Upper Hand by Heather L. Knightly

1. The Pseudonym

The name on the manuscript cover read Upper Hand by Heather L. Knightly—a name that didn’t exist six months ago.

Jodie Williams, political reporter for The Seabrook Viking News, adjusted her tortoiseshell glasses as she stared at the galleys on her desk. She’d written countless articles—on voter suppression, intelligence leaks, Capitol Hill scandals—but nothing quite like this. Nothing fictional. Nothing this… charged.

Her husband Sam Ihle peered over her shoulder, eyes twinkling behind his Clark Kent glasses. “You know, if anyone finds out Heather L. Knightly is actually Jodie Williams, they’re going to explode.”

She smirked. “Good. That’s the plan.”

It began as a joke. “What if I wrote a political thriller?” she’d asked after one too many espresso shots on deadline night. But when she started typing, the words came fast. Faster than she expected.

And the premise? Alarming in its plausibility.

A clandestine group of double agents embedded in both the FBI and CIA, feeding information to Beijing. They called themselves the Upper Hand. For decades, they’d infiltrated key agencies under carefully groomed identities—Americans by birth, patriots by résumé, traitors by choice. Their goals: sabotage, misinformation, and political manipulation at the highest levels.

It felt like fiction. Until it didn’t.

2. The Editor

“I’m sorry… Jodie Williams wrote this?”

Grace Orozco, junior editor at The Viking, had been the first to read the manuscript. It had come anonymously through a literary agent friend of a friend, written under a pseudonym. But Grace knew Jodie’s sentence rhythm. Her cadences. Her sharp turns of phrase.

“It’s a bit... real, isn’t it?” Grace asked cautiously during one of their late-night layout sessions. “I mean, I’ve seen this plot before, but you know way too much about how the internal security meetings are scheduled.”

Jodie smiled. “It’s amazing what you can figure out from public sources if you know where to look.”

Grace leaned in. “Or what you hear in backrooms when you cover Congress.”

“Exactly.”

Despite her concern, Grace couldn’t deny it: Upper Hand was propulsive. The plot twisted like a helix, and the characters—especially the morally gray protagonist, a young FBI analyst with Chinese heritage torn between allegiance and betrayal—had real depth. Her editor brain itched.

“Are you sure you want to publish this under a pseudonym?” she asked.

Jodie exhaled slowly. “If I publish it under my name, I’ll lose access. No more interviews. No more scoops. People will think I’m writing about them.”

Grace raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jodie said. “All of them.”

3. The Agent

Talia Freeman, literary agent for Black Oak Agency, had seen trends come and go. Vampire thrillers. Pandemic dystopias. Rom-coms with one-word titles. But political thrillers written by actual political reporters? That was rare.

“Are you telling me Heather L. Knightly is Jodie freaking Williams?” she asked Grace during a whispered phone call.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. But if this gets out… the sales will explode.”

“I know.”

Talia sent the manuscript to every major publisher in New York. Two rejected it for being “too timely.” One praised the prose but wanted a happier ending. But Morris & Frank, a mid-sized house with a reputation for edgy fiction, called back within 48 hours.

“This is what The Americans would look like if it met Homeland and decided to destroy every notion of safety we cling to,” the acquiring editor raved. “We’re in. We’ll rush release for election season.”

They gave her a six-figure deal. On the condition that she remain anonymous—for now.

Jodie kept her name out of the headlines. Let Heather L. Knightly take the spotlight. She didn't care about fame. She cared about fire. And her book was a match.

4. The Manuscript

Upper Hand was not subtle.

It opened with a death at Dulles Airport—a Chinese-American linguist “accidentally” run over by a luggage truck. Within pages, it revealed that the man had decrypted a message indicating that there were double agents inside the FBI, passing secrets to a foreign government.

The story followed Lin Zhao, an FBI analyst whose father had defected from China during the Cultural Revolution. Lin stumbled on a pattern of anomalies—misfiled evidence, scrambled messages, field agents reassigned at critical moments. The deeper she dug, the more isolated she became.

Her mentor vanished. Her emails got flagged. And then came the warning: “Leave it alone, or we’ll find your brother.”

As Lin unraveled the Upper Hand network, she discovered that the traitors weren’t who she expected. They weren’t foreign-born spies. They were Americans. Homegrown. Betraying their own ideals for money, ideology—or worse, the thrill of control.

The final act took place in a secure facility outside Langley. A mole revealed. A gunfight in a surveillance van. A recording leaked. And Lin, barely alive, whispering into a body cam:

“There are more. This isn’t over.”

