how many people I’d tried to tell.

  It was only when we made it past the reception area and Dad pushed the door to let me through that I realised how awful he looked.

  ‘Sorry.’ The apology felt a bit overdue.

  ‘We’ll talk when we get home,’ he said.

  Dad unlocked the doors and the mirrors swung out as usual. A timely reminder of my hacking skills. He put the radio on so we didn’t have to sit in silence the whole seven minutes from the police station to home.

  We turned into St Albans Road. Outside our house there was a group of dark-clothed people. I saw a camera flash – realised it was the press. Dad parked in the disabled bay for next door. (First time ever.)

  El was looking out of the window, but disappeared as soon as she saw us to open the front door.

  ‘We’ll have to barge through,’ said Dad, getting out to face the mob. I waited until he’d got round to my side before I got out. Ignoring the questions shouted from all directions, the too-close faces and the noise of the cameras, I pushed through with Dad right beside me, batting them away.

  Safely inside, he slammed the door on them.

  ‘I was so frightened,’ said El. She wrapped her arms around my middle. I hugged her, my eyes on Mum’s traumatised face.

  ‘The neighbours’ll all be worried about falling house prices,’ said Dad. ‘No one wants to live next to a terrorist.’

  Great!

  The family conference took place in the kitchen. You can probably imagine it, but even if you can’t I’m not going through it. There were three broad phases:

  Blaming me (mostly Dad):

  How could you?

  Didn’t you think?

  What did you think she wanted it for?

  Why didn’t you tell us?

  Did you have to confess on the BBC?

  Etc.

  Blaming each other:

  Mum: You should have taken h
im to football.

  Mum: You shouldn’t have bought the computer.

  Dad: You were more interested in El.

  Dad: You don’t like a row so he got away with everything.

  Etc.

  El taking charge:

  Did you have to go to the loo in the cell?

  Did they take a photo with a number?

  Did they handcuff you?

  Did you see any other criminals?

  Etc.

  Eventually Mum said, ‘You must be hungry, Dan.’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Shall I make scrambled egg?’

  That’s what we have when we’re ill.

  I wanted to tell her that I felt really bad about making her upset but didn’t want Dad to say I should have thought of that before I did it.

  ‘Yes please, Mum.

  Mum looked at Dad.

  ‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to build the chicken coop.’

  ‘But it’s dark,’ said Mum.

  ‘I’ll get a torch.’ He went out of the back door.

  Mum sent El for a bath and came and sat next to me. She put her arm round my shoulder and kissed my hair.

  ‘Oh, Dan!’

  Her tears made my head wet.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Mum.’ I wanted to join in the crying, show how sorry I was, but it was a full-on debating society inside my head.

  No one got hurt, so what did it matter in the end?

  But people could have been hurt.

  But they weren’t.

  Because revealing where Angel was scuppered her plan.

  Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t.

  What do you mean?

  Was she ever going to do it?

  Yes, why else steal the drone?

  Unless it was a hoax – to frighten people …

  Where’s the drone now?

  Norfolk?

  Maybe it never left Germany?

  What about that shape?

  ‘Conjecture,’ they’d said.

  She’s eighteen! They’re bound to catch her.

  She’s eighteen and very clever.

  And dangerous.

  Someone blew up her grandma, but she didn’t blow anyone up.

  So she’s a goody now?

  Just saying.

  She used people.

  Someone blew up her grandma.

  Shut up.

  I had a bath after El, and went to bed. It was strange not being able to check my messages – I wanted to know if there was anything from Ruby. That was my last thought – her standing across the road when the police arrived … until furious banging and bell-ringing woke me up.

  In my half-asleep state I thought it was the chickens arriving to live in the coop. Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  I looked at my watch – 03.45.

  36

  There was urgent talking downstairs. Mum’s footsteps.

  ‘They say there’s been a development. They need to ask some more questions,’ said Mum. She was trembling. ‘Dan, they’re taking you to London … there’s a helicopter waiting.’

  I threw on some clothes, retched in the toilet a few times, and was bundled out of the house by two men. No proper reason given. Just time for Dad to say, ‘I’m getting a lawyer – someone I know – then I’ll drive up after you,’ and for Mum to kiss me.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Dan. We’ll make it all right.’

  No one spoke. We walked up the road to the top, and turned left towards White Tree Roundabout, where the chopper was waiting on the Downs. It was like being kidnapped. As terrifying as being kidnapped. They strapped me in and gave me some ear defenders. We took off, lots of noise and a bit of lurching. The engine gave a shudder at some point. I looked across at the officers – they ignored me, staring at their tablets and occasionally saying short sentences that I couldn’t lip-read. Too soon, we were over central London. It was still dark outside when we landed on a roof – turned out to be the Met – and I was led down to an interview room, again. A smarter one, with a less obviously bolted-down table. They left me there. I couldn’t imagine what it was all about. Unless they’d caught Angel and she’d said it was my idea. My plan. Maybe she said I recruited her because I knew she was originally from Yemen. Maybe they thought I had a vendetta against America because of Edward Snowden or the WikiLeaks guy.

