Checkmate!

a division of Task Force X

adapted from Who's Who v.2 #7

Checkmate began as a covert action group formed by Harry Stein from its looser-knit
predecessor, "The Agency." The Agency was formed by Amanda Waller to serve as a
small, quasi-independent branch of Task Force X under the command of Colonel Valentina
Vostok (Negative Woman). It performs global operations which are vital to the security of
American interests. Vostok later employed two costumed operatives, Vigