The Knight Deception

CHAPTER 1

People who knew his parents always said that Trevin Knight was born with his father’s dignity and his mother’s pride.

He had heard those words so often since joining Senator Dawson’s legal staff that they had come to feel like talking points. It didn’t help that these comments were always given in that slippery, self-aware tone he found so annoying. You can’t be a lawyer for long without learning that the need to be seen as decent human beings was, for some people, no better than an addiction, but his father’s passing two years ago was the first time Trevin had seen it up close, the first time he had been the actual sounding board those people used as they spoke so reverently of his father and so carefully of his mother, even if—or especially if—they had spent most of the previous decades fighting everything his parents stood for.

This was Washington, after all. You don’t take the Hill without loss of blood.

Tonight, however, the game was different.

And though he may damned well be a thirty-two-year-old lawyer with aging knees and a first step that had grown too slow, he still had enough of that pride and dignity left in him to need to take the young guns across the court down a notch.

Sneakers squeaked on hardwood. The leather ball pounded against the floor.

Voices echoed as players called out, and as other people—observers, spectators, dare Trevin think of them as fans—jeered from the sidelines.

Trevin hadn’t come from this place. But his mother had, and she had done everything she could to ensure he saw and understood the truth behind the city. The city doesn’t change, Trevin, baby, she told him back then. It doesn’t change because the people in charge don’t want it to.

She had grown even more militant without Dad to moderate her, but it was hard to argue against her perspective when you saw these people come to the gym after long days cleaning houses, or after their schooling, or after hanging double shifts in fast food kitchens. How they came to this decrepit YMCA building after a day hustling, or selling, or any one of a hundred other things that might take up their lives, just as those same things had taken up the lives of their parents before them.

For these people the game of basketball was a living thing, a breathing storybook that gave their lives meaning. To the people who came here tonight, this was not just another meaningless Monday night city league down deep in the plumbing of the nation’s capital. This was a championship game.

Tonight would create legends.

So these people watched every shot like it was found money. They took in every dribble like it was oxygen.

The scent of sweat was thick and hot.

The clock passed two minutes left to play.

Two big guys trapped Trevin at half court, but he spun and dribbled down the sideline.

Outta bounds! one of the defenders yelled.

Trevin drove on.

Jolee Jones, his teammate, streaked down the lane ahead of him. He whipped the ball across the court, and she laid it in for two points.

I said the man was outta bounds! the guy yelled again.

He was an obvious twister—a self-made man, as they would say on the streets. They called him Caz Idaho, though that probably wasn’t his real name. He flew an armor of aluminum tats that had bled down far enough to show he inked at a side-shop, and he flexed muscles that clearly came from a bottle. Trevin could assume a few other things that might be going on in Idaho’s body chemistry, but preferred to ignore that line of thinking, just as the referee ignored the stream of profanity that flowed from the man’s lips.

Good job, Jolee-Jo, Trevin called, making a fist as he went back to defend.

They were up three points. A minute-fifty to play.

He picked up Jessie Walton, a smallish guard who sat the bench at NC State for a year before flunking out. Walton was quick, but Trevin cut him off. So Walton dumped the ball to a wide-open Caz Idaho for a dunk so hard it rattled the rim.

Kids watching from the rails of the elevated running track that loomed over the floor erupted like human gushers, celebrating the dunk with a round of whooping catcalls and by snapping towels at each other.

Damn it! Mark McCray yelled at himself as he tossed the ball in to Trevin. Idaho was Mark’s man to guard.

We’ll get it back, Trevin said. Don’t worry.

Mark needed to be babied sometimes.

Trevin took his time. They still led by a point. No reason to rush.

Walton tightened up his defense at midcourt and knocked the ball away. Trevin recovered it, but found himself trapped.

Time out! he yelled.

The referee blew her whistle and pointed toward the bench.

Trevin bounced her the ball as he ambled to the sidelines. He threw himself onto the bench and took in three kids who were jawing with each other across the way.

The gawkers were thick tonight. They included girlfriends and boyfriends—wives, husbands, and significant others who sat on the bleachers behind the bench. But it was the kids hanging over the rails who mattered to Trevin, some as young as eleven or twelve, city kids who came here every night because it was a safe place, kids who laughed and threw down relentless streams of trash while they bragged and joked and chucked up another barrage of playground shots that had no chance of falling.

