XANDER WHITT

Xander Whitt is an agent of Project Sparta.

Whitt comes to that highly covert organization which "contracts with the government" straight out of graduating from the high school he had attended, "a boarding school for the region's brightest students".

Whitt is, when we first meet him said to be blond-haired with pencil-thin lips on a dimpled-chinned face atop a frame described as, then, "acute and underdevloped, still small and smooth". An orphan unable "to remember his parents or anyone who ever loved him", Whitt "was nothing short of a genius, being two years younger than anyone else in his graduating class". That memory loss was a result of the car accident that claimed his parents when he was around eight years old and left him with amnesia of anything happening before the crash. This is especially remarkable since Whitt has a photographic memory from that point on and cannot forget anything afterwards.

His exceptional abilities which allowed him to "excel at everything" while in school were the main reason he would be invited to join with other graduates of private high schools known as the Olympic Academy network. A total of 10 prospects from all over the country are invited to take part in the pilot program Project Sparta. The man recruiting Whitt states, "We are government contractors. We can do whatever we want. We have brokered a deal with the government to allow an inordinate amount of funding." That project would strive to turn already phenomenal young people like Whitt into the ultimate in espionage operatives working on behalf of America.

Whitt is told as he is recruited, and many, many times during the subsequent intense training which would last several years, the group's very foreboding credo:

Project Credo
I am a Spartan.
I am a Spartan who does not exist.
I am a Spartan who safeguards our country from enemies both foreign and domestic.
I am a Spartan who preserves the virtuous state through true Justice.
I am a Spartan for life; death is the only discharge.
I am a Spartan who fights for the Common Good of all.
I am a Spartan, and nothing is as it seems.

Good Line:
- Thought by Xander Whitt looking through a sniper scope: "Cars and trucks tend to make good grenades".
- Sign on a door: "Opportunity - you miss 100% of the shots you don't take".

The credo for the organization Xander Whitt works for is, as most credos are, kind of hokey in a way while being earnest in others. This one ends wonderfully and really sums up life in the organization, and everywhere else for that matter, for poor Whitt - nothing is at it seems.

From a reader's perspective, some of that is vital for making a thriller fun to read. The author goes a step further, IMHO, by often making the reader wonder in confusion along with Whitt exactly what is true and what isn't.

Another thing that is scary and fun to read about is the attitude of Whitt's recruiter that "we can do whatever we want". And they sort of show it.