‘All right. I’ll download everything on it to another machine and send it—’
‘No, hang on there. I’ll send a car to collect it.’
Sir Adrian’s next call was to the Prime Minister. She was on the front bench in the House of Commons. Her Parliamentary Private Secretary whispered in her ear. When she could get away, she withdrew to her House of Commons office and called Sir Adrian back. He made his request. She listened carefully and posed a couple of questions. Finally, she said:
‘It is very short notice. He may not agree. But I’ll try. Stay at Latimer. I’ll call you back.’
It was late afternoon in London, almost noon in Washington. The man she wanted was on the golf course, but he took her call. To her surprise, he agreed to her request. She had an aide ring Sir Adrian back.
‘If you drive to Northolt, Sir Adrian, I believe the RAF will try to help. As soon as they can. The request is in.’
Technically, Northolt is still a Royal Air Force base on the north-western outskirts of London, just inside the M25 orbital motorway, but it has long shared its functions with the private sector as a host to the executive jets of the rich and privileged.
Sir Adrian spent six hours in the departure lounge availing himself of the café for a very delayed lunch and the news-stand for an array of papers to read. At midnight, a young RAF man summoned him to one of the departure gates. Outside on the pan his flight was being refuelled for the transatlantic crossing. It was a BAe125 twin-jet executive airplane which could make Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington in eight hours against the headwinds, but gaining five on the time zones.
After half a lifetime of grabbing sleep where and when he could, Adrian Weston accepted a sandwich and a glass of moderate red wine from the steward, tilted back his seat and fell asleep as the jet cleared the Irish coast.
They landed at Andrews Air Force Base at just after four in the morning. Sir Adrian thanked the steward who had served him breakfast and the crew who had flown him. The squadron leader in the left-hand seat assured him that their instructions were to wait until whatever he had come to do was done, then bring him back home.
There were more hours to wait in the arrivals reception area for his transport. Because his entire journey was off the books, the British embassy was not involved. The White House sent an unmarked Crown Victoria with a young West Wing staffer beside the driver. There were no passport formalities, though he always carried his with him.
The journey took an extra hour, but much of that was spent crawling in the commuter stream to cross the Potomac into downtown DC. The driver knew his trade. He had been told to minimize any chance of a stray pressman with a camera spotting the car and its passenger so he came into the White House grounds from the back.
The limo came up Constitution Avenue and right into 17th Street, then right again on State Drive within the lee of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Here four steel pillars jutting up from the roadway withdrew into the tarmac as the escorting officer flashed his identity at the gatehouse, and they were in the short drive called West Exec that runs straight to the West Wing, where the President lives and works.
At the awning that marked the access to the West Wing from the lower level, the car stopped and Sir Adrian descended. A new escort took over, leading him inside. They turned left and up the stairs that brought them to the door of the National Security Adviser’s office. No journalists can roam freely up here.
He was led down another walkway to a reception area with two desks where his briefcase was passed through a scanner. He knew hidden cameras had already done a body-search, as at an airport. At the rear of the area was one last door – to the Oval itself. One of those at the desks went and tapped on it, listened, opened it and gestured Sir Adrian inside. Then he came back and closed it.
There were four in there, all seated, and a spare chair facing the desk of the President of the United States, universally known in the building as the POTUS but, to his face, always Mr President.
One of the seated men was the Chief of Staff, another the Defense Secretary and the third the Attorney General. The POTUS sat ahead of him, facing the door, glowering behind the Resolute desk, the ornate carved-oak bureau cut from the timbers of the British warship HMS Resolute and presented by Queen Victoria to another president over a hundred years ago. Close to his right hand was a red button, not to summon a nuclear war but a succession of Diet Cokes.
The Chief of Staff made the unnecessary introductions. All the faces but that of Sir Adrian were well known via many camera lenses. The atmosphere was courteous but hardly convivial.
‘Mr President, I bring you the warmest regards of the British Prime Minister and our thanks to you for agreeing to see me at such short notice.’
The big coiffed blond head nodded in gruff acknowledgement.
‘Sir Adrian, please understand it is only out of regard for my friend Marjory Graham that I have agreed to this. It seems one of your fellow countrymen has done us enormous damage and we believe he should face justice over here.’
Sir Adrian was convinced that squirming would do no good. He simply said:
‘Broken glass, Mr President.’
‘Broken what?’
‘This young cyber-genius, about whose existence we had not the faintest idea, has broken into a major US database like a burglar, smashing glass to get in. But once inside he looked but then left alone. He seems to have destroyed nothing, sabotaged nothing and, above all, stolen nothing. This is not another Edward Snowden. He has offered absolutely nothing to our countries’ enemies.’
At the mention of the name Snowden the four Americans stiffened. They recalled too well that Edward Snowden, an American working for the state, had stolen over a million classified documents in the form of a memory stick and flown to Moscow, where he was now residing.
‘He still did a huge amount of damage,’ snapped the Attorney General.
‘He did what was thought to be utterly impossible. But it was not. So, what if a diehard enemy had done it? Broken glass, gentlemen. We have glaziers. We can mend. But all your secrets are still there. I repeat: he stole nothing, took nothing away. Surely the fires of hell are for traitors?’
‘So you have flown across the Atlantic to ask us to repair all the damage he caused and to be merciful, Sir Adrian?’ said the President.
‘No, sir. I have crossed the Pond for two reasons. The first is to make a suggestion.’