Chapter VI

 

The kwacha notes were in excess of Seven Trillion making it more in circulation against the limited supply of the dollar. The economists and financial gurus were in limbo. Nothing seemed to be working out, inflation was escalating every day, and the kwacha was continuously losing value as well. The many textbooks on finance never seemed to offer solutions until the government resorted to the unconventional ways. The Syndicate was to induce an artificial shortfall of the local currency rendering the Kwacha powerful and gain its strength. The goal was to improve the perception of the government. It could not stand the condemnation coming from every sphere of the country. Instead of rebasing the currency as done by the previous government, the current one resorted to do it the smarter way.

It was time to knock off from her busy schedule, and every bank employee was rushing outside the bank walls. Very few people outside the walls of the most powerful bank in the country knew how busy and hectic the working hours were at the Central Bank. True to the common saying that the grass looked greener from afar. Many people including Tamara herself had wished to be on the payroll of the bank before realizing the salaries were subjected to the same government conditions.

Tamara was not one of the workers heading to either the underground car park or the main exit gate to Cairo road. The young woman had other plans, the plans she fathomed months ago. She was going to be temporarily homeless for this night for she was not going to log out through the usual channel as the rest. She remained in the bank and headed towards the vault room thirty minutes before the official time for knocking off. Her presence in the vault was not unusual to anyone from the Governor to the Cleaner. She was the one in charge, and for more than four years, she went in and out until Kelly made her realize her potential - until she looked at the notes in a different way.

Tamara was inside the vault room, aware of all the newly installed security systems. The Kenyan engineer boasted himself to have made this vault the most secured safe house in the entire country. She now had the antidote that she had mastered how to operate. The young banker and the late engineer were the only ones who knew of its existence. It was going to be her gateway through the tight security measures that the Bank of Zambia paid for at the high price. Tamara sat amidst the safe boxes, and waited for the time to strike. She knew the only person monitoring the vaults at any given time was the Governor from his mobile phone from anywhere on the face of the earth.

Her intelligent partner had it all figured out and the remaining easier tasks were the ones Tamara needed to do while inside the vault room. She knew how to misdirect the Closed Circuit Television cameras for they needed to continue functioning normally. The diode was equipped with the auto adjust of the lenses. The timing of alarm was paused and triggered after a negative two voltage was injected in the reverse direction of the diode.

The security men outside the bank were studied and the young banker knew their weak points. It was at such points that would be her strongest point. Tamara sat in the vault room waiting for every worker to completely vacate the building, and at the blink of her phone, then she would execute a twenty minutes lapse period during which the guards would form up to the front area for the evening parade. The driver would be ready at the rear lane of the bank through the restricted hallway. The boxes were many and so additional work force was on standby.

At exactly half past twenty-one, the signal came through her mobile phone, Tamara stood up at one of the five corners of the vault room. She knew the codes and the right amount of current to flow through to the parallel-connected diode. She turned the knob on the anode side of the diode to generate the pulse. Its change of short duration in current caused the timer of the signal to the linked mobile phone to pause for twenty minutes following the time interval comparable to the duration of the transient processes in the internal electric circuits in the alarm system.

The four cameras arrayed in different intersected locations in the vault continued to operate normally. The sequence of operation from the camera, lens, monitor and finally to the recorder remained intact. The Kenyan engineer concentrated mostly on the monitor since it was the display device that the diode controlled remotely. The wireless transmission of the signal from the object to the monitor was the catch point for the young banker. The transmitter that comprised the lens was tuned and its wavelength resonated to that of the receiver. The Kenyan’s magic box transmitted the interfering signals at the equal frequency with slightly lower lambda. The interference manifested at the receiving antenna distorted the signal of interest resulting in the combination of the signal of interest and the interfering signal. From the output end, the viewer would have no clue that the viewed object was not actually the one being picked by the camera in the vault.

After five minutes, Tamara was alone in the vault unmonitored for the next twenty minutes. She peeped through the television screen by the door for a clear view of the security guards attending the parade at the front yard. She then signalled the two boys and in no time, they were ready to bundle boxes in the waiting minibus. The bus was modified to carry Seven Trillion Kwacha off the Zambian Central Bank. Before the twenty minutes elapsed, the vault was emptied of the newly printed Kwacha notes.

Soon after, Tamara walked using the back door straight to the alley between Puma Filling station and the bank. The modified minibus also left for the predetermined location. All she needed were just seconds to pass through the tight security checkpoints through the back exit. In no time, she was walking and navigating her way through the late marketers who developed the tendency of selling their goods until midnight. She had no phone. She left it in the vault wiped out any call records and media stored on it. She had removed her Sim card and thrown it in the trash bin just outside the vault.

The book was clear on the route plan and exactly what to do with Tamara the vault robber and she needed not to conflict with it. Her life would depend on the Ghanaian man - he was her compass. She was instructed to erase her entire existence, leave it in the bank, and assume a new and invisible one. The moment she stepped out of the bank she knew she would soon become the most wanted person in the country. She just needed thirty minutes, if she was not caught before then, she would never be caught because of the poor reaction time by the security agencies in Zambia. With the use of mobile phones, all they knew was tracking the signal using the network service providers. No wonder her comeback boyfriend ensured that she did not lead the police and Drug Enforcement Commission for the next thirty minutes. Kelly assured her that everything was arranged and that a doctor was waiting for her somewhere. Then she remembered the contents of her book on page 23.

Be the one to stand out in the crowd,

Be the one to go where they’d rather not.

Beautiful things don’t beg for a chance to glow

They throw out their lights and just shine out loud

It was time to disappear and glow in her quest to be her own boss. The project was done and she didn’t have to look back. It was a Point of No Return. The act was done. The Captured in a rucksack was in play and Tamara was the actor. She was actualizing the book and every letter and paragraphs were important in the drama. The book was her Ten Commandments, whose obedience was unquestionable and disobedience punished with the penalty of death. Tamara walked briskly to the taxi waiting for her at Total Filling station.

She didn’t have to talk to anyone, those were the instructions. Likewise, the driver knew his orders. In total silence, the two drove away.