Boy Soldier

by Andy McNab

  She walked back to London Bridge and waited fifteen minutes for a train. She wanted to get back to Foxcroft and her computer. She had no idea if she would really be able to hack into Fincham's e-mail, but she was up for the challenge.

  The journey home took less than half an hour. She opened the front door and saw Dave the Rave standing in the hallway. 'We've been waiting for you,' he said without smiling. 'There's someone here to see you.'

  Elena couldn't believe it. They couldn't have found Danny not after the description she'd given. Maybe they'd traced one of the real muggers.

  'You'd better come with me to the office,' said Dave, and he turned towards the stairs.

  Elena followed Dave upstairs to the office. The door was closed. Dave turned the handle and pushed it open. 'In you go.'

  'Aren't you coming in with me?'

  Dave shook his head. 'I'll wait out here.'

  Elena stepped inside. A man dressed in a suit was standing by the window looking out to the street. Slowly he turned round. 'Hello, babe,' he said with a huge smile. 'Surprised?'

  Elena could hardly believe her eyes. 'Dad!'

  24

  Fergus was impressed when he saw the contents of the black plastic bag. It was similar to a target pack he would have been given when he was in the Regiment. Elena had given them the exact position of the target, with maps and information on how to get there.

  They'd waited until dark before fetching the sack from the skip and then Fergus decided there was no point in taking the risk of hanging around in London for another night. They had everything they needed to locate Colonel Meacher. It was time to move.

  On the late train to Norwich, they took all the operational precautions that were by now beginning to become familiar to Danny. Staying third party aware, travelling in separate carriages until Fergus was confident they were not being followed.

  When he eventually took the seat opposite Danny he nodded but said nothing. The train ploughed on through the night. They didn't speak, but caught snatches of conversation from other weary travellers. The final stop before Norwich was at the small town of Diss. Doors opened and slammed shut and the train moved slowly away. Danny stood up and looked around the carriage. They were alone. He slumped back down onto the seat and felt his bruised shoulder jar, painfully reminding him of his meeting with the three muggers.

  'You told me I should run away from a fight,' he said, shifting in the seat to get comfortable. 'But you were SAS, you didn't run away. You . . . you killed people.'

  Fergus reached into his bag, took out a couple of pre-packed sandwiches and handed one to Danny. 'The Special Forces aren't all about killing. It happens, but mostly it's about gaining information and destroying strategic targets. Most times, if you get into a contact with the enemy, it's because they're blocking your mission or your escape route and you've run out of other options.'

  'A contact?' said Danny. 'You mean a fight?'

  Fergus nodded.

  'And what then?'

  'Then you react with extreme speed and violence, so they're scared shitless. And you kill them before they kill you.'

  He saw Danny's eyes widen and he smiled. 'You asked, Danny,' he said. 'And seeing me limping around now probably makes it hard to believe. But that's what I was trained to do. Listen, when I was in the Regiment, every soldier I knew would rather dig a hole and hide than get involved in a contact with the enemy. It's all about survival, staying alive – exactly what we have to do. Now, are you gonna eat that sandwich or are you gonna sit there gawping at me all night?'

  Danny finished his sandwich just as the train arrived in Norwich. The station was quiet; the shops and bar were closed. They found a computer phone they could use to go online to Elena in the morning and then made their way out into the night.

  The city lights bounced off the dark river. Hordes of young people headed noisily towards nearby clubland. Girls wobbled along in micro skirts and high heels and shouted even louder than the leering, jeering lads shouting at them.

  Fergus took in the new surroundings. 'We need to find a—'

  'I know,' said Danny. 'LUP.'

  Behind the station was a Big W superstore. At the back was a bin area, filled with plastic wrapping and empty boxes. It would do.

  They went through the security drill before settling down and Danny volunteered for first shift on stag. He was feeling anxious. Uneasy. And when it was his turn to rest he found it impossible to sleep. Eventually he did drift off, but his dreams were troubled and violent, dreams of 'contact with the enemy'.

  As Danny slept, Elena worked at her computer. For hours she'd had to sit and listen while her dad amused and entertained Dave and Jane with his endless stream of jokes and stories.

  Joey was exactly as she remembered him and how her mum had described. Only more so. He was handsome and funny and as charming and cunning as a campaigning politician.

  He said he'd come to England on business. Elena knew what that meant: the business of getting his hands on as much of the money her mum had left her as he could.

