Bob chuckled. This was actually the fourth death this month and 13th worldwide since May. Bob understood why the American papers did not include the less publicised death of HNW people elsewhere in the world. Americans did not seem to have much interest in contemplating the wider world. The media pandered to their viewers. It was how the echo chamber was created.

Nonetheless, the HNW community had certainly taken note of the happenings to their ilk. Ripples of fear propagated through the community rapidly and was amplified multiplicatively every new death occured. Long accustomed to security and power, these people had scant experience with fear and found it to be a repulsive emotion. While their internal sense of security was shaken, these people still controlled vast amounts of resources and spared nothing to regain the sense of peace taken from them. Private security firms had increased in share prices by 40% on the back of a 120% increase in demand for their services. Security modifications on luxury cars and private jets were also seeing rising demand.

Bob was amused. He had invested as much money as he could get his hands on within these private security firms and was waiting for the opportune moment to cash in on the fear of the rich. It was only a few million, he was not that rich and too large a sum would start casting some suspicions even though he had taken the necessary precautions. It felt fantastic, really fantastic to profit from the fear and sorry situation the rich found themselves thrust in. Giving the rich a taste of their own medicine although he reckoned (probably accurately) that the rich had desensitised themselves to the fear within the general public that allowed their privileged positions at the top of an increasingly exploitative chain. It felt perversely euphoric to make a dent into their bubble. Bob savored the moment and wondered how long this would last.

Wealth and power always won. Every society always tended to excesses by the wealthy at the expense of the rest of the population. Every time the wealthy trembled, it was only temporarily. Sure, it could be a whole new set of faces that control the wealth and the power but their actions to protect and hoard were universal across time. One despot could be replaced by a class of despots. A monarchic feudal system could be replaced by an oligarchy of tycoons but the end result was always the rich getting what they could while the poor endured what they could. Bob noted that it was more as if wealth and power had a new set of underlings that they had corrupted to do their bidding across all ages and religions every time the prevailing order was destroyed and their lackeys were overthrown. Many people were willing to pay a huge price to become the lackeys of wealth and power, demi-Gods in their own right and none had proven immune, over time, to the corruption that this gift was wedded to however noble their intentions might have been at the onset.

But this made the temporary upheavals all the more glorious to be savored. When wealth and power were still in the old guard's hands and they were desperately wondering where it all went wrong while clutching desperately at the answer that they sought refusing to let go. Why wealth and power did not make them fully Gods, only demi-Gods. And why everyone so irrationally hated them when they were demi-Gods. Bob especially loved how they tried to put out whatever it was threatening them by using their wealth and power and wondering why their Gods had let them down. Like the apocryphal story of "let them eat cake". Like Sang Nila Utama if he had held on this his crown and refused to throw it in the sea to quell the storm and drowned clutching his crown as a flotation device.

Bob really loved hearing his richer associates talk about how they were always targeted, how other people were always jealous. How it was better to be a normal person while never giving up their riches. It was all so amusing.  And now they were scrambling, fitting their sprawling residences with the latest in anti-intruder technology, hiring body guards that wouldn't earn, in a lifetime, what they earned in a month. They lost sleep on their gold infused water beds in a fully regulated environment.

Bob turned his attention back to the computer and the work awaiting him. There was still much to do.


The police were flummoxed and under great pressure. They were also out of their depth. The average policeman in the country where the billionaire couple was shot hardly "investigated" a crime they did not have a good idea who the perpetrator was. As it was, many crimes that they "investigated" were instigated by them in order to supplement their meager income with voluntary donations.

The police chief of the state, AA, was irate because his good friend and direct superior, BB, had set him an unrealistic objective knowing full well it was unrealistic. BB knew it was unrealistic because BB was AA's predecessor and had played a big role in shaping the force AA commandeered today. BB did what he had to do to AA since Interpol had sent an agent directly to his office to stress how important this case was and threw around some prominent names that he recognised. On a unrelated but no less important note, the rich and influential local backers of the police were also jumpy and had asked BB to set their minds at ease.

AA sulked. He could pass his displeasure further down the chain of command to his deputies and wash his hands off it as BB had done to him. BB had made it clear that he wanted a thorough investigation within two weeks with documentation according to international standards. AA almost laughed out loud when he heard that- BB had once told him that even if they were to completely fabricate an investigation, the documentation would be no where near to international "western" standards.

Thankfully, AA was not entirely spineless, he had joined the force with a certain sense of justice although he had revised his standards many times over the years in order to rise up the ranks. He decided that he would try his best to bring this murderer to justice after all. He summoned his most trusted lieutenant and assembled an A team of the most capable policemen he could find in his district and took a serious crack at the case.

Bob knew that his streak of luck would not last forever. With each kill, the stakes grew higher and the prestige and bounty for cracking the cases ballooned accordingly. Generally police in-aptitude and corruption would only provide a smokescreen for so long. Besides, he had ruffled some feathers in really dangerous places. And those that siphoned money out of these police systems could channel these monies into more capable and ruthless private investigators to get on his tail. Still, he hoped that the precautions he had taken would hold for another year or so, with some luck. It was only a matter of time before power caught up to him, the angel of justice. He would have to play his cards right to maximise the enjoyment he got out of this.

AA sat in his office pondering his special task force's findings. The billionaire and his wife were both shot twice at close range, from a copse of vegetation that would have offered camouflage and cover. From the bullet wounds, it seemed that the killer was firing an assault rifle or a really powerful handgun.