Project Sparta (The Xander Whitt Series Book 1) (21 page)

Chapter 38

The Compound

June 9
th
2011

Again, Xander couldn’t sleep. His mind had jumped to wild speculation in a feeble attempt to understand the motives of such an unorthodox program. His mind was unsettled, lost among too many loose ends.

These endless spy games had to be designed as part of my training. They gave Fiona a mission similar to mine. They wanted us to spy on each other. But why? And what happens now that I have caught on to Fiona?

He had suspected the instructors were withholding information from him regarding Fiona’s activity, but he never thought it would amount to this. It seemed like only yesterday that Hardy had taken him for his first walk into the Compound, given him the grand tour. The memory was now a stain on his conscience. It was the day his life ended. The day he was thrown into this whirlwind of espionage. People backstabbing their country. People committing suicide. People spying on one another.

He had to know the truth, no matter the cost.

There were many unwritten rules in the Compound. Xander couldn’t keep track of them all. But one of them was “Do not go up the stairs to the instructors’ offices.” He had already been up the stairs once when Hardy had escorted him through the hallway on their way to the park.

The clock read 3:00 a.m. Xander pushed open the back door and gazed out and over the rest of the Compound. He listened to the eerie quiet of the Compound after hours. Xander tried to be discrete as he walked low and slow toward the Mainframe. He jumped down behind the AC units, using them for cover, and made his way toward the stairs.

Xander reached the stairs and ascended them with soft feet. He came to the one-way mirror and crouched below it. He produced his lock-picking kit, but the door was not locked.

Surprised and cautious, he nudged the door open an inch. Its oiled hinges provided a silent entry. He squeezed through the door and spun into the corner of the hallway and listened for any activity down the corridor.

No instructors or Spartans were in sight.

Xander rose to his feet and moved down the hall. He tried doors on either side, but all were locked. And then he came to an open door halfway down the hall.

Xander entered the office and closed the door behind him. When he turned to the face the room, his eyes found the nameplate on the desk.

Col. Jackson Hardy

Hardy’s desk was organized with neatly stacked files, each labeled with a different Spartan’s name. On his desk was a lone, handwritten note. Xander walked around and sat at the desk. He picked up the note.

I got your email. Consider it done. It’s a shame she won’t make it.

– Axle

Xander’s eyes widened. His heart stopped in his chest.

Hardy is angry about Fiona’s reckless attempt to relay her observations in front of her fellow Spartans.

Xander’s mind searched wildly for any other plausible meaning behind Axle’s note.

“Consider
what
done?” Xander whispered, eyes searching the office for any other lead. Then he saw a laptop folded on the side of the desk. He opened it up and woke it from its hibernation. As soon as the screen came to light, Xander typed feverishly as he began his hack of the Project Director’s computer.

He quickly bypassed the login screen and navigated the black-and-white scripts that flashed over the screen. Xander’s eyes darted across all lines of the commands as he began the brute force attempt to crack the password. The program he was able to load off of the open Compound network rattled off thousands upon thousands of password attempts. He leaned back in the office chair while his command attempted the password crack and scanned the room, slowly. One photo on the shelf showed Hardy fishing with a senator and another showed a group of friends from his time in the armed service.

The computer script stopped and Hardy’s laptop unlocked.

“I’m in,” Xander said to himself. He looked back at the note from Axle.

I got your email. Consider it done.

Xander directed the mouse to Outlook and opened the Colonel’s inbox. He quickly searched the Sent folder for the most recent email to Axle. Xander’s hands froze as he read the subject line.

Subject: Fiona Jenkins

             
Xander’s eyes glanced back at the note. “It’s a shame she won’t make it…” His voice trembled along with his hands, as he guided the mouse over the email and clicked it open.

James,

Xander is onto Fiona’s recon. She missed her drop, mission failure. After the final battle she will have to be disposed of. Should be some C-4 in the Armory.

Jackson

Xander fell back in the chair and tried to catch his breath. He doubled over as the room began to spin before him. His gut clenched.

“They are going to kill Fiona.” His mouth hung open while he searched for any other possibility, but found none. “They are going to use C-4, probably call it a suicide.” Xander sunk in the chair. “Ezra…they killed Ezra.”

All of a sudden, the image of the silhouette at the window came back to his mind. He imagined Hardy standing before the window.

The silhouette I saw on the night of Ezra’s death was Hardy. He was watching his directive being carried out…and Fiona is next.

Xander was suspended between shock and hatred. His blood boiled but the realization had paralyzed him. Then his eyes fell to a book on the desk—Plato’s
Republic
. He remembered the note in his copy.

And then he remembered his talk with Hardy in the park.

Justice is inextricably connected to carrying out the Common Good, within oneself, as well as on behalf of society. Justice is doing what is right, no matter who opposes you…

At this thought, Xander knew what he had to do. He nodded his head to confirm the unfolding thought that stirred within in him.

I have to save Fiona. We’re going to have to escape the Compound.