  But not immediately. He was far too clever for that. That night was just the beginning of the operation. He was smooth. As smooth as a baby's arse, thought Elena as she watched him give Dave and Jane the full treatment. Carefully flattering. Gently flirting. It was no surprise when they offered him the use of the visitor's room for a couple of nights.

  His 'I couldn't possibly put you to all that trouble' was sincerely spoken because he knew full well they would insist. And they did.

  'Well, if you're absolutely certain,' he said with a smile worthy of a television toothpaste advert, 'it would mean I can spend as much time as possible with my darling daughter.'

  Elena wanted to throw up. She got away as soon as she could, saying she was tired. It was gone eleven when she went online. At two thirty in the morning she was still online. And getting nowhere.

  Maybe what she had told Danny was true. Maybe no site was safe, but hacking into the Intelligence Service was proving harder than she'd ever imagined.

  From the outset Elena knew that the Firm would never be accessed through the normal, surface Internet. She had to go to dark corners of the Deep Web to find the information she would need.

  She'd been there before, not as a hacker, but to find facts, to explore, to learn. Elena still had a printed-out paragraph she'd read online a couple of years earlier:

  Searching the surface Internet is like dragging a net across the surface of the ocean: much is caught in the net but much, much more remains deep on the ocean floor. There are more than two hundred thousand Deep Web sites, and sixty of the largest ones contain more than forty times the information of the entire surface web.

  The words had inspired her when she first read them and had continued to inspire her ever since. Elena had her future mapped out. After university she was going to make a name for herself as a computer scientist, but in the meantime she absorbed Internet information like a sponge sucking in water. And that included finding out how hackers operated, the language they used and the tactics they employed.

  She'd visited some websites where hackers receive credits for their successful attacks; and others where details of what's happening in the hackers' dark world and how they have been stopped can be found; and even cybercrime.gov, where the American Justice Department relates its successes in prosecuting hackers.

  But now she was trying it for herself. For real. It was dangerous, it was risky, it was illegal, but Danny and Fergus were existing outside the law and Elena was prepared to run any risk for them.

  First she had to hide her online identity, spoof her IP address, cover her tracks. Finding and downloading a program that enabled her to mask her IP address was relatively easy, but it took time, valuable time. And this was the easy bit.

  The minutes became hours as she hunted in dark corners for a script that would give her root access to the one place she wanted to go. She needed a script already written by an experienced hacker, an expert who would p
robably laugh at the tentative and fumbling efforts of a script kiddie like Elena.

  At three forty-five she heard a noise outside her bedroom window. She looked towards the chink in the drawn curtains and saw that the sky was beginning to lighten. The noise was birdsong.

  Elena was suddenly aware of how desperately tired she felt, but there was no way she was giving up. She found scripts of successful exploits and ran them, but nothing was right; she was getting no closer.

  Her eyes were red and sore and her brain was telling her to stop. She made herself focus and carry on, but tiredness crawled over her, sewing seeds of doubt and disappointment.

  'Why won't someone out there help me?' she whispered as she logged on to another site.

  It was the last thing Elena was aware of until the alarm clock on her desk started to ring. She'd set it for seven thirty to make certain she was online for Danny. She reached for the alarm clock and fumbled for the off switch, then looked at her dark computer screen. The machine had long since logged off and gone into standby mode.

  When Elena went online to Danny her latest screen name told him exactly how she was feeling:

  Useless says: (8:07:16 am)

  im sorry, I cant do it

  Danny looked at Fergus and saw him frown. 'It was worth a try.'

  Fergus nodded and Danny started to type, not bothering to change his screen name.

  Stockwell says: (8:08:02 am)

  not useless, if u cant no1 can

  Useless says: (8:08:31 am)

  swot I thought. big head or wot? O yeah, n my dads here, all I need, it's a nightmare

  'Danny, we haven't got time for this,' said Fergus. 'You'll be talking about the weather next. If she's got nothing for us, then we're off.'

  'But she hasn't seen him for years.'

  'Well, then let's hope their reunion goes a bit better than ours has. Now, come on!'

  'Two minutes, that's all.'

  Danny went back to the keypad.

  Stockwell says: (8:09:05 am)

  u ok wiv that

  Useless says: (8:09:18 am)

  just. look I wanna try again 18ter. 2morrow might ave something 4 you

  Tell her no,' said Fergus. 'We're visiting friends tomorrow and can't make contact like this. If all goes well, you'll be online the day after.'

