How to Steal The White House

By Johnny Johnson

Do elections ever really change anything? The American one in 2016 certainly did. The whole idea is that the people decide. But which people. All of them or just some of them.
Digital innovation in the voting process will be great if its secure. That’s turning out to be a big if as electronic systems gradually take over. Should technology even choose our leaders ? Would it do a worse job than we do? Could the machines deliver election results to order one day?
Guaranteeing outcomes would be very big business. Big but dodgy. Millions of dollars are at stake as an elite team from the British Secret Service attempt to protect democracy from an Islamist plot to control America.
Seen through the eyes of three different people. London businessman Johnny Marriott - who has patented an automated system for profiling people. Investigative journalist ' Turbs' Turbanski - whose instincts unearth the potential threats to democracy. And Harry Shepperton and his specialist team from the UK secret service, who are charged with guaranteeing the future integrity of elections.
Pericles would be proud of them.
Demos kratos.
Let the people rule.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johnny Johnson
• Release date: Jan 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005794590

Book preview

How To Steal The White House

Johnny Johnson

Copyright © John Johnson

London: England

How To Steal The White House

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

John Johnson has asserted his rights under the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act1988 to be identified as the sole author of this work.

Original work completed in the UK November 2016

First published worldwide in January 2021

Table Of Contents

Abbreviations

Chapter 1 – Recruitment

Chapter 2 – Angels

Chapter 3 – Iceberg

Chapter 4 – Cannes: Old Harbour

Chapter 5 – Ping Pong do ding dong

Chapter 6 – Turbanski

Chapter 7 – Johnny

Chapter 8 – ‘Frisco

Chapter 9 – Pizza Boy

Chapter 10 – The Plan

Chapter 11 – JoJo

Chapter 12 – Liam

Chapter 13 – Chelsea

Chapter 14 – Herb

Chapter 15 – Lofty

Chapter 16 – Paul

Chapter 17 – Chuck

Chapter 18 – Peter Chen

Chapter 19 – The Podium

Chapter 20 – Dublin

Chapter 21- The Primary

Chapter 22 – The Mission

Chapter 23 – The Deal

Chapter 24 – The plot

Chapter 25 – The Chinaman

Chapter 26 – The Negotiator

Chapter 27 – Asia Pac

Chapter 28 – The Hammock

About the author

Abbreviations

Telco’s Telecommunications companies

ISP’s Internet Service Providers

Commons House of Commons – The lower chamber of the UK Parliament

Lords House of Lords – The upper chamber

CSB The Chinese State Security Services

LLM Master of Law – A post graduate law degree

RRT Rapid Response Team – A fictional unit in the British Security Services

EPO The European Patent Office

USPTO The American Patent Office

ESPACENET A Patent search engine

ILS Instrument Landing System – Automated radar device for aircraft landing

DNS Denial Of Service – An interruption to Internet access, mostly malicious

TEARDROP A type of DNS attack based on fragmented packet delivery

LAX Los Angeles International Airport

GPO General Post Office – The UK postal system until 1969

DPP Director of Public Prosecutions – The UK’s public prosecutor

HMG Her Majesty’s Government – The Government of the UK

MOSSAD The Israeli State Security Service

EVP Executive Vice President – A Senior Corporate job title in the USA

EMEA Europe Middle East and Asia pacific territories

SIPO Chinese State Patent Office

DPIT Indian State Patent Office

JPO Japanese Patent Office

MIA Missing In Action

LVCC Las Vegas Convention Centre

For Lydia and Mark

My inspiration for everything

Chapter 1 – Recruitment

GCHQ – Cheltenham, England

Knock knock. In came JoJo. Ladies first.

She had been worried all morning about the questions they would ask.

Can you shoot straight?

Do you know Morse code?

Can you snap somebody’s neck in the dark?

She needn’t have worried. They were alarmingly generic. She could have been applying for some bland middle management role. How do you evaluate a potential spy anyway?

Her two inquisitors blazed away.

‘What attracted you to this job? What have you been doing for the last year or so? Describe your greatest achievement? Are you a team player?’

