Previously on Foreign Exchange Rate: Zack’s desperate ploy to delay the audit backfires, landing him, and Sydney, in an even more precarious position.
Zack slunk into the office chair in Cory’s office. He’d been waiting for nearly an hour, long enough for the audit team to possibly finish their task. And expose Sydney.
He wanted nothing but to disappear, for all of this to go away. He could hear Morgan and Cory arguing in hushed tones just outside. He squirmed and licked at dry lips. His eyes darted around the room, like a wild animal caught in a snare, escape frantically flitting through his mind, like the erratic flight paths of the wood thrushes he used to watch near the creek with his dad. He scanned anything that he could think of that would help him get out.
Zack was beginning to wonder if he was a loser after all, and if stealing the rare foreign currency was just one godawful idea that he never should have done. His eyes brimmed with tears and his lip quivered.
Then, he remembered the nights in the darkness. The “past due” notices piling up on his kitchen table. He recalled the phone calls from collection agencies, the lies he told everyone about his wrecked car.
Did he really have a choice? The money was just there, waiting for someone to take it. It didn’t belong to anyone, except for the greedy one percent that owned True North Canadian, and nobody would miss it. It was his chance, the one opportunity he had to actually change his life and change from college dropout loser to someone else. A winner.
The door burst open and Morgan strode in. She slammed the heel of her hand on Cory’s desk and commanded Zack’s attention with an intense stare. Zack nearly jumped out of his seat.
Morgan jabbed a finger in Zack’s face. “I’ve notified corporate about your strange behaviour, as is protocol in this situation. The bank is locked down. In case you wanted to know, the audit is commencing as required, in spite of your attempts to derail it. We are nearing the completion of the entire project. I don’t know what you are up to, but once we have completed this talk, you’ll either be fired or imprisoned. Your answers will determine which.”
Zack gulped. His hands gripped the armrests of Cory’s office chair like immovable, gnarled roots. He wasn’t sure what the right way to respond was, so he settled for something in-between. Polite, yet aloof. “Yes…ma’am.”
“You’re damned right it’s ma’am,” she growled, again jabbing the finger at Zack’s nose. “Now. I need some answers. Why were you trying to disrupt the audit of the main vault? Or was it another audit you meant to delay?”
Zack closed his eyes. This can’t be happening. God, if you’re real, I could really use some help right about now, he thought. He snapped his jaw shut, his teeth clicking together, and shook his head.
This was a classic lose-lose situation. Zack didn’t trust himself to hold it together and rebuff her questions without cracking and implicating himself. However, if he didn’t say anything, he would become more suspicious than he already was.
“Speak!” Morgan spat, her spittle spraying all over Zack. Zack’s jaw flagged, opening and closing as he tried to think of something.
There was a knock on the door. Zack’s neck turned so fast at the noise that he nearly wrenched his neck.
“What is it? We are in the middle of something here!” Morgan’s voice climbed and fell in a sing-song sort of way that was more chilling than any of the orders she’d barked at Zack so far. Zack felt goosebumps raise all over the back of his arms, which still held fast to the armchair, like he’d been duct-taped there just like the hostages in the action films that his friend Daniel kept on recommending.
The door cracked open, just a slight enough space for Kevin to stick his face into. Zack noticed that he had wiped the jam off of his face. “Ma’am, we’ve completed the foreign currency audit. There’s, uh, something I think you should see.”
“Give us a moment, Kevin.” Morgan’s gaze never left Zack’s face, and Zack slid the office chair back until it clunked against the wall.
Kevin’s face made a pained wincing expression, and the door clicked closed softly, as if Kevin didn’t want to anger her any further. It almost made Zack laugh. As if she could get angrier.
Morgan’s scowl appeared back in Zack’s face, a maroon coloured vein throbbing on her forehead. “You tell me the truth, now, or so help me God,” she hissed, each word bringing her face closer to a deep sunburn red.
Zack scrambled for something to say. “I’m sorry. I…I need this job. I can’t do anything else. Please,” he squeaked, anguish turning the near-truth into the tell-tale whine of fabrication.
“Liar!” Morgan yelled. She stood to her full height and glowered down at Zack. “I will learn the truth, you rat!” Zack shrivelled under her purpling face.
The knock at the door returned. Not so much a knock as insistent rapping. Zack’s heart bounced wildly in his chest.
“This better be good, Kevin.” Morgan called.
Zack watched the lever door handle slowly dip down. The door remained closed for just a moment longer, Kevin obviously reluctant to step into Morgan’s avalanche of wrath. The door slowly cracked open. Kevin appeared again and raised a hand, as if in greeting. Or maybe to defend himself against any verbal lashes. “Yes. I…I apologize. We found something, like I said before. You must see for yourself.”
Morgan turned then, and Zack imagined her gaze turning the office to ash as she slowly rounded and locked eyes with Kevin. “If it is so damned important, Kevin, won’t you tell me what, exactly, it is?”
Kevin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Uh…here, ma’am?”
Morgan stamped, making both Kevin and Zack flinch. “Yes, Kevin. Here.”
Kevin fiddled with one of the buttons on the cuff of his white shirt. He sighed. “We finished the foreign currency audit, ma’am.”
“And?”
“There’s, uh, I’m sorry. I’m not sure how to say this. There is no foreign currency. The safe is empty. There also seem to be some manual overrides in the security log, which we are investigating further.”
Morgan swiveled back to Zack, her squinted eyes accusing and her trembling finger pinning him to the chair. “This has something to do with you, I’d bet my life on it. Sit tight while I take a look. If you so much as move, I…” she faltered, then stuffed her finger further. “I don’t know what I’ll do!”
