filled up the bucket and came back out intending to clean the dust off each stair. On the way out, she tripped slightly and fell against the wall of the staircase. The bucket landed upright and didn’t spill much, but she hit the side of her body.
“Shit!” She sat down and took a breath, massaged her shoulder and looked at the wall where she hit and noticed a visible crack in the paint. She moved closer and felt the crack with her fingertips. She pressed the crack and suddenly it expanded into a long straight seam up the wall. She stood up and kept pressing on the seam and it formed into a perfect six-foot-high frame.
“There’s a door here,” she whispered, “hidden by paint.” She began to knock up and down, side-to-side on the wall and realized that it was hallow inside. “This must be a storage room. But why would someone try to hide it?”
The door was flush with the wall, if not for the crack and seam, no one would ever notice, but there was obviously an opening there. From the foot of the first step to the back of the wall must have been 25 feet, a significant room could be in there!
She pushed on the door but it was solidly sealed. She then used the soapy water and sponge to clean the entire wall to find more clues. There were none, just what she originally discovered – a perfect door but with no handles, locks or holes.
“There’s something in there! I can sense it!” And with no way to budge the door, there was only one thing to do.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Eleventh Hour
MIRA-CAL Technologies
Marko Marmilic’s troubles were great, if not hopeless from a professional and business point of view. His regret in accepting the DoD’s commission grew day by day. He realized that he committed business’ biggest sin: making a promise that he couldn’t keep; even worse, he took the money – a cool $350 million - after giving that promise.
Day after day, he studied the requirements of the Pentagon’s project:
1.The vehicle had to achieve hypersonic speeds.
2.The vehicle could not be larger than a huge truck but only as wide as a motorcycle.
3.The vehicle had to be made of the latest stealth materials.
4.The vehicle would be invisible to all radar or infrared satellite devices known to Man.
5.The vehicle had to be land-based, not a plane, drone or spacecraft.
6.The vehicle had to be operated by a single pilot. And finally-
7.The vehicle had to be completely silent.
“There’s no way this can be done,” he would say to himself. “It just can’t be done! Hypersonic speed is achievable, but for missiles and drones! How can this be done on land AND avoid sonic or infrared detection?”
His engineering teams were just as frustrated, and went about trying to solve these impossible problems in mostly quiet whispers. It was the quietest year for MIRA-CAL which was so used to celebrating their achievements with fanfare, parties, media spots and award ceremonies. For this corporation, it was as if they were mourning.
But it was the quietist for Marko, who began to withdraw and isolate himself in silence. Always silent. Even at the staff meetings, the animated motivator seemed muted by his impending failure. This is what worried his staff the most, not that he was struggling with this problem, but that he was silent about it. It seemed to be eating him alive.
In Buddhism, it is said: “A mighty lion can be killed by a single parasite.” They knew that the parasite was eating him, eating him. . .silently.
* * * * *
Raduč
“WHAM!!! WHAM!!! WHAM!!!”
Irena swung the sledgehammer down hard on the wall around the hidden door and upon the door itself. The day was hot and sweat glistened off her face, neck and legs. Wearing only shorts and a light t-shirt, she was dressed for the heat and the hard, physical labor ahead.
“WHAM!!! WHAM!!!” She brought the hammer down, making holes into the drywall and crushing the brick wall. She noticed by the sound of the impact that the door was solid wood, so it would be harder to bring down, so she slammed on the outer wall, the cracks and the door seal with all her strength.
After another round of blows to the seam and crack, the door fell back on itself with a loud crash and clouds of dust billowed out. She was in! She stumbled back and sat down to catch her breath, drink from her bottled water and waited for the dust to settle. With the door down, she could then hammer the wall from the inside and it would all come down, making a huge enough opening to walk in and out freely.
* * * * *
The room was dark, but she brought in a flashlight and noticed the room did, in fact, extend back some 20 feet and was some 15 feet wide. The temperature was cool and had the dank, mildew smell of an old wine cellar. There was a small table there with one chair, and several candle holders.
As she moved deeper in, she noticed two large wooden crates locked with iron padlocks. What kind of hidden treasure is this? she thought. She searched for the keys to the crates but they were nowhere to be found. She stepped outside the doorway and into the light of day, retrieved several standing lamps, an extension cord, another bottle of water, the sledgehammer, and walked back into the darkness.
* * * * *
MIRA-CAL
Marko Marmilic had tried everything: every theorem, every angle, every wild notion of how to make a land vehicle travel five times the speed of sound and make no noise. His working prototype could only hit Mach 2, and that was a jet-rocket sled on rails.
This was not his specialty, not his area of expertise. Why didn’t the Pentagon go to NASA, Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics or Boeing? Their answer? ‘We only trust you because you are the visionary! You can foresee things others cannot and make them!’
And week after week, the calls would come about his progress, about his prototype. He had no answers for them. For four consecutive days, he had writer’s block, or more accurately, inventor’s block, where he simply sat at his drafting table, staring at all the numbers, all the designs, and all the schematics in utter, dumbfounded silence.
* * * * *
Raduć
“WHAM!!! WHAM!!! WHAM!!! WHAM!!!”
It only took two swings of the hammer on each padlock to break them off the crates. She picked up the heavy brass locks and threw them into the trash can she had brought in. She did a quick sweeping of the entire inner room, table, chair and cleared all the cobwebs in the corners. She removed the candle holders and used the lamp lights to illuminate the room thoroughly.
The space was now well-lit, clean and ventilated. She planned to break down the rest of the wall later in the week, dump the bricks and wood outside in one corner of the yard. Once that section was down, she could decorate the area under the stairs with house plants, a couch, bookshelves, etc. But first things first – the crates!
She opened