But then came the special question. There was one for each of the six candidates. Pre-set in advance by …well, by who exactly? Someone else,someplace else. That was pretty much all they knew.

‘Well,that’s about it Joanne’ said Blinky, an hour or so later ‘You’ve answered all the questions very well, I must say. Just one more to go and then you’re done.’

‘Ok, well thank heavens for that. You`ve saved the hardest one till last I suppose?’ She widened her eyes enquiringly.

‘Well, in some ways it might be easier because it’s a multiple choice. So, I want you to imagine that you`re stranded on a desert island. Which of these three options would you choose to optimise your chances of rescue?

Number one. You find the highest point on the island, light a fire and keep it burning as long as possible to try and attract attention.

Number two. You calculate how much wood you can get together and figure out if you can build a raft and make a dash for it.

Number three. You try to build some kind of signalling or transmission device. You are a radio and network engineer with a physics background as we heard earlier. Amongst your other skills that is.’

Jojo pondered this rather odd turn of events in what had already been a rather odd interview.

‘Well the first one is impractical. How long could I keep it ablaze, even assuming I could light it? Number two is too dangerous, too weather dependant, one rogue wave and I`m in the drink and would probably drown. Number three. Might work depending on what kind of natural minerals are lying around. Possible,but a hell of a long shot. I might have another preferred option though. Do I have drinking water?’

‘Yes’

‘Well then I’d probably stay on the island. Better to adapt than die. Might be miserable but might be idyllic. No noise. No pollution. No digital world. Just Mother Nature. If I could learn to hunt, I`d be ok. Only need to have food every thirty days and water every three, so that would give me time to build some kind of shelter and get myself sorted out. No major ties in the outside world. So, on reflection, I think I’d choose to stay.’

The two interviewers studied her impassively. She turned and gazed over towards the window, focusing hard, suddenly remembering the type of job interview that she was having.

‘How did I get stranded anyway?’

‘Plane crash.’

‘Am I the only survivor?’

‘No.’

‘Did the plane burn up?’

‘No.’

‘Does anybody know where we are at the moment?’

‘Not exactly, no.’

‘How long have I already been there?’

‘Two days.’

‘Is anybody from the plane dead?’

‘Yes.'

‘The pilot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he die in the crash?’

‘No’

‘Was the other survivor involved in his death?’

‘In her death.Yes.’

‘Are we related?’

‘No’

‘Am I presently in danger from the other survivor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are there any weapons on the island?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is the island actually inhabited?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were we on a mission?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is the other survivor an agent?’

‘Yes.’

‘An enemy agent?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, I have a former colleague who has gone rogue and tried to take control of the plane to land it somewhere else, on the other side presumably. The cargo of guns and other ammunition on the plane was destined for one side of a conflict that is currently raging for control of the island. So that implies wealth, since an armed struggle is seldom about anything else. The agent underestimated our pilot and either killed her deliberately or by crashing the plane accidentally while attempting to land it away from the designated landing strip. So, my priority is to escape detection, contact the faction that we are supporting and then use their comms to call for urgent back-up.’

‘You don’t want to kill the other agent who is trying to kill you?’

‘Neutralise her yes. Kill her no. I need her information.’

‘Her?’

‘Female pilots only fly on all female crew missions.’

‘OK. So how will you do that?’

‘By going missing until the good guys turn up. Any mission of that importance will start to flag very quickly back at base if there is no contact for a while. That’s usually a couple of hours max. You said we were two days in. The reinforcements must be as good as coming up the beach by now.’

‘Well she did catch on eventually I suppose.’ Blinky was marking off a couple of boxes on the form.

‘Yes, and from that point onward her thought process was logical and fluid’ agreed Archie. ‘Plus prior to that she`d been very solid. Pretty good all round actually. I think she`ll fit in ok.’

They both ticked the relevant boxes.

Now then, let’s see who`s next. Mark Wright, the weapons guy. Hah! Joining a unit with no weapons. Would he already know that? Should they be telling him? Quick thumb through the notes. Didn’t say so. Apparently not then.

