K N I G H T R I D E R
eclipse of the
knight
written by Scott Kirkessner
[
rated PG-13 for some violent content, sensuality and adult language ]
[
based upon “Knight Rider” aka “Knight of the
[original
project start date: July 25, 2005 ]
[original
project complete date: October 17, 2005 ]
[ director’s cut project start date: November
7, 2006 ]
[
director’s cut project complete date: November 27, 2006 ]
[
proof read by Michelle Gardner ]
[
final word count: 36,805 ]
[
Knight Rider and characters are © 1982, Glen A. Larson and NBC/Universal ]
[
r e b o r n – the director’s cut
“Big Ed” Deline
tried his best to navigate the casino floor without his hosts or Miss Mancuso
seeing and stopping him. There was way
too much on his mind to deal with comps or the new owner’s bullshit.
Not only was the
Montecito playing host to the United States Defense Contractors Conference, an
absolute security nightmare that spelled out many long shifts for Ed and his
staff, but the FBI, not the most favorite people of his and the feeling was
definitely mutual, came to him a week ago and informed him they were planning a
sting in plain sight in the middle of this damned conference.
He had to run that
through his mind once more. In the midst
of the Defense Contractors Conference, a national security event at his casino
where he had to work with the Secret Service to ensure complete security, the
FBI was planning a sting to bust a group of people with their minds set on
industrial espionage.
The new Montecito had
been stretching her wings and getting back on her feet since her rebirth. Thanks to new owner Monica Mancuso, this
hellish event was thrown onto Ed’s plate as she decided such a conference would
breathe new life into the Montecito.
Yeah, great
event. The casino had virtually been
taken over by the Secret Service to prepare for the conference, and during the
conference, all attendees had to wear computerized badges, and any public
patrons of his casino had to pass through metal detectors and were subject to
random searches.
Ten floors of the
resort were closed and reserved for conference attendees.
Worst of all, the
topless pool was going to be closed down during the conference.
Ed dealt with people
scrutinizing the security of his casino, despite millions of dollars worth of
security, surveillance, anti-theft and other pieces of equipment that made the
Montecito the most secure casino on The Strip.
That wasn’t good
enough for the Secret Service.
And now… the FBI was
here to conduct a covert mission in the middle of it all to prevent the leak of
sensitive information.
How could this day get
any more hectic?
“Ed!” yelled a voice
he was trying his best to avoid. He
looked to his left and Monica was hurrying to catch up to him, “I got wind of
something big going down in the middle of the conference,” she said, “do you
know anything about that?”
“I am on my way to
find out now,” Ed lied, “An agent from the FBI is waiting for us.”
“That’s where I’m
going too,” Monica said as they walked, “where’s Danny and Mike?”
“Dealing with
something, they’ll meet us there,” Ed said.
Monica stopped Ed,
“Dealing with what? I thought we agreed
I would be kept in the loop
when I took ownership.”
Ed turned to Monica
trying his best to keep an annoyed look off of his face, “I’ll keep you in the
loop, Monica. I will forward every
incident report to you my staff deals with, from purse thieves to old ladies
falling down the brand new stairs that are claimed to be up to code. Shit, I’ll even give you the reports that
come out of the new parking garage you built that is supposed to be safer with
wider spots. You know we’re holding bets
to see if dings or bums rank higher in the garage?”
Monica looked at Ed
straight-faced. With that face, he knew
Danny would want her on his poker team, “Well it looks like we have everything
under control,” she said.
“Yes, we do,”
Ed replied beginning to walk again, “although it seems the Secret Service has
all but fired us and taken over my facilities.”
“Oh relax, Ed, I gave
up ten floors of rooms, the topless pool, most of the casino and our new
conference center, you can stand to share your surveillance office,” Monica
said.
“That reminds me,” Ed
said before going into the conference room, “I’ll be sure to give you a report
of any illegal activities my team might have missed because we are baby sitting
the nation’s secrets.”
The two were at a
standstill for a few moments before they walked into the room.
Two of Ed’s staff,
Danny McCoy and Mike Cannon were already sitting in the room watching the FBI
agent begin his presentation.
Ed eyed the FBI agent
suspiciously. One would think an FBI
agent in charge of a security sensitive mission in the middle of one of the
nation’s most public places would be in a suit with his badge proudly hanging
from some piece of cloth. Instead, the
man was in business casual attire with a hairstyle that might be reserved for
someone ten years younger.
Next to the man, on
the massive screen on the front wall of the room was the face of a middle-aged
man with a rough-and-tumbled look. No
smile, if there were any muscles in such a hardened face to produce the
expression.
“This man,” said Agent
Paul Taylor speaking with a slight Southern drawl, “is Fred Wilson, the chief
of security for Northrop-Grumman, which just happens to be one of the Armed
Forces defense contractors. Wilson and
his staff will be accompanying Grumman’s CEO, Mr. Charles Acton to the conference
to provide security.”
“Unfortunately,
“What the hell is
going on, Ed?” Danny whispered, “don’t we already have enough going on?”
“We have too much
going on,” Ed replied, “This is going to be a nightmare.”
“A small team of agents
from the Bureau will be conducting the takedown tomorrow night,”
“Where will you be
taking them down?” Ed asked.
“Two of our agents
have been able to infiltrate the team.
According to their intelligence, Wilson and his staff will have a
limousine waiting for them at the main entrance. We will take them down before they get to the
limo. Six agents from the Vegas field
office will be waiting in taxicabs for one of our agent’s signal. Their fare lights will only be half lit, so
warn the bellmen not to hail these cabs.
“You can’t miss
“If all of you
understand tomorrow night’s operation, I expect you to field out the necessary
information to your teams,” Taylor said, “Do not tell the bellmen who is
in those taxicabs, just make sure they don’t hail them. Do not approach Wilson and his staff,
and for the love of God, do not get in the way.”
Ed shifted in his seat
and was about to say something. Monica
placed a hand on his shoulder and looked it him. It was obvious she hated that comment as much
as Ed did.
Everyone nodded. Ed was fuming.
“My team and the
agents have already been briefed, and consider yourselves briefed on the
information you need to know.
Dismissed.”
“Dismissed,” Ed
whispered to Danny and Mike, “it’s like we’re in the friggin’
military.”
“That briefing makes
me feel a hell of a lot better,” Mike said, sarcastically.
“Are they crazy to be
doing this now?” Danny asked, “Why does it have to be during the conference?”
Ed watched Monica
leave the room, “I think Miss Mancuso is having second thoughts. Look, we’ve had our share of attempted scams
during conferences before—”
Danny interrupted Ed,
“But we were the ones that stopped them.
Working with the Secret Service to provide security for the conference
is one thing, but now the FBI is here and they are ordering us to allow
a scam to take place?”
“Any other day and any
other conference, Danny, I’d tell that bastard up there to go screw himself,
but I don’t want to think what would go wrong if we took control.”
“Nothing would,” Mike
said, “that’s the whole damn point.”
Ed looked out at the
busy casino floor and let the noise fill his mind for a bit, “I hate the
government.”
Michael Long walked
into his bedroom and dropped his empty duffel bag on his bed. Quickly on his heels was his live-in
girlfriend Stefanie Mason.
Stefanie, whom Michael
liked to call Stevie, sat down on the bed and looked up at Michael. If Michael did not have his back to her, he
would have quickly noticed a definite sparkle of fear emanating from her
striking blue eyes.
Michael was filling
his dopp-kit and did not look at Stevie once as he
turned to place it in his duffel bag and moved over to his closet.
He was in his early
30s, and standing at 6’2” moved gracefully with long strides of legs Stevie
playfully said never ended. He kept his
light-brown hair well-trimmed and spiked, never once letting go of the military
hair regulations that seemingly followed him since his discharge from the Army
four years after the first Gulf War ended.
He had a chiseled
face, as if Michelangelo sat down and spent three decades crafting it
himself. His facial features were
imposing, giving a natural glow of leadership and authority. He had piercing green eyes that would often
change to grey when he was either angry or concentrating…
Concentrating on anything. Which is why Stevie would often request
illumination during their love-making.
Her eyes followed
Michael as he darted around the room in preparation for his red-eye flight to
“Stevie?” he asked
with a touch of concern in his voice.
Michael loved her – it was obvious.
In his heart, he knew he would do anything for Stevie.
Almost anything…
“I don’t want you to
go to
“I can’t do that
Stevie,” Michael said as he packed his bag, “we’ve been working too hard on
this case,” he stopped and turned to her, “We’re going to break it wide open
tomorrow night. We are going to catch
them. Besides, I don’t have a choice. I’ve been in communication with the criminals
for a few weeks now, and I am supposed to meet them in Vegas to be one of their
new musclemen.” He flexed and Stevie
laughed.
Michael grabbed his
wallet and dropped it. The outer flap
flipped open to reveal his FBI identification.
Stevie picked it up and looked at it.
“When we first met I had
you pegged as a loser… a career Army man with nothing left after the
service. No good ole war for you to
serve in, the glory days spent in the desert over… I couldn’t have been more
wrong. I never would have thought that
you were a G-Man,” she said.
“You never were good
on first impressions,” Michael teased, “you thought my brother was my father.”
Stevie laughed
again. She stood up to face Michael,
despite her forehead just reaching his nose.
“I have a bad feeling about this.
You know I have these sixth sense feelings about things.”
“One visit to a
soothsayer at the Delaware State Fair and you are convinced you are one,”
Michael said, smiling. This time, Stevie
wasn’t.
She put her arms
around his waist and hugged him tightly.
“I still don’t want you to go.”
“I know,” he said with
a voice that melted her heart, “but we can’t afford to lose this case. There is too much riding on it.”
He kissed her.
“What am I supposed to
do while you are gone?”
Michael picked up his
full duffel bag and stood in his bedroom doorway. “Well when you go into work at the Pentagon
on Monday, tell those generals not to let the defense contractors have
conferences in
“Just barge right into
the general’s office?”
“This isn’t the 80s,
babe. Send an email,” Michael said with
a wide smile.
Stevie grabbed
Michael’s backpack and walked with him through their Victorian-style townhouse
and out to the street.
Once his car was
packed, he went to her for the dreaded traveling-goodbye.
“I love you,
Michael. Please be careful,” she said
while hugging him tightly. She could
feel Michael’s head pull back in a way she knew he would exactly tell her that
he would be fine and for her to not worry.
Before he could, she stopped him.
“Please Michael… please be careful.”
Michael kissed her on
the forehead. “If I got out of Desert
Storm alive, I am sure I will get out of an FBI sting in
He got into his car
and started the engine. Stevie quickly
kneeled beside the driver-side window with a look of concern still in her eyes.
“I left something for
you in the kitchen. I’ll be back in a
few days. I love you, Stevie,” Michael
said.
Stevie put her hand on
the door in a last ditch attempt to somehow stop Michael. Or at least slow him down.
“I’ll be back. I promise,” he said. He kissed her again, a few seconds longer,
and put the car in gear and drove away.
Stevie let a single
tear escape her eye before she walked up the stairs to their
Sitting on the kitchen
counter was a bouquet of fresh roses of all different varieties and vibrant
colors. On their third date, Stevie told
Michael she never could pick a single rose to enjoy and loved them all.
Also on the counter
was a slim white box. Stevie opened it
and gasped. Inside was a gold heart-shaped
necklace. On the inside of the lid,
Michael left a note for her:
You may break
You may shatter the
vase
But the scent of the
roses will hang around it still
The scent of the
roses will linger forever.
Four hours later
Michael was in one of the Montecito’s standard hotel rooms overlooking the Las
Vegas Strip. He was the last agent to
arrive to the sting as Lonnie was already in place with their target, Muntzy
was undercover with the resort staff, and
Agent Lonnie Sullivan
was the first to know the main details of the operation. She was the first to infiltrate
That was two weeks
ago. Lonnie was easily able to pull
Michael into the organization to be part of
Michael looked out the
window at the Strip. He could make out
the
Michael just settled
in to fall asleep when a heavy knock sounded on his door. He quickly got up and grabbed his FBI issued
Beretta 92FS and walked over towards the door.
He looked through the peephole and saw Lonnie standing outside with
another man. It was
“Michael!” Lonnie
said, bouncing in and giving him a big hug.
“Play,” she quietly whispered in his hear. She released him and looked at
Michael nodded and
looked at
“Clearly, sir,”
Michael said, tempted to salute.
“Good,”
Michael nodded.
“We begin tomorrow,
report to me in room 3019 for a final briefing with the security staff,”
Michael hated the fact
that Lonnie had been out of touch for so long.
She must have been kept so close to the operation, or had the feeling
she was being closely watched, she couldn’t have given them any more information
than what they were working from.
He had half a mind to
go look for Muntzy, but decided against it to avoid blowing the agent’s
cover. Muntzy would be in place in front
of
Once Lonnie had the
Tomcat-X designs, she would return to a specified meeting point with Wilson and
Gray, and they would leave the casino, ditching Acton, his girl, and the
oblivious security staff.
Michael, Muntzy, and
Taylor would be in communication with each other on a coded frequency. Once they found Lonnie, Muntzy would tail her
while Taylor and Michael would wait at the front entrance. When they reached the limo, Michael would give
the signal to the agents waiting in the cabs and the operation would be over.
Michael went to sleep
that night thinking the operation would be absolutely fool proof. He didn’t know he would be completely wrong.
After the opening
ceremonies of the conference, there was a mad dash to the casino floor, mainly
poker tables, craps tables, and blackjack tables.
Michael walked around
the casino and observed the action at the tables. The essence of the conference was a poker
game in itself as there were many players from either side trying to be dealt
in, some begging to be dealt out, and others just simply watching. Contractors from numerous companies mixed
business and social talk with representatives from the Department of Defense as
they played a few hands of the games.
Agent Jordan Muntzy
was a short black man around the same age as Michael. He wore maintenance clothes and carried a
toolbox in one hand, and a ladder in another.
He was walking down the hallway when he noticed a security guard standing
in front of
“That light looks fine
to me,” the guard said with a suspicious tone in his voice.
“It looks just fine to
me too,” Muntzy said, “but we’ve had reports on it flickering over the past few
days.”
“I’ve never noticed
anything,”
“I’ve been up here
five times to fix it and it looked just like it does now. It must be an electrical problem, so I may as
well look at it before it turns into something worse.”
The guard grunted.
Michael found Wilson
and Lonnie, walking the casino arm in arm posing as a couple, and keeping a
close eye on
“What’s going on,
Michael?”
“
“She’s headed towards
the elevators, I think she is headed your way, Muntzy.”
Michael looked up and
saw
There were a
few seconds of silence before Muntzy’s
voice came over the band. “He must
have called the security guard in front of
“It’s happening,”
Michael said, “
“Be careful down there
Michael, you’re in a bed of snakes,” Muntzy said.
“Not as much as Lonnie
is, Muntzy, keep an eye on her.”
Lonnie felt
overdressed for such an occasion, but nevertheless, looked stunning in her
violet gown. She had long flowing brown
hair that ended in curls and was accented against her white skin. She saw Muntzy working on the light in the
hallway but didn’t say anything–didn’t even look at him as she opened
She quickly moved to
the safe in the walk-in closet. She took
out the piece of paper
It took her just a few
minutes to scan the discs and save the data.
