DI Don Hanson needed to know if the husbands of the two dead women had spoken to anybody capable of murder. The only way to do that was to 'tap' their internet and phones. The only organisation that could do that was GCHQ. He quickly realised he was technically out of his depth. A visit to his boss was in order.


A few days later, Sarah woke and stretched her arms "Where's James ?" she thought "Oh who cares, he's probably gone to work early, the boring sod." she lay back dreaming of her soon-to-be life of leisure, free of wifely duties.

James had something completely different on his mind. He had gone to work in the normal way and set about his daily routine. About 10:30 the 'burner' phone buzzed, James read the message "its a go" and put the phone back in his pocket out of sight.

Sarah and her lover walked out of her house to her car and got in. A few yards away three men and a woman sat in a van and watched. Sarah started the car and pulled away. A few seconds later the van started and followed her. Sometime later they were going down a quiet country lane.

"So, when are you going to divorce him ?" asked Sarah's lover as the van overtook them.

"Oh very soon, I've found a lawyer who seems ... shit !!" shrieked Sarah as the van stopped and three men and a woman jumped out.

One of the men was holding out an ID badge and walked up to Sarah's car. Sarah noticed that the woman was wearing similar clothes to her.

"Good morning ma'am, I'm Detective Sergeant John Hogan", he held out his ID so Sarah could read it. The other people took positions around the car, two of them carrying hidden syringes.

"OW ! hey !!" said Sarah as a needle went into her neck.

"Hey ! are you doing ? ... Hey !!" shouted Sarah's lover as a needle went into his neck.

They both closed their eyes for the last time. All their belongings were given to the woman and one of the men who both got into the car and drove away. The unconscious Sarah and her lover were dragged into the van by the two remaining men. They closed the van door and drove in the opposite direction.

The fake Sarah and lover drove north, stopping every hour or so to buy coffee and snacks on Sarah's credit card, the PIN had been supplied by James earlier. As they drove, Sarah's mobile phone would register with cell towers en-route creating a digital trail leading north reinforced by the credit card purchases. Meanwhile the real Sarah was dissolving in a barrel of Hydrofluoric acid along side her lover.

James got home after work and quickly removed any items that Sarah would take if she were planning to elope and disposed of them as instructed. He sent out a few texts to Sara's mobile asking when she would be home. He went down stairs to the laptop in the cellar and pressed Delete three times and watched the screen.

"Disconnecting from WiFi ... wiping hard drive .............. task complete ... Shutting down."

He unplugged the laptop, took it back upstairs and put it in his wardrobe with all the other old laptops and mobile phones.

Later on that night he tried to call Sarah's mobile. He knew she wouldn't answer, it was simply a way to create a plausible chain of events to satisfy the police that she had simply run away from her unsuspecting husband. He then called the police to report a missing person. A few hours later he went to bed. It felt strange without Sarah laying next to him but perhaps Suzi, his secretary, wouldn't mind taking her place. Tomorrow would be a very odd day, he had to find a way to move £10 million without raising red flags and get interviewed by the police without raising suspicion, but at least he didn't have that scheming bitch Sarah to worry about.

"Police are investigating the disappearance of Sarah Cromwell-Sykes wife of James Cromwell. It seems like she eloped with her lover Andrew Harris to Scotland where the trail seems to end." said the newscaster.

"That went well" said the second man in the Rolls-Royce.

"I agree. James played his part of the distraught husband who was totally surprised she had a lover. The hit team were on the ball, The substitute couple left a convincing trail all over Scotland. The police are running into dead ends. No lose ends - Perfect." said the first man.

"As for lose ends, what about James ?" enquired the second man.

"He's fine. he got what he wanted, he's now an accessory to murder so he's hardly going to go to the police. And if he's stupid enough ... well we have plenty of plastic barrels." said the first man sounding like a villain from a James Bond movie.

The two men arrived at their destination and got out of the Rolls-Royce. "This where we are going to put Unit 5." explained the second man pointing at a tall apartment block in a nice part of town. "Deborah Foster is in the process of tracking down and recruiting some black-hats."

"Black-hats ?" interrupted the first man.

"Yes, black-hats are hackers who are on the dark side, you know, hacking banks, corporate servers and stuff like that."

"Oh I see." replied the first man.

"And then I'll track down a few ex-special forces types for the kinetic hits and to keep the others in check." continued the second man.

"Will they know about other aspects of our operation ?" asked the first man.

"No, everything is compartmentised, nobody knows about the other units, let alone what those other units might be doing ... except Deborah, she will be the go-between." replied the second man.

"Good, keep it that way." replied the first man. "We need to offer other means of payment, moving large amounts of cash raises too many flags. Do we know anyone who can handle corporate bonds, treasury bonds or diamonds ?" continued the first man.

"Yes, I know a few people, I'll set it up." replied the second man.

"What about gold coins ? are the crypto-currencies like Bitcoin stable enough ?" asked the first man.

"Gold is easy, crypto-currencies might be OK in a year or so when they settle down." replied the second man.

"OK, we need to randomise the price a bit, say 4.5 to 5.5 million, offer blended modes of payments over a period of time eg 1.5 million in gold plus 3.3 million in cash over a year or so" said the first man.

"Tricky but doable." replied the second man.

They got back into the Rolls-Royce and drove away.

DI Don Hanson read the report on Sarah Cromwell-Sykes. It read like a typical missing persons report but something just didn't seem right, especially when he included other mysterious deaths and disappearances of very rich men's wives. It all seemed a bit too convenient. It almost seemed like there was some kind of wife disposal service in operation, and if there was, he would look pretty good if he could take it down, possibly get promoted.

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