Knock knock.

‘Hello Mark, and welcome. Please take a seat. My name is Algernon Duff and this is my colleague Archie Webster. We`re a bit of a double act on this side of the desk but it’s just a ruse to get you to talk about yourself. The more conversational it is, the better we like it. So, there are, obviously, going to be some questions but please just relax. We`re really more interested in you as a person than the answers.’

‘No problem’ Mark smiled confidently. ‘What would you like to know?’

And off they went.

How did you hear about this job?

Why do you think you`ll be any good at it?

What three qualities would you say describe you best as a person?

Then the special question.

‘I want you to imagine that you`re the manager of a big time football club. You’ve got a massive cup semi-final coming up. Your star striker has been caught out boozing two nights earlier breaking a strict curfew rule. The media have the story and are going to print it. Which of these three options would you choose to serve the best interests of the club and the other players?

Number one. Drop him because he`s broken an internal rule, even though you might lose the cup game and the big money that would come with an appearance in the final. Number two. Appeal to the media to sit on the story until after the game, promising them a bigger favour in the future. Number three. Poll the rest of the players and go with their preferred course of action.’

‘None of those. I’d put him on the subs bench and just use him if I had to. If we were winning, he could just sit there and stew because I wouldn`t need to bring him on. That would hopefully teach him a lesson and demonstrate to the other players that the club was serious about sticking to internal rules.’

‘Pleasure to meet you Mark. Thanks for coming in. We`ll let you know by the weekend.’

Did the candidate demonstrate the ability to think outside the box? Yes.Tick.

Did they choose one of the options provided? No. Tick.

Did they proffer their own solution? Yes. Tick.

Was this sensible, practical and realistic taking into account all of the circumstances? Yes. Tick

‘Shall we break for lunch now? No let’s do Paul and then its three down and just the other three to go this afternoon.

‘Morning Paul. please come on in and take a seat. My name is,’ etc, etc.

‘Can you tell me one thing about yourself which most people don’t know?

Have you got any unfulfilled ambitions?

Why are you wanting to move on from what you are currently doing?’

And then…

‘Ok, so one last question. I want you to imagine that you`re an astronaut on the space station. Your buddy has gone outside to do a repair. On your instrumentation you notice that his oxygen level has started to dip alarmingly. He should normally have enough for one full hour easily and he`s only been out there for ten minutes to do a thirty minute repair. You can’t communicate with him because he’s on the dark side of the ship, no radio waves. Which of these three options would you choose to address the situation. Number one. Assume it’s an erroneous reading and do nothing. Number two. Contact mission control back on earth and ask their advice. Number three. Head on outside to bring him back in, just in case?’

‘Can he actually see me?’

‘Yes, but only if he stops looking at the repair job.’

‘What’s he fixing?’

‘A reflector panel on an aerial.’

‘Can I move it remotely from where I am?’

‘Yes, you can realign the aerial to pick up different frequencies.’

‘Will he realise that I’m doing that?’

‘There is a high probability that he will, yes’

‘Is there any danger to him if I make the unit move while he`s working on it?’

‘No, the movement is very slow. Detectable but slow.’

‘Well, that’s my preferred choice. I move the unit and wait for him to turn round and make a rude sign at me. Then I draw my finger across my throat to indicate the danger and beckon him in. The other three options are non-starters. Number one is just guesswork and could get him killed. Number two is delegating the problem to somebody millions of miles away who is probably no better equipped than me to test the fault. Nice way to cover my arse perhaps, but the wrong course of action for resolving the situation. Number three would just put us both in danger.’

‘They`re good aren’t they’? Archie asked rhetorically, attacking the smoked salmon and lamb tagine with gusto. ‘Where`d you get them all from?’

He had been surprised at the high calibre of the interviewees so far that morning and, as a man with more than a passing interest in filling ministry vacancies, he was intrigued.

Colonel Algernon Blinky Duff tapped the side of his nose.

Aah. Ok. It was like that then was it.

‘Three passes and no fails. You don’t get that very often in one session,’ he persisted, although remaining pretty certain that his fishing expedition would fail.

‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know Archie. Sorry old man. It’s not even a need to know basis. It’s more of an " I don’t actually bloody know myself " kind of thing. I know that`s difficult to believe but there it is. Strange but true.’

Somebody had, it seemed, as good as hand selected the six who would be The Nines and these final interviews were just rubber stamping the appointments. But who? And why the unusual lack of transparency. All a bit worrying really, but not so much that it disturbed their enjoyment of the mini blackcurrant crumbles. A Government lunch should never be spoilt by an excess of Government business and the intrigue was never really that far off anyway. One learned to live with it.

A coffee for Blinky and a cup of tea for Archie and away they went, back into the fray for the afternoon session.

‘That`s the Brits all done then’ Archie noted. ‘Next one's a yank. A chemist apparently.You good to go? Shall we wheel him in then?’

It had only been a few weeks earlier. The two of them had met up to read through the briefing document together.

It was difficult to find a way to argue against it.

Not very long. Made its main point very succinctly.

The UK, it started along with most other industrialised nations, continues to face all types of threats. They are many and varied in both their nature and their potential impact and they range from low-level minor inconveniences to the much more significant. All of them must be taken seriously but the limited resources currently at our disposal require careful allocation, so all related planning needs to be of the highest order.

So far, so good, nothing much new there. But then it went on …

"In order to facilitate and manage this essential task Her Majesty’s Government has a variety of tried and trusted options at its disposal. These include the business as usual methods which will continue to support our domestic and global strategies as well as they have always done.

However, in these changing times our enemies are changing quicker than most. They are more unconventional now than they have ever been. They do not wear uniforms to identify themselves so are largely invisible. They do not represent other countries, thereby leaving us nothing to attack. Their weapons are ideas which tend to act like poisons for which we have no ready antidote. They do not inhabit any one single location where we could identify and isolate them. They do not seek territory in the traditional manner of the wartime aggressor. Rather they seek cultural change and wish to impose sets of values on this country which are alien to us.

So, we now need to ask ourselves an important question. Are we currently doing everything possible to safeguard ourselves from these threats or could we do more? If so, what would that be?

This briefing document suggests several new ways in which the current situation could be improved. The first is the most important, because all the others flow from it.

Our considered view is that a new special unit be formed to address not just the emerging current threat but also whatever else follows. It will report to an existing senior officer who will manage the gap between the old and the new methods using the increasingly unfashionable qualities of maturity and experience.

The team's modus operandi will be unashamedly elitist and the whole recruitment process will focus on intelligence, adaptability and individual skill sets. They will be a small group, six at most, known to each other and their commanding officer but not to anyone else. Their remit will be task and project based and their own judgement will be trusted to determine their workload.

They will be presented with a mixed selection of potential projects for consideration on a quarterly basis and will determine their own priorities and courses of action based on a set of strategic guidelines from the Cabinet Office. They will never perform individually, only ever as a team.

Most significantly perhaps the unit will be unarmed as the UK tries to lead the way in solving the latest wave of international problems in a more considered manner.

They will not meet violence with violence but will seek more elegant and intelligent solutions to defeat our foes and reduce their capability to inflict harm or create danger. They will therefore need to be individuals of the highest calibre, independently capable of shrewd judgement, fast thinking, and equally happy working alone whenever required, albeit always in the team environment. They must have limited personal baggage and be off the radar. In short, six unknowns, six strangers, the six who will become The Nines.

Only ever six, never more and never less. The recruitment process will be vital so will not follow convention. It will be split into two halves with the second phase being the usual face to face interview session using only the most senior operational and personnel assessors available. Their task will be to provide the final validation of the candidates. Approval at interview will be the last hurdle."

Final validation? So, who’s doing the initial selection and the screening then?

Only ever six? Why?

Anyway, it was what it was and now the day had come and here was Blinky with Archie, shuffling papers, making sure there was plenty of sparkling and still next to the obligatory jug of iced tap.

‘It’s really right down on tha` border with old Mehico, in fact the town’s pretty much split down tha` middle with New Laredo, well Nuevo Laredo as they call it in Spanish, on tha` other side.’

