I found myself saying, ‘I really am very clever. It wasn’t that difficult once I’d found a window in Afghanistan.’
That was when I really lost her.
It’s a weird feeling to not be able to convince someone you’re serious. Nightmarish. Having decided to confess, being patronised like I was a little kid was frustrating as hell. I understood why people banged their heads against walls, really I did.
My word wasn’t enough – I needed proof.
Leaving no footprint is an art. What I needed were dirty great muddy boots for the police to make a mould from. Not for the first time, or even the fiftieth, I wished I’d never had a conversation with Angel. Boasting about Pay As You Go online was the worst thing I’d ever done.
Hallelujah! Cancel that. It might just have been the best thing …
30
I trawled back through my email for the only mobile number I ever got sent. All my other Pay As You Go customers had given me their numbers face to face, or via a friend, and paid cash. Angel was the only ‘stranger’ that I got free credit for. I had his number. His email was probably spoofed, but his number … maybe not. I thought about ringing it, but what would I say?
‘Are you the idiot with the combat drone that dragged me down with you?’
I thought about ringing PC Helen Perry but she’d got as much of a clue about me as the psychiatrist who prescribed my white pills when I was nine.
Several thoughts later, I realised that no one was going to take any notice of me unless I gave them real Angel, as opposed to virtual Angel. If his phone was still in use, and still his, I could find out where he was. First task was to identify the network and try to find him through location-based services. If not, somehow the HLR (the Home Location Register) and the VLR (Visiting Location Register) were bound to give me what I needed … although it might take a while.
What was I waiting for?
He’ll have changed his number … said the doubter in my head. Maybe. But I’d forgotten all about our first transaction. Maybe he had too.
Just like when I attacked the reconnaissance satellite system, first of all I tidied. It’s easier to think with a calm mind (the Dalai Lama tweeted that). I put my laptop parallel with the right edge of the desk, centred my computer, shoved everything else on the floor, closed the curtains, lowered the lights (with the dimmer switch I installed myself) and randomly chose Russell Howard as background. (Music makes me sing – can’t code and warble.) I almost got down to it in my clothes but I’d made that mistake on an all-nighter before. I grabbed my ’jama bottoms and the manky T-shirt with the washed-off reindeer on it that I like because it’s soft. Ready, steady, go!
Time doesn’t obey any rules when you’re coding. I ate Oreos. Drank Coke. Put on ‘filthy Frankie Boyle’ – Mum’s words – but didn’t register a single gag. I needed to find what mobile operator Angel was with before I could try to find him. Servers, code, more servers. At some point I could smell my own breath – rank. I got up and fetched some water. I carried on working in silence apart from the tapping – too engrossed in the task to select more background noise.
Light filtered through the gap in the curtains. Day was close. So was I.
Angel’s phone was in Norfolk! Somewhere in that lump on the right-hand side of England. The cell site gave me a five-mile circle that he was somewhere inside. But phone technology is better than that. Power levels and antenna patterns closed him down. In a city I’d have got a street, but Angel was in the middle of a lot of green. The only house, in fact.
I checked the data. Brought the location up on Google satellite. Nearest village – South Creake. The time was 7.11 (like the shop).
The doorbell went. I ran downstairs. It felt good to move even though I misjudged the last step and landed legs splayed like a newborn foal. It was the deliveryman who brings the Amazon parcels, ordered by Dad.
‘Morning,’ said Mum from the kitchen. I went in, dumping the package on the table.
‘You’re up early,’ she said.
‘Hungry,’ I said. I had the light-headed feeling that makes everything appear not quite grounded. Eating would be good. I’d found Angel. Now I had to decide who to tell, and how to convince them.
I got a bowl and filled it with milk, about to start the Weetabix routine. Dad shuffled in wearing his fake Uggs.
‘Isn’t it the holidays?’ he said.
I nodded.
On the radio the Today programme man that Dad likes to shout at was talking.
‘London is, this morning, uncharacteristically quiet. Many commuters have avoided the city as have —’
My spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.
Dad said, ‘Shhh!’
I moved my arm at snail speed, like an astronaut, but another look at Dad’s face made me reconsider. I knew I had Angel in my sights but the rest of the world thought there was still a terror threat. I needed to shape up, get back upstairs and save the world. The report droned (ha!) on.
I abandoned the soaking-up-the-milk ritual, ate two more Weetabix in four mouthfuls, picked up my bowl, shoved it in the dishwasher and was half out of the door —
‘Any plans for today?’ said Mum. ‘El’s at holiday club so you’re on your own, I’m afraid.’
The Confessional Tourette’s raised its head. I mentally decapitated it.
‘Revision. And I’m seeing Ty and Joe.’
‘Not Ruby?’ said Dad, sideways tilt of the head and a wink.
‘Maybe,’ I said, adopting the usual tactic of keeping everything in the garden rosy.
‘See you later,’ said Mum.
I escaped upstairs. The movement of the air circulated the stench from my armpits quite nicely. Old-man stink. It made sense to wait till the parents had gone out before I made THE call, so I took a shower.
The boiling hot water was better than normal. I even washed my hair.
The capital of Great Britain was quaking in fear, but a tall, thin boy in an average-sized city was about to catch the perpetrator through wile and cunning. Soon as I was dry, as long as the house was empty, I’d get on the phone to … Scotland Yard. Why not? It was national security stuff.
I felt euphoric, like a manic-depressive in the manic bit. (Except it’s bi-polar now.) (Joke: Bi-polar.com seems to be down. Oh, no sorry, it’s back up again.) But somehow underneath I knew it wasn’t what I should be feeling. I think the lack of sleep had got to me. It is, after all, a method of torture, affecting co-ordination, reaction time and judgement.
I had a T-shirt half over my head when the doorbell went again. I could guess who it was … I went to let my mates in. But it was another delivery.
‘John Langley,’ he said.
I nodded.
‘Shall I leave it round the back?’
I glanced at the huge box. What had Dad bought now?
‘Yes, please.’
‘Cluck, cluck,’ he said, as I shut the door.
It was the chicken coop. I’d forgotten that El had negotiated no Easter eggs in exchange for being allowed four chickens.
‘Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan police force,’ it says on their website. ‘A metonym is a word, name or expression used as substitute for something else with which it is closely associated,’ it says in Oxford Dictionaries.
I rang the number from the house phone, sitting on the bottom stair with my laptop on my knees. No re-routing this time. Cards on the table. A woman answered and I explained I had vital information about Dronejacker. I gave her my name and address. She put me straight through – no waiting, no music. I spoke slowly and clearly to someone from the New Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), admitting my part in Dronejacker’s plan. He didn’t interrupt at all, so I found myself saying, ‘Are you still there?’ before I told him the best bit.
‘Yes, Dan, I’m listening.’
‘I know where Dronejacker is. I hacked his phone. That means I can give you GPS co-ordinates or the postcode. Both!’
There was a short sil
ence. Not what you expect when you’ve just revealed the Cluedo murderer.
‘OK, I’ll jot down both of those now.’
Jot?
I used the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet to make sure there was no mistake.
‘November Romeo two one …’
‘I’ve got all that,’ said the man from NCCU. ‘Many thanks for your call, Dan.’ His tone said everything. I may as well have been ringing to complain about the phone coverage in my house or the weather.
‘I’m not a malicious caller. It’s the truth.’
‘We appreciate the call and will follow up the information you’ve provided. Thank you again.’
Unbelievable!
I banged my head against the newel post to see if pain helped … was wondering how I knew the correct name for the wooden pillar at the bottom of the stairs when the bell rang. As I twisted the latch, the door hurtled towards my face. I let out a little involuntary squeal. It was Joe, at speed. He was followed by Ty.
‘You didn’t find the drone, did you?’ Joe asked.