She put the discs back into the safe and made sure she didn’t disturb
anything. She took out a cell-phone and
called
“Excellent work,
Lonnie. Did anyone see you?”
“There’s no one around
except for an electrician in the hallway.”
“An electrician?”
“It’s fine, I’ve seen
him around here before, don’t worry,” Lonnie replied.
“Okay, well meet me at
“See you soon,” she
said.
Muntzy was still
working on his light when Lonnie left the suite. “Nice night, isn’t it?”
Lonnie smiled and
looked up at him. “You could say that,”
she replied, walking down the hall.
Muntzy wasn’t
comfortable giving Lonnie the original two-minute head start, so he counted a
few long seconds before he started to follow.
“I’m on her tail,” he said.
“Be careful, Muntzy, I
lost
“Relax, Agent Long,
I’m the original man of steel,”
“
Lonnie showed up by
“There’s been a change
of plans, Lonnie. Take these keys and go
to the top level of the parking garage.
There is a silver Z. Get into the
car and wait for us to show up,”
Lonnie nodded and
started walking towards the parking garage.
Michael passed her as he just arrived to the craps table. She looked at him and then back at Acton… or
Tanya. Before he could process it,
“
“All right,” Michael replied.
The table cheered as
“I make my own luck,”
Michael watched
Michael was anxious to
run to the parking garage to back up his team, “Muntzy, be careful, I think
they’re on to you,”
Lonnie opened the car
door when someone called out her name.
It was Muntzy.
“Lonnie! It’s time, we have to—” Muntzy was cut off by
a gunshot. He fell to the ground, dead
with a bullet in his back.
Lonnie screamed and
looked up. Gray was standing behind
Muntzy, holding a gun.
The gunshot came over
loud and clear over the radio. Michael
flinched well enough for a few people to notice, including Tanya. There was too much at stake for Michael to
remain undercover, and he blew it in front of Acton and Tanya by speaking to
the agents on the other end of the frequency.
“Muntzy? Muntzy!”
“Man down! All agents to the top level of the garage,
man down!”
Michael wasted no time
in ditching Acton and Tanya and darted off to the garage.
Tanya took off,
running after Michael.
By the time they got
to the garage, Lonnie, Gray and Wilson had just sped out.
Michael ran over to
Muntzy who was face down on the cement.
“Oh God,” his voice trembled as he approached his partner,
“Muntzy?” He examined Muntzy’s bloody wound and felt for a pulse. He never found one. “Shit!” he yelled, slamming his hand on the
concrete.
At that instant,
Michael knew Lonnie was in grave danger.
He leapt across the
hood of a cab and flashed his FBI badge to the driver. He got in and noticed Tanya was behind him in
the backseat.
“All agents hold off
pursuit, they’re mine,” he said. Michael
turned to Tanya, “Get out.”
“Michael, what the
hell is going on, you’re being paid to protect Charles, not ditch him in the
middle of a casino.”
Instead of replying,
Michael opened his wallet, ripped out the phony credentials and held the window
of his wallet with his FBI badge up so Tanya could see.
“FBI? You?
What for?” Tanya asked, surprised.
“I’ll explain
tomorrow, damn it, now out!”
“No, I’m going along,
you may need some help,” she protested.
Michael sighed. There was no time to argue, he hit the gas
and hoped he could find Lonnie before it was too late.
“Tell me now,
Michael. What is happening?”
“
“No. I don’t believe you,” Tanya said.
“Your boss killed my
partner back there, I was supposed to be covering him, Tanya! Add murder charges onto industrial
espionage,” Michael yelled.
“There they are!”
Tanya said, pointing at the windshield.
Michael could see the
tail-lights of the Z in front of him.
They must have been caught in traffic considering the distance advantage
they had over Michael, and now he was able to catch up to them in the Vegas
outskirts.
Do something, Lonnie,
Michael thought as he pursued them deeper into the desert. Lonnie must have sped up or hit the brakes
because Michael’s vision was obscured by a large amount of dust in front of
them. He had to squint to see through
the cloud. Michael knew he couldn’t
catch up with her unless she slowed down.
His Dodge Caravan taxicab was no match for the Z she was driving.
His concentration was
broken when his cell-phone
rang.
The tail-lights of the
Z suddenly brightened and then went out.
But right before they darkened, Michael could see a slight swerve. He figured Lonnie ran
the car off the road, and prayed she didn’t hurt herself in
the process.
Michael pressed the
gas pedal harder, but had to quickly slam on the brakes as he reached the Z
sooner than he anticipated. He barely
put the cab in park before he scrambled out, almost losing his footing, and ran
to the Z, which was laying on its roof.
It looked like it had skidded a few yards.
“Lonnie!” Michael
yelled, dropping to his knees and sliding towards the driver’s side. He grabbed the phone out of his pocket, which
he had left connected. “Agent
down! Agent down!” he barked into it.
Michael flattened
himself to the ground to attend to his fallen comrade, “Talk to me Lonnie,” he
said. But something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Agents go through a
rigorous training program designed to teach them how to drive, how to crash,
and how to survive. Regardless of the Z
being a sports car, Lonnie should have survived this if she had run the car off
the road on purpose to disorient Wilson and Gray.
Unless…
“Lonnie?” Michael
asked again. Still no response.
She looked so
enigmatic being upside down, suspended by her seatbelt, but still twisted in an
odd form. She should have been
conscious.
Breaking all the
rules, Michael reached in to touch Lonnie’s head. He jolted when his hand touched very warm
liquid. It was Lonnie’s blood. Among other things. He looked closer, turning her head because he
knew damn well it was too late now.
One bullet did the
job. Straight into her head.
Agent down…
Michael looked into
the car. Wilson and Gray were gone.
Where the hell was
the backup?
Where the hell were
Wilson and Gray?
Michael then knew
that he and Tanya were in the very worst situation imaginable, “Tanya,” he yelled,
“stay in the car!”
He pushed himself
upright, and spun around, intending to run back to the cab and make sure Tanya
was OK.
But before he could
move an inch further, a violent white flash and searing pain consumed Michael’s
entire world. The sound of the gunshot
blasted through his ears a split second later.
He reached his hands up to his face only to discover he was clutching
just muscle, blood and bone. The force
of the bullet pushed him back onto the inverted, open door of the Z. He felt his back crack, if not break, and
fell forward onto the desert floor, blood draining from his massive bullet
wound into the sand.
Stevie’s tear-streaked
face was seen only in the street-lights that danced through the windows of the
car that was speeding towards the hospital.
“I told him not to go. I told
him,” she said in between sobs.
The attending
physician in charge of Michael’s care was waiting for Stevie and Taylor when
they arrived at
“Michael’s in critical
condition. We have nurses and doctors
watching him around the clock. He was
shot point-blank in the head. The bullet
was on a trajectory that was headed right for Michael’s brain, but a metal
plate deflected it,” the doctor said.
“He got that in Desert
Storm,” Stevie said.
The doctor nodded
grimly. “That plate deflected the bullet
through Michael’s face,”
“Meaning?” Stevie
asked.
“Michael’s face was
completely destroyed, Ms. Mason. The
bullet shattered several bones, damaged a number of arteries, caused extensive
damage to his sinus system. We don’t even
know if he still has vision. We speculate
there is severe nerve damage but we can’t tell right now. We can’t tell half of the trauma induced
until his condition stabilizes.”
Stevie cradled her
head in her hands fighting back her tears.
“Ms. Mason, I’m sorry
to say this, but the odds of your fiancé surviving are less than 30 percent,”
That sent Stevie over
the edge. The lump in her throat swelled
to an extent that the only thing she could do was cry. She longed for all of this to be just a
dream, where Michael would wake her up, kiss her and tell her everything would
be OK.
This was no dream.