The interviewers were relaxing Jake by letting him talk about a subject that made most people comfortable. Themselves. Starting in this case with the trusty old standard where exactly do you come from?

‘It’s around one fifty miles or so up to San Antonio if that helps y’all position it. Ya know, where the battle of The Alamo took place. But yeah, pretty much deep south.’

‘You must have been in high demand locally with your chemist skills. Isn`t it pretty much the drug capital of the world down there. Breaking Bad, I believe, was the television series my grandson mentioned.’

Jake chuckled to hear two plumy old Brits mentioning that show. Just a bit incongruous really, but also quite funny.

‘No Sir, me an’ drugs do not go together at all, no way José. I seen way too much destruction comin` out a Mehico caused by the ol` marchin’ powder. Feel kinda’ sorry for the whole country,`ah really do. Just kinda’ needs rescuin` from itself and the whole damn drugs thing. But then who’s gonna’ do that, is the question. Not their own Government, no sir, that’s for sure, cos they all up to thair damn necks in it. Ah mean you can see why, ‘cos it’s pretty much their number one natural resource, so everybody `n his cousin dun sellin` the stuff. Hell, I don’t know how y`all ever gonna` get that train stopped, it just keep chuggin` on down the track, faster n faster it seems. Be the only train wreck ah’d really like ta see happen, truth be told, but I sure as hell ain’t holdin’ my breath.’

They didn’t know it but Jake would have been immediately relaxed without talking about Texas or Laredo, he was one of those people who was instantly at home anywhere. Wherever he lay his hat …

The clock struck three, the warm soft chimes from the grandfather in the corridor outside keeping everybody on track with the rhythm of the day.

‘Well, thanks for coming in Jake. I`m pleased to say we’re about done. There`s just one last question. I want you to imagine that you`re an architect designing a new town. There is only so much land left after you’ve built all the houses and you can`t fit in all the extra amenities that people are expecting. Which of these three options would you use to address the situation?

Number one. Leave out the church and tell people they can either pray at home or organise meetings in the community centre.

Number two. Leave out the school because the nearest one is only a few miles away in the next community and readily accessible by road.

Number three. Leave out the supermarket and tell the people to move with the times and use internet shopping and get everything they need delivered to their door’

Jake cocked his head slightly and stared off into the middle distance.

‘Well, I’d prefer mah own option, number four. Build the church and put the school inside of it. Prayers on Saturdays, Mass on Sundays, n’ tha` rast tha` tahm you got all tha` kiddies runnin` round yellin` n learnin` in the Lord’s own home, something he would surely approve of, `n the little ones get to know all about him at the same time.’

The tall Texan fetched his hat from the coatstand on his way out, doffed it twice and bade the two elderly Brits goodbye on his way out the door, wondering all the while what kind of wacky Government department he`d be joining who asked such damn fool interview questions.

He passed the strikingly curvy Californian on his way to the exit, blissfully unaware that their paths were destined to cross again further down life’s long and winding road.

She was up next. Another Yank, but from West coast this time, from the City of the Angels perhaps? Well no San Francisco actually, it`ll be in the notes I`m sure, ah yes, here it is, bit cooler up there I hear, more like our British weather.

Ahh, the Brits, even in a job interview the weather comes up.

So, what made you want to leave home and work in England?

What’s your biggest regret in life?

Do you usually get your own way and what happens if you don’t?

How do you cope in a room full of strangers?

‘Well Caitlin, thank you for answering all of our questions so thoroughly. We`re almost finished now.But before you go there is just one final question. I want you to imagine that you`re at the seaside walking along the shoreline and you see a swimmer in distress. The person is waving frantically and may be drowning. The weather is rough and the sea looks very choppy. There`s nobody around and your cell battery is dead. Which of these three options would you use to address the situation?

Number one. Jump in and try to rescue the person yourself.

Number two. Start running to get help.

Number three. Walk on by. Nothing to do with me. Shouldn’t be out in the sea on such a wild day in the first place.’

