Marjory Graham did not waste time, explaining that the American ambassador was due at ten and Sir Adrian needed to be brought ‘up to speed’. He already knew about the breaching of US cyber-security three months earlier but not about the recent events on his home territory. She gave him a short but thorough run-down on what had happened in a northern suburb of Luton.
‘This family, where are they now? he asked.
‘At Latimer.’
He was familiar with the small and picturesque village on the border of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. Just outside the village limits is an old manor, taken over by the government during the Second World War as a lodgement for captured senior German officers. They had lived in genteel surroundings and chatted among themselves out of sheer boredom. Every word had been recorded and the information had proved very useful. After 1945 the manor was retained and operated as a safe house for Eastern Bloc defectors of importance and as such was run by MI5. In that world the word ‘Latimer’ was enough.
Sir Adrian wondered if the Director General of MI5 would be best pleased to have a problem family with no security clearance dumped upon him at short notice. He doubted it.
‘How long will they be there?’ he asked.
‘As short a time as possible. The problem is twofold. What on earth can we do with them? And then, how shall we play it with the Americans? Let us start with the first. Reports from the house say that the residents are four and, given the set-up of the computer room in the attic and the initial impression given by the elder boy, it is likely that he is responsible. He is, let us say, mentally fragile. He seems to have withdrawn into an almost catatonic state and we shall have to have him clinically examined. Then it will be a legal question. What can we charge him with, if anything at all, with a hope of conviction? So far, we just do not know.
‘But the Americans are not in a forgiving mood. If precedents are anything to go by, they will want a rapid extradition followed by a US trial and a very long custodial sentence.’
‘And you, Prime Minister, what do you want?’
‘I want to avoid a war with Washington, especially given the man who now sits in the Oval Office, and I want to avoid a scandal over here with the public and the media taking the side of a vulnerable teenager. What do you think? So far?’
‘So far, Prime Minister, I do not know. As an eighteen-year-old, the boy is technically an adult but, given his state, it may be that we need to consult his father, or both parents. I would like to have a chance to talk to them all. And to listen to what the psychiatrist says. In the short term, we have to ask the Americans to give us a few days before going public.’
There was a knock, and a head came round the door. A personal secretary.
‘The American ambassador is here, Prime Minister.’
‘In the Cabinet Room. Five minutes.’
The Americans were three, all seated, and they rose as the Prime Minister and her small team of four entered. Sir Adrian came in last and sat at the back. He was there to listen, and to advise later.
Like many US ambassadors in prize posts, Wesley Carter III was not a professional career diplomat. He was a big-time Party donor to the Republicans, scion of a family owning a commercial empire in cattle feed based in Kansas. He was big, bluff, genial and steeped in old-world courtesy. He knew the real negotiations would devolve upon the two men with him. These were his number two, the deputy secretary of the State Department, and his legal attaché, a position always filled by a member of the FBI. Greetings and handshakes occupied several minutes. Coffee was served and the white-jacketed staff withdrew.
‘Good of you to see us at such short notice, Prime Minister.’
‘Oh, come now, Wesley, you know you are always welcome here. So, the bizarre events out at Luton. Two of your own people were there. They have reported to you?’
‘They have indeed, Prime Minister. And “bizarre” must surely be an example of your British understatement.’ This came from the State Department man, Graydon Bennett. It was clear the two professionals would now take over. ‘But the facts are still the facts. This young man has wilfully inflicted staggering damage on our database system at Fort Meade that will cost millions to repair. We believe he should be extradited without delay to face justice.’
‘Very understandable,’ said Mrs Graham. ‘But your own legal system mirrors ours in this sense. The mental state of the accused can have a powerful effect on any case. So far, we have not had a chance to ask a psychiatrist or neurologist to meet with this teenager and assess his mental state. But your own two SEALs saw him at the house. Did they not mention that he seems – how shall I put it? – fragile?’
It was clear from the expressions across the table that the two SEALs who had spoken out of the Luton house by radio to the embassy had reported exactly that.
‘And we have the question of the media, gentlemen. So far they have not latched on to what happened out there, what we discovered. We would like to keep it that way for as long as possible. When they do find out, I think we both know we will face a media storm.’
‘So what are you asking, Prime Minister?’ said the legal attaché, John Owen.
‘Three days, gentlemen. So far, the father has not – what is the phrase? – “lawyered up”. But we cannot prevent him from doing so. He has his rights. If he hires a lawyer, the story will break. Then the trench warfare cannot be prevented. We would like three days of silence.’
‘Can you not keep the family in seclusion?’ asked Carter.
‘Not without their consent. That would make matters ten times worse in the longer term.’ The Prime Minister had once been a corporate lawyer.
Due to the time zones, it was still before dawn in Washington. The embassy team agreed they would confer and consult, secure a decision on a three-day delay and inform Downing Street by sundown, UK time.
When they had gone Mrs Graham gestured to Sir Adrian to stay behind.
‘Your take, Adrian?’