These kids were dreaming right now even if they couldn’t come straight out and say it. They were kids with posters of Kenyon Lewis and Pauly Francis pinned to their walls, still impressionable, still riffing on the names of high school players who moved on to play in college and then the pros. But that meant they were also targets, the ones most likely to be lured into the city’s darker corners for what was promised to be a simple twist of a gene pair that some runner said would help them dunk earlier or give them that split-second advantage they thought they needed.

Not that Trevin could blame them.

At one time Trevin thought he might play ball for a living himself.

His mentality was right for it. And at six-foot-three and 205 pounds it wouldn’t have taken too much to make it a more reasonable dream—maybe a touch better oxygen processing to help him run all day, perhaps more spring or a sharper edge to his peripheral vision. A twist here or a tweak there, nothing big, and maybe he could have been making millions.

That’s what they would say, anyway. These kids.

Juice me up, they would joke as they bounced the ball between their legs and whipped it around their backs. Boost my hops. Flash my quicks. Just a little, yeah. Then watch me go.

Trevin would be a rich man if he had a buck for every time he heard that.

But nobody talked about the ones who didn’t make it when the twists went bad. They didn’t talk about the Jessie Waltons who came back from State to make their living frying pork chops in the middle of the sixth district. There were no legends about kids who found themselves jilted after a shoe company dumped their coach, no stories about how fast a kid got dropped if they were caught with those illegal twists, no tales about kids who got benched when those tweaks didn’t help them adjust their minds to the faster game or the slower life.

Won’t happen here, they all said. I ain’t like that, yeah.

Likewise, no one talked about guys like Mark McCray either, or women like Jolee Jones—people who used the game to go to school, to become cops, insurance brokers, or even lawyers like Trevin was.

Trevin was thirty-two years old now.

He had been on his own for nearly half his life. But with his dad passing and his mom’s subsequent bailing out to Cali, he felt strange any more. Not alone so much as exposed. Like everyone could see him just standing there frozen in the crossroads. He shrugged to himself as he came out of his thoughts. He felt like a cliché—ex-jock going through some kind of sorry-assed midlife crisis.

He wanted to make a difference, though. He wanted to matter. He just didn’t know exactly how to go about it. And now he was thirty-two and sitting on a bench at the Y.

He sat back and ran a towel over his head.

The game had been hard fought. His legs burned and arms felt like rubber. The rest of the team didn’t look much better. He spread his arms over the bench and felt sweat bead on his shoulder.

A minute and twenty-eight seconds remained.

I swear their big guy is twisted, Mark McCray groaned.

Jimmy Teague laughed. Come on, man. If everyone who can beat you to the block these days is twisting, there ain’t no one straight.

The team laughed.

The referee blew her whistle.

We got a minute and a half to glory, Trevin said as he led them back onto the court. Let’s suck it up.

He grabbed the inbounds pass and held it against his hip.

Ain’t nuttin’ here, baby, Walton taunted, pushing and shoving. That ball’s mine.

Trevin passed to Jolee and moved to set a screen.

She dribbled once, but a blue shirt slapped the ball away. Trevin dived to tap the ball toward his team’s goal. An opponent beat him to it, though, and tossed it to a teammate for an easy bucket.

Fifty-three seconds remained. They were down a point.

Trevin jogged into the backcourt to receive the pass in. The spin of the ball burned against his palm as he dribbled it. Walton, the better athlete, was still breathing down Trevin’s neck, still sticking to him. By the time Trevin crossed half-court, only forty-four seconds remained.

He stared into Walton’s eyes, drawing his attention.

Can’t go there, Walton said, slapping at the ball.

Trevin glanced across the court, a subtle feint that said someone was open and a pass was imminent. Walton froze just long enough to let Trevin drive the baseline and lay the ball softly into the hoop.

Up a point, just over thirty seconds to play.

Trevin’s legs were dead now, but he would be damned if Walton was going to beat him.

Walton controlled the ball.

Twenty seconds.

He dribbled the lane. Trevin blocked him, but Walton countered with a spin that gave him a clear path to the bucket.

Trevin made his choice in an instant.

His floor presence told him a mass of bodies blocked the vision of one official, and Trevin’s back shielded the other. With a split-second reaction, Trevin grabbed Walton’s shirt and reached behind to slap at the ball.

