THE ROMANTIC OFFICE SAGA: PART 75

THE ROMANTIC OFFICE SAGA: PART 75

WHAT IS IN THE SECOND FLASH DISK? SALLY’S REPORT: THE BOMBSHELL!!

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“I knew that Irene has always been a hard-working lady, I knew it! Thank you Sally.” Our boss said and moved to hug Sally.

Then the boss hugged Irene and they held each other in a long tight embrace, smiling and laughing with a lot of joy and excitement. 

However, the directors wore a very confused expression. They were in shock as the report contradicted their expectations. I also wondered, “Then how can the lost money be explained?”

There was confusion as Directors stood and began pacing up and down scrutinizing the documents presented. However, Irene and the boss continued chatting excitedly still holding each other. 

No one noticed as Sally came quickly to where I was seated. As she came, she was beaming with a smile, a rather mischievous smile. I sensed Sally knew more than we could see at face value. She held my hand and told me, “Sweet heart, I can never fail you. You haven’t seen anything yet. Come with me, please come with Collins and Celestine. Hurry.” Sally told me. I motioned Collins and Celestine to follow me.

No one noticed us leave the room due to the confusion that was in the room.

We went to Sally’s office and she ushered us inside. I felt comforted already.

Sally opened a huge office cabinet there which I had never seen its contents and it was full of files, so many files and folders that could fill a medium sized pick up. None of us expected that. 

“Help me carry all these files and folders to the conference room. Someone is going to die of a heart attack today.” Sally told me in a flat tone I have never heard from her.

She continued, “Who does Irene take me for, a fool? A lesbian? A toddler or just a bloody nincompoop? She will know who I am today.” Sally continued to tell me as we unloaded the folders from the huge office cabinet giving them to Collins who held as many as possible with his huge hands supporting as most as possible with his huge chest. 

Once Collins could not hold any more files folders, he said so.

“Take them to the conference hall.” As he went, Celestine also followed him carrying the much she could. 

As soon as we were left alone. Sally held me tightly and told me, “Honey, I am so sorry for making you go through this. You will soon understand but please forgive me in advance. I owe you my life. Let us finish up with this.” She told me and kissed me in the lips. I felt comforted. Much confusion began clearing away but I knew there were a lot of mysteries in the whole saga. But I trusted Sally will take it to the end and clear everything.

Collins came back for me and we finished carrying the rest and took them to the conference hall. 

When we got in, there was a lot of confusion in their faces, all of them. 

Irene took her seat and boss too as they looked at the files that Sally had just placed at the table and some at the floor, so many of them. I looked at each of them and it was like they were seeing a ghost. Horror and shock was written all over them.

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“Please, I urge everyone of you to settle down, we are about to begin the most important phase of the entire audit. I want you to be keen and follow me through the phase.” Sally told us and we all sat down.

She looked at each one of us and there was a lot of suspense in the room. The realization of what was about to happen made me want to scream.

She continued, “As I just said, the financial audit report I have just given you is based on documents that I was furnished with by Irene and my boss. In accordance to the documents, they are both innocent.” I wondered why Sally was using the word both. But I held my cool.

“However, according to the documents that are in my possession, that I know are the documents that reflect the accurate, verifiable and credible financial records of our company, the report derived from them is different and has different outcome in the financial audit.” Sally said and paused.

The directors were now more confused, but one of them told her, “Go on. We are listening.”

Sally began with the first year that was analyzed. 

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FIRST YEAR:

“You will realize that the cheques presented to me for the year 2013 bear the wrong serial numbers. A cheque serial is like DDMMYYYY meaning the serial would have ended with 2013 after the initial serials, however the first cheque the serial was 234-0001-23012016 yet the cheque us dated 12th January 2013. That could only mean one thing, the cheque is fake. Comparing to the cheque that corresponds with that particular month, the cheque had amount in figures Kshs 17,256,000 while fake cheque has amount in figures Kshs 1,725,600 meaning an amount of Kshs 15,530,400 for the month of January 2013 remains unaccounted for. The money was withdrawn, but only Kshs 1,725,600 was recorded into our INFMIS, the rest, wherever it went remains a mystery.” Sally said, very clear to the details leaving every one of the people in the room shocked. 

Irene and Madam boss were looking at Sally as if she was seeing a ghost. There was a lot of anger in their faces.

Sally continued.

“Also in the month of April 2013, the cheque serial number given to me by Irene is 745-0021-16162016 meaning the cheque validity would be for the year 2016 but looking at the date, it has 16th June 2013. On top of that, the cheque given to me by Irene has an amount in figure of Kshs 3,478,800 which was to be used to pay some foreign diplomats who supposedly were to seal a business deal for us with the US embassy. But the actual cheque has Kshs 34,788,000 written. Which means someone withdrew the amount but fed to our IFMIS with Kshs 3,478,800. That would mean that Kshs 31,309,200 remains unaccounted for. Also doing a follow up, there were no any single communication with foreign embassies at that month according to the System report by our IT manager from our email server. In fact, I do not even expect our IT manager to be aware of any such a deal at all. And in his system the record only has the amount 3,478,800 in figures.” Sally said.

These revelations coming from Sally meant one thing, the amount of money embezzled from our company would amount to staggering proportions of epic scale never witnessed in such a medium sized company which was meant to grow at a very fast rate if at all the money that had been misappropriated went into company investment. 

Sally went forth to the second and third year. The revelations kept coming. 

Irene and boss tried to protest but the directors told them to shut up.

“Sir, if you have noted, there is a sequence. In all figures that were ending with zeros, all that was being done was appending another zero to the figure, then the whole amount would somehow get to be withdrawn but what would go into our IFMIS was the figure which had lesser zeros; this made it practically impossible for anyone to detect the level of fraudulent operations that were going in company through the IFMIS. In fact, all IFMIS reports are, technically, 100% accurate.” Sally told them and looked at me as if wanting me to add something.

Directors looked at me.

“It is true sir. The computers operate on GIGO, meaning whatever you record in the system, that is assumed to have all accuracy, the system just accepts the figure being entered as long as it is a valid figure. Nothing would indicate the figure is wrong from the source.” I said feeling proud for once since the entire audit began.

“Very interesting! Go on Madam Sally.” The directors said.

Sally continued to read out the details, majoring on the major fraud cases that occurred in the company and by the end this was her conclusion:

“So, going by my report, the amount of money that cannot be accounted for amounts to Kshs 3,272,240,700. That is well over 3 Billion Kshs. You can go through the documents for yourself.” Sally told the directors handing them over the cheques to do comparison.

Sally paused and continued, “I am not done yet.”

“According to my findings, also cafeteria was another source of fraud. Most items in that cafeteria, their prices are doubled if not tripled compared the buying price of the product or item. It will however be impossible to estimate how much amount of money was lost in the cafeteria but I have an example here.” Sally produced a small cash and orders book, and I assumed it was the one that Zuhura told me about. In the book, for example, a Kilo of Potatoes was indicated to have been bought at Kshs 1000 where as it was supposed to be Kshs 100. In short, the appending of Zeros in figures ending in zeros was evident in almost every amount approved.

Also, all office items were equally overpriced except IT items which were under my department from procurement and sourcing. 

Another source was in Irene and Boss’s salaries. For Irene, her Salary was meant to start at Kshs 36,000 the first year, second year was to be at 40,000 and third year was to be at 44,0000. The same addition of zeros to the figure was all over. That meant by 3 years Irene had gotten 12,960,000 from the company which was never part of her salary. However, Irene had worked for 4 and a half years in the company. The rest years there existed no records of her salaries even in the system. Also in another shocking revelation, there were a total of 3 Irenes in the company according to a record Sally shown, whose source I could not really tell, but judging by how shocked Irene was, it would have meant the document was true.

The boss, who I later came to learn had worked lesser period compared to Irene put for herself a constant figure of Kshs 250,000 per month. But each month she carried home Kshs 2,500,000 meaning each month she got 2,250,000 on top of her Salary. Also, each month, it was revealed that the boss wrote a cheque of Kshs 200,000 to Irene, perhaps to appease her not to reveal the information.

Also, it was revealed all employees had some fraction amount of money which was never deposited in their salaries, and never reflected in their salaries all along. Where the money went? No one knew except Irene who was in charge of paying people. I wondered, could that have been the reason why she delayed the salaries the first month Sally came since she was buying time to do her magic?

But of the worst expose was when Sally mentioned my Salary. I was left fuming with rage I felt like I would just kill Irene there and then. In the revelation, I was supposed to be earning a double salary of what she was depositing in my account as net salary. 