Michael was moved into
the ICU 72 hours later.
It was hard to look at
him. For the first 36 hours, Michael
needed constant watch as his facial wound kept bleeding and his dressings
needed to be changed. Tubes and machines
were connected to him in every which way
imaginable.
Stevie looked
horrible.
His bosses were not
pleased that despite the fact
Michael left his
cell-phone on the entire time.
“Where are the designs?” Tanya asked.
“She destroyed them.
Erased the data storage.”
“Get out of town quick,” Tanya said, “what other choice do
we have?”
Tanya Walker was the
mastermind.
How the hell could
he have missed such a thing?
He kept wondering what
the hell went wrong. Had Walker and
Wilson known all along? Did Muntzy jump
the gun by following Lonnie too soon? Or
were they never planning to meet at the front entrance, just in case?
Too many what-ifs were
running around in his mind.
“Hi,” a voice said
that broke him from his thought. It was
Stevie.
“Hi,”
Stevie could sense
something was wrong, “What is it?”
“I’ve been suspended,”
Stevie began to cry
again, “No,” she said. “You can’t be
suspended, Paul. Who is going to find
them? Someone has to find them! You’re the only one who knows who they are.”
Before he could
answer, the room erupted into chaos as a bunch of doctors and nurses burst into
the room. They pushed past Stevie and
Taylor and surrounded Michael, all speaking at once.
A nurse quickly came
and escorted Stevie and Taylor out of the room.
Stevie strained to try to hear what the doctors were saying, but all she
could make out was medical terminology mixed around the words “crashing, trauma,
bleeding out, emergency surgery.” Before
she could catch what was going on, the swarm of doctors was wheeling Michael
out of the room.
“What’s going on?”
Stevie asked, frantically.
“We got a signal at the nurses station,” a nurse said who Stevie didn’t recognize, “they’re taking him up to emergency surgery.”
“Oh God,” Stevie said,
rushing after Michael.
A female doctor
stopped her at the elevator doors. “We
need to take him upstairs right away,” she said, “the nurse will take you to
the waiting room. We’re taking care of
him, Ms. Mason, I promise,” the doctor gave an assuring smile as the doors
closed.
The nurse could see
that Stevie was entering panic-mode. She
assured her that things would be just fine and walked her to another elevator
to take her to the OR waiting room.
Stevie sat at their
dinner table staring at the folded American flag some unnamed Army general
presented to her this morning at
The flowers he gave
her eight days ago were dead, the necklace he gave her was still around her
neck. She fingered it absently as she
read the note he left.
“If I got out of
Desert Storm alive, I am sure I will get out of an FBI sting in
For the first time
since she was rushed to Vegas, Stevie exploded in grief. She grabbed the vase and tossed it across the
room, screaming and crying as it shattered on the floor. She cleared the table in one sweep of her
arm, sending the jewelry box, the American flag, sympathy cards, and a plate of
food she barely touched flying everywhere.
She tore off the necklace and fell to the floor, clutching the necklace
as hard as she could.
This still was not a
dream.
“I’ll be back. I promise.”
Darkness.
“His scars are nearly
healed,” a man said, with a clipped British accent.
“Mmm-hmm,”
another man replied.
“Doesn’t it strike you
that there is an uncanny resemblance between him and you as a young man?” the
British man asked.
The other man grunted.
“Just my imagination,
I suppose,” the British man replied.
“Stick to your task,”
the other man replied with a gruff and raspy voice, “have you found them?”
“We’re still working
on it, we’ve narrowed it down to three companies in two states,”
“And the Knight 2000?”
“It could be ready
within a month,” the British man said, excitedly.
“Excellent!” the other
man said, “I just hope I have a month left in me.”
“What have the doctors
said?” the British man asked with a concerned tone.
“Never you mind what
the doctors said,
Awake.
Who was talking?
Were there really
voices or was it a dream?
He couldn’t figure out
how long ago it was when his world plunged into darkness. Today, it still was. But something was different. He could feel it. Hell, he could actually feel for once.
Almost…
The last thing he saw
was… he couldn’t remember. The last
thing he felt was unimaginable pain.
Indescribable.
Unbearable.
Not only did he feel
the searing pain from the bullet exiting through his face, his head was
throbbing from the impact his plate took from deflecting the bullet.
He reached up to feel
his face not knowing what to expect. The
last time he felt his face, he could feel the edges of his skin where it was
torn apart by the bullet, his muscles, bones… much more than a person is not
supposed to feel. This time, he felt…
skin.
Michael quickly sat
up, opening his eyes and looking around.
He squinted, having not seen light in a very long time.
He let off a quick
scream, startled at the presence of two men at his bedside.
“Who the hell are you?”
he asked.
“Hello Michael,” the
first man said, “I’m Wilton Knight, and this is Devon Miles,” he said,
gesturing to another man.
Both men were older
than Michael. The owner of the British
voice,
Or anyone for that
matter.
“How are you feeling?”
Michael was still
rather disoriented to answer. “How long
have I been here?”
“About a month,”
Michael shot out of
bed, and stumbled. He had hardly any
energy. “A month?” he asked,
irritated. “I gotta go, I gotta get out
of here. I gotta get back to the Bureau,
call Stevie—”
Devon looked at
“Explain? No,” Michael said, looking for his clothes
and walking towards the sink. He
splashed water on his face and looked up, “I don’t have any time to—”
Michael’s blood ran
cold when he saw the face staring back.
Michael couldn’t
believe his eyes… literally. Instead of
his green to grey eyes, they were blue.
His eye sockets were slimmed down.
His hair was no longer light brown and spiky, instead it was dark brown,
wavy and out of regulation. His long
cheekbones were more subdued, and his teeth were whiter. The face in the mirror definitely wasn’t
Michael Long.
“My face… Oh my God,”
he said, “what happened to my face?” He
spun around to face
“I suppose you want
some answers,”
“No shit, otherwise I
wouldn’t be asking questions,” Michael replied.
“I promise I will tell
you everything. Trust me, son, we are
not here to hurt you,”
“Not here to hurt
me? You’ve destroyed me! What the hell have you done to my face?”
Michael yelled, noticing his new eyes matched
“You’ll be much
happier with this face,”
“What?” Michael asked.
“Everything will be
explained to you in time, Mr. Long,”
“I’m trying to tell
you, I don’t have time—,”
“You do, Michael, more
than you know. Get dressed,”
Michael was about to
protest when
The two men left, and
Michael was alone again.
What the hell was
going on?
Images flooded Michael’s
mind from over a decade ago. He was in
A sequence of errors
quickly followed, and Michael found himself captured along with some other
members of the battalion. They were
merely hours away from one of Hussein’s torture camps before they were able to
engineer an escape.
Him and a squad of 3
soldiers were able to overpower a team of Iraqi captors.
I’ll be damned if I
can’t get away from here, he thought.
Then, in almost an
instant of panic, he tore off his t-shirt and looked in the mirror. His muscles were still there, but what was
missing made his stomach drop and heart skip more than a few beats. His Screaming Eagle’s tattoo was gone,
completely erased from his body.
Michael sunk his head
low, wishing it was all a dream.
“Where am I?” Michael
asked
“You’re in the
“My face might be
different, but my memory isn’t, give me some credit,
“I’m afraid that is
for Mr. Knight to explain,”
The circular logo was
the image of a medieval Knight’s head, set on an orange background with a black
border.
“Nice wheels,
“Where are we? How big is this place?” Michael asked,
looking around.
“We’re across the bay
from
Michael looked across
Devon and saw a sweeping view of the
“I beg your pardon?”
Michael asked, in an accent mocking
During the final
minutes of their trip, Michael tried his hardest to pull out information from
Devon as best as he could, but
Michael hated being
out of the loop. Christ, that’s why he
joined the FBI in the first place, to be on the inside, to be a part of the
intelligence community.
