A million dollars eaten by earthworms

Ben, 27 worked as a junior advocate at a local law firm in California, USA, he strived to keep a clean work reputation, He was always punctual, respected deadlines, and went out of his way to help partners with their tasks.However, he was the least paid and respected; he was never involved in board meetings or given allowances whenever the company made hefty profits .He served his company with extra-ordinary loyalty though.Back at home he didn’t have peace either, his wife, an ex-model was promiscuous, extravagant and mean, Ben silently knew that “their” son Max, the one he loved and cared for tirelessly wasn’t his biologically. Precisely, he loathed everything about his life and wished he wasn’t born at all.One day while at the office, Ben secretly discovered a money laundering deal involving his partners conspiring with a renowned city billionaire; he patiently and secretly monitored the deal till it hatched. When the time came for wiring the “dirty” money to the company’s account, he acted fast, forged company papers and signature, and walked to the bank. And the money got diverted to his freshly created account after a day.Now that he was armed with the hefty sum, he planned a flight that according to him would never leave a trail, that very night he broke into a local morgue and stole a dead body, drove it outside town in his car, packed with inflammable gas cylinders in the boot. He deliberately skidded off the road and plunged into a river bridge before escaping unhurt. The wreckage burst into flames immediately and the dead body got charred beyond recognition. It appeared to the local police authorities that it’s Ben who perished in the accident. After two days he watched his own funeral at the central city cemetery from a nearby forest using binoculars, his wife and work partners faking tears.He then grabbed a flight to Ponta Pora, a remote Brazilian town in the centre of the Amazon forest, grew a thick beard, deliberately became overweight and took on new names, all in an attempt to erase his trail. His wife and “son” back home had nothing to lose, his life insurance catered for them after all, so he didn’t worry about them the least bit. After two months, he withdrew all the money from the secret account for fear that it would be traced and buried it in a small hole behind his condo. Meanwhile, back in the US, his partners over-time learnt that Ben wasn’t actually dead and suspected that he could have been responsible for the disappearance of their loot. So in partnership with the local billionaire again, they hired the best private investigators around the world to hunt him down.A year later, Ben got ambushed while driving outside his home, by four Brazilian militant goons hired by his former firm, he was driven to a nearby secluded cabin and subjected to all types of torture for two weeks to get him to reveal where had stashed the money: body mutilations, electric shocks, so on and so forth, but being a hardened soul, he didn’t give in. He was later dumped in a filthy prison and local authorities paid a generous sum to keep him there forever. Ben and his bosses both lost out on the loot; it was fed to earth worms. As told to Ivan Ngoboka