The first year, I got Kshs 55,000 each month. The second year, Kshs 65,000 and third year Kshs 75,000. But I was supposed to be getting double of that in each of the months! In short it meant Irene had denied me a total of Kshs 2,340,000! That would also mean the 2 million she gave to me, was literally my money and she owed me Kshs 340,000. That was terrible news for me, very terrible. I have never hated Irene more than I hated her that particular day. 

“Sally is only tarnishing my name!” Irene shouted.

“But all the documents I have here are authentic! You can compare. Your cheques do not have a watermark meaning they are all fake. The ones I have all bear some water mark. Also, you can see the lack of proper serials corresponding to the year. How can you explain that? Can’t you also see the amount of discrepancies in your orders books, cash books and literally every financial document that you gave me?” Sally asked Irene, in a calm and composed tone.

All the while, the director who had done accounts was going through the documents and noting down something in his notebook. Derrick was smiling.

Delilah served us with more water. Sally continued with her presentation answering questions from the directors.

“There is a problem with your laptop.” I told Sally without seeking permission to talk.

“What problem? I can see none.” Sally told me.

“No, wait, let me adjust it for you, meanwhile continue with your presentation, it won’t affect the presentation.” I told her. I moved forward and adjusted a few things in her keyboard without altering the presentation. As I left the table, Sally did not notice that I took her bottle of water or she assumed I was just thirsty.

She continued with her presentation.

“So that means, all funding that was coming to the company, all figures that had more than one zero were misappropriated, however, the money that did not have zeros was left untouched. This made it difficult to detect any fraud in the company. Worse, none of the misappropriation could be detected at the ICT department, or our system since the system accepts any valid figure, however right or wrong it is.” Sally said.

“Do you mean the IFMIS is not important to us?” One of the directors asked.

“No, IFMIS under IT department is very important, in fact were it not for the report from Tony, I would never have gotten the audit trail to follow. It is from the IT report that I got clues on what to look for. I realized the relationship between the fraudulent figures ending with zeros between the hard copies and the system figures, so it was very easy to conduct the audit. So, the system is central to the running of the organization; it makes work tremendously easier for all of us around here. In fact, in my own opinion, IT department should be elevated to a vital department in this organization and accorded more resources in order to run more effectively.” Sally said.

Sally’s report literally touched everyone and everything in the company. From employees, to all purchases, to all salaries ever paid to the employees, and the worst hit was the top management followed by accounts department. 

It was obvious the boss was extremely guilty. She was in fact responsible or more than 90% of losses in the company while Irene took over the rest. However, it was evident in the report that a fraction of every amount that the boss stole from the company was shared to Irene.

“Sally, so you were pretending to be my friend in order to finish me? Sally, you have finished me. You have literally killed me. Why Sally, why? I really trusted you as a friend and a lover…” Irene broke down into tears. She continued to talk and became completely hysterical, she was sweating profusely despite the coolness of the room by the air conditioner. As it came apparent that she was becoming uncontrollable, directors walked out of the room followed by Derrick. 

There was an almost shouting match between Sally and Irene. 

“Sally how could you do this to me?” Irene asked holding Sally by her shoulders.

“What were you thinking when you plotted my termination? What were you thinking when you plotted to snatch my lover from me? What were you thinking when you plotted to separate me from Tony? What were you thinking when you stole all my salary and salaries of everyone in this company? What were you thinking when you made Luke get fired? What were you thinking when you made Zuhura run away? Irene, you are so evil. Today is your day. You will rot in jail.” Sally told Irene.

Irene turned to me, “Tony, why did you betray me? Tony, you even broke my virginity and I thought you loved me, so you were plotting my downfall?”

At that point, Sally got crazy. She held Irene by her shoulders and pushed her against the wall.

“Stupid bitch! You tried to blackmail Tony with your stupid virginity! Do you fucking think your v@gina is golden and mine is made of flesh?!” Sally told Irene.

“Yes, he broke my precious virginity which I had preserved for a special man!” Irene said.

“I don’t care! He should have broken your neck instead!!” Sally shouted back.

It was threatening to get physical.

It was when all these dramas were going on that I realized that our boss had not moved an inch from where she was seated all along after Sally finished her expose. I could see she was breathing hard as Sally was exposing the deep rot in the company one by one. But since Sally stopped, she had not moved.

I looked at her and she just stared at me. I moved to where she was seated. As I approached her, feeling of doom overwhelmed me.