‘I’d use the spare cell battery that I always carry with me and phone for help.’

‘What if you didn’t have it?’

‘Can I see any traffic?’

‘No.’

‘Can I see any buildings?’

‘Yes’

‘How far away?’

‘About 200 metres.’

‘Could they be inhabited?’

‘Possibly.’

‘How far out is the swimmer?’

‘About 100 metres.’

Caitlin computed out loud so that the two interviewers could follow her thought process.

‘Chances of any people being nearby in the houses, shops, cafes, whatever. Maybe fifty / fifty. Would they have phones? Almost certainly yes, somebody would. But who to ring and how long before they show up including my sprint. Probably too long. Is the person definitely in difficulties? Almost certainly,yes. How long would they have? In trouble, and that far out in the sea! Only minutes, maybe less. Given the situation as you described it and under that set of circumstances I would choose Option One.’

Blinky and Archie looked at each other and then down at the piece of paper.

Next to answer number one was written one single word.

Fail.

Below it in smaller type and by way of explanation.

Candidate shows a predisposition to put herself at risk unnecessarily.

Unsuitable.

‘Although I do realise that that is the incorrect answer in this particular situation,’ Caitlin concluded her reasoning. ‘I happen to have some very deep core beliefs about the sanctity of human life and I believe saving a life is an honour and a privilege given only to a few. Some grasp the opportunity, others who are less fortunate will only see the danger and not the blessing. In almost any situation of that kind you have only seconds to make your decision. Then the moment is gone forever.’

With that she turned, and like the others earlier, gazed over towards the window. But unlike them she was not in some abstract mid distance. She was actually seeing something, something real. She bit her lip and wiped her eye.

‘Bollocks’ said Blinky, under his breath.

‘Caitlin,’ he said quietly ‘Has this actually happened to you?’

She nodded. ‘Pretty much exactly like that actually. Exactly as you described. He was only thirteen. Learning how to surf. I got him out but only just. Good job my dad gave me all those swimming lessons, huh. Plus growing up three blocks from the Ocean probably helped’.

She snuffled a bit.

‘Sorry, not very professional.’

Blinky looked down at the paperwork. He wrote something in a small neat hand at the top of the form.

Capable of selfless bravery of the highest order.

They paused for a few minutes before asking Liam to come in. The last of the six.

‘Well I’ve never had that happen before,’ said Archie while they waited.

‘In thirty odd years of interviewing. Just shows there`s always a first time for everything.’

‘Incredible,’ said Blinky, ‘would have been funny if it had happened with the astronaut story.’

Archie shot him a glance.

‘Well, no, all right then, it wouldn’t have been funny. Just bloody weird.’

He walked over to the coffee machine and punched a button. The espresso drizzled out slowly. One last shot to get them through to five`o clock.

‘But what are we going to do? Our recommendations need to follow the guidelines and she’s a fail. But such an inspirational girl. I mean other than that, she breezed through.’

Archie was studying the forms.

‘Have you actually read through the guidelines in detail? I mean its five pages of bumph. I skimmed them when we went through that background document together but only briefly.’

‘Well yes, I have, of course’ Blinky replied ‘although not for a while I must admit.’

‘Maybe now might be a good time to revisit them. What do you think?’

The two men read quietly for ten minutes.

‘Here we are’ said Archie finally. ‘Right at the end. Section 5. I think that’s an unqualified yes, don’t you?’

His colleague nodded. They smiled at each other.

Archie picked up his pen.

Situational awareness. 10.

High marks were common. But a ten was unheard of.

Candidate showed exceptional awareness of her own personal strengths and how to deploy them to maximum effect whilst under extreme stress and in a life-threatening situation. Also turned the interview question into a real-life example showing a high level of mental agility in a pressurised situation at the same time.

Yup. That ought to do it.

They ticked the box.

‘I do apologise for keeping you waiting Mr Dempsey’, said the pretty young blonde behind the reception desk. ‘They`re running slightly late. Shouldn’t be too long now’

Her internal phone rang a moment later and she pointed over towards the door.

