PROJECT SPARTA

CHAPTER 25

Xander analyzed Mac's demeanor as he revealed the Intel, cognizant of the possibility that Agent Zero could be anyone but hopeful that it wasn't Mac. Mac began tapping his fingers in the air as if typing on a keyboard, just as they did in the Compound when Mac fell into a deep thought.

Mac appears genuinely surprised, not much surprises him either. He isn't exhibiting any micro-expressions. Mac is processing this step by step. I can almost see his brain churn over this one. There doesn't seem to be anything amiss here. He and Tobias both appear fine. Agent Zero would most likely be a field operative anyways.

"So we've got a traitor in Project Sparta?" Mac asked straight.

"It would appear so..." Mac had to gather himself from the confirmation.

"Well, you know who is my first suspect..."

"I know... Duke is obviously a person of interest..." The name had rested in the back of his mind since he found the stone.

"He always marched to his own drum... you know he went dark three months ago?" Mac asked.

"Yeah I heard, but I am not ruling out anybody... Regardless, I need you to try to find him, Mac."

"I won't be able to... I mean come on... Spartans can go off grid if they want at any moment. We were trained to..."Mac tried to find the words. "Well we were trained to not exist."

"I want you to try anyway, but only after you get everything you can on Hamal Abadi – he's our best lead at the moment." Mac nodded his acceptance to the challenge. He had grown close to Xander almost all the Spartans had. Although their missions were mostly on an individual basis, the limited times they did work together, they always viewed Xander as the leader.

"Let's see what we can do." Mac cracked a Coke and slouched into his high backed chair.

"You gonna access the CIA?"

"The CIA doesn't know as much as they think, the agency with the most power when it comes to information is the NSA. Since the Patriot Act, they've collected more raw Intel than all the other government agencies combined. It's just a matter of being able to comb through it quickly once I'm in." Mac's fingers tap danced on the keyboard at a feverish pace.

"That sounds great but the NSA has the most secure system in the world. How are we going to be able to find what we need once were in and how are we going to back ourselves out, covering our tracks?"

"Leave it to the expert, Xander. But I'm going to have the help of this beauty." He held up a small insertable chip. "I call it, Anni 2.0"

"Anni? From the Compound?" He plugged the chip into his CPU and the top right monitor populated with vertical lines running across the screen, it displayed a sound wave. These thin lines took the shape of lips and began talking in a voice that Xander hadn't heard in a long time.

"Good afternoon, Spartans." Anni's same prosaic intonation came from the speakers.

"Good afternoon, Anni." Mac spoke to her like a friend, Xander remained speechless.

"Mac, how did you get your hands on this?"

"Anni, why don't you share with Xander, how you got here," Mac instructed.

"Mac was given a training mission similar to other Spartans while in the Compound. His objective was to hijack me from the Mainframe. His objective was to smuggle me out of the Mainframe. So he slowly gathered parts of my code and reassembled the code in his house throughout his training. He used an eight gigabyte flash drive that he swiped from Cusick one day and hid it inside the cuff of his pants. Mac was able to keep me for a mission well done. It's good to hear your voice again, Xander." Xander, as many Spartans, often felt like her simulated voice was that of a surrogate mother's.