Chapter 1
The twenty-first of June. A Tuesday. 3:13 PM. Sodden heat blanketed the city like a sheepskin rug fresh from the washing machine. Dirk Knight turned the rusty box fan up another notch and moved it from the window to his desk. The stiff breeze blew his loosened tie over his shoulder, but his trusty gray fedora kept his hair in place.
His basement office wasn’t comfortable, but beggars can’t be choosers. A plain concrete floor went well with the cinderblock walls. A pair of threadbare curtains printed with faded flowers that once might have been yellow blocked off the gas furnace in one corner. Against the left-hand wall, the treadmill Doc Junkers had badgered him into buying now made a fine clothes-drying rack. The opposite wall had a flight of plank stairs with an unvarnished b
