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.
‘I have to have your promise, Luke.’
‘All right, I promise. When can I have it?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
He borrowed an office, shut the door and contacted Dr Hendricks. The guru from GCHQ had now left Luton. Having gutted the attic under the rafters with his team, Hendricks now had Luke Jennings’s personal computer in front of him back at the National Cyber Security Centre in Victoria, London. He was hesitant about doing what Weston asked because he needed to examine the PC and its contents in minute detail before he could make his report. Eventually, he said: