When Reality Outruns Fiction

It is a well-known hazard of the novelist’s trade that reality, rudely and with no concern for narrative rhythm, sometimes leaps past one’s most fevered invention.

In “Fort Knox: The Greatest Heist of All Time”, I imagined Kim — a character shaped from moonlight and Machiavelli — surgically neutralizing the legal gatekeepers of the Pentagon. Here is how it was written:

“Kim, hardened by past encounters with the Department of Defense, knew with the certainty of a being that understands the dance of the celestial bodies, predicting an eclipse, that the guardians of law in the Pentagon —those scholars of statutes and guardians of protocol— would resist. They would frown, object, invoke legalese thick as fog, and ultimately, they would refuse.

And so, the solution was as ruthless as it was elegant. Kim orchestrated a silent reshaping, ensuring that every lawyer within the Pentagon's walls who might hesitate, who might question, who might so much as raise an eyebrow, was replaced. In their stead came the loyalists—men and women for whom the word ‘no’ did not exist in the lexicon of obedience.”

Yes, I thought, this was bold. This was fiction doing what fiction does best: dancing on the knife-edge of plausibility.

And then came reality.

Unlike Pentagon lawyers, who can be relocated like chess pieces by those in power, federal judges are not so easily erased. They are appointed for life. Their independence, written in the constitutional stone, is meant to weather the tempests of demagogues.

But as I heard Nick Akerman’s warning in Bloomberg on May 30, 2025, my fictional Kim — the schemer, the silencer, the shadow-strategist — seemed suddenly tame. Here is what Akerman said, in full:

“There is one little item in that one big beautiful bill that basically would take away the judges contempt power to enforce temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions. And not only does it make it prospective, meaning that it would be used in the future, it also is including past actions of contempt. So you have got judges there considering contempt with respect to the Garcia matter. They’re considering attempt on a number of other items. You got 170 orders that are out there right now by federal district court judges. And the only way that they can have any power to enforce these orders is to be able to use the contempt power. And what they’re trying to do, the Republicans snuck this little piece into the bill, would in the dead of night literally to make it so that you give immunity to all of these people, all of Trump’s minions and sycophants who have been basically undermining the judges and obstructing these judges orders. You’ve got the situation in Maryland with Abrego Garcia, where the judge is trying to do an investigation. All of that would be thrown out if this piece of the bill passed. And what they try and do is try and make it look like it’s part of the reconciliation by talking about the money that’s being spent by the judges to enforce their orders when in fact, all they’re trying to do is destroy the judiciary and take away their powers.”

That’s not fiction. That’s a legislative scalpel, dipped in ink and poison, slipped into the gut of the American legal order. And the most chilling detail? Every single Republican voted for it. The entire party endorsed a proposal to disarm the judiciary, to clip the wings of the one institution still resisting Trump’s will.

As the author of “Fort Knox”, I now find myself in the strange and terrible position of being outpaced by reality. My villain Kim could never have dreamed of such brazen legislative alchemy — to cast a spell within a bill, to enchant the legal system into silence.

Where does one go, as a storyteller, when the truth begins to write your next chapter for you?

Posted by the author of “Fort Knox: The Greatest Heist of All Time”

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