Of course at that
moment he realized the interrogation training he received too. Not only was it his job to know information,
but it was his job to retrieve information.
But before he was able
to corner
“Good morning,
Michael,”
“Barely,” Michael
replied, “I still need to get back in shape,” he said, stretching. Michael had been nearly immobilized for the
past month and felt the toll it took on his body. He was definitely out of shape, as if he was
in a body that was not his own… and definitely wearing a face that didn’t
belong to him.
“You’ll have time for
that,”
“What am I here for?”
Michael said, narrowly escaping out of
The two men started
walking down the path running along the cliff.
Michael couldn’t help but look down on occasion at the mighty drop to
the jagged rocks on the other side of the railing. After a few endless seconds of not speaking,
Michael began asking questions.
After 45 minutes of
walking the grounds of the estate,
“I suppose you have
plenty of questions for me, Michael,” he said.
“Damn right,” Michael
sharply replied.
“Well to start off, I
am saddened to inform you that you are dead,”
Michael stopped,
grabbing the old man by the arm. “What
the hell are you talking about?” he asked, sweeping some wind-blown hair out of
his face.
“Michael Long was
involved in a shootout in
Michael gave a cheeky
grin and turned his back to
“Don’t believe me,
Michael?”
“No, I believe
you. I know what people like you can
accomplish,” Michael said.
“People like me?”
“Powerful. Rich.
Donated so much to the world, got power in exchange. I just want to know how you did it.”
“And why, I assume?”
Michael nodded.
“You weren’t far from
death, Mr. Long, I must say. Your
condition was all over the place, and doctors fought to keep you in an induced
coma until the swelling around your brain subsided. That metal plate in your head saved your life
and bought us the opportunity we needed.”
“
“Your own life,
Michael? What life? You’ve been declared dead, given a few face…”
Michael turned to look
at
“A chance for a new
life,”
“You sound like the
Godfather,” Michael said, beginning to walk away.
“You have the chance
to walk away, Michael, but do you want to?
When your killers are still on the large?”
Michael stopped and
spun around.
“What do you know
about them?” Michael asked, as he began to pick up stones and throw them over
the cliff.
“Enough to know how
dangerous they are,”
Michael rolled his
eyes at that half-ass answer.
“First-hand knowledge,
Mr. Long.”
“What?”
“Six years ago, Knight
Industries was nearly destroyed by industrial espionage. They single-handedly toppled everything I
built, everything I worked for, stole multiple project designs and sold them
off to the highest bidder. I was in-line
to become a defense contractor for the Armed Forces, but her espionage cost
that contract. And my marriage.”
Michael looked at
“She wormed her way
into me every-which-way possible. I
should have known better, I should have been smarter. But I was 65, I was realizing the absolute
terror that there were more days behind me than there were in front of me. She was 28.
She was interested. Interested in
what? Not some 65-year-old
curmudgeon. His money? Perhaps.
What other reason was a 28-year-old woman doing with me? My power?
My secrets? She took it all. Took the most powerful projects we’ve been
developing—projects way ahead of their time, projects that could have
revolutionized multiple industries. In
toppling my empire, she toppled me, and my projects made billions for someone
else.”
“She?” Michael
asked, confused, “what the hell are you talking about, Mr. Knight? We’re after Fred Wilson.”
“I’ll stake my life
on it,” Michael said, “we’ve been tracking him and his outfit for months.”
“Then you’ve come to
know
“Down to his
favorite food and how he wants it cooked, Mr. Knight.”
“You’re telling me
nothing new,” Michael said.
“I don’t expect you
to learn something new, but I would expect you to use that mind of yours that
works in Intelligence,” Wilton replied, “With a man like Wilson, do you think
he can truly worm his way into a company and get so far in to steal their
secrets?”
There was some time
of silence before
“Tanya,” Michael
replied.
“She’s involved in
this more than you know. She calls the
shots, not
Michael’s face
contorted with the range of emotions that shot through his heart and mind. How could he have missed what was so
obvious? How could Muntzy, or Taylor, or
Lonnie?
Wait a second…
Lonnie.
He looked at them
again and noticed Lonnie was watching Tanya more than Acton himself...
Stevie laughed
again. She stood up to face Michael,
despite her forehead just reaching his nose.
“I have a bad feeling about this.
You know I have these sixth sense feelings about things.”
Lonnie nodded and
started walking towards the parking garage.
Michael passed her as he just arrived to the craps table. She looked at him and then back at Acton...
or Tanya.
“No,” Michael said,
“no way.”
“How do you mean,
Michael? ‘No way’ as in you don’t
believe Tanya’s in on it, or ‘no way’ as you can’t believe how bad you messed
up.”
“The hell with you,
Old Man!” Michael yelled, holding back as much as he could to avoid punching
the frail man, “I’m good at what I do.
I’m the best!” he yelled, anger overcoming his expressions.
“If we all tried to
be perfect and the best, all we do is eventually set ourselves up for failure,”
“Not good
enough! I poured my heart and soul to
become a good investigator, sacrificed everything to get where I am today,”
Michael said as he talked through his teeth, and almost snarled, “The way I see
it, I blew it back there.”
“You weren’t in
charge of the mission—“
“Don’t drag
“You can’t blame
yourself, Michael. You all were
operating on incomplete intelligence.
Tanya and her crew are so good at this, there was no way of—“
“Why the hell didn’t
you tell anyone?” Michael yelled, edging closer to
Michael spun around,
unable to face
“It took awhile to
rebuild,”
“Justice,”
“Instead, I sought to
create something powerful, something to make a difference, a way to fight in
the world of criminals who operate above the law—to champion the cause of the
innocent, the helpless, the powerless. I
created a private arm of Knight Industries, utilizing technology that is beyond
state-of-the-art. A firm that would not
be controlled by our board of directors, nor influenced by government or
politics. It would be a way for me to
continue philanthropy work in no other way imaginable. A free-lance law enforcement agency called
the Foundation for Law and Government.”
Michael stood there,
letting the information absorb. He could
almost sense the statement or question The Old Man was about to throw his way.
This time, he was
going to intercept it.
“Shove it up your
ass, Old Man, I’m out of here.”
Michael had the luck
of the draw of an early fog rolling through the city. It blanketed the moon and made his moves much
more covert. He knew what he had to do.
It took just a few
seconds to pop the cover off the control box.
Bingo.
Michael took out a
kitchen knife he held onto from dinner and began working to reroute some wires.
Just a few
adjustments and he would be long gone from Knight’s prison of paradise.
“Going somewhere,
Michael?” a voice asked.
Michael jumped and
dropped the knife. He spun around to
face
“Away from here,
gentlemen. It’s time for me to go,”
Michael said.
“Go where?”
“I may be a little
sore, but I heal better in action, not being held prisoner,” Michael replied.
“You aren’t a
prisoner here, son,”
“I, however,”
I probably should
refrain from contacting him anytime after 9pm, Michael thought.
“Don’t think of the
fact that you aren’t able to leave just yet as a negative thing. We’re here to help you, Michael,”
“I don’t trust you
one damn bit.”
But not much…
“Why’s that?” he
asked.
“Because there was a
time when I sure as hell could have needed your help, and you sat by and did
nothing,” Michael said.
“How do you think
you got here?”
“I don’t see you in
a doctor’s outfit. I just see you
barking orders.”
“Someone has to,”
Michael was on the
brink of losing his temper. The Old Man
was getting on his nerves, quickly. “I
would hardly call it unconscious. Try having
the same nightmare over and over again but you can’t wake up.”
“I see nothing funny
about this,” Michael said, straight lipped.