  Help! Really, I wanted to shout. I started clawing at my head, as though if I could make an opening the craziness would be able to get out. When someone eventually came along – might have been five minutes or fifty – I wanted to hug them.

  Do what you like, but don’t leave me on my own.

  37

  The American Predator was brought down over the sea somewhere south of Clacton at eighteen minutes before midnight. It had made its way from South Creake down the east coast undetected, only spotted when it changed course to head west over water towards London. Whether it was on pre-programmed automatic pilot, or Angel, who was still ‘at large’, had retained control of the drone, was unclear. What was clear was that it got very close … too close …

  By the time the story was relayed to me, the panic was over. A British Eurofighter had shot the drone out of the sky. Bang! The on-board Hellfire missiles didn’t detonate and no one was hurt. I thanked an unknown god, so grateful that Angel hadn’t got the chance to wield the weapon I’d handed to her so proudly. I hated myself.

  Other people hated me too. Two men in suits – no tape, no lawyer, no Dad – were grilling me. No pretence at being nice. They were too angry for that. A little girl, all in the name of avenging her dead grandmother, had audaciously stolen an armed drone from a superpower, flown it across the sea, taken it on a tour of Norfolk (they found various satellite recordings of it killing time), disabled London Transport with a DDoS, got the capital on the run, let the deadline pass and almost managed to strike her target. (It’s hard not to make it sound too impressive.) She wasn’t in the room to take the flak, so it all landed on me.

  The men in suits were much more thorough than the commander and his crew, going through every day of my life using my computer and laptop to prompt me, using emails, other people’s Facebook status updates, even the news. It didn’t help.

  ‘I didn’t know anything about Angel or the plan,’ I said, again. ‘I thought she was a he. I thought it was a show-off thing. Hackers do that sort of stuff.’

  ‘Are you showing off now?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘The game’s changed, Dan,’ said the slightly fatter of the identically dressed interrogators. ‘The law’s not clear about cyber crime against foreign governments, but an attempted drone attack on home ground … that’s an offence we can prosecute. You’re looking at charges. You’re looking at a stretch inside.’

  If they were trying to frighten me, it was working. Ty’s prediction that I’d be the next Gary McKinnon seemed all too real.

  Someone brought us coffee and toast. Guaranteed, I’ll always remember where I had my first cup of hot caffeine – something I’d always avoided because of the tobacco stink. It was disgusting, as I expected.

  ‘Once again, Dan, go through everything you can recall about the session where you were issued the challenge …’

  They kept asking the same questions in different ways, hoping I’d trip up. On what?

  ‘How did you find out about the stolen drone?’

  I gave the same answer for the nth time.

  ‘Did you attempt to access a drone again?’

  ‘Only because I thought I might be able to wrestle it back.’ It sounded so stupid, like I was a character from a Marvel comic.

  They were on me like piranhas. Stupid Dan! I’d tripped myself up. All along I’d kept the secret about the few seconds in control of a Predator …

  We went back over each hack – the spy satellite, the surveillance drone, the combat drone. Then back over the botnet scenario. It went on and on.

  ‘Are you sure you weren’t trying to join in? Two drones are better than one.’


  ‘Why did you keep meeting Angel on #angeldust if you knew they were planning a DDoS?’

  ‘I was interested in what they were doing,’ I said. Lame. Lame.

  The goading was the most difficult to deal with.

  ‘It’s an outrage that civilians are killed by drones, isn’t it, Dan? You’d think the operators would be able to tell the difference between an insurgent and a little old lady? Someone should take a stand.’

  Put like that, anyone would side with Angel, but I said nothing. I’d finally got the idea that the less I said, the less they could twist.

  ‘You were in it together from the start. You helped her build the botnet, didn’t you?’

  In between bouts of utter despair, when I imagined they’d never let me out to breathe the Bristol air again, the thinking part of me could see that to a policeman, anyone doing anything so … risky … flamboyant … just for the sake of it was unbelievable. They dealt in another world where people had proper motives – revenge, money, sex, drugs. Certainly not keyboard supremacy. We were from different planets.

  ‘May as well get this done,’ said the fatter one, wiping the droplets of sweat from his forehead.

  What did he mean?

  The other one got up. I shifted backwards in my chair. Unless you count the scuffle at Amelia’s party, I had zero experience of being beaten up.

  He turned and went out of the door.

  Calm down, Dan.

  ‘He’s getting your solicitor.’

  The return of Graham Sommers wasn’t anything to get excited about.

  Except it wasn’t Graham.

  ‘Leave us,’ said the stranger, who was bald and wide and wearing an incredibly crumpled suit. ‘You’ve ignored procedure to date but it’s by the book from now on.’

  That got rid of them tout de suite. I liked him already.

  ‘Charlie Tate,’ he said, sticking out his hand and smiling. ‘Good to meet you, Dan. Your dad’s told me what he knows but I need to hear it in your words – everything, from the beginning.’