Hacked (14 page)

Easter Monday was sun sun sunny. The chickens laid their first eggs – well Darcey and Heather did, the other two were protesting at their names. Dad and I collided at breakfast. Mum had gone to the supermarket with El.

‘All right, Dan?’ he said.

I was managing the absorption of my third Weetabix, gunning for a dry bowl.

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘We’re impressed, your mum and I, at how you’ve handled it.’ He looked very earnest.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Working hard for your exams is the best thing you could be doing … but you could still go volunteering.’

‘As if!’ I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing,’ was what I meant to say, but the Confessional Tourette’s was back and this time it was in control.

‘Ruby doesn’t want to see me, and none of the old codgers will talk to me now I’m a terrorist.’

Dad stuttered a bit, as unused to me saying how it
really was as I was to saying it.

‘You’re not a terrorist. No one’s pressing charges. It was a mistake. A stupid, irresponsible act. Your friends will see that, once the fuss is over.’

‘Friends like Ty, you mean?’ My tone was aggressive. I wanted to stop but the genie was out of the lamp.

‘What’s going on with him, then?’

‘Have you seen him lately?’ I asked. ‘Have you noticed him popping round to see how I’m doing?’

That got Dad fired up too.

‘Are you saying you’ve fallen out? Your best mate from —’

‘If blanking you is falling out, then yes, we’ve fallen out. Big time.’

‘If that’s the case he can at least say it to your face. And mine. Come on, get in the car.’

Dad stood up. I didn’t.

‘I’m serious,’ he said.

For once, Ty’s dad wasn’t in the middle of the tyres and pallets. At the front door, which we’d normally push at the same time as hollering, Dad rapped three times. It was excruciatingly embarrassing but I’d had no say in it. Dad was on a mission.

Ty’s mum came to the door.

‘Oh!’

‘Hello,’ said Dad. ‘I thought we’d pay a visit as we haven’t seen any of you for a couple of weeks … not since Dan’s bit of trouble, funnily enough.’

Her face went red. ‘Well …’ she couldn’t seem to find the next word.

Ty’s brothers arrived at the door. ‘Hi, Dan,’ they said together.

‘All right?’ I said.

‘Come in,’ said Ty’s mum.

‘Thank you,’ said Dad.

Ty came halfway down the stairs at a pace and then slowed when he saw us. Ty’s dad came out of the downstairs loo, wiping his hands on his trouser legs. That made seven of us.

‘We came to see if there was some sort of problem … as we haven’t seen you,’ said Dad.

No one wanted to answer him. It was actually funny. A demonstration of how people are happy to slag you off behind your back but to your face …

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ty’s mum, ‘but this isn’t the first time Dan’s been in trouble and I don’t want Ty getting involved
again
.’

I looked up at Ty. ‘Mum, you’re going to have to stop blaming Dan for that fight,’ he said. ‘We were nine, and the pumpkin started it.’

(I was Woody and Ty was Buzz. The pumpkin didn’t stand a chance.)

‘It’s the only time I’ve ever been asked to come into school and I was ashamed. Anyway, this is different,’ she said. ‘Dan was arrested.’

‘But not charged,’ I said. ‘Helping with enquiries in the end, that’s all.’

Ty smiled. That gave me courage. I’d been kidding myself, pretending not to be bothered, but I really didn’t want to lose my oldest friend and fellow
Toy Story
fan.

‘I know it looked bad,’ I said, ‘but I had no idea what she was planning – that’s why I wasn’t charged. As soon as I realised Dronejacker was the person I’d been chatting to, I had no choice but to … confess to the world.’

‘That
was
brave,’ said Ty, with a sideways look at his mum.

‘You shouldn’t have been messing with … drones and the like, anyway,’ she said. Nothing like stating the obvious.

‘He knows that,’ said Dad. ‘And we all know Dan, don’t we? Always been too clever for his own good.’ (Borrowing Gran’s words.) ‘But he’s not a terrorist, is he? So what’s with the cold shoulder?’

‘Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they?’ said Ty, looking from one parent to another.

‘That’s what you always say,’ added the twins, piling on the pressure.

Their mum wasn’t gagging to welcome me back into the fold but what could she do?

‘Do you want to come up?’ said Ty. ‘I’m revising. Only a week to go …’

‘Got time for a coffee?’ said Ty’s dad to mine.

After we’d all kissed and made up, we went straight to pick up Gran, who was coming to lunch.

‘All that fuss about Dronejacker was a lot of hot air,’
she said, in the gap between finishing the roast beef and giving us our Easter eggs.

‘It was a bit more than that,’ said Dad.

‘I remember
you
getting in a spot of trouble,’ said Gran, nodding at him.

‘Never,’ said Dad, with a mouthful of Yorkie.

‘Driving that boy’s moped round the village without a helmet when I was at the shops.’

‘I didn’t know the rules,’ said Dad. ‘I was only about thirteen.’

‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,’ said Gran, winking at me.

‘Of course it doesn’t,’ said El. ‘Apples don’t have wings.’

We were all happy. Oblivious to the fact that the eye had moved and we were bang in the path of the storm. Cue thunder and lightning.