“Neither do I,”
The Old Man was
right. Michael had no place to go. No money, or even ID. Hell, according to The Old Man, he was
pronounced dead a month ago.
How would a dead man
get back into the FBI, and back into Stevie’s life?
How would a dead man
get back at those who killed him in the first place?
On second thought,
being a dead man for the latter seemed like an excellent idea.
Still, Michael
wanted out. He wanted to do this on his
own terms, and under Knight’s helpful, yet unhelpful thumb, he couldn’t.
Knight was one of
the reasons, not the only, as to why he was here in the first place. And he definitely was the reason as to why
Michael had a new face, had his identity erased, and… was still being held on
the estate.
“I’m being held here
against my will, don’t you see anything wrong with that?”
“If you need
anything, talk to Devon,”
“I don’t need taken
care off, I need to get out,” Michael interrupted.
“He’s the Major Domo
around here,”
“Great, I have both
Robin Masters and Higgins breathing down my neck. When do I get the red Ferrari?”
Devon was about to
say something, but
Michael realized
that he wasn’t going anywhere.
At least not out the
front door…
And not anytime
soon.
“You have 48 hours,”
“Doctors say their
normal medical terms and give deadlines, much as I use technical terms and give
deadlines as well. Don’t worry about
them,”
“You’re one of the
few who understands both terms. Or have
you forgotten that M.D. is one of many initials at the end of your surname?”
“Have you spoken to
him since last month?”
“No.”
“Do you plan to?”
“He’s a man not
unlike us
“I take light
offense to that,”
“How can you be so
sure?”
“He has the
drive. The dedication. His entire world was destroyed, far different
than mine. He’s felt he’s failed his
mission. He’ll want to pick it up,”
“I still question your
choice,
“He needs to be
young.”
“And inexperienced,”
“You’re grasping at
straws that aren’t there,
“He was captured
there.”
“He survived. He kept fighting. It kept him living, just like me.”
“He’s aggressive,
confrontational and… primitive,”
“He’ll need that. I doubt our adversaries will be inviting him
to talk out their troubles over a spot of tea, Devon,”
“I’ll give you his
ability to work in a team,”
“Every man has the
ability and preparedness to work on his own.
Michael knows the value of a team, but knows the value of one man can be
a force greater than any army put together.
Michael Long is our man. He will
be the proof that one man can make a difference.”
“On your way Devon,”
Michael dashed up the
stairs and collapsed on the stone bench, wiping sweat away from his brow.
“Aren’t you pushing it
a bit, Michael?”
“I gotta keep in
shape,” Michael said, “I’ve been sitting around too long. I got one last score to settle,” Before
“Revenge?”
“Pursuit and
capture. I have a mission to finish.”
“You aren’t an agent
anymore. You aren’t even Michael Long
anymore. In a matter of speaking, you
aren’t even alive anymore. I gave you an
offer weeks ago. A chance to join the
Foundation,” Wilton said, “What if I told you
that by working together, we can take down Tanya and her friends. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg—”
“Mr. Knight,
spending two months with you, I’ve come to realize that you’ve given me a
second chance to live, and for that I am grateful. But don’t sit there and ask me to join forces
with you when you had the intelligence my team was looking for, and still
refused to participate and give it up.”
“Save whatever you
are about to say and offer me, Mr. Knight.
It didn’t stick four weeks ago and it wont now,” Michael said. He walked away and shouted over his shoulder,
“and start thinking of when you plan to let me the hell out of here.”
“That went well,”
“Eavesdropping isn’t
the role of a gentleman,”
“I would hardly call
it eavesdropping,”
“What the hell do
you expect,
“This coming from a
man on severely borrowed time,”
“His time will come,
I just hope that it will before mine is up.”
It was Michael’s
instincts that told him to check it out.
He walked towards the large set of hangar doors and approached a
nested-personnel door.
Michael checked his
watch. It read midnight. Despite the cold, he made his second pass
through the campus, a five-mile run, and planned to take two more. He passed by a building that resembled an
aircraft hanger. Last night, around this
time, the hanger was busy with activity, and stayed busy throughout the night. During his first run tonight, he noticed a
small amount of activity. It looked like
people were wrapping up their work.
This time, the hanger
was dark and empty. Whatever they were
working on, they finished.
After picking the
lock, Michael entered the dark building.
The door closed behind him and the slam echoed throughout the
edifice. It also plunged him into almost
complete darkness.
A lone, dim, spotlight
shone on the floor in the middle of the warehouse. Michael stepped forward into it, looking
around. “Hello?” he asked, his voice
booming in the building.
Off in the distance…
or was it behind him… Michael heard a faint whirring noise. He squinted ahead of him and saw narrow red
lights chasing each other, as if they were scanning the building. They appeared as if they hovered in the
middle of the warehouse. The whirring
noise seemed to correspond with the mini-floating-light-show.
Suddenly, without
warning, the car’s headlights and fog lights
turned on and nearly blinded Michael. An
engine roared to life and what appeared to be a car began bearing down upon
him.
Michael stood his
ground. The car screeched to a halt just
inches from his legs.
Bathed in light,
Michael could see he was looking at a sleek silver
muscle car, yet modern. Michael
recognized the form. He saw it months
ago as a concept car in a magazine, what was going to be developed into the new
Camaro.
The massive halogen
lights in the hangar illuminated, and Michael was able to finally appreciate
the size. The building was large enough
to encompass an Airbus 380 and seemed wasted on the car. A retro corporate jet sat in the far corner.
“Enough
Michael looked back
towards the Camaro.
“And it’s just as
polite to keep me here when I want to go.
You are walking a thin line here, guys.
You give me everything, full use of everything, but I am still stuck here.”
“He’s guilty of
breaking and entering
“Oh lighten up,
Teabag. You could put a small country’s
food supply in here and still be a quarter full,” Michael said, “and you have
swarms of people in and out of this building around the clock except for
now. Will someone please tell me what
the hell is going on?”
“I’m an innovator,
Michael. I always have been, and I like
my space,”
“Here you go again,
thinking I am interested in whatever you have your billion-dollar eyes on. I’m not buying.”
“That’s ungrateful
and selfish, Mr. Long,”
“You’ve done enough
as it is. You may have shown hospitality
but how in the world do you explain this?” Michael asked, pointing towards his
new face, “How am I supposed to go back into the world and convince everyone
that I am Michael Long?”
“Michael Long is
dead, you have a new life now,”
“I don’t fucking
want it!” Michael screamed. His voice
echoed through the garage and when it stopped, a highly uncomfortable silence
fell upon them.
Michael was
fuming. His heart was racing. He was waiting for it to explode from his
chest.
It was the ultimate
Mexican Standoff, sans weapons.
“I think… it’s my
bedtime,”
“You arrogant,
ungrateful, pompous son-of-a-bitch,”
Michael wasn’t about
to hear any of this, “
“Shut up, Mr. Long,
I don’t believe you have room for debate.
Wilton Knight is my friend and colleague, we’ve been such for the past
30 years. He’s hard-headed, determined,
and impossible to argue with. But in all
those years, I’ve never seen someone treat him as you have tonight. You’ve just struck a dying man.”
Michael rolled his
eyes. He wanted no part of this
lecture. Dying or not, who the hell did
Wilton Knight truly think he was? God?
“Why go through the
charade of falsifying your death if he did not have a specific purpose?”
“What am I supposed
to care,
“Is that why you’re
hostile?”
“I’m hostile because
I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t apply
for the job.”
“So you are a
reluctant hero,”
Michael rolled his
eyes again, “I would hardly call myself that,” he said.
“Are you hostile to
more towards
“Both.”
“Why?”
