Mr. Banker

Tom held a piece of information so valuable it kept him alive. He had worked for Renaissance City Bank for fifteen years, starting as an intern in college and working his way up to bank manager. Not once in those fifteen years had he ever been robbed, much less held at gunpoint. That changed in an instant. He was now on the lobby floor looking up the barrel of a shotgun, and the grimy man on the other end was in no mood to waste time.

“I’m gonna need you open that safe now,” said the gunman.

“Mister, I just locked that vault, and I can’t reopen it for thirty minutes without triggering a deafening alarm. It’s an anti-theft measure. I don’t think that would be good for either of us.”

“Sounds like a bunch of BS. Are you messin’ with me, boy? I’ll dot you right between the eyes with the butt of this here shotgun.”

Tom told the gunman the truth about the alarm. The alarm connected to solar-powered backup batteries on the roof, a move Tom made a few years prior, which saved the bank a pretty penny on insurance premiums. He lied through his teeth, however, about recently closing it. He had not been in the bank vault since he made the last end-of-the-day vault deposit.

“No, sir. I wouldn’t mess with you. I just want this to end peacefully. You can have everything in the vault. I will need to manually hold down the button on the opposite wall while the door is open to prevent the alarm from triggering.”

Tom told the gunman another lie, one designed to keep himself alive for a little longer. He didn’t become the youngest bank manager in Renaissance City Bank history by being lucky. Tom was intelligent, and he was formulating a plan in real-time.

“I ain’t never heard of no bank vault operatin’ like that.”

“Well, this one does.”

“You better watch your tone with me, banker!”

“Sorry…sorry, I’m just a little stressed. Maybe if you didn’t have that gun pointed at my head…”

“Just get over there by that button, sit down, and keep your trap shut.”

“Whatever you say, mister.”

Tom sat silently under the button. The button triggered the alarm when pushed instead of preventing it from activating like he had told the gunman. Still, the lies were giving him time to devise an escape plan. The wall he leaned against separated his office from the lobby. Above his office, hidden by the drop ceiling tiles, was the roof access hatch. If he could lock his office door while the gunman was in the vault, he would have a shot at surviving the nightmare he was living. It was the best plan he could improvise in such a short time. Tom felt like he was one minute closer to getting escorted to the gallows each time the gunman looked at his watch.

The sun was setting, and the area was getting darker. The gunman periodically lifted one of the faux wood blind slats to assess his situation.

“So far, so good. I see a couple of stragglers down a couple of blocks, but looks like they goin’ ‘bout their own business. Yes, sir. I’m gonna get what I came after. All of it.”

“I don’t think you’ll find in that safe what you want to find.”

“Oh, I know what’s in that safe, banker. Been watching this place for several days now.”

The gunman took one last look out the window and one final glance at his watch. “Aight, banker, it’s time. Stand up and get ready to push that button. Where’s the code?”

“It’s in a black notebook on my desk. Let me get it for you.”

“No! No! No! Banker, you stay right where you’re at. I’ll get it.”

“Top drawer, center. Key is under the frog pen-holder.”

The gunman had no trouble fetching the notebook in the dark office. He walked back to the vault door and flipped open the notebook.

“Now, where’s that code?”

“Page three. Seven-digit code.”

“This better work, banker.”

The gunman held a flashlight under his chin as he punched in the code. The locks on the vault door released. He pulled the heavy door open and went inside. He positioned his flashlight on the table in the middle of the vault. Bricks of various denominations totaling twenty-thousand dollars sat on the table before him.

“What is this? Where’d you hide it?”

The gunman was irate. He turned and chambered a round in his shotgun. By then, Tom had hit the button on the wall. The alarm's loud and abrasive ringing would continue until the batteries drained or someone manually disconnected it. Tom ran through his office door and locked it.

Boom! Clink-Clink Boom!

Tom used the handles on his filing cabinet as steps to boost himself to the top. He opened the top drawer and grabbed a lock and key as he balanced himself. Glass fell onto the floor as the office windows busted. He heard the glass entrance of the lobby collapse.

Boom! Clink-Clink Boom!

The gunman screamed in agony.

Tom removed the ceiling tiles, launched himself onto the wall-mounted ladder, and climbed to the hatch. It opened with a couple of turns, and Tom climbed through to the roof.

Boom! Clink-Clink Boom!

With one final look through the roof hatch, he saw the pale white face and black eyes of an infected staring back at him. Then he heard the last screams from the gunman. Tom shut the hatch and locked it; then, he disconnected the alarm.

As he ate a beef taco MRE in his foldout chair, he stared at the US Army containers holding fifteen-hundred doses of the anti-virus. He decided that was another problem for another day. Tom finished his MRE, crawled into his tent, and drifted off to sleep.