‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Sorry. You’re shit out of luck . . . unless you just came here to look at fluffy ducks and sunsets. You can make an application for increased privileges if you like? There’s a form online. I can also send an urgent request through if you need to search something for legal purposes. Is it about your case?’

‘No,’ Jax said. ‘All good. I like ducks.’

He went back to the computer and clicked on the prison home page. He was deterred but not defeated when he read the long list of keywords and subject matters that would trigger the blocking software, including crimes, criminals, charges, convictions and victims. Anything relating to sex, violence and drugs was out too. Of course. He also noted that anyone convicted of a sex crime was blocked from any site that featured so much as a picture of a child.

Jax was no genius computer hacker but he was confident of coming up with a workaround. He’d learned more than enough about programming as part of the degree he’d finished the year before. He’d enrolled in the online Bachelor of Counterterrorism Security and Intelligence three months after joining the army. He hadn’t ever given any thought to becoming a spy, but enlisting had sparked an interest. Plus he’d found he was at a loose end in the evenings – he needed something to do. So using the $104 a day he earned as an army sapper to pay for the degree, he soldiered by day and studied at night. It took him just two years to earn the degree that would normally have taken six years part-time. He even finished a year in front of those enrolled full-time – or so he was told. But he’d never had reason to use spy-level hacking skills previously – never been tempted to even hack into Nikki’s Facebook account, or anyone else’s, for that matter.

He opened the virtual notepad as he thought about creating a program to circumnavigate the restrictions. He was scouring his mind for VPN code when he had an idea. He logged himself out of the system and typed: Username: administrator. Password: Password123.

He was in. Every network he had ever seen or read about was built with at least one-generic log-on. He’d expected more from a prison. Then again, it was government-run – and he figured the public would rather their hard-earned cash go to schools or hospitals.