“Madam, Madam, Madam” I tried calling her. She did not respond. I sensed all was not well.

“Hey guys! Can someone tell me what is wrong with our boss?” I exclaimed feeling beginning to panic.

Everyone tried to wake her but she did not respond. I sensed something was seriously wrong with her. She was not breathing.

I called one of our directors, a one Madam Christine who had some medical background. She came and examined her. Immediately she checked her pulse with her hands, she shouted, “Call an ambulance!”

“Close the conference hall and hand me the keys, we shall resume our meeting later.” Christine said.

An ambulance came, they loaded our boss inside and left with sirens blaring.

Meanwhile, Irene got handcuffed by the police who were there.

“Irene, you are going to take us to where you were getting the fake documents from!” One of the police said.

“Call madam, we might need her in this.” One of the policemen said. As the police Landcruiser drove away, I and Collins insisted to follow them in another police van. The policemen looked at Collins for a while. He had removed his coat, his shirt and remained with a tight T shirt. He told Collins, “get in, we might need your strength somewhere else.”

Sally also came along and sat close to me.

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The police drove to a posh residential estate with very nice lawns and gated self-contained fully furnished compounds in an Estate in Muthaiga. When we got there, a gateman opened for us and we got ushered into the compound.

After scanning the environment, I realized it was a very wrong decision to go along with the police, worse to go with Sally. However, Sally seemed very comfortable.

The police drew out their guns and suddenly some Asian men came out.

“Madam is here!” A police man shouted. On looking who was being referred to as madam, it was none other than Reginah wearing a loose fitting trouser, and a nicely pressed shirt.

“Hi dear.” She greeted me as she passed. She did not wait for me to respond.

Collins followed the police closely as they approached the Asian guys. Collins was a very brave man and he fully knew his body was intimidating enough to everyone around. But the Asian dudes did not seem moved by him. Besides, they seemed softies.

The police men returned their guns upon seeing how harmless the guys seemed. That was a wrong move.

The 3 Asian guys suddenly turned violent and within no time I could tell they were highly trained martial artists. One of them charged towards me, another engaged Collins and the other went for one policeman. 

“No guns!” Reginah shouted indicating she just did not want anyone shot. So, the policemen engaged the men hand to hand combat but it was obvious the policemen were losing it. The guy who charged towards me kept kicking, high and fast flying kicks; the only advantage I had over him was he was shorter than me so it was easy to move far enough from him, enough for me to avoid his kicks, but close for me to keep kicking him. But he was ducking avoiding my kicks. I did not want to seem I was afraid of him, but it was obvious the man was a trained fighter. Suddenly I remembered that most people in the world did not know capoeira fighting moves and I engaged the technique. I made to kick him; he ducked but with that motion I bent myself forward, went for the ground with my arms, bent my waist and twisted myself such that my left leg aimed for his legs. He was surprised as I caught him totally unware as I swept him off his feet, sent him flying in the air before he landed with a thud on the concrete floor. I rolled over and stood up, catapulted my entire body towards him as he began to regain his feet and my left knee knocked him straight in his face and he fell down again. As he was struggling to rise, a policeman cuffed both his legs and arms.

The man engaging Collins was overpowering Collins since Collins was not a martial artist, all he had was strength. No matter how many times he tried to hit the small man, he kept missing. The man kept hitting Collins since his body was big you just could not miss. But it was obvious Collins was not feeling anything as his huge muscles were absorbing the entire blows smoothly. I moved to help Collins. I rolled on the floor, twisted and swept the man off his feet and as he fell, he fell right into the arms of Collins who literally lifted him in the air, hurled him so hard against the floor with so much force such that the man fainted upon hitting the ground. 

As we were engaging the small Asian guys, a taller guy was smoking cigar at the door enjoying the show. Suddenly, two of them, him and another guy came charging towards us. We tried to engage them, me Collins and 3 policemen but the guys were worse. No matter how much I kicked, none of my blows ever landed in any of the two lethal fighters. They kept ducking, twisting and somersaulting. Suddenly one of them moved swiftly with some twisting tiger move and held my neck so hard I could not breath. I looked at his face and I was shocked to realize who he was.

He was none other than Kurdishiankhumarshar! The guy who conned us and apparently who Irene made us to believe he moved to Pakistan! He delivered a mighty blow in my stomach so hard I felt like throwing up. As I staggered backwards, he threw a kick and aimed for my chest, hit me so hard I flew in the air and landed a few feet away from him. I tried to stand up but was unable. I was on pain.

