Hacked

by Tracy Alexander

  Two in uniform, three plain clothes.

  Four men, one woman.

  The time was 10.58 a.m.

  ‘Is it true, Dan?’ said Dad.

  I nodded my head.

  ‘This is a critical situation. You need to leave it to us,’ said the woman. She walked in, glanced at the doors off the hall, identified the kitchen and headed that way. A hand guided me after her.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  I sat down, so did she. Everyone else stood, except one man who stayed in the hall. Dad hovered.

  ‘This is how it’s going to go. We’re against the clock so we’re going to ask some questions now. You, Dan, are going to answer them as fully as you can, as quickly as you can. You’ll be taken down to the station at some point. You will get your legal representation as soon as we can get someone here but lives are at risk and that’s our overriding concern, and I hope yours. Right …’

  During her speech, beepers and phones were going off in every pocket. I could hear the man in the hall speaking but not what he was saying. I wanted to tell them that I’d seen the police at Angel’s house in Norfolk so there was no need to be so serious, but surely they knew that? And anyway, I was afraid that if I opened my mouth I’d be sick, or maybe faint.

  ‘Dan?’

  I looked across at the woman and made accidental eyeball-to-eyeball contact. Shame dragged my stare down to my knees.

  ‘I’m Inspector Janes. Dan, I need you to tell me about meeting Angel. Everything you can remember. I don’t want you to judge what’s useful and what isn’t. You are in serious trouble, as I’m sure you realise. But you can help yourself by being honest. Let’s start with what you know about the plan to steal combat drones.’

  I wasn’t in serious trouble. She didn’t mean that. I was the good guy. Angel was trapped in a house in Norfolk with marksmen trained on all the doors and windows because of me.

  ‘We’re waiting, Dan.’

  I glanced left to where Dad was leaning against the work surface. He nodded. I looked back at the policewoman. Short, dark hair, pale blue eyes, a navy suit. I focused just behind her shoulder, where I could see the jar of Marshmallow Fluff that had been left out, and started to speak. It didn’t take long. I didn’t tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Admitting the extent of the Pay As You Go scam wasn’t necessary. Nor was the tiny hack when I took control of a Predator just to check whether it worked.

  ‘You expect us to believe that you wrote some code to hack the controls of an American surveillance drone and passed it on to persons unknown without imagining they might have malicious intent?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that you know nothing else about Angel?’

  Dad’s phone went off. Inspector Janes flashed him a look. He ignored the unspoken command and picked up anyway.

  ‘Take it outside,’ she said. An order.

  Dad’s bravado vanished, and so did he.

  She checked her tablet. Asked one of the others a question. Checked again.

  ‘OK, let’s take this back to the shop,’ she said.

  ‘Dan Langley, I could arrest you on terror charges but I’m not going to … yet. At the moment you’re voluntarily helping with our enquiries. However, you need to come with us to the station to be interviewed, and we’re taking all your devices.’

  ‘Can my dad come with me?’ I said, stupid tears threatening to spill over my bottom lid.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  I needed to get a grip. I needed Dan with the quips to come back and make me feel better.

  Several conversations happened all at the same time. It was agreed that Dad would follow in his car, the man in the hall confirmed that my ‘brief’ would be waiting at the station, and the woman in charge answered her phone, listened, and then said, ‘Get onto the NCCU again. We need a digital investigator now.’

  I was escorted upstairs with two of the men to fetch my stuff. My head was oscillating between disbelief and wanting to throw myself out of the window.

  ‘How old are you then, Dan?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Sixteen,’ I said.

  ‘And you know how to hack a flipping drone,’ he said, shaking his head.

  It was a bit pointless to deny it, so I nodded.

  At the top of the stairs they waited for me to see which room was Hacker’s HQ.

  ‘In here,’ I said.

  My curtains were still drawn. One of them went to open them. Out of habit I tapped the keyboard to wake my computer up.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ said the other one.