“Because they took
everything from me!” Michael yelled, “And you just sat around and watched them
do it! Then you bring me here, build me
a new face that I didn’t ask for, and expect me to graciously join your Federation—”
“Foundation,”
“Foundation,”
Michael corrected, “Without a protest in the world! You expect me to be grateful for everything
you’ve done when it’s your fault I’m here?”
“Regardless of what
went wrong, Michael. The chance that you’ve
been given is one of a lifetime. Why did
you get into law enforcement and intelligence?”
“To make sure
everyone has justice,” Michael replied.
“But not everyone
gets justice, do they?”
“Only those who
matter in the eyes of society, or are in the public eye one way or another.”
“They don’t get what
they deserve,” Michael said, solemnly.
“You’ve just found
your new life, Mr. Long.”
“What was wrong with
my old life?”
“You were killed,”
“But I wasn’t.”
“But they’re
convinced you were. Don’t you see,
Michael? If you went back, you’d go back
with a target. They’d know you’re alive,
and that makes you a liability. These
are the kind of people who would go through everyone you know and love just to
get to you. You would put everyone at
risk, including yourself. And they would
stop at nothing to take you out.”
Michael stood there
in silence. It was the first time in two
months that someone gave him a viable explanation.
“We just didn’t save
your life Michael, we saved the lives of everyone around you,”
5am.
Michael had been awake the whole night since his run in
with Devon and
Billionaires are so
enigmatic. Why didn’t
Maybe
Fred Wilson, Tanya
Walker—whoever was in control had to be brought to justice. They had their clutches on some big
companies, and Michael knew they would continue raiding secrets until someone
could bring them down.
It had to be him.
Justice for those
affected by espionage.
Justice for him.
Justice for
Maybe a tiny bit of
revenge, too. Why not?
Michael quickly got
dressed and left his room in the Estate.
He had a hunch as to where he was supposed to
be.
And definitely a
feeling, finally, of what he was meant to do.
It took him a few
minutes to reach the hangar. Once he got
inside, Michael noticed the Camaro was in the same
place where
He jumped slightly,
when the door shut behind him, and a voice broke the silence and echoed. “I’ve been waiting six years for this,
Michael,”
Michael walked
towards the man. He felt that he had a
new sense of understanding than he had before, “Then you know what it feels
like to have one single event consume your every waking memory,” Michael said,
“you know what it’s like to relive that event over and over, praying that
someone or something will send you back to right what went wrong.”
“Ever since last
night, something keeps telling me that me, this car, and your Foundation of
Justice are linked.”
“There’s no going
back, is there?” Michael asked. He
looked down and frowned, “to life as Michael Long?”
“Sadly, no.”
Michael looked up at
“I know,”
“How am I supposed
to move on with a new life, a new face?”
“I can only guide
you, but I could never begin to tell you how to cope. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, Michael.”
“What am I here for,
Mr. Knight?” Michael asked, with increasing urgency and curiosity.
Michael got into the
driver’s seat and looked around. At
first sight, it was no ordinary car. The
dashboard console had been heavily modified, if not completely replaced. Digital readouts were in front of Michael
displaying multiple types of information.
In the middle, five buttons on each side bordered a blacked out vertical
rectangle. Bordering the bottom of the
rectangle was a lighted yellow square reading
There were hardly
any curves or rounded surfaces either.
Everything matched the outside of the car to reflect very sleek
edges. The steering
wheel wasn’t spared in the massive redesign either. Instead of a complete circle, it
took the form of a wing with handles at the top for the driver to hold on
to. It had a sharp, curve-less design.
“Welcome aboard the
Knight 2000,”
“This certainly
isn’t stock,” Michael said.
“The car thinks,”
Michael said.
Michael looked
around for the ignition, “How do I start this thing?”
Michael pressed it
and the car came to life both inside and outside. The whir of a staring turbine engine filled
the warehouse, and the gizmos inside the car lit up, similar to plugging in a
Christmas tree.
There was a definite
power surging through the vehicle.
Michael could feel it easily. He
glanced over at
“How long has this
been in the works?” Michael asked.
“The intelligence
systems have been in development for over a decade. I had the dream and the vision, and had to
invent the technology along the way to make it happen,”
“What about the car
itself? Last time I saw this, it was
just a concept car,” Michael said.
“Clever,” Michael
replied.
“It’s official
public unveiling will be in January at the North American International Auto
Show. You’ll start seeing it for sale
2009.”
“That’s in four
years,” Michael said, “You said this will blend in.”
“Do you have an
answer for everything?” Michael asked.
“I do. Now, are we going to sit here and chat, or
hit the road?”
“I think you know
the answer to that,” Michael said, “buckle your seatbelt.” Michael reached for his and noticed there
wasn’t one.
“Seatbelts aren’t
necessary in here, Mr. Long,”
On the central
monitor, the words PASSIVE LASER RESTRAINT ACTIVATED appeared.
“Do I even want to
ask?” Michael said.
“Just drive,”
Michael grinned, put
the car in gear, and pressed the gas.
The power that came
from the Knight 2000 was amazing and Michael was nowhere near prepared for
it. The car launched forward in the hangar
and plowed through the giant metal doors.
Michael slammed on
the brakes. He was too caught up in the
collision to notice that neither he nor
“That’s my fault,”
Michael scrambled
out of the car to survey the damage. He looked
at the prow of the Camaro and his mouth dropped
open. Despite crashing through a large
door, the car was untouched. There was
not a single scratch, or dent, or chip of the paint.
“What the hell?”
Michael asked reaching forward and feeling the paint. “What kind of paint is this? It feels like baby skin. What’s this car made of?”
“It’s not paint,”
“That’s amazing,”
Michael said, “why not market it to the public, or military? It could save tons of lives, especially the
guys over there right now.”
“I agree,”
“Simply
amazing. Those doors should have torn
through us. Instead a convertible sports
car tore through them,” Michael said, getting back behind the wheel. “The system is running now, right? No more surprise accidents?”
“I am sure there are
surprises along the way, Michael, but collisions, no.”
“Good, then let’s
roll.”
The Camaro launched forward again, this time streaking out of
the Estate and quickly off the Knight Industries campus.
The sun was just
rising as the car streaked along the
“I’ll be putting this
car to the test, Old Man,” Michael said
gripping the steering wheel harder and hitting the gas.
“Please do,”
Michael eyed an
intense curve in the road instructing drivers to slow down to 30
miles-per-hour. He kept his speed at 80.
As he neared the curve
he could feel the Camaro taking some control. He felt it speed up. The square reading “
“What the hell?” he
said as they navigated the curve. “
“Yes, it did,”
“I hate it!” Michael
said. “I like to make my own decisions.”
“The intelligence
systems deduced you were acting in the contrary to your best and safest
interests. It evaluated the appropriate
measures to maneuver through the curve and executed them,”
“Yeah, but why speed
up, why not slow down? It would have
been a lot safer that way.”
“Mr.
Knight? Why did
the car speed up? Did I just find a flaw in your perfect
machine?”
“No… no flaw, I assure
you, “
“It’s just what?”
Michael asked, anxious.
“The only deduction I
can figure out is… it was showing off for you.”
“What?!” Michael said,
stopping along the side of the road.
“Don’t blame the
Knight 2000 completely,”
“Or what?” Michael
asked.
“Or setting it to
react to a complex network of road conditions.
Any conditions imaginable. It can
drive itself, without an operator, if necessary.”
“So this car can take
off on its own just like that?” Michael asked.
“It’d suck to be
working under it.”
“It wouldn’t do
anything to harm you.
I wrote a specific line of command code that requires it to preserve
human life, and most importantly, your life,”
“By me, you mean anyone
driving it?”
“No,”
He peered into the
garage and saw the Knight 2000 was gone.
Somehow, he knew
that it wasn’t just Michael Long that had a part in this. And he had a very good idea as to where
“Madness,” he said,
“both of them.”