‘Good luck,’ said Mum, giving me a big kiss.

‘Good luck to you, too,’ I said.

It was the day of my first GCSE, and Mum was finally going back to work. I’d arranged to meet Ty at the corner so we could walk together – Joe’s exams didn’t start for another day. I couldn’t wait to see Ruby, if only to erase the memory of the last time I saw her – standing across the road. That was five weeks ago. Five weeks since Angel had been on the run. I thought about her every so often. Wondered how you eat and sleep when you’re a fugitive, aged eighteen. But then again, Angel knew how to get people to do what she wanted.

‘Where’s your stuff?’ said Ty. He had a rucksack.

I had a pen, a pencil with a rubber on the end, a calculator and a ruler in a see-through wallet in my back pocket. I whipped it out.

‘No textbook?’

‘We know it all, don’t we?’

‘You’re something else,’ he said, rolling his eyes.

‘Doctors don’t carry around books to look stuff up in, they rem-emb-er it,’ I said.

He slapped me round the head and ran off. I chased and caught up with him at the entrance to Redland Park. A few other kids doing geography were on their way in, including Aiden, so we walked as a group.

There was a fair bit of joshing, only to be expected. But nothing too major. I sensed it had all been talked to death already. I was old news.

Ruby was standing, sideways on, outside the exam room. Like me, she had no bag, just a clear pencil case in her left hand. She turned, as though she knew I was looking, and smiled when she saw me. Maybe she was going to forgive me … I was, after all, innocent. Optimism flooded through my veins. I headed straight for her.

‘Hi.’ I locked my arms to the side of my body to stop me reaching out to touch her.

‘Hi, Dan.’

‘Got the four main forms of river erosion at the ready?’ I asked, with what I hoped was an engaging grin.

‘I’ll talk to you like I do everyone else but that’s it,’ she said. ‘Ty told me you were hacking and all that when we were together, so although I know you weren’t part of the plot to cripple London, you’re still a liar.’

‘I’ve stopped now,’ I said, with all the joy sucked out of me.

‘For how long? Until the next idiot bets you can’t … hack the president’s email?’

‘I mean it, Ruby. It was scary being dragged off to London and interrogated.’

‘Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you. You knew what you were doing was wrong.’

There was no answer that wasn’t a lie, and she didn’t want lies. The door opened and we trooped into the exam room. I was near the back on the right, she was further forward in the middle. Just like that day on the bus, I could see her twiddling her shiny hair and poking it behind her ear, only for it to fall forward again. I rewarded myself with a few moments staring at her between questions. The paper was easy. Even with my lovesick distractions I finished twenty minutes early. I took my eyes off Ruby and looked right, towards the windows. The vertical slatted blinds had been pulled across to keep out the sun. Through the gaps, I saw someone dressed in black and white walk past. I turned to look over my right shoulder hoping to spot the figure passing the next window. I heard the invigilator get up out of her chair but kept my stare where it was. The person in black and white flashed past, like a strobe effect.

‘Keep your head facing the front,’ whispered the invigilator. I did as she said.

There were loads of reasons why a uniformed policeman, or maybe it was a traffic warden, would be coming into school. A safety talk for the Year Sevens about strangers on the internet … A careers talk … A teacher’s car parked on double yellow …

Get a grip, Dan
.

I did the yogic breathing – ten minutes and I’d be on my way home for an afternoon of biology revision.

‘Over here, please, Dan.’

The head was standing waiting for me with an officer I recognised from the day I made my mad announcement on the world’s most trusted news channel. Why had I bothered? All I’d had since I’d ‘done the right thing’ was hassle. If I’d stayed anonymous, they’d never have found me. I’d routed my passage through the internet so that they wouldn’t even have known what country to look in, let alone which flipping number St Albans Road.

For once, I didn’t feel panicked, but angry. What was so urgent that they couldn’t have come to find me at home, unless they were in the game of maximum humiliation?

The policeman spoke but it was like the slatted blinds were in the way of my hearing.

‘… US issued extradition request … district judge … arrest warrant … reasonable grounds … extraditable offence … Westminster Magistrate’s Court … as soon as practical …’

I was aware of Ruby, watching. Mr Richards was ushering everyone else along but Ruby didn’t move.

‘What does it mean?’ I said to the head.

‘I’ve called your father – he’s on his way.’

‘I need to take Dan to the station and he can talk to his father there,’ said the officer. He moved as though he was going to take my arm. I stepped away.

‘I don’t think so,’ said the head. ‘It can’t be that urgent. We’ll wait in my office.’

He tried to protest but she hissed, ‘Let’s not make this any worse than it needs to be. While he is on school property,
I
make the decisions.’

She nodded at me and we walked in step, with him following. I chanced a look at Ruby. Could swear I saw tears welling up. She waved. Despite everything, seeing she cared gave me hope at what had to be another new low in my life to date. I waved back.

I’m going to shorthand a long, long day and night.

