Hikers - The Collection (Complete Box Set of 5 Books)

by Lauren Algeo

  This time he latched on to his father first. He was doing his best to appear strong in the face of crisis. The country had been sliding into recession again for the last year and there was uproar over the bonuses that bankers were receiving. One of the key building societies, Lawsons, had made some catastrophic errors with the market and were close to collapse, echoing the Lehman Brothers case from years ago. The general public wanted reassurance that their savings and mortgages would be safe. Daniel had other ideas.

  He’d identified people’s weaknesses long ago: money, love, and power. They were greedy when it came to finance and always yearned for more than they had. Daniel wanted to play a little game with their money as a test. The quickest way to cause chaos in the country was through the banks. He wanted to give people a taste of what was to come.

  Their vulnerable minds would be pushed to breaking point while his father was in power and he would feast on them. Their heightened problems only added to his joy. He was keen to see how far he could take things. What catastrophes could he cause from this elevated position in Downing Street?

  Releasing had been his greatest source of satisfaction so far, but prolonging the torture could bring him even more pleasure. He could toy with people’s emotions like the puppet master that he was. He had the world at his feet.

  Daniel ventured a little deeper into his father’s memories to gauge who was in the room with him. He never fully came forward to take control of his father’s mind but it was a trick that he’d perfected with other people. If he was forceful enough, he could have reign over their movements and even see through their eyes. He knew his father would be too aware of the intrusion though and it was really only something reserved for people who would soon be released, or ones who were too intellectually inferior to understand what was happening.

  Daniel picked lightly through his father’s thoughts to gain the information he wanted, without alerting him to the foreign presence in his head. The chairman of Lawsons building society had taken a seat at the furthest end of the table, which had annoyed his father – he thought he was trying to hide from the problems he’d caused.

  Apparently the man was overweight and sweating lightly. His father harboured feelings of disgust for the man he thought of as ‘Fat Sam’. Daniel made a quick note of the man in his pad. There were three other men in the room who potentially held the information he desired.

  He visited Fat Sam’s mind first, as his bank was in the most trouble. The man’s top-line thoughts revealed his stubborn nature. He didn’t believe that any of the crisis at his bank was his responsibility – it wasn’t his fault that employees had made bad decisions with commercial lending and borrowing money for leveraging. They’d lost nearly £10million in a major IT project due to management failure but he didn’t think he could be expected to oversee every little thing that was going on. In his mind, he was ready to defend himself at every turn.

  Daniel dug a bit deeper and saw that he was prepared to abandon the sinking ship and try to get himself a substantial pay off. He was only looking out for himself. Fat Sam barely registered the sensation of Daniel hunting through his memories. The man wasn’t the most intelligent and Daniel had no idea how he’d managed to work his way up to chairman.

  The confidential details that Daniel required weren’t too difficult to find. He located all the passwords and codes in one small area. It turned out that Fat Sam wasn’t too good at remembering things like that so he apparently had them all stored in a locked file on his computer.

  Daniel wrote down the password and username for his machine, as well as everything he needed to hack his personal and work email accounts. Getting into the deepest secrets of Lawsons was going to be a piece of cake.

  For the next thirty minutes, Daniel worked his way through the minds of the other key men. He wrote down every account and access code in his notepad, filling several pages. There were enough private details in his hands to cause a national security risk but no one would ever know.

  Two of the men in the boardroom downstairs had sensed the intrusion in their minds, although one had put it down to too much stress and coffee, and Daniel just trod more carefully with the other one. They would never suspect that a young boy an entire floor above had stolen information that could ruin their lives and bring the country to its knees.

  Daniel closed his notepad with a smirk and left the room. John would be arriving at any moment for his lesson and he hurried back to his room. He was itching to hack into the accounts he now had in his grasp and start sifting through everything but he knew he had to be disciplined. He would sit through his mundane lessons to appease his parents then use the computer in his room later. He couldn’t wait to find out what dark secrets were buried in the country’s top banks.

  Dinner was torture for Daniel. His parents made small talk while they ate chicken and potatoes. He’d wanted to eat in his room, with his computer close by, but it was the first night that father had eaten with them in their new home so he’d insisted on a meal at the table. Daniel had forced himself to choke down a plate of food while pretending to participate in the stilted conversation. His parents had been under a lot of pressure over the last few weeks and their smiles to each other seemed strained.

  A quick peek under the surface told Daniel that his father was simply distracted by work and the busy schedule he now had. His mother’s thoughts were more complex. She worried about the effect father’s new role would have on their marriage – they’d barely seen each other for days. She was finding it hard to settle into Downing Street and felt lonely, despite all the people around. Above all, she fretted that so much pressure on father would cause him to do something irrational and drastic, like Davenport had.

  Daniel did his best to soothe her mind. He wanted her relaxed so she wouldn’t focus all of her spare attention on him. He needed space and freedom to do what he wanted. He made a mental note to himself to get some of the staff to be friendlier with her. She could be distracted with them instead. It was important that he could still move around unnoticed.

  After the excruciating dinner was over, Daniel escaped to the solitude of his bedroom. He sat down at the desk in the corner of the room and powered up the computer. A shiver of anticipation ran down his spine as the screen came to life. Soon he would have his hands on everything he needed.

  It was a shame that his father would have to suffer the brunt of the anger over his actions but it couldn’t be helped. The man was strong and Daniel could ease his mental struggle where he saw fit. Collateral damage was just an unfortunate necessity.

  It wasn’t as though Daniel loved his parents or anything, he didn’t believe he was even capable of those emotions. All he could see in the love of others was weakness. They would do anything for that person: protect them, please them, even die for them – where was the sense in that? They should be looking out for themselves and asserting their power, not weighed down by frivolous emotions. They needed to be more like him to get anywhere in the world. He was far superior.

  In the last few years, Daniel had wondered if there was anyone else like him out there. If another child had been born with his extraordinary gifts, or even if his biological parents had had them. He’d never known who they were – no one had.

  Daniel had broached the subject with his father once, who had been far more receptive than his mother would have. She secretly hoped that he’d never ask her about his ‘real’ mother, so he didn’t. Father had told him that no one knew the identities of his birth parents – there had been no birth registered for him and no information on where he’d been born. His life was a mystery.

  Someone had spotted him in the backseat of an empty car in southeast London and alerted the police. The car had been stolen the day before and there had been no DNA inside for the police to identify the thieves, who they presumed were his parents. He’d been in care until he’d chosen the Connors’ to be his adoptive parents.

  Daniel didn’t dwell on his past; it was unnecessary. He
felt nothing of note when he thought of it. Whoever his parents had been, they had done what they did for a reason. It didn’t really matter if he’d inherited his gifts or not. He had them regardless and he’d made his life perfect.

  The internet browser opened in front of him and Daniel eagerly typed in the email host for Lawsons building society. It only took a few moments to access Fat Sam’s work account with the password he’d stolen earlier. Thousands of emails loaded in the inbox and Daniel gleefully began to skim through them.

  Among the tedious managerial messages, he found a thread about a big transaction that was taking place the following day. It was the sale of a large-scale commercial business that had been on going for months. A quick reply to the thread from him would put a stop to that, citing insufficient funds.

  He began to reply to emails at will, advising on sales and cancelling lending. That amused him for a few minutes but he had grander plans. Daniel hunted through the private folders to find all the access codes that he knew were there from Fat Sam’s mind.

  Before he got to them, he discovered that the long-married chairman was having an affair. There were dozens of flirty messages from one of his female board members and plenty of details about their illicit meetings. Daniel copied some of the more graphic messages into one thread then sent them to every person in Fat Sam’s address book. That would give people something to talk about for the next few days, besides the imminent collapse of the company.

  Daniel finally moved on to his intended plan. He took the access codes from the private folder and hacked into the secure Lawsons account. He’d learned to code and hack into computers years ago and he easily bypassed any restrictions that arose. He breezed through security measures that should have stopped transactions without the board’s approval. It barely took a minute to wreak havoc.

  He moved money wherever he chose to crash the system and caused plenty to ‘disappear’. He noticed that some large sums had already been moved across countries in a laundering process so he simply added to them then sent screenshots of the transactions to several newspapers.

  Lawsons would implode by morning and Fat Sam wouldn’t be able to blame the board for this one – everything had come from his secure accounts. He would be the target for everyone who was after blood.

  Daniel logged out of the accounts and scanned through the other information in his notepad. He could access the email accounts of the heads of other banks and repeat the process but the timing didn’t feel right. It would be more satisfying to see the downfall of Lawsons and watch the other banks squirm under the pressure.

  He sat back in his desk chair with a satisfied nod. Tomorrow was going to be a very interesting day.

  Chapter 11

  ‘Welcome to the team.’ Connors extended his hand to Brewer with a warm smile.

  ‘Thank you for having me, sir.’ Brewer gave the outstretched hand a firm shake. ‘I hope I can help.’

  ‘Trust me, we need all the help we can get,’ Connors said.

  He stepped away from Brewer and picked up some papers from his desk. Brewer had thought the Prime Minister would be more imposing from the broadcasts but he stood a couple of inches shorter than Brewer and he was a lean man. He was dressed impeccably in a tailored charcoal grey suit and dark red tie.

  Brewer tried not to look too uncomfortable in his new uniform. The white shirt under his black jacket was new and still too crisp, and the pressed trousers felt restrictive. He had a pair of shiny, black shoes on his feet that were a lot stiffer than the Doc Martens and Timberlands he was used to. He’d had a shave that morning so he looked as smart as possible.

  Walking into Downing Street had been nerve wracking, even though he was a legitimate employee with an ID pass to prove it. He felt as though everyone was staring at him and they could see his real intentions plastered across his face. He’d been ushered inside No. 10 and taken straight through to the Prime Minister’s study. It was one further down the hallway from where Davenport had killed himself; that room wasn’t currently in use. He presumed the blood had all been cleaned up but the memories wouldn’t fade for a long time.