She grabbed Kevin’s arm, in much the same way that he witnessed his high school principal, Ms. Slofstra, drag away many of his friends when they were in deep trouble, and marched them both out of the room. The door slammed with an emphatic bam!
Zack slid off of the chair and crumpled into a ball on the floor. How could he have fucked up this badly? He had to be looking at jail time, just based on how poorly that Morgan’s “chat” with him went.
Kevin had mentioned some inconsistencies in the security log. That meant that Sydney was caught. There was nothing that they could do to stop it now. They were caught, just like stupid bull trout his father yanked out of the river. Zack tried to remember the name of his childhood friend’s mom. She was a lawyer but had changed her name when she remarried. What was it? Riddoch? No. Redding? That didn’t ring a bell, either.
He was doomed. Utterly screwed. He could already see the queue of people in his life waiting their turn to tell-him-so and confirm his status as a loser. He imagined that Sydney would be first in line, if she wasn’t sent to the guillotine along with him.
He tried, and failed, to swallow the lump of guilt that had balled in his throat. She would hate him. Forever.
Zack took deep breaths to calm himself. He shook his head to escape from the whirlpool of despair he had leaped into.
He was alone. In Cory’s office. He could still do something. Warn Sydney, or even get out of here himself. Zack stood, his breath quick and his heartbeat rocketing. Once he’d gathered the courage, he tried the handle.
Locked. Frantically, Zack searched around Cory’s office for something, anything he could use to get out.
There was a big, heavy crystal trophy leaning against a pile of books in one of Cory’s banker boxes.
“Thank God for golf,” Zack breathed, hefting the trophy.
He hammered on the door handle a few times before it failed, and then he stepped back and booted it, like they did on TV.
To Zack’s surprise, the door flew open. It smacked into the wall and Zack burst into the foyer.
Twenty pairs of eyes swung their gazes to him, surprise and fear painted in their faces. The employees of True North Canadian bank huddled in the foyer together, hostages as Morgan held up the bank.
Zack stood there for a moment, chest heaving. Then, Roger pointed down the hall to the foreign currency room. “They’re still in there.”
Zack nodded and sprinted for Sydney’s office.
He hammered on the door, his fist flashing with the pain.
Sydney swung the door open. Her dark curls swung around her neck as she answered the door. “Zack?”
Zack swallowed, trying to moisten his mouth enough to speak. “We’re burned. We need to go. Now!”
Zack held out his hand and locked eyes with Sydney. His hand trembled in the air as he watched Sydney hesitate. Visions, like a sequence of slides, of all of the times that Sydney helped Zack when he was a new employee projected through his mind. Zack swallowed again, trying his hardest to give her his best pleading look. She looked back over her shoulder at the computer that Zack assumed was engaged in some kind of illegal hacking.
“Pull the cord! Let’s go!”
Sydney bent and yanked it out of the wall, the three-pronged end whipping and clacking into the desk. The light from the computer screen winked out. She grabbed Zack’s hand and gave him a determined nod.
Zack turned, his legs pumping as he raced for the exit. His black dress shoes slapped on the tiled foyer floor and he reached a hand out to unlatch the half-door that separated the customer foyer area from the employee stations and the vault area. Only the thousands of times he had hurried through the half-door saved him from the hip-check that would have had him on his back if he fumbled it.
His knee slammed into the half-door, sending it sharply into the worn indentation in the wall from years of being opened too harshly. His arm wrenched as his shoes gripped the carpet and his grip on Sydney’s hand pulled until his hand hurt.
There was only the long hallway to the exit. A smile began to grow on Zack’s face as they raced past the break room.
Only to fall into a fearful frown as Alan stepped out of the foreign currency room. He noticed them and fell into a football linebacker type of stance. He slid a pen out of his pocket and pointed it towards Zack, the only weapon he had.
“Oh shit!” Sydney barked.
Zack skittered, slowing his sprint. They were finished. Zack heaved, unsure what to do.
Until he received a shove to his lower back, propelling him forward and whipping his head back. “What are you doing? Move!”
Zack grit his teeth. There was no other option than to charge.
A game of chicken stood between certain doom and the life of a winner. Zack set his jaw and roared at Alan. He set off, channeling his best cheetah.
Alan teetered on his feet and glanced uneasily into the foreign currency room. When Zack was a handful of steps away, Alan yelped and darted out of the way.
Zack slammed into the exit, his hand scrabbling for the handle, unlatching it.
The cool afternoon air buffeted him as he strung Sydney across the nearly empty parking lot. Zack spotted Sydney’s car and they careened towards it. The signal lights flashed as Sydney unlocked the doors.
“Zack! Sydney!” Morgan screamed from the open door. An alarm began to go off, and Kevin’s face peeked around Morgan.
Zack nearly ripped the handle of the passenger door off, and he almost fell into the driver’s seat, he was moving with such momentum.
Sydney appeared on the other side of the car and hurried into her own seat. She fumbled the keys for a moment, until she found the right one and jammed it into the ignition.
Zack scanned the parking lot. Alan and Kevin were both hustling across the asphalt towards Sydney’s Subaru.
The engine roared to life and Sydney slammed the shifter on the column into drive, and they lurched ahead. The tires chirped as they swerved out of the parking lot.
Zack looked back to see Alan and Kevin slowing to a stop. Morgan was waving her arm, the other holding a phone to her head. Zack figured she was talking to corporate. Or the police.
They drove along the road for a few quiet moments, until traffic ahead forced them to slow to a stop. A red light glared up ahead of the line of cars. They both stared straight ahead in silence for a few awkward moments before Sydney sighed. Her arms shook from the rush of adrenaline. “Well. Fuck.”
Zack nodded. “Yep.”