‘Good morning Liam. My name is Algernon Duff and this is my colleague Archie Webster. Thanks very much for coming in today …

Chapter 2 – Angels

Johnny wandered along the south side of Curzon Street in Mayfair heading down towards Hyde Park. Bloody hell it was nice around here. No wonder it was £400 on the original Monopoly board which he vaguely remembered from his distant childhood. He chuckled to himself. That may have been true once. Now it was more like £4million.

This was the heart of London, owned and colonised by the rich since it had been built in the mid-17th century. Like a small village in the heart of a teeming modern metropolis the area felt like an inner sanctum, a courtyard inside a large French or Italian building. Insulated, as if by some invisible force field which protected it from the malign spirits which affected the rest of town.

A house here would run you a small fortune. Those exorbitant prices at the top end had proved relatively immune to the 2008 credit crunch. Credit? Ha! Who needed that in Mayfair where cash buyers from all over the world continued to flock in large numbers. Not too many true English people lived there anymore but this was modern London. The world’s most successful melting pot. Home to the world, the world’s home.

And what was true English anymore, anyway? Very hard to say.

So it was in the rarefied air of this celebrated and historic part of one of the world's oldest cities that he was headed for his 11am appointment.

Angels, they called them. That was a laugh. He grinned at one of his favourite memories of previous investor pitches.

‘It’s a great idea,’ the man had said ‘but go away and finish developing the product, find some early customers, get yourself some initial revenues and then come back and see us again.’

‘With all due respect,’ Johnny had finally snapped after hearing this same mantra for the third time in as many days ‘by the time we`ve done all of that we won’t really need you guys or your money will we.’

He had taken some small satisfaction from standing up and walking out of that meeting.

Not too many people did that.

End of discussion. Mucho pronto.

‘No money again,’ he mused, leaving that particular funding opportunity behind him forever.

Angels? Hmmm.

Most investors preferred neat tidy boxes with labels where the ideas inside could be unwrapped like so many perfect presents on Christmas morning. His idea did not conform to such easy descriptions. In fact, the only part of the elevator pitch that Johnny had mastered successfully was the bit with the dollar and pound note signs attached to it. He was a real whizz at financial projections. Who wasn’t? That bit was child’s play. Anybody can make a few numbers up and defend them with a host of future variables.

The meetings always followed the same routine.

The intro, max 2 minutes. Then the explanation, the market background, the need for the product, the competition, the pricing, the profit margins etc, etc. Max 5 minutes. Then the outro, followed by loads of questions.

He had seen today’s Company once before. It had been a familiar pattern at the first meeting. He was outnumbered. Three of them, him alone. His primary contact, Michael Irving, sat to his left and anchored the session.

They would listen intently and then came the questions, loads of questions.

The technology. How does it work? Have you got a lead? Who else is doing this? The scope and scale. How big is it by revenue projections, today, tomorrow, in two years, in five years? Have you segmented it by territory? Why are Italy and France the lead markets? What`s going on there that’s different. Are you talking to them? Is it really a completely novel idea? How have you protected it? Have you got any IPR? You know. Any patents?

Johnny had heard all the questions by now. He had several different answers and would wheel out whichever one had the tightest fit to the circumstances. Answer a) for casual enquiries at trade shows. Answer b) for formal media interviews. Answer c) for sitting round a desk large enough for twenty, with just two or three investors tossing questions around. Answers d) through f) he kept in reserve just in case.

It was always better to keep some information back. They didn’t need to know everything, did they? They wouldn’t invest anyway if they knew the whole story.

He had become polished and adept at these inevitable Q and A sessions. Except that last one about the Intellectual Property Rights. It always unnerved him a bit. Not because he hadn’t thought about it or done anything about it. Quite the opposite, in fact. He had been asking numerous questions on the subject since the beginning, since the time he had first had his business idea and started the process of filing his own Patent five years earlier.

His own sense of unease with the subject was born out of the answers which he got back from his agent. Or rather the lack of them.

The Patent in question would be ground breaking. It existed right on the cutting edge of the hottest global technology sectors and defied simple categorisation because it straddled five mainstream industries.