I shook my head. ‘The code didn’t work. They must have identified the weakness in the server.’
‘Will that stop Angel?’ asked Ty. He was flushed. Panicky.
More head shaking. ‘Not if he’s already got the drone.’
‘Did you call anyone?’ said Joe.
I nodded. ‘They didn’t believe me.’
‘Didn’t you show them the code?’ Ty was livid with me. A law-abiding boy like him would have known how to make them listen.
‘The people who answer the phones are like … customer services. They don’t understand. Thought I was attention-seeking. I tried Crimestoppers and the police.’
‘Are you telling the truth?’ asked Joe. Nice to have friends that believe in you!
‘I’m not an idiot,’ I said.
‘Debatable,’ said Joe.
‘Shut up,’ said Ty. ‘There must be a way of showing them that you’re for real.’
‘There’s more.’ I took a deep breath in and as it whistled out I said, ‘I’ve found Angel.’
‘What?’ said both voices.
I explained about the phone and showed them the street view on Google Maps. And then I explained that I’d just rung Scotland Yard.
‘Brilliant,’ said Ty, clearly relieved. ‘Well done. Did they say what they were going to do?’
They’re sending a fast black car to whisk me off to HQ where I’m going to brief the team …
‘They took the details,’ I said. My voice was flat, like my mood. ‘I don’t think they’re going to do anything.’
Ty swore – a rare thing.
‘There has to be a way to get through to someone who’ll realise you know what you’re on about,’ said Joe.
‘Do what he did,’ said Ty.
For once my brain was slow to interpret the short sentence that would change my life forever.
‘Good one,’ said Joe. ‘Hack the BBC, Dan. Come on, now!’
Joe made toast and Nutella. He brought it up and the three of us sat round my computer, me coding my way to celebrity status, Ty working on the words, Joe eating.
‘Add a photo of you so they can see you’re normal,’ said Ty.
‘You’d need a photo of someone else to do that,’ said Joe, as I quickly put a hoodie over my reindeer top and dragged on jeans.
‘It’s not funny,’ said Ty. He kept squinting, and shifting about on his chair. Even though I was the one in a mess, he was the most stressed.
What we ended up with was a headline, some explanation underneath, a picture of me, and the satellite picture of Angel’s ‘current whereabouts’ in deepest Norfolk. The words were a bit plonky, but between us we didn’t have a whole lot of experience of ‘media’ talk, or a lot of time, which made the hack a bit plonky too.
‘Only thing is, Angel’s going to see this too,’ said Ty. ‘He’ll get away.’
‘He won’t get far,’ I said. ‘Anyway, what else can I do?’
It was 10.37 a.m. when I replicated Angel’s method of communication – but I wiped the BBC’s whole site. It was quicker than trying to isolate the news.
The person, known as Dronejacker, threatening to strike London at twelve noon with a missile fired from a stolen American drone calls himself Angel. He is a Black Hat. He recruited other hackers online by setting them challenges. I am one of them. I had no idea what he was planning. There are other people out there like me, I believe. We are innocent. Angel is in this house near South Creake, Fakenham, Norfolk.
I inserted the image from Google Maps and the GPS co-ordinates.
I am an elite hacker, but a White Hat. Please take me seriously. My name is Dan Langley and I live in St Albans Road, Bristol. I am 16. I tried to report him but no one took me seriously. Go and get him!
It had just gone live when Joe, who had totally got into the whole hacking scene, had an idea.
‘If Angel’s there now, can you see him on the spy satellite?’
‘Dan’s locked out, remember?’ said Ty.
‘Not necessarily,’ I said, not bothering to explain that although I couldn’t get into the server with the combat drones, last time I tried I could still get into the US Military network.
A bit of furious key-tapping later, I had not only strolled back in with my old lines of code, like I did when I was looking for the hit-and-run van, but I’d used Angel’s GPS co-ordinates and found a camera covering the area.
‘Is that the live feed?’ asked Joe, clearly thrilled. (Makes you wonder what he’d do if he could code.)