‘There is a man, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, out at Cambridge. Specialist in all forms of mental fragility. Probably the best in Europe, maybe the world. I think he should see the lad. And I would like to talk to the father. I have an idea. There may be a better option for all of us than simply sending the boy to a cell deep under Arizona for the rest of his life.’
‘A better option? What have you in mind?’
‘Not yet, Prime Minister. Could I go out to Latimer?’
‘Do you have a car?’
‘Not in London. I come up by train.’
The Prime Minister used the phone. There was a Jaguar from the ministerial car pool at the door in ten minutes.
Far away by the still-frozen White Sea is the Russian city of Archangel. Nearby is the shipyard of Sevmash in Severodvinsk. It is the biggest and best equipped in Russia. That day, muffled against the cold, the work teams were putting the finishing touches to the longest and most expensive refit in Russian naval history. They were completing and preparing for sea what would become the largest and most modern battlecruiser in the world; indeed, apart from the American aircraft carriers, she would be the world’s biggest surface warship. Her name was the Admiral Nakhimov.
Russia has only one carrier to the USA’s thirteen, the clapped-out Admiral Kuznetsov, attached to the Northern Fleet headquartered at Murmansk. She once had four huge battlecruisers, headed by the Peter the Great, or Pyotr Velikiy.
Two of these four are no longer in commission, and the Peter the Great is also old and barely functional. In fact, she was waiting out in the White Sea for the work at Sevmash to be completed so that she could take her place where the Nakhimov had lain for ten years while her multibillion-ruble refit was completed.
That morning, as Sir Adrian motored comfortably through the burgeoning spring countryside of Hertfordshire, there was a party in the quarters of the captain of the Admiral Nakhimov. Toasts were raised to the ship, to her new skipper, Captain Pyotr Denisovich, and to her triumphal pending voyage from Sevmas
h around half the world to flagship the Russian Pacific Fleet at its HQ at Vladivostok.
The following month she would fire up her mighty nuclear twin engines and cast off to emerge into the White Sea.
Chapter Three
WHEN THE ENTIRE Jennings family was detained at three in the morning, the attitude of the parents was one of utter bewilderment but also of obedience and cooperation. Not many people are jerked awake at that hour to find their bed surrounded by men in black with submachine carbines, their faces distorted by ghoulish night-vision goggles. They were frightened and did as they were told.
With the coming of daylight and the ride out to Latimer, that mood changed to anger. The two soldiers who rode with them could not help, nor the polite but non-committal staff at the Latimer manor house. So when Sir Adrian arrived at noon on the day of the house invasion at Luton, he met the full force of the pent-up rage. He sat quietly until it had blown itself out. Finally, he said:
‘You really don’t know, do you?’
That had the effect of silencing Harold Jennings. His wife, Sue, sat beside him, and they both stared at the man from London.
‘Know what?’
‘Know what your son Luke has actually done?’
‘Luke?’ said Sue Jennings. ‘But he’s harmless. He has Asperger’s syndrome. That’s a form of autism. We’ve known for years.’
‘So, while he has been sitting above your heads in the attic, you don’t know what he has been doing?’
The earlier anger of the Jenningses was now replaced by a sense of foreboding. It was in their faces.
‘Tapping away at his computer,’ said the boy’s father. ‘It’s about all he does.’
It was clear to Sir Adrian that there was a marital problem. Harold Jennings wanted a fit, boisterous son who dated girls, could join him for a round of golf and make him proud at the club, or play football or rugby for the county. What he had was a shy, withdrawn youth who did not function well in the real world, and was only really at home in semi-darkness staring at a screen.
Sir Adrian had not yet met Luke Jennings, but a short telephone call from the limousine to Dr Hendricks, who was still posing as a decorator while he and his team gutted the Luton house, had convinced him that the problem did indeed derive from the elder son.
Now he was beginning to understand that the blonde forty-year-old mother was hugely protective of her fragile offspring and would fight for him tooth and claw. As they spoke it became clear that this totally enclosed teenager was emotionally dependent on his mother and was only comfortable when communicating with the outside world through her. Were they to be separated – as by extradition to the USA – he would be likely to disintegrate.
‘Well, I’m afraid he seems to have managed the impossible, given the equipment he had at his disposal. He has broken into the heart of the American national security system, causing many millions of dollars’ worth of damage and frightening the living daylights out of all of us.’
The parents stared back at him open-mouthed. Then Mr Jennings put his face in his hands and said, ‘Oh God.’
He was a fifty-three-year-old chartered accountant in a private practice with two partners, making a good if not spectacular living and enjoying his weekend golf with his mates. He clearly did not understand what he had done to deserve such a fragile son, who had enraged his country’s principal ally and could be facing extradition and jail. His wife exploded.
‘He can’t have done! He’s never even left the country. He’s hardly left Luton, or barely the house, apart from to go to school. He has a terror of being moved from the only place he knows. His home.’
‘He did not have to,’ said Adrian Weston. ‘The world of cyberspace is global. It looks as if the Americans, in their present mood, which is not a happy one, will demand that we extradite him to the States for a trial. That would presume jail time for many years.’