Software.

Personal profiling.

Advertising.

Internet targeting.

Big data analytics.

Five sweet spots all rolled into one.

Five very sweet, sweet spots.

Patent filings are a date driven business. That much was clear to him from day one. The adjudicating authority would receive your application – normally some descriptive text and a bunch of drawings, diagrams and sketches – and then embark on a process of evaluation.

The objective was to determine if the idea was actually new or whether it had already been covered by a granted patent elsewhere. Ideas were protected on a territorial basis usually defined by national boundaries but extendable to cover modern trading blocks.

A granted Patent from the EPO provided coverage across both member and accession states of the EC and – in theory at least – meant that nobody else could copy your idea in the defined business context allowed by the Grant. In the event of transgression, the owner of the Grant would be able to seek damages in court from the offending party. Quite often those cases ended up with an out of court settlement using either recurring or one-off royalty payments to compensate and reward the plaintiff.

So far,so good. However, there was one inherent weakness in the modern world of international Patents. They were the playthings of lawyers and – as with most things in the legal profession – there were huge areas of grey in between the black and the white.

This meant effectively that when you thought you had something covered, quite often you didn’t, when you thought you had defined clear distinction between your own idea and another, quite often you hadn’t, when you thought your idea was novel, it actually wasn’t, when you believed you were first, you possibly weren`t.

‘You have to try to think of it like this Johnny,’ Matt Dickson, his Patent Agent, had attempted to explain to him in the early days. ‘The Examiner is looking for novelty and invention. He will be asking himself two headline questions. Is it clever and has anybody ever done it before? So you can`t patent a ship or a boat because they …’

‘… have already been invented. Ok but what if I invent the Hovercraft. I can`t patent that because boats already exist. The Patent process will say it’s just another kind of boat, it’s a passenger carrying device that uses the sea as its medium. The fact that it’s got a completely new propulsion system and landing mechanism would be irrelevant. That must be bollocks surely?’

‘Exactly the point,’ agreed Matt, ‘you can’t really say I`ve got a new kind of boat here. You need to focus on the inventive and the novel. So, in that case it would be the technology around the inflatable cushion and the principle of reduced drag to improve efficiency. One bits inventive, t`other bits clever. Combine the two and bingo, you`ve got a happy examiner.’

‘But I remember reading that Cockerell couldn`t actually get a Patent at the time because he couldn’t build the thing. It existed in his head and on the drawing board but not in reality. And because there was no practical application the authorities declined his requests.’

Matt nodded. ‘Partly true. Once upon a time in the dim and distant past the Patent world was less enlightened than it is now. If you couldn’t build it, you would have trouble getting a Patent for it. When you think about it, that’s a pretty poor model for a mechanism which, at its very heart, is supposed to protect ideas. So the process evolved, it got challenged, it got modified, and finally it got reborn and today we have something which is almost a 180 degree turnaround from the way it was back then in the fifties.

Nowadays you don’t have to deliver any proof of concept at all, the idea on its own is enough. Somebody else can build it and pay you the royalties which you rightly deserve for having been bright enough to come up with the idea in the first place. Much better system if you ask me. The originator of the invention gets a fairer share of the benefits. He or she is also motivated to use their creative faculties and continue to come up with a stream of innovation. It's brilliant. Everybody benefits. The creatives create and the builders build.’

The logic was irrefutable. If it truly worked like that it was almost a perfect system. But did it work like that? And if so why could he never get straight answers about his own application.

The Examiner at the EPO in Den Haag had cited several cases of Prior Art. That was the name they used to identify previous requests for Grant on any similar ideas which had already been filed successfully within the appropriate jurisdiction. Copies were then made available for comment.

Johnny thought back two years to the afternoon the Prior Art had landed on his desk with a resounding thump. There was a lot of it.

The earliest citation had been a US cable Company with a filing dated 1993. How could that be remotely relevant to something that was still ahead of its time when filed in 2003, a full decade later. American businesses are hugely inventive of course and their excellence in commercial technology second to none.