5. The Fallout

When Upper Hand hit the shelves in September, it went nuclear.

It debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Political pundits debated whether it was pure fiction or predictive warning. Cable news anchors speculated about Heather L. Knightly’s identity. Theories flew: a former CIA officer? A congressional aide? A deep-state whistleblower?

Jodie said nothing. She smiled as coworkers passed around copies of the book in the newsroom, debating plot points like they were real.

Only Sam knew the whole truth.

“Tell me,” he said one night, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Is any of it based on actual sources?”

“Not directly,” she said, but her eyes didn’t blink.

“‘Not directly’ is journalist code for ‘yes, but I’ll never admit it.’”

She kissed him lightly. “You married a troublemaker.”

“I married a Pulitzer nominee with a pen name and a secret.”

6. The Threat

Two weeks after publication, Jodie received a manila envelope in her mailbox.

Inside: no note. Just a printed screenshot of a classified internal CIA memo. Redacted, but unmistakable.

One line stood out: “...literary narrative disturbingly similar to Operation Arbutus. Further leaks are to be prevented by any means.”

Jodie sat in silence, staring at it.

She scanned her building for unfamiliar cars. She checked her phone for spyware. She cleared her browser history.

Later that night, she found Sam in the living room, flipping through Upper Hand again.

She handed him the memo. “They think I know something.”

Sam read it. “Do you?”

She sat beside him. “I think I guessed something true.”

7. The Leak

That weekend, a whistleblower known only as “Solomon” posted a Substack essay titled A Rotten Root: How Deep the Double Agents Go.

The essay detailed cases from the last twenty years where key investigations failed under suspicious circumstances—agents re-assigned, surveillance tapes lost, informants discredited. It mirrored events in Jodie’s book almost beat for beat.

At the bottom of the post: “Read Upper Hand. The author knows more than she lets on.”

Now the theories intensified. Some accused Heather L. Knightly of being Solomon. Others believed she was simply a vessel, passing along classified stories disguised as fiction. Congressional hearings were called. The CIA issued a statement denying “any active threat or infiltration.”

The internet didn’t believe them.

Neither did the public.

8. The Choice

Her publisher begged her to do a public interview. Her editor pleaded for her to sign a sequel deal. Her agent warned that if she didn’t speak up, people might try to find her—really find her.

Jodie stood at the edge of the stage at a major literary festival, staring at the empty chair reserved for “Heather L. Knightly.” Thousands had come. None knew they were standing mere feet from her.

She didn’t go on.

Instead, she left early, riding the train back home with her laptop bag and a hoodie pulled over her face. She wrote the first ten pages of the sequel on the way.

9. The Sequel

It opened with Lin Zhao in hiding. Hunted by people she once trusted. She’d left the FBI. She was trying to rebuild her life.

Until a new whistleblower surfaced. Code name: Isaiah. He claimed the Upper Hand had infiltrated Congress.

The working title: Leverage.

Her publisher would love it.

But Jodie didn’t write it for them.

She wrote it for the ones listening. The ones still hidden. The ones afraid of telling the truth. She wanted to tell them: you are not alone.

10. The Reveal

It took another six months for the truth to leak.

A former intern at The Viking, now a media analyst, spotted the similarities between Jodie’s writing and Knightly’s prose. A few AI-powered stylometric analyses later, and the secret was out.

By then, Upper Hand had sold 2 million copies. Jodie was offered interviews with 60 Minutes, NPR, and even The Daily Show.

She accepted none.

She gave her one and only public statement to The Viking:

“I wrote Upper Hand because sometimes the only way to tell the truth is to lie. Fiction gives us a mirror. If the reflection looks dangerous—it’s probably because it is.”

11. The Epilogue

A year later, Jodie sat in her home office, beneath a framed quote: “What will your verse be?”

Sam came in with two mugs of coffee. “It’s time.”

Jodie hit Send. The sequel manuscript zipped off to her editor.

“You think they’ll try to stop this one?” he asked.

She grinned. “They tried the first time. We’re still here.”

He raised his coffee. “To truth in fiction.”

“To fiction in truth,” she said, and they clinked mugs.

And in a government office somewhere, a red light blinked.

“Ma’am,” a young agent said, stepping into a secure room. “She’s done it again.”

The director turned slowly. “Heather L. Knightly?”

“No,” the agent said grimly. “Jodie Williams.”

And the game began anew.