It bounced loose.

Mark scooped it, and threw ahead to Trevin, who was already racing up the court alone.

Footsteps pounded behind him as he gathered the ball in.

Walton’s voice rang out. I’m right here … right here … I’m gonna make you eat it!

The ball left his hand just as Walton slammed into him. The whistle blew. He fell to the ground, and his ankle turned with a spike of pain. The ball hung on the rim for a breathless moment before dropping through the hoop.

Spectators howled and snapped their towels.

What the hell kinda call was that? Walton turned to the ref. The man grabbed my goddamned shirt!

The whistle blew again and the referee made a T with both hands, her face red with a mixture of anger and satisfaction. Technical foul, she yelled.

Trevin limped to the free throw line. The ankle would be cranky tomorrow, but otherwise he could manage.

Three seconds remained.

After he drilled one shot for the foul and two more for the technical, Trevin’s team was up six points.

This game was done.

At the same moment Trevin Knight’s last free throw slipped through the nets at the YMCA, another shot rang out far across the expanse of Washington DC.

Across the Anacostia River, and across the grassy yard of a perfectly manicured corporate headquarters, the smell of gunpowder filled a precisely designed and comfortably decorated office, and Calvin Forrester, the driving force behind the world-famous Genetic Technology Systems Laboratory, fell dead to the floor.

Life as Trevin Knight knew it was over.

Tuesday, July 22, 2042 / Morning

CHAPTER 2

The clock read 3:54 AM.

The phone on Dexter Garrison’s nightstand gave three electronic chirps, a tone that meant the call originated from deep inside the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

He was alert in an instant.

He fumbled for the speaker button.

Hello, he said. His voice was dry and deep.

Better get in here, boss.

It was Cheryl Garvey, Director of Internal Operations. Her tone was terse.

What is it?

Best wait until you’re here.

With six years in the field and another four in the tech shop, Cheryl had been his first choice for the Internal Ops role, a job that was technically illegal per the agency’s mandate, yet was required to ensure it could function. She had taken to it with perfectly measured enthusiasm and had justified her selection on numerous occasions. If Cheryl Garvey called him at 3:54 in the morning, it was important.

Be right there.

The phone clicked off and silence filled the darkness. Garrison scowled, hit the lights, and climbed out of bed.

Breakfast was three pieces of toast and a half grapefruit with a tablespoon of Extralite. And coffee, of course. Always coffee. He checked his calendar while he ate.

The Metrorail should get him to the office no later than 4:55.

He would deal with whatever Cheryl had, then process daily reports until ten o’clock. A briefing on Saudi Arabian security breaches would take the rest of the morning. Lunch would be in his office where he could watch the nets for breaking news. The rest of the day was set aside to work with Vinnie Coleman, his Director of Global Operations, to develop an appropriate response to the latest affront by Rene Boucher and the new French government. Finally, he was slated for dinner with a new senator from Nebraska, whatever his name was.

With luck he would be back home by 9:00 PM.

Coming more fully awake, Dexter rubbed his eyes, stretched, and went to take his shower.

It was shortly past five in the morning when Dexter stepped into his office. He wore a blue suit and a white shirt striped with thin blue pipes. His dark tie had a maroon swirl in its pattern.

The room was large and comfortable, befitting that of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The walls were white, and the carpet pile thick blue. A large desk dominated the front half of the room, its mahogany finish polished to a shine. A pair of paper-thin computer displays angled upward from his desktop. Built-in bookshelves lined one long wall. Photographs of dignitaries covered another. A well-used coffeemaker sat on a serving table beside his desk. Dexter brewed his own, and it was a running joke among his staff that turning down a cup of the director’s java meant a one-way mission to Colombia.

While the whole of the office had a professional sharpness, the far corner was different. A low, kidney-shaped table with a glass top sat as the central piece in the area. A small couch and three padded chairs gave it the aura of a living room. A bay window opened to his favorite aspect of the office, a very distant view of the Capitol. The early-morning haze muted the lights of Washington, but ever since the Old Headquarters Building was renovated and expanded to fifteen floors back in the 30s, the DCIA’s office had been given this perch that let Dexter make out the dome of the White House and the needle-like sliver of the Washington Monument. The Lincoln Memorial was a smudge of gauzy whiteness hugging the distant horizon. In the winter he could make out both the Jefferson Memorial and, on the edge of the view’s periphery, a part of Arlington Cemetery.