Sweat was all but
pouring down Michael’s face as he got the Camaro
up to 200 miles per hour. He looked at
the red glowing rectangle reading “Pursuit” under the mysterious black
square. A tense look crossed his face as
it was nearing 220. He was annoyed at
By 225, Michael
flinched and hit the brakes.
“Two-twenty-five,” Michael said, “it wins. How fast does it go?”
“You don’t want to
know,”
Michael began driving
again, at a more normal speed. “So,
we’ve been on this nice joy-ride, and I still don’t entirely know why I am
here, Mr. Knight.”
“You’re sitting in
it,”
“I’m sure there’s
much more to it than that.
“There is. It was no random choice we saved your life,
Michael. I’ve been
watching Tanya Walker and her associates for some time now,
trying to gather enough evidence to put them away for good. We only needed to catch them in the act.”
“Is that why I’m
here?” Michael asked, “You wanted to use me to get them?”
“Don’t think of
yourself as a pawn, Michael,”
“Lonnie knew.”
“Your partner was in a
dangerous situation where she could not tell you that Miss Walker was
involved—”
“She tried to send me
signals. I should have known them
better. I underestimated Tanya and her
team.”
“If life was
perfect, Michael, my team would have found a cure for this cancer that’s
killing me. You would catch the bad guys
on the very first try. And parents of
people like Wilson and Tanya would have had abortions,”
“I almost did,”
Michael said.
“Yes, almost. I’m afraid I might have contributed to it. I’m sorry for my distrust of your organization. It’s that distrust that inadvertently set you
up for disaster. But please think of the
chance you have. You do not exist, you
are legally dead. Your face
and fingerprints have been altered, and no one can trace the
source of your funds or your identity.”
“But who am I?”
“You’re Michael
Knight.”
“Heir to the mighty
throne?” Michael asked.
“Agent and Operative
for the Foundation for Law and Government.
You have endless resources at your disposal, and the Knight 2000 to aid
you wherever you go.”
“How do I suddenly
become Michael Knight?”
“I put the ball in
motion, but you set it up yourself, Michael,”
“Mr. Knight… I wish I could sit here and tell you I can
take on the world. But I don’t know… How
am I supposed to stop them? I had a
whole team back there, Mr. Knight. Lonnie
was killed. Muntzy was killed. Hell, I was killed. My life is over, my friends and fiancé think
I am dead. I wake up in the middle of
the night soaking wet and shaking. I see
that gun going off in my face over and over.
I find Lonnie’s body, and I was just ten seconds away from helping
her. I watch my world blow up again.”
“That’s what you need,
Michael. Don’t you understand that
memory is what kept you alive? It is
your baptism by fire into this new life.
Don’t turn in fear. Remember what
you are here for. Tanya Walker and her
group are just the beginning. There are
many more like them out there, and it will be up to you to get them. It’s up to you to continue what I couldn’t
finish.”
“The world needs
more people like us,” Michael said, “but as you said, it’s not perfect.”
“All it takes is one
man to stand up and change that,”
“One man can make a
difference?” Michael asked.
“Finally, right?” Michael asked with a laugh.
Both men laughed as
the Camaro rocketed down the road into the sunrise.
A few days later,
Michael watched as the pallbearers removed the casket from the hearse and
carried it into the mausoleum.
“He waited for you,
you know?”
“I wish I did
sooner,” Michael said, undoing his tie and taking off his black jacket,
“Dammit, if I hadn’t blown him off… There’s so much he could have taught me.”
“The night you found
the Knight 2000, two days before, he ordered the car and its systems to be
completed within 48 hours. I checked
with his doctors: that morning, they gave him just around that enough time to
live.”
“He held out for
about two days longer than that,” Michael said.
“I’m convinced he
could have held on for much longer. He
was just waiting on you so he could finally be free,”
“He didn’t look like
he was in any major pain.”
“
“I wish I was that
brave… That strong,” Michael said,
watching the pallbearers.
Michael took a deep
breath and sighed as it exhaled, “I’m ready to go,
“What?”
“Spare me with
whatever protests you have Devon, the Old Man spent two months working on me
and now that he finally has be convinced, no one is going to stop me,” Michael
said over his shoulder.
“Why are you
off in such a hurry anyway? You don’t
even know where you are going.”
“I know you do,”
Michael said.
“How in the devil
would you know that?”
“When I was first
waking up, I heard you and the Old Man talking that you had it narrowed down to
two locations. It’s been two months
The two mean reached
the garage shortly and Michael continued towards the car while
“What’s it going to
be
“You’ve already
packed? When?”
“Last night. I realized that I had to hit the road after
The Old Man’s funeral.”
The silence between
the two men continued for awhile as Michael finished changing. He was wondering if
In this case, he had
to be.
“We’ve tracked her
and her staff to
“ComTron? Sounds like a rip-off of a Disney movie,”
Michael said, closing the trunk.
“ComTron
is another defense contractor specializing in communications equipment. It is currently developing a communications
system for the next generation of Army tanks.
The system is also being designed to be adapted for civilian use. A change that would revolutionize mass
communications. We believe Tanya and her
staff are after it.”
“If she’s in
“He warned me,”
“About what?”
Michael asked.
“That you’d be like
this.”
Michael smiled, “How
long ago?”
“The day you got
here.”
Michael finished
changing and tugged on a pair of black boots, “The Old Man had something long
term in mind when it came to me, didn’t he?” Michael asked.
“Against his better
judgment, yes,”
“And you’ve had it
out for me the whole time,” Michael said.
“It’s my job to
provide my friend with his options.”
“Options is one
thing, acting like a dick is another.”
“Sorry, maybe I can put
it into your terms,” Michael said, “Let me think… You’re acting like a royal
bugger,” he said in a British accent.
“I understood you
the first time,”
Michael nodded and got
into the car. He pressed the POWER
button on the dashboard extension to his right and the car came to life.
In a last ditch
attempt to protest,
“That’s all right,”
Michael said, “I am a fast study. I’ll
learn them on the way. I have a long
drive ahead of me.”
“That’s very
foolhardy—”
“I can take care of
it, besides, the car may have been built by Knight Industries, but it’s in my
name.
“Not exactly,”
“Michael Knight?”
“Michael Long is
dead. I doubt you’d want to die a second
time with that name.”
“The Old Man was
serious when he talked about this?”
“All on Mr. Knight’s
orders,”
“Good to know Michael
Knight’s credit score is higher than Michael Long’s,” Michael said, closing
the door to the car.
“What?”
“We’ve been
speculating that Tanya might not be the mastermind behind these thefts. There might be a chance she is working for
someone more powerful.”
“Who? What’s his name?” Michael asked.
“We don’t know. All we do know is that our criminologists are
observing a pattern she might not be, how you say, large and in charge.”
“You want me to find
out who it is?”
“That’s my kind of
plan,” Michael said. He looked over at
“Naturally,”
Michael stuck his hand
out the window and
There was no turning
back now…
After fighting traffic
for more than an hour, Michael finally was on open road headed towards
The one thing he
couldn’t figure out a use for was the black square above the central
monitor. He hadn’t seen it light up or
do anything since he began driving. The
button below it read
“All these expensive
gadgets and they don’t give you a stereo or a clock?” Michael said, believing
he was speaking to no one in particular.
“The time is currently
8:45 AM, Pacific Daylight Time,” a voice said.
Michael jumped and hit
his head on the roof. His heart must
have skipped four beats. Who the hell
was in here with him? “What the hell was
that?”
“You may access my
stereo functions through the touch screen on the central monitor,” the voice
said as a feature appeared on the monitor, “I am equipped to receive standard
AM and FM radio signals, in addition to Satellite
Radio, and play discs through the