Sally screamed!

He then charged towards Collins with very swift perfectly coordinated kicks and blows. Collins was receiving a thorough beating he was completely unable to even throw a kick or a blow. He was totally overpowered. He finally fell down.

Suddenly, Reginah charged towards Kurdishiankhumarshar. They faced each other in a fierce hand to hand combat. Reginah was a real tigress! She kept kicking and punching the fighter all over his body with such speed such that Kurd never even got to hit Reginah even once. But Kurd was tough as he was so resilient. He fought back but he was totally overpowered. By the time he fell down, he was bleeding from his nose and mouth, his shirt was torn. Reginah had a small bruise on her forehead where a kick nearly got her head, but she was all right. Reginah cuffed his feet and hands before telling him, “I love kicking tough asses like yours!”

Suddenly, my attention was drawn to Irene. She was holding a pistol pointing at Sally who was standing facing her, completely unable to move due to horror at the realization of what might happen to her.

“You cannot do all that to me and remain alive!” Irene said. 

She aimed and fired. I heard a loud bang. Sally fell down. I have never felt that charged in my entire life. I decided if Sally dies, I also die.

I moved fast towards Irene and landed a mighty kick on her chest, she fell down flat and the pistol fell away from her. I continued raining blows on Irene and were it not for Collins who came and restrained me, I wanted to kill her.

But on turning back, I thought I saw a miracle. Sally was standing holding the pistol just looking at it.

“Damn! Sally you are alive! Oh! Goodness!” I exclaimed. 

“She is fine, the bullet missed her by inches.” Reginah told me. She took the pistol from Sally and told her, “This thing is dangerous, give it to me.” 

As Reginah was handcuffing Irene again, Sally approached her.

“Irene, I still owe you a slap.” Sally said and slapped Irene 2 major slaps until she staggered backward and fell again. I smiled.

Irene, Kurd and their associates got arrested. We learned later that our boss was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, died of a massive heart attack. Probably due to shock.

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We arrived home at 10 pm, after a very long day. On our way into our compound I saw a cat walking, a very healthy brown cat. I took it and began going with it towards my house.

“Honey, you can’t just pick a cat from the road side and take it home.” Sally insisted.

“Can’t you see the cat is hungry and thirsty? I want to feed it.” I told her. She laughed and left me to carry it.

After feeding the cat, I gave it water from the bottle that was meant for Sally. The cat drank a lot of it.

However, the following morning, we work up and found the cat completely dead.

“Honey, you are scaring me now, I don’t understand.” Sally told me.

“We are taking this cat to vet for postmortem.” I insisted. 

The vet wondered why I wanted to conduct a postmortem on a dead strange cat, but he did it all the same since I insisted. 

Finally, the vet told us the cat probably died from a heart attack or asphyxiation, natural causes perhaps.

“No, I know what killed the cat.” I told the vet who looked at me like I was crazy. 

“Ok, tell me.” He insisted. I gave him the bottle of mineral water that I had fed the cat with, it had half water in it.

“What is the meaning of this?” The vet insisted.

“I want you to tell me what chemical is in that water.” I told him. He called a friend of his who was a chemist. He tested the water and told us, “The water contains traces of highly poisonous compound called succinylcholine and minor traces of aconite; both highly poisonous. In fact, anyone who dies from them, it is almost impossible to determine the cause of death since the body breaks down the chemicals leaving no traces of them. Anyone poisoned with them, 99% of doctors conclude she or he died a natural death, slept and died.” 

“That water was meant for her.” I told the chemist and pointed to Sally who was so horrified to an extent her face was pale. I had noticed the bottle seal was broken and then replaced so smartly before being given to Sally; it would need someone to be extremely keen to notice, that made me believe the water was tampered with and that was the reason why I moved swiftly and took it away from her.

“Do you mean, someone tried to kill me?” She asked.

“Yes, Irene tried to kill you twice yesterday, both attempts failed. Your guardian angel is so much active protecting your life.” I told Sally. 

She came over to me and hugged me so tightly and said, “You are my guardian angel, I am lucky to have you! You saved my life twice yesterday!”

A lot however remained a mystery to me, and I was keen to know.

>>>To be continued>>>

As narrated by Dr. Love