It was July, though, so trees blocked those views now.

Dexter was bent over the coffeemaker, pouring his third cup of the day when a soft tone came from the door.

Come in, he replied.

Cheryl Garvey entered, wearing gray slacks and a rumpled white blouse. She shut the door, clutching both a manila folder and her small net display in one hand.

Dexter motioned Cheryl toward the corner nook. Coffee?

Sounds great.

Dexter sat on the couch and Cheryl took a chair farthest from the window.

So, what’s the occasion? Dexter said.

Cheryl put the folder and net display on the table. Her eyes were clear and focused, but the folds around them were rimmed with dark circles.

Calvin Forrester is dead, she said. He was shot at 9:30 yesterday evening.

Even now, the news caught Dexter unprepared.

Are you sure?

He was found in his office with a bullet through his brain and a gun clenched in his hand.

Suicide?

She shook her head. At least two blood types have already been found in the room.

Sloppy fake, Dexter said. He sipped his coffee. Who else knows?

It’s hitting the newsnet now. Nothing we could do to put a lid on it. Assume full dispersal by eight AM. I’ve got agents on scene. Still trying to find why it took so long for us to get notified.

Any more good news?

Oh, plenty. The police are running DNA scans, but they’ve traced the gun to Lawrence Orr.

Son of a bitch.

They took the good doctor in for questioning just before I called you.

Dexter frowned, but remained silent while Cheryl drank coffee. Total dispersion meant intelligence leaders from around the globe were, at this precise moment, likely all doing something similar to what he and Cheryl were doing. While it was unlikely any of them knew the extent of Calvin Forrester’s achievements or the depths of the CIA’s involvement in them, the rumor that there was a relationship of some kind between the agency and Forrester’s Genetic Technology Systems Lab were common reception banter among the in-crowd at various state affairs. Forrester’s death would draw attention.

Your assessment? Dexter finally asked.

Orr didn’t have anything to do with it.

Why do you say that?

It doesn’t add up any other way. No one believes a suicide like that anymore, especially not from the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company that produces genetic treatments.

Dexter ran his fingertips lightly over the arm of the couch.

The federally mandated programs of genetic vaccination and fetal-state manipulation enacted in the late 20s had essentially eliminated several mental health issues—bipolar disorder and schizophrenia among them—and, with them, the greatest propensity for people to destroy themselves. There were objectors, of course. Some who wouldn’t take a vaccine for any reason, others with high-risk sequence anomalies that kept them from being candidates. Even with the laws in place, it would probably take another generation before these diseases would be totally eradicated.

Is it possible Forrester didn’t take the program? Dexter said.

That he wasn’t vaccinated?

Right.

Already on it, but we both know that’s a long shot.

Dexter gave a slanted grin. I assumed as much. So, if everyone who matters knows suicide isn’t an option, why fake it?

The unhappy answer is that I think Forrester was compromised.

They were both silent for a moment. Outside, the sky was getting lighter.

Security around GTSL is airtight, Cheryl.

"I know. That means whoever killed Forrester was either elite or, most likely, invited in. And that would mean Forrester probably knew his killer. That’s why I think we have to assume he was compromised. Someone ran an op that went bad."

A double?

She shrugged. I don’t know what I don’t know.

That conclusion was not one that made Dexter Garrison happy. The agency’s dealings with Forrester had been illegal as hell. Dexter had run the operation directly. He and Cheryl were the only two in the agency who knew the full details of the arrangement. A few analysts could cause a bit of trouble if they went rogue, but none of them knew the whole score. It didn’t really make sense, but if Cheryl was right, either Forrester had brought someone else into the deal, or one of them was leaking.

Dexter sipped coffee and let this thought simmer.

I’m certain you’re correct, Cheryl, he said.

It gets worse, Dex.

Dexter cocked an eyebrow.

Orr made his call from the Sixth District station last night. Want to guess who?

Dexter rubbed his brow. Dr. Orr was GTSL’s chief technical officer, and Forrester’s right-hand man. He was intimately involved in most of the relationship between the CIA and the lab.

I’ll bet I can narrow it down to three.