  I dropped my arm down by my side. It immediately wanted to rise up, despite orders from my brain to stay put, because on the screen I saw a huge, dark shape pass over the cottage in Norfolk, quickly followed by two figures running to the house. I didn’t have time to use words, just made a noise. The cop by my side said, ‘What the …?’

  ‘Dr-drone,’ I stuttered.

  The other one moved fast, ran to the top of the stairs and shouted for Inspector Janes. She ran up.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ she said.

  Admitting guilt is hard. ‘It’s a satellite picture,’ I said.

  ‘Live?’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘It’s the house where Angel is. But you know that. The police are there.’

  ‘They’ve just entered the property,’ said the cop who’d seen what I saw.

  ‘Describe to me what you just witnessed, Dan.’

  ‘A large shape, that’s all. Dark. Moving fast over the house.’

  ‘I saw the same,’ said the cop. ‘Could be the drone … can’t imagine what else it was …’

  ‘Can you track it?’ she asked me.

  I shook my head. It was easier than trying to explain that sweeping satellites are no match for an object flying at speed, even knowing that the destination was London. Anyway, I had a better question for her.

  ‘Why haven’t they arrested him?’

  ‘Angel wasn’t there, Dan,’ she said. ‘The threat is still live.’

  That was the moment. My legs went like jelly – people say that but don’t really mean it. I’m not one of them. I had to lean on the back of my computer chair. I was so sure that Angel was in the bag. Learning that my confession was too late threw me completely.

  ‘Where is he, then?’ No one answered right away so I carried on. ‘His phone was there – when I wrote that stuff on the BBC, it was there. That was ten thirty-seven. It’s … eleven thirteen. Look … it’s all grass and hedges. He must be there.’

  ‘Back to base,’ said the inspector. ‘Now.’

  The two uniforms propelled me downstairs and out of the front door. I looked down in case any neighbours were staring. As I bent my head to get in the back of the unmarked car, my eyes flicked up. Ruby had gone but there were quite a few other people in the road. It was only when a camera pointed straight at me that I realised why.

  We drove off, with Inspector Janes in the front, talking on the phone, and a cop in the back with me. We drew up outside Southmead Police Station. I was taken inside and led to an interview room.

  ‘Dan Langley?’ said the man in the room – dark grey suit, absolutely no smile.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m the duty solicitor, Graham Sommers. The only thing standing between you and a cell.’

  33

  The tape machine was huge and black. The inspector took a cassette – seriously, a tape – and ripped off the see-through stuff before putting it in the machine. Bang! She did the same with the other side. Bang! When she pressed the button there was a long bee-eee-eep.

  ‘I’m Inspector Janes. Also here are …’ Everyone said their own name, me and Dad last.

  ‘John Langley.’

  ‘The father,’ she said.

  ‘Dan Langley,’ I said.

  ‘This interview is being taped because you are a suspect. You are not under arrest,’ she said. ‘You may leave at any time, although we wouldn’t recommend it. You don’t have
to answer any questions. You are here as a volunteer.’

  I was glad Dad was there to make sure they didn’t turn the tape off and thump me in the guts. They all hated me. Smart-arse kid, too much time, to waste, too little idea of right and wrong.

  Ten minutes into the interview, two of the officers were replaced by a cyber crime specialist called Dave and his sidekick, who’d arrived ‘by chopper’.

  Dave liked saying my name. And he liked it all explained, step by step. But at a pace. He smiled occasionally to encourage me, and rubbed his moustache. I kept my gaze firmly on him, because everyone else was too scary, including Dad.

  ‘… so, Dan, step by step, talk me through the second stage. You’d told Angel that you’d managed to breach US Military security to watch the feed from a reconnaissance satellite.’

  ‘That’s right, because I wanted to try and see what had happened to my friend.’

  ‘And Angel found out and then challenged you to hack a US drone?’

  ‘Yes. No, a drone. Not a US one specifically.’

  ‘But you chose to target an American drone?’

  ‘Because I already knew the way in.’