The Americans had asked for me to be bundled onto a plane, strip-searched and dressed in an orange boiler suit, before being thrown into one of their prisons the size of a British city because I’d made them look stupid. Or, in their words, I’d ‘misused’ my computer to ‘break into’ US Military networks and access government ‘hardware’, which I then shared access to. This was all explained to me, Dad and Charlie Tate at Trinity Road Police Station in St Phillips – a bit of Bristol I didn’t know. As was the fact that I was expected in court the next morning, in Westminster – government territory.

Back outside, Dad and Charlie had a quick chat on the pavement about the arrangements for going to London. When Charlie shook Dad’s hand, Dad held on to it.

‘Surely you can’t extradite a kid?’ he said. ‘He’s sixteen!’

‘Anyone can be extradited unless they are deemed too young to have committed the offence,’ said Charlie.

Unreal. The whole thing was unreal.

At home, we had a subdued tea at which Dad declared, ‘This family won’t survive unless we keep things as normal as we can. El will go to school. We will go to work. Dan is not going to be extradited. On my life, Dan is not going anywhere.’

I liked it when he said that. It made me feel safe. Unfortunately the feeling didn’t last. I spent the night lying in darkness with my head playing a loop of movie scenes mostly involving gangs of convicted murderers crowding round my cell and the guards egging them on while they beat me up. Daybreak couldn’t come soon enough. By a quarter past five I was in the garden, where by some ironic miracle Dronejacker appeared to have laid her first egg.

Dad and I were driven to Westminster Magistrate’s Court by Charlie, who arrived with three McDonald’s breakfast baps on his lap and a tray with three coffees.

‘Thanks, but I’m not sure we can eat, Charlie,’ said Dad.

‘Trust me, I’m a lawyer,’ he said.

We’d eaten the lot by the time we got to the Swindon junction of the M4. Charlie clearly did know best.

As we drew up outside the concrete and glass building, I nearly lost it. In fact, I wanted to lose it. I wanted to be dragged in, kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to have to find the courage to propel myself.

‘You’ll be fine,’ said Charlie. ‘This is a formality.’

Dad was on mute.

We went through security, up the stairs and straight in to the court. I had to stay behind a solid Perspex screen with an ugly minder, presumably so I couldn’t attack anyone. When the magistrate came in, I stood, confirmed my name and she read the content of the extradition request, checking to make sure I understood what it meant.

I was granted bail to appear five weeks later, so I could finish my GCSEs first – considerate of them! The whole thing took about seven minutes.

On the way out, Charlie said, ‘At least they didn’t keep you in custody.’ Thankfully, I hadn’t realised that was an option. My clear and logical brain was finding it hard to keep all the balls in the air.

Through the huge glass doors of the building, I could see the press gathered outside. Charlie puffed up his chest, tried to smooth the crumples in his jacket and strode out to take advantage of his moment in the spotlight … and he was good. Dara O’Briain, but without the gags or the Irish.

‘The US authorities are targeting young British geeks, of whom the latest to draw their attention is Dan Langley. Extradition laws were meant for terrorists, not kids exploring the internet from their bedrooms. The Americans would be better employed focusing their attentions on the vulnerabilities in their security systems than on those who expose them. The shabby law, passed in haste, which allows the US authorities to summon whomever they choose, is one-sided in the
extreme. The burden of proof, which underpins British law, barely exists in the powers our government has handed to the Americans, in what was a poorly-
thought-through
knee-jerk reaction to increasing threats of terror. I would ask the Home Secretary to quickly and decisively reject the extradition request and leave Dan Langley to continue with his GCSE exams.’

Nice touch – reminding them that I was a mere schoolboy.

By quarter to twelve we were back in Bristol, having spent the journey discussing the Extradition Act 2003, punctuated by Charlie yelling at various people on his hands-free. One of the callers warned him that there were paparazzi outside his office so we went to Costa for what he called ‘a proper debrief’.

‘There’s considerable precedent for keeping you out of the clutches of the Americans. Your age, your ADHD, and your lack of intent all work in your favour. This isn’t about you, Dan, it’s a cyber war. It’s about Edward Snowden, it’s about Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, as well as the likes of Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love. It’s about secrets and surveillance, and it’s about a loss of control and an escalation of fear amongst those unused to being disobeyed.’

‘What are the stats?’ I said, licking the chocolate powder off my top lip. ‘What are the odds I win?’

‘I can’t say,’ said Charlie. ‘Ultimately, it depends on the Home Secretary – but good, the chances are good.’

‘Only good?’ I said, needily. (Not sure why I asked,
given how wide of the mark he was about the police leaving me alone.)

‘There are no guarantees, Dan. People are fickle. Politicians more so.’

‘What will happen at the hearing?’ asked Dad.

‘Discussion as to whether the offence is extraditable, checks of the documentation and, importantly, whether the extradition would be compatible with Dan’s human rights.’

‘Is it a human right to stay with your parents?’ I asked. ‘If you’re a child.’

‘The right to a family life is covered by the European Convention on Human Rights, and whilst that doesn’t stop you being imprisoned, your right to regular contact should be a consideration.’

‘And that would be impossible if we were here and Dan was in the States,’ said Dad.

They carried on talking but I held on to my human right to have regular contact with my family. I’d never been quite so grateful to have them. (That is not a sarcastic comment.)