If one of them is Senator Dawson, you would be correct.

A pit grew in Dexter’s stomach. Given the business angle of the whole genetics program, three senators had been in on the negotiations between GSTL and the CIA. Of them, two wouldn’t be able to put the pieces together well enough to cause more than a little trouble. Ralph Dawson, the third, had initiated the introductions between them after his work with agricultural gene lines had proven so lucrative. Dawson knew enough that he could go rogue.

Ouch.

Told you it got worse.

We need Forrester’s records, Dexter said. All of them. Anything gets left behind and we’ll be pinned to the wall and left to dry.

And we need to find whoever was in that room, Cheryl added. Despite her fatigue, eagerness sparkled in her eyes. She had been up all night, but the game was afoot and the hunter inside had come out. Cheryl Garvey was not a woman who intended to lose. Ever.

Yes, Dexter said. We need to find who did this before anyone else does.

Will you authorize me to use Leopard to make that happen? Her gaze latched onto Dexter’s.

He considered the question.

Use what you need. Just make sure this goes away.

Cheryl smiled. Thanks, boss.

In the meantime, Dexter said, why don’t you round up everything we’ve got on the good senator Dawson’s most recent activity.

I’ll have it to you before lunch.

She stood and walked across the room.

The door opened for her as she neared, then closed with a solid click when she was gone.

Dexter went to his desk, sat down, and sighed.

Calvin Forrester’s work for the agency directly conflicted with nearly every clause of the 2038 Venice Agreement, a multinational pact that governed the processes and commissions under which genetic research would be performed, reported, and used. The agreement had been the selling item of President Eduardo Sosa Leon’s reelection platform. Eduardo Sosa Leon, a man known to the public as ESL, had made political history both by becoming the country’s first Latino president, and by cajoling the rest of the civilized world into participation in this pact. There was a rumor going around that he was about to become the second sitting president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for these efforts.

If a foreign government—or worse, the media—ever got access to Forrester’s databases, Dexter and Cheryl—as well as three high-ranking United States Senators, Ralph Dawson being foremost among them—would have their careers terminated.

He pressed the intercom speaker. Janine?

Yes?

Call Hal Kennedy and reschedule the Saudi briefing. Tell him something else has come up that needs my attention.

Is next week okay? Janine replied.

Whatever meets his calendar.

His coffee had turned cold and bitter, so Dexter brewed himself a fresh cup, and returned to his desk to begin working through the dailies.

Outside, the sun crested the horizon to give the Jefferson monument a golden sheen.

CHAPTER 3

A grinding pain throbbed in Trevin’s ankle as he shut his apartment door and limped to his car. The day was already hot and promised to get hotter, but Trevin didn’t care.

He had spent the last fifteen minutes submitting the credit work and financial approvals the bank needed to make him the proud owner of a brand-new ocean-blue Shannon Coupe, complete with a 249-horsepower Hydrocell engine, all the government-required collision-avoidance equipment, and every advanced autodrive feature known to the human race. It had a sport interior, the newest solar absorbent paint to funnel energy back into the battery, and a white racing stripe along each side. When he took it outside the city, he could cut off the autodrive and run it through its paces on manual. It would be nice to drive something that actually moved when you stood on it, but mostly he admitted it would be nice to finally be able to get work done while the car made its own way into the office.

It would also make his bank account considerably lighter, but such is life. His last student loan was paid off six months ago, and beyond dating Susan, he didn’t have particularly expensive habits. Besides, the prospective income for a young lawyer with a solid position supporting a senator who could probably win lifelong reelection without lifting a finger was pretty good. A little new debt wasn’t going to be a problem.

The Shannon would be ready by lunchtime.

Just the thought made him grin.

Growing up in suburban North Carolina meant he was a bit thriftier than the crowd he ran with these days, but spending money was a feeling he could get used to.

He took his old Ford Piece-a-Junk along E Street, then turned south on New Jersey and headed toward the Senate building. The engine groaned in response to the accelerator, and his ankle throbbed as he added pressure. The morning sunlight was sharp against the stone buildings on both sides of the street, and the car’s air conditioner strained to keep the temperature at just a little below intolerable. The day’s humidity was already making his palms clammy, and the sidewalks were thick with a new crop of tourists wearing short pants and baggy T-shirts.

He