‘You can’t do that.’ Mrs Jennings was close to hysteria. ‘He would not survive. He would take his own life.’
‘We’ll fight it,’ said the father. ‘I’ll get the best lawyer at the London Bar. I’ll fight it through every court in the country.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ said Sir Adrian. ‘And you will probably win, but at enormous cost. Your house, your pension, your life savings – all gone in legal fees.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ snapped Sue Jennings. ‘You cannot take my child away and kill him – and that is what it would amount to, a death sentence. We’ll fight you up to the Supreme Court.’
‘Mrs Jennings, please understand I am not the enemy. There may be a way to prevent all this. But I will need your help. If I do not get it, then I will fail.’
He explained to the Jenningses the legal position, which he had just learned in the back of the Jaguar. Until only a few years earlier, computer hacking had not even been on the statute book as a crime in Britain.
Then the law had changed. A hacking case had arisen that caused Parliament to act. Hacking was now an offence in law, but with a maximum penalty of four years and, in the case of a vulnerable defendant with a good lawyer and a humane judge, probably no jail time at all. The American penalties were far harsher.
Extradition might therefore not succeed – there had already been two cases where extradition had been refused, to the great chagrin of the USA. In addition, massive publicity could not be avoided. The national mood would become emotional. A crowd-funding appeal mounted by a daily newspaper could well cover the legal bills, despite the scare he had implanted in Harold Jennings.
But it would mean two years of trench warfare with the US government, and precisely at a time when international trade, the fight against terrorism, the departure from the European Union and the ever-rising aggressiveness of Russia meant that a united Anglo-American front was crucial.
The Jenningses listened in silence. Eventually, Harold Jennings asked:
‘What do you want?’
‘It is more what I need. And that is a bit of time. So far, the damage perpetrated on the American cyber-systems has not reached the press. But the USA has a ferocious investigative media. They will not remain in the dark for long. If the story breaks, it will be enormous. Even over here, the media frenzy will mean your family is hounded night and day, making your life a misery. We may be able to avoid all of that. I need a week. Maybe less. Can you give me that?’
‘But how?’ asked Harold Jennings ‘People will notice that we seem to have disappeared from our home.’
‘As far as your neighbours in Luton are concerned, the Jennings family has gone on a brief holiday. Mr Jennings, could you contact your partners and explain that a family problem has caused your departure at very short notice?’
Harold Jennings nodded.
‘Mrs Jennings, the Easter school holidays begin on Monday. Could you contact the school and explain that Luke has been taken ill and that he and Marcus will be starting their holidays a few days early?’
Another nod.
‘And now, may I please meet Luke?’
Sir Adrian was led to another room, where both the Jennings boys were engrossed in games on their smartphones, which they had somehow been allowed to keep and bring with them.
If Sir Adrian had expected a highly impressive figure of the youth referred to as a cyber-criminal or a computer geek, he was to be disappointed. And yet he was not. It was the very ordinariness of the boy that impressed.
He was tall, rake-thin and gangling with an untidy mop of blond curls over a pale, sun-deprived face. His manner was of extreme shyness, as of one withdrawn inside himself looking out at a presumably hostile world. The security adviser found it hard to believe that Luke Jennings had really done what he was accused of doing.
And yet, according to initial evaluations by the top experts from GCHQ, Luke could do things and go places in cyberspace that had never been managed before. In their judgement, he was either the most talented or the most dangerous teenager in the world … or maybe both.
Luk
e sat hunched over his smartphone, totally absorbed in another world. His mother embraced him and murmured in his ear. The lad broke his concentration and stared at Sir Adrian. He appeared in part terrified, in part truculent.
He clearly found it hard to make eye contact with strangers or even to talk to them, and it became obvious that light conversation and small talk were beyond him. From his research during the drive from Downing Street to Latimer, Sir Adrian had learned it was a symptom of Asperger’s syndrome to be possessed of fanatical neatness, an obsession that everything must be in its exact and accustomed place, never moved, never disturbed. In the course of the previous day, everything had been dislocated and, therefore, in Luke’s perception, wrecked. The boy was in trauma.
After Sir Adrian had initiated the conversation, Luke’s mother intervened frequently to explain what her son meant, and to prompt Luke to answer questions. But the boy was interested in just one thing.
It was only at this point that he looked up and Sir Adrian noticed his eyes. They were of different colours, the left eye light hazel brown and the right one pale blue. He recalled having been told the same about the late singer David Bowie.
‘I want my computer back,’ he said.
‘Luke, if I get you your computer back, you have to make me a promise. You will not use it to try to hack any American computer system. Not one. Will you give me your promise?’
‘But their systems are flawed,’ said Luke. ‘I have tried to point that out to them.’
It was part and parcel. The youth had been trying to be helpful. He had discovered something out there in cyberspace that, in his mind, was simply not right. Something that was less than perfect. So he had gone to the heart of it to expose the flaws. The ‘it’ was the National Security Agency database at Fort Meade, Maryland. He genuinely had no idea how much damage he had caused – both to cyber-systems and certain egos.