Free The Collectors Book Five (The Collectors Series 5) by Ron Sewell Page A

walked away. “Don’t think I’ll get detention.”
                  Wearing blue jeans, a white shirt with no tie and an Armani black blazer, he opened the door to the library and strolled in. “Good morning, Headmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen.”
                  Headmaster Georgiadis Stamati stood. “May I introduce Mr Petros Kyriades, a former pupil of our school. As an entrepreneur, I invited him to speak on the problems of running and operating a property empire.”
                  “Thank you, Headmaster.” He took the one empty chair, turned it round, sat and leant on the back. “To begin with my advice to you all is simple. Other than hard work, planning and living a balanced life, ignore everything adults tell you. The world I lived in is not the same as the one you are about to enter and so the lessons are different. What I will do is answer any questions you wish to ask.”
                  For a few seconds the room became silent.
                  A young man with cropped black hair stood. “Mr Kyriades, can you explain how you entered the property business?”
                  Petros grinned. “I had a stroke of luck, made some money and invested it in a couple of apartments. From that day, any money I made I put into property.”
                  A young curvaceous girl wearing a tight white blouse, short skirt, stood and smiled. “Mr Kyriades, rumour has it you were thrown out of the army and became a mercenary. Is it true?”
                  Georgiadis jumped from his chair. “Miss Biros, your question will not be answered by our guest.”
                     “I have no problem with the question, Headmaster. Young lady, it’s no secret I was once in the regular army. I made a mistake, resigned my commission to save any embarrassment. I loved the excitement of army life and believed the same existed as a mercenary. I was wrong, it’s tough and the pension plan is lousy. My first and only mission became a total disaster but one good thing came out of it, I met my best friend and sort of adopted a baby girl.”
                  Another boy, his face covered in acne stood. “Mr Kyriades, why was the mission a disaster?”
                  Petros turned to Georgiadis. “I’m happy to tell the story, Headmaster.”
                  Georgiadis nodded.
                  “I’ll keep it short. At the end of our patrol, we, that is, the officers and troops, expected to return to base in the comfort of a Hercules. Unfortunately, we walked straight into a trap planned by the guerrillas whose political objective was to overthrow the government.
                  “I rested my men in the shade of a dry ravine a good distance from the runway. This actually saved our lives. The guerrillas attacked the rest of the force, but we were far enough away to evade capture. When the assault ended, my men decided enough was enough and chose to return to their own villages. On checking our map, my sergeant and I needed to walk four hundred miles to reach safety.”
                  A hand shot in the air.
                  “You have a question?”
                  “Sir, what happened to the survivors of the attack at the airstrip?”
                  “There weren’t any. With the Angolan border four hundred miles away all we had to do was stroll through forests, swamps and negotiate a few hills at night.”
                  “Sir,” said a fair-haired, overweight boy. “Why at night?”
                  “Think about it.” He paused for a few moments. “Walking in the sun will dehydrate you fast. Unless you drink plenty of water, you’ll die. All we had between us was two water bottles, so we rested during the heat of the day and searched for water holes at dawn and dusk along with the