  Stockwell says: (8:09:47 am)

  cant do. visiting 2morrow. day after. got 2 go, take care

  Useless says: (8:10:04 am)

  u 2. bye then xx

  Danny logged off and ten minutes later they were on a local train to the seaside town of Cromer.

  'Why stop here?' asked Danny as they walked from the station into crowds of late season holidaymakers. It was hot and clammy, as if a summer storm was slowly building up its forces.

  'Because it's too early to get to where we're staying tonight. If we have to hang around it's better to do it in a crowd. We need a whole day for Meacher, time to recce and then make the approach. We do that tomorrow.'

  At the cliff top they looked down on the beach, where brave swimmers were splashing about in the grey, choppy North Sea. They moved down to the pier. Huge posters with pictures of 'stars' Danny had never heard of promised a night of fun, glamour and excitement at the 'Seaside Special'. It must have been popular with Cromer's elderly visitors: there was a long queue at the ticket office.

  Fergus found an empty wooden bench, gestured to Danny to sit next to him and then took out the map Elena had provided.

  'I know this area,' he said. 'Came here when I was a kid. I think we can find somewhere close to Meacher's place for tonight. He lives further along the coast. Very remote.'

  Danny stared out to sea. A huge freighter slowly moved across the horizon; closer to the shoreline white-sailed yachts ploughed through the waves.

  'What's up with you?' asked his grandfather.

  'I'm worried about Elena.'

  Fergus refolded the map and replaced it in his day sack. 'Look, she's all right. It's only her old man who's turned up, not the police. And you'd be better off worrying about yourself.'

  'You would say that. You've only ever thought of yourself. Never gave a toss about anyone else.'

  Fergus stood up and beckoned for Danny to follow him to the very end of the pier. They leaned on the railings. 'You're right, I never did care – not enough, at least. Not until I got back to the UK this time.'

  Danny turned to his grandfather. 'What, you're saying you cared about me?'

  'I wanted to know you were OK. I made enquiries, found out where you lived. I saw you a couple of times, outside Foxcroft.'

  'But why? What was the point if you never meant to meet me?'

  Fergus shrugged. 'Getting old, maybe. Or maybe I needed to know that not everything I was part of had turned out badly. I dunno, I wanted to, isn't that enough?'

  'No,' said Danny angrily, 'it's not enough. It's what you wanted, as usual. What about what I wanted? You never thought of that, did you? And what's the point of telling me now, anyway?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, suddenly I've got this caring granddad and guess what, he might well be dead tomorrow or the day after.'

  Fergus looked out at the freighter on the horizon. It seemed hardly to have moved. 'D'you fancy some fish and chips? Cromer's famous for its fish and chips.'

  Danny nodded.

  'Good,' said Fergus. 'And after that we need to get some more supplies and go to a garden centre.'

  'A garden centre? You taking Meacher some flowers?'

  Fergus smiled. 'Something like that.'

  25

  Elena was having the day from hell.

  Joey didn't come straight out with it. He spent the first few hours 'getting to know his beautiful daughter', as he put it.

  They went out for that big English breakfast he'd been looking forward to ever since he stepped off the plane from Nigeria. And then his 'get the cash' campaign began. Joey was smiling, joking, saying how wonderful it was they'd found each other again.

  And at first Elena was almost taken in. She did enjoy being with her dad. They went sightseeing and he told her stories of the family she'd never met back in Africa. She was fascinated and intrigued, just as he meant her to be.

  It wasn't until mid afternoon that the subject of money and her inheritance came up. He was so pleased that her dear mum had managed to leave a few pounds for her and he only wished he had money to spare too.

  'It doesn't matter, Dad,' Elena replied. 'It's just great to see you after all this time.'

  But Joey wasn't finished. 'But I can help, darling, and I want to – it's my duty as a father. There's an investment I have lined up that will double your money, guaranteed, maybe even treble it. Much better than leaving it in the building society with its miserable couple of per cent interest.'

  Elena's heart sank. If only he hadn't said that. If only Joey really had made the long journey back to England to see her and be with her.

  She listened in silence as he went on and on about the great wealth they would make by investing in his friend Sonny's scheme to export second-hand 'white goods' – fridges, freezers and washing machines – back to Nigeria.

  'You see, darling, in Africa we repair old white goods so they can be reused. It's not like the UK, where people throw them out after a few years because they want a new style or colour. It's a winner, babe, I'm absolutely certain of it. And believe me, I wouldn't risk your inheritance if I didn't trust Sonny like a brother.'