PROJECT SPARTA

CHAPTER 27

"Firewalls up, encryption installed, server's secure, now let's see what we've got." Xander unpocketed the flash drive and handed it over. After inserting it, Mac combed through the hundreds of files until he found the two that Anni had uploaded.

"Let's take a look at who was following us..." Mac spoke over his work, as he navigated to the facial recognition results. After clicking it open, a thousand faces flashed sequentially over the screen, searching for a match. Xander peered closer in anticipation but backed up from the screen when the match was made.

"What the hell?" Mac asked.

A different photo of the same man gave them a facial match. But the bio on file was blank.

"His file has been scrubbed... Agent Zero definitely has help from on high." Mac sat back in his chair and considered the hypothesis. He then turned and nodded to Xander affirming his theory with a nod.

"Let's see what else we have." Xander instructed.

Mac spun back to computer and opened the second file. There was a headshot of Hamal Abadi, followed by a much more in depth profile including known associates. There were twelve pages to the profile, all of which Xander filed away to his memory like any other file.

"Now that's more like it..." Mac responded upon seeing the wealth of information.

"A few known associates of interest... could have a lead there, nothing concrete or immediate though. No recognizable names," Xander assessed the file. "Cross reference those associates with the directory of the government employees."

"If Agent Zero is in fact connected to a man on the inside – it would most likely be an operative, government official or a high rank in the military. As you know the ability to clear someone's name from the US customs watch list is almost an impossible task," Xander speculated aloud, dissecting the variables as Mac ran a search.

Thousands of headshots blinked by on the monitor at rapid speed. After a few minutes of waiting, the search results came.

No Results Were Found.

"Damnit..." Xander exhaled.

"You didn't think it would be that easy did ya?"

"Open the next file..." he directed sternly.

Mac navigated back to his J drive and clicked on the second file extracted by Anni. A local program with sound waves came up on the screen similar to the screen that Anni 2.0 had spoken through.

"It's an audio recording, looks like a tapped phone call." Mac cued it up. Mac pushed the play button and they both leaned an ear toward the speaker.

"Is this line secure?" a distorted voice answered. The cadence amid its manipulation was different from the distortion heard from Agent Zero.

"Yes... Agent Zero needs to get stateside to carry out Phase 1," Abadi's voice answered, unfiltered. Xander deduced the owner of the voice from the aged tones and foreign English in his diction.

"My man will meet you to provide what you will need. You will have the target?" the distorted voice asked.

"Yes. Per instructions from Agent Zero, you will receive the location for where we plan to detonate the device. Can you ensure there will be no reconnaissance on our meet?" Abadi asked.

"Yes... You have my word."

Xander turned to Mac and quickly identified the parties on the call.

"This is Abadi talking on behalf of Agent Zero and the distorted voice has to be the Inside Man if they are talking about safe passage and transit to the States..." Mac nodded and listened closely as the conversation continued.