  Dave and his sidekick swapped glances.

  ‘No other reason,’ I added.

  ‘OK. Explain how you went about that, Dan, step by step.’

  As I talked, various people, including him, tapped their notebooks and tablets. I’d got to the bit where I’d found some big streams of data moving between Washington IP addresses and Afghanistan when the door was flung open and a huge man strode in.

  ‘Stop the tape.’

  What the hell?

  The tape made a clonk.

  He pointed at Dad. ‘Mr Langley?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dad.

  ‘We need you to leave the room while we cover some confidential developments.’

  ‘No,’ said Dad. ‘I’m staying with Dan. He’s a child.’

  I wanted to go and stand by Dad, grab his sleeve so he couldn’t leave me.

  ‘If you don’t leave this room, I’ll arrest Dan under the Terrorism Act and I’ll make sure he’s refused bail.’

  ‘He can’t do that, can he?’ Dad appealed to the completely silent Graham Sommers, off-duty solicitor up till then …

  ‘There’s a drone about to fire an American missile at an unidentified target in London. Your son admits to having provided the terrorist with the wherewithal to hijack the drone.’ He spoke in a monotone. ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to argue. If people die, your son is looking at life.’

  Life …

  Dave’s sidekick took Dad’s arm.

  ‘It’d be better if you came with me, sir. This situation is time-critical, as you know, and unless you want to be held along with your son …’

  ‘I will remain,’ said Sommers. (Not comforting.)

  I opened my mouth to plead but the big guy’s eyes were drilling into me. I swallowed instead.

  ‘I’ll be right outside,’ said Dad. He hesitated, then said, ‘If you know anything else, you have to tell them.’

  I was left in the room with Inspector Janes, Dave the moustache, the giant and my brief. Four against one.

  The giant took a chair, turned it round and sat with his arms leaning on the backrest. He rolled up the sleeves of his jacket like a football player. And then spoke. He wasn’t anything like I was expecting, luckily.

  ‘Dan, cards on the table. Let’s forget who I am and who you are and work together. I’m willing to believe you were a total idiot and supplied the code without thinking it through. I don’t want to talk about that. We’ve got forty minutes to make absolutely sure there’s nothing you’ve forgotten that could help avert a disaster on the scale of seven/seven. I don’t want you to be scared, I want you to talk and I want you to trust me. The tape stays off. Is that all right with you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s just a chat,’ the giant said to Graham Sommers, who nodded.

  ‘We need to know what the target is, Dan.’

  I wanted to help the giant, but I had nothing to say. I thought about confessing to the tiny hack that let me take control of the Predator, even though I knew (capital K) that it wouldn’t help, when he started talking again.

  ‘London’s in chaos … despite the thousands that have either left or not come into the city today, there are still millions in the capital. And the Underground ticketing system’s gone down …’ Cogs started whirring, then spinning. ‘… so everyone’s pouring out of the Tube onto the streets, desperate to —’

  I interrupted. ‘Was it a DDoS?’

  Dave nodded – big moustache rub.

  The giant leant closer.

  ‘Dan, I won’t be happy if you’ve kept information —’

  ‘I didn’t know it was connected,’ I said, in a hurry to make him see I was co-operating. ‘Angel was building a botnet the day he challenged me to hack the drone. But I didn’t know what site he was planning on taking down. They talked about eBay and Amazon. But it would make sense wouldn’t it? If no one can buy a ticket there are more people …’ I was about to say ‘in the line of fire.’

  The giant looked at Dave, who took over.

  ‘Let’s go back to that day. How did you find out Angel was building a botnet?’

  ‘They were all talking about how many bots they had.’

  ‘Who were?’

  ‘Angel,’ I said. ‘Someone called Expendable and one like a snake, not Viper but …’

  Come on, Dan. Think!

  ‘Anaconda – that’s it.’

  ‘Any more?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t notice their names.’

  ‘How many?’

  I tried to think how many people had been involved in the chat about possible targets for DDoSs.