  The welcome he’d just received from Connors had put him at ease a little. This man was doing his best under terrible circumstances and it was now Brewer’s job to protect him.

  He’d met the rest of the SO1 team the day before. Graham had introduced him to them and despite a hostile start, they’d been more accommodating by the end. He didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, just help them develop a better system for protecting the PM. He wasn’t the most senior, even though he was the oldest, and he hadn’t worked on a personal protective detail before, he just had insight that would benefit them. They knew he would only be there on a short contract.

  There were four of them assigned to the SO1 team. Nigel Richards was the head, having previously worked for Davenport for several years. He was a stocky man who was two inches taller than Brewer and he looked menacing with a shaved head and narrow, grey eyes. He had a deep, gravelly voice and was the least receptive of Brewer’s sudden addition. The man he’d replaced had worked with Richards for several months but now he’d been re-assigned to another team.

  The most welcoming had been the second man, Rick Addington, or ‘Adders’ as he was known. Adders was around 6ft, with wavy, brown hair and tanned skin. He had brown eyes with a mischievous spark and Brewer could imagine him as a ‘laddy’ bloke. He had offered to take Brewer for a welcome drink in the pub within half an hour of meeting. Adders had previously worked for the Royal Protection Branch before changing to the Specialist Branch. He boasted that he’d once stopped a marine from attacking Prince Harry single-handed and unarmed. Brewer could see from his tight shirt that he spent a lot of time in the gym so it could have been true.

  The third guy on the team was the hardest to read. He was a small, wiry man of Korean descent called Gi Joon Seok. He had short, dark hair and a chiselled jaw. Brewer had shaken his hand with a smile when they’d met but Seok’s face had remained neutral. He hadn’t said much during their meeting however Brewer could see there was more going on under the surface. His eyes hadn’t stopped roaming the entire time.

  Brewer was hoping that the team would warm to him after a few days. Controversially, he was the only one who wasn’t an Authorised Firearms Officer, which Richards hadn’t liked at all, but as he was only a temporary consultant for the team, they had allowed it. The other three usually carried guns, only Brewer would be unprotected.

  There hadn’t been enough time to get him any gun training but he already knew that he was a terrible shot and wouldn’t have passed anyway. He had been combat and riot trained in the past so that would have to do.

  The rest of the team were currently downstairs having breakfast while Brewer met Connors. He was to join them afterwards for his first full day.

  Connors turned back from his desk with a stack of printouts, which he passed to Brewer. ‘These are the outside meetings I’ve got scheduled so far this week so we’ll need to take the cars,’ he said.

  Brewer nodded and skimmed through the papers. The majority of the meetings were in or near London, although a few were further north. The Prime Minister had a bulletproof Jaguar XJ that he was chauffeured around in. It was usually only accompanied by a couple of unmarked Range Rovers driven by the team but security had been beefed up since Davenport’s death and a motorcade of four bikes would often be travelling with them too. People were angry and the threat of an attack had grown in the last couple of weeks.

  ‘I’ve got a meeting at the Lawsons head office in an hour.’ Connors pointed to the top sheet. ‘Make sure the team are ready to leave. There have been a lot of protestors outside their building this week so I imagine it’s the same today.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Brewer said.

  He’d seen them on the news every night, waving banners and shouting. It had started peacefully – people were worried about their money and merely showing their unhappiness with the firm – but it had e
scalated. Yesterday an effigy of the newly-sacked chairman, Sam Farrow, had been burned by the doors and several front windows had been smashed. Now there were riot police patrolling the area.

  The bank was in serious trouble and everyone knew it. The media had been having a field day after some bizarre behaviour by Sam. He’d emailed out confidential details about transactions, revealed that he was having an affair, and somehow managed to move some finances around. He’d apologised the next day, claiming that his accounts had been hacked, although that did nothing to appease the furious board. The company had already been in trouble and now everyone who could was deserting it before it went down.

  Connors was meeting with the board as a cursory measure with some independent financial regulators but there was nothing they could do. Thousands of people were going to be left out of pocket in the collapse.

  Brewer left Connors’ office to go and re-join his new team. The Downing Street building was a maze and it took him a while to locate them in a dining room. They were lounging at the table and waiting for instructions. Richards was reading a newspaper and Adders was playing on his mobile phone. Seok was sitting quietly and staring towards the door. He raised his eyebrows when Brewer entered but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Morning,’ Brewer said.

  There was a grunt from Richards in reply, however Adders returned his greeting.

  ‘I have Connors’ schedule.’ Brewer held up the papers he’d been given.

  ‘Already got today’s.’ Richards patted a file on the dining table without looking up. ‘We leave in ten minutes.’

  ‘Ok,’ Brewer shrugged. ‘I guess I’ve got time for a quick cup of tea.’

  He’d known it wasn’t going to be easy to fit into a team where he didn’t belong. They no doubt saw him as old and incapable, without arms training or relevant experience. He had to prove himself to gain their acceptance.