The next morning, the new dawn seemed to bring a different energy to the Carrason house. Despair had been replaced by a hopeful tension. Matteo Carrason, who had seemed defeated the night before, now moved with purpose. He had spent the morning on the phone, processing the initial paperwork for the tender application.
"Rayden, Rania, let's go now," he said firmly after hanging up the last call. There was no longer any disdain in his voice when he called Rayden's name. There was only the tone of a commander summoning his strategist.
The three of them got into the car. Matteo drove, with Rayden beside him and Rania in the back seat. The journey took them to the outskirts of Barcelona, to an old industrial area that seemed forgotten by time. Rusting factories and empty warehouses lined the cracked roads.
"Are you sure this is the place, Rayden?" Matteo asked, his skepticism returning as he surveyed the rundown neighborhood. "This looks like an industrial graveyard. I doubt anyone still operates here."
Rayden simply pointed to a sign that was nearly torn off. "L Teknik. Over there."
The shop was exactly as Rayden had described: old, deserted, and on the verge of bankruptcy. Piles of used parts lay in the yard. A thin, elderly man in a rumpled flannel shirt climbed out from under a junk truck, wiping his oil-stained hands.
"Can I help you, sir?" he asked wearily. "Sorry, but you might have to wait a few days for service. I'm short on staff."
"We're looking for Mr. Arthur," Matteo said.
"It's me. How can I help you?" the man replied, looking at them with tired eyes.
"We heard you have some used low-bed truck heads for sale," Matteo continued, getting straight to the point. "Modified trucks from Germany. We're interested in buying them."
Mr. Arthur's eyes, previously dull, now lit up with a mix of pride and sadness. "Ah... the 'Sleeping Giant.' No one's asked about it in a long time. No one's been interested in it for years. Even used dealers refuse to buy it because it's too specific. Come with me. I'll show you the goods."
He led them to the back of the workshop, to a large garage covered with a giant blue tarp. With some effort, he pulled the tarp away.
As the tarp fell to the ground, Matteo Carrason held his breath.
Before him, sleeping under a thick layer of dust, stood three giant truck heads. No ordinary trucks. They were sturdy, fierce, with tires larger than a grown man. Although old and slightly rusted, an aura of raw power radiated from the machines.
"This..." whispered Matteo, a veteran of the logistics world. He walked over and touched the thick steel bumper of one of the trucks. "This is a Foden-MAN 6x6 Military Truck. How could this be in Barcelona? It should be in a military museum, not a workshop like this!"
"I bought it at a military surplus auction years ago," Mr. Arthur explained nostalgically. "Hoping someday there would be a major mining project that would require a truck for extreme terrain. But that project never came along. All the companies preferred to rent modern trucks rather than buy old things like this. The toughness of these trucks far surpasses modern technology."
While Matteo was awed by the truck's sheer power, Rayden walked around it with the gaze of an expert. He patted one of the tires, inspected the chassis, then opened the heavy hood. He peered inside the complex engine's innards.
"The turbo-intercooled V8 is still good," Rayden said suddenly. His voice was full of conviction. "But the suspension hydraulic system must be weak after years of disuse. Mr. Arthur, do you still have the original ZF hydraulic pump and valve set? And what about the rubber seals for the pneumatic brake system? Those are usually the first to fail with age."
Mr. Arthur, who had been explaining something to Matteo, stopped talking. He turned his head slowly, staring at Rayden with his mouth agape. "How... how do you know all this... young man?" he stammered, his eyes wide with disbelief. "No one knows the detailed specifications of this machine but me. Even the manual is written in German. I myself studied for years to understand these machines. You... you worked in a German factory?"
Rania, who was standing behind, covered her mouth in shock. Her father froze, staring at his son-in-law as if he were a ghost. Rayden didn't just know about this truck; he knew exactly what was inside the machine.
Rayden smiled faintly. "Just a guess based on experience. I've read similar technical manuals before."
That guess was enough to dispel any remaining doubts in Matteo's mind. He immediately turned to Mr. Arthur. "Mr. Arthur, how much are these three trucks? We need them for a mining project. The terrain we'll be traversing is very difficult, so trucks like these are perfect for our needs."
Negotiations began. Mr. Arthur initially offered a relatively high price, but Matteo, with his decades of experience, knew that the man was desperate for money. He saw the outstanding electricity bill on his desk, the deserted workshop, and the empty, customer-less garage. After brief but intense negotiations, they managed to purchase the three trucks for a fraction of their market value.
"Thank you, sir. You saved my business," Mr. Arthur said with tears in his eyes as he signed the purchase agreement. "These trucks are like my children. I'm glad they'll finally be used for something useful, instead of just sitting here waiting to be sold as scrap metal."
When he returned to the car, the atmosphere was completely different. The hope now felt real. The first miracle of Rayden's plan had been realized. Matteo stared at the road ahead, but his thoughts were on the mysterious young man beside him. He no longer saw him as a son-in-law. He saw him as a secret weapon, a key to a fortune he didn't know how it had fallen into his hands.
He turned the wheel, and the car headed out of town, toward the green hills that in the distance morphed into the silhouette of a forbidding mountain range.
"Okay, Rayden," Matteo said, his voice filled with a long-lost energy. "The truck's ready. Now, show us the logging road. I want to see for myself whether it's real or just a legend. And if it is, I need to assess whether the trucks can actually navigate it safely."
The car sped off, leaving the dying industrial area behind, toward the heart of Mount Nero, where the gold mining project that would change the fate of the Carrason family was located.