  ‘Eight, maybe.’

  ‘And where did this chat take place?’

  ‘On IRC #angeldust. Angel told me to go there, but the channel disappeared when he did.’

  ‘Are you sure there was no mention of London Transport?’

  ‘None.’ I shook my head for emphasis.

  ‘Are Expendable and Anaconda friends of yours too?’

  ‘No. I only ever met them online with Angel.’

  The giant rested his elbows on the table, which brought his face close enough to headbutt me.

  ‘Dan you’ve just shown us that you know more than you thought you did. I need you to think back some more. Tell us anything you remember Angel saying.’

  All eyes on me.

  ‘We need to know what the target is, Dan.’

  Inspector Janes scrolled down on her tablet and showed the screen to the giant.

  He nodded.

  ‘Anything, Dan?’ His voice was still calm but the veins in his neck were bulging.

  I bit my lip. More than anything I wanted to please them … him, to suddenly remember Angel typing:

  Buckingham Palace would be fun to bomb

  Or:

  one in the Eye for London

  But there was nothing.

  The door opened again. A woman policeman (you know what I mean) said, ‘Commander, there’s an update from the Met.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said the giant, aka Commander.

  ‘The traffic is gridlocked on all arterial routes, there’s a marked escalation in panic because of the ticketing situation, resulting in crushing injuries at pivotal stations like Kings Cross and Victoria, and reports of looting in Oxford Circus. The army are on the move.’

  Even though the situation was getting worse by the minute, I felt better with the commander in control. He seemed to understand that I wasn’t to blame. Only a proper crackpot would have confessed on the BBC if he was in on it.

  I wracked my brains – topics we’d touched on … picked a random comment.

  ‘He once said I should damage the power supply when I didn’t want to go on a school trip.’

  Dave asked a few more questions, but I sensed the commander was done with me. I’d told the truth. They
were going to have to find Angel without me. After all, they were the police.

  ‘Isn’t Angel somewhere near the cottage?’ I asked, suddenly braver. ‘Only that’s definitely where his phone was and we saw the drone …’

  ‘The drone sighting is conjecture,’ said the inspector.

  The commander dropped a different kind of bomb.

  ‘Angel left the cottage as soon as your announcement went live, leaving the mobile behind. She had a —’

  ‘What do you mean “she”?’ They’d got the wrong person. Angel wasn’t a —

  ‘Bring him up to speed, Inspector.’

  The commander got up and wandered about with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. His stride was so long he had to turn every two steps.

  ‘Angel is assumed to be threatening London, or specifically its civilian population, as a protest against civilian deaths attributed to drones elsewhere in the world. She is eighteen, and of Yemeni extraction. Her family is helping with our enquiries, like yourself.’ The inspector paused. ‘Her target could be military, governmental or simply chosen on the basis of maximum collateral damage.’

  ‘The collateral is the target,’ corrected the commander. ‘Her grandmother was killed by an American drone, that’s the motivation.’

  My head was struggling to deal with the news that the ‘hacking buddy’ I’d spent so much time with was female. There’s no reason why a girl can’t be a hacker but being with Angel was like being with another me – it wouldn’t compute. Angel didn’t talk like a girl. She talked like Joe, but geekier. Wow! The whole Dronejacker thing done by … a witch. Credit where it’s due – she had me fooled on every level.

  The other stuff they told me took a while to register. When it did, the roller coaster I was on took a major dive.

  Real people in London, England, were going to be hit by a missile.

  Murdered.

  I’d been in denial, still thinking it was some kind of hoax. A Because-I-Can. Like the reciting Pi example? That’s how it was for me, so I assumed it was the same for Angel. I’d flirted with the idea that he (she) was a proper terrorist, but didn’t believe it deep inside … till now.

  Knowing she had a reason changed everything. Angel wanted the world, or London at least, to know what it was like to have the threat of a Hellfire missile hanging over you. At twelve noon she was going to pulverise random individuals, just like the Americans had. How many?