Chapter 39

Tobias’s Warehouse

Brookland – Washington, DC

July 3
rd
2016

The Mickey’s AC Repair van screeched to a halt in Tobias’s warehouse on the upper north side. The van door flew open and the Spartans got out. The uplink to the surveillance feed remained so Mac was able to monitor the city’s search for the suspicious van seen driving away from the assassination of a US senator. The District’s entire police force was searching for the van. Mac rushed to wipe the traffic cams around them, erasing any trace of their position within the city. He also erased random cameras scattered throughout the city so as to not leave a distinct trail of absent video that would lead straight to them. The large rusted garage door crashed shut as the Spartans closed themselves in their safe house. The Spartans hurried through Tobias’s cluttered mad scientist lab. Some exhaled gasps of amazement, while Seamus laughed.

“I wouldn’t expect your place to look like anything else,” he said in jest. The Spartans hustled about as they set up shop. They were in crisis mode, but Xander remained calm and collected.

“Senator Bashfield is dead and I would be surprised if we weren’t already the key suspects in her assassination. But the surveillance was managed well—thank you, Mac—and we don’t have identities,” Xander said.

“That’s always a plus,” Seamus quipped.

“All right, I’ve swept the area. The van should be cleared from all traffic cams,” Mac said with one final punch of the
Enter
key.

“Well, what’s in the damn box?” Jooles cried. Xander held out his fist and unclenched it, revealing the key. Mac brought the stone box over to a table that Tobias cleared off with one big sweep of his arm.

The Spartans crowded the table, their collective gaze on the box before them. Xander lowered the key and inserted it.

Click
.

It unlocked.

Xander peeled the lid of the box back and it creaked open from its internal hinges. The sight before the Spartans was odd. Each of the six heads surrounding the opened box leaned forward and squinted at its only contents. There in a small hollow in the stone’s center was a thumb-sized crystal cube. The cube was unclear and unclean, with only the slightest sparkle on its surface.

“What the…” Mac voiced his confusion.

“Tobias—” Xander held his hand out and Tobias dropped a loupe into it. He brought the small round microscope eyepiece, typically used by jewelers to inspect gems, to his eye. He took his time inspecting the crystal, studying every detail of the cube’s interior. The suspense built in the room as they awaited word.

“Well, that’s odd,” Xander said, pausing a moment to confirm his observation. “This crystal…it has got to be the most flawed crystal I have ever seen.” Lines zig-zagged all over the inside of the cube in no logical pattern. He tossed the cube and loupe to Tobias for the moment, hoping the lab rat could find something.

Xander paced away from the group and reflected as each Spartan inspected the crystal cube through the loupe. He had reached another dead end with no lead.

What the hell does Agent Zero want from me? Why all these games?

Nothing was falling into place. His fist tightened at the realization. He emerged from his contemplation with a boiling rage. Xander thrashed through a pile of crates in the corner of the warehouse in a fury. Splinters exploded from the scene as he slammed the wooden crates into the wall and ground. He paced back and forth like a caged tiger for a few moments, but stopped at the sound of a hopeful voice at the other end of the warehouse.

“X-X-Xander, you have to s-s-see this!” Tobias had found something. He worked like a crime scene investigator—no detail got past him. Tobias ran over toward the rusted sliding door and pulled a lever down. The warehouse went pitch black. Tobias returned to the lab table but not before he tripped over the smashed crate.

“Th-th-those aren’t imper-f-f-fections, Xander. Well, they are, b-b-but not the k-k-kind you think. It is v-v-very easy to grow crystals in a laboratory.”

“What do you mean? Was this made by Agent Zero?” Xander asked trying to see the logic.

“It was cr-cr-created in a-a-a lab,” Tobias responded.

“But why?” Xander still searched.

“T-t-to r-r-reveal the target.” Tobias smiled. He was onto something.

Tobias flipped on a jointed desk lamp and positioned it to spotlight the upper wall before the Spartans. Tobias held the crystal in the light and the scattered imperfections shown on the wall in no particular pattern or order. Tobias smiled and explained where Xander had gone wrong.

“You j-j-just didn’t s-s-see them at the r-r-right angle.” He rotated the crystal bit by bit and the shadowy splinters projected on the wall from the crystal began shifting as the light entered the cube at different points. The splinters began to come together and formed a small amount of text. The words fell into view. The Spartans marveled at the message projected on the wall. Xander read it aloud, his eyes wide. “‘July fourth.’”

“That’s tomorrow,” Seamus said.

“Why is the
H
capitalized?” Ashton asked.

“Maybe it was to easily differentiate the letters. It would be difficult to decipher an
h
from a
b
at that size,” Jooles speculated.

It was a passing thought because the focus was purely on the message shining on the wall. Tobias continued to rotate the cube on its end until the text scattered again and came back together to form another image. The Spartans marveled as the puzzle pieces came together to reveal a curious symbol—an encircled sun with jagged rays jutting out from a central orb.

Jooles gasped. “Shit. There’s a fireworks show on the National Mall on the Fourth of July, isn’t there?” she asked through a look of horror.

“Yeah, why?” Xander said.

“Because that is, without a doubt, the logo of the Smithsonian Institution.”