‘Yes.’ I leant back in my chair. We all stared at the screen. Nothing moved. Not us. Not them.
Then the world went mad.
31
We had the satellite feed live on my computer and different browsers open on my laptop and our three phones. I won’t even try to put what happened next in any order. We were everywhere. (Note the ‘we’. Somehow being with Joe and Ty gave me a sense of shared responsibility.) (This was only in my head.) Calls to the house phone, mobile, on Sky News, CNN, Reuters, messages from Mum, Dad, Ruby, the subject of every new Facebook status, my name on every website, trending on Twitter with #danlangley and #dronejacker …
We didn’t respond to anything, just watched the word spread like a virus.
‘This is freaky,’ said Joe.
‘It’s like a tsunami,’ said Ty. I was thinking the same thing. My statement was the underwater earthquake, and we were seeing the rising tide – like the fact that my Pay As You Go past was already all over Twitter. Hell, even photos of me as a kid had appeared online. Wave after wave of stuff appeared.
‘You should call your parents back,’ said Ty.
‘Mum must be delivering a baby or she’d have rung again. Dad’ll be on his way home. I’ll talk to him then.’
‘What are you going to say?’ said Joe. ‘Sorry’s not going to cut it.’
I laughed. It was inappropriate, like when people giggle at funerals. It’s tension.
Prefect Ty started to coach me, worried about the amount of trouble I was in.
‘Keep repeating the fact that you didn’t know the grand plan. Make them realise —’
‘Look! Something’s happening.’ Joe pointed at the satellite feed that was zoomed in on Angel’s location. A car was driving up the road towards the isolated house. It stopped not far from the building and four figures got out and scattered. Something about the way they were moving made me suspect they were armed.
‘It’s a sting operation,’ said Joe.
I could hear that music they play in films that makes your heart speed up, except there was no soundtrack.
Two figures approached what was presumably the front door. The other two hung back. It was hard to believe it was real. Hard to believe we were witnesses.
And then a car drew up outside my house. I glanced out of the window and saw the number on the roof, and blue and neon yellow all over the side. Heart-stoppingly worse, Ruby was
on the other side of the road. I could already hear her friends’ voices saying, ‘You’re better off without him.’ I wanted to beat them to it, tell her they were right, but I was sorry. Tell her that I was also the sort of guy that looked after his sister and couldn’t hurt a bunny rabbit.
I switched my attention back to the screen. The image wasn’t angled right to see if anyone had answered the door at Angel’s house.
‘It’s the police, Dan,’ said Joe, as though I’d somehow missed the squad car outside my house.
‘I can’t get involved,’ said Ty. ‘I want to be a doctor.’
We heard the car doors shutting.
‘We can go over the back,’ said Joe. ‘Come on.’
‘OK,’ said Ty. ‘Good luck, mate.’ He gave me a hug. Joe did the same. They left me, Dan the Hacker, to deal with the police. I looked back at the screen. The two figures at the door had disappeared – gone inside, I supposed, leaving the other two outside, one at the back, one near the road.
Did they have guns? Despite all the evidence against him, I didn’t want them to actually shoot Angel.
The doorbell rang. I jumped, but didn’t take my eyes off the screen. I was willing the Norfolk police to walk back out, escorting Angel. That’s what would happen in a film. Split-second timing would mean I could answer my door knowing that my brave confession had made the difference. Knowing that wherever the target was in London, it was safe.
Two loud knocks on the door came next. No change on the screen.
Dad’s BMW roared up the road and screeched to a halt. I heard another car do the same.
Damn! I dragged my eyes away and hurtled downstairs.
By the time I’d got to the front door, Dad was on the other side, his key making its familiar grind. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I wanted to go and hide under my bed, like pets on Bonfire Night. All the certainty that I could explain away my foolishness vanished.
32
Two cars – one nee-naw, one unmarked.
Five police officers.
Hacked Page 10