The plan was deceptively simple. There were three goals - stop the corruption of the trade agreement, find out who was behind it all, and expose the informant within Mycroft's office. All without alerting anyone outside of their group that anything was wrong.
John had helpfully added a bullet point list to their strategy wall covering the salient points:
1. Anthea to act as their insider in the Government offices - hack into the IT systems and see exactly what Mycroft had 'approved' during his absence to give the others leads to follow to eliminate the dodgy deals, and to alert them of any changes as the deadline for the trade agreement approached.
2. Using a combination of mis-information, mis-direction and (if all else failed) out-and-out threats, Sherlock and John to remove the unapproved buyers from the market whilst Anthea and Mycroft lined up the preferred suppliers to take their place.
3. Mycroft, with Anthea's help on the inside, to set up a sting to catch the informant (they had debated approaches long and hard but thought probably through a simple method of leaking different things to different people and see which one was acted upon would be the most effective).
4. Sherlock and Mycroft to use their 'awesome superhero deductive skills' (Sherlock had a sneaky suspicion John was teasing him when he wrote that on their wall. Mycroft wasn't so suspicious - he knew John was definitely teasing them both) to work out who was behind it all and then all four of them would exact retribution for Mycroft's injuries and for having the audacity to disrupt an agreement Mycroft and his team had been working on for nearly a year (As Mycroft put it, it just wasn't cricket, and very definitely un-British to use such underhand tactics, not to mention frightfully rude).
Simple.
Child's play.
A walk in the park.
What could possibly go wrong…?
A/N - This chapter was very short, I know, but it felt right to have it as a standalone.
Thanks to all those who are following or have reviewed this story - I don't often reply to reviews but I read and treasure each and every one. Your comments are always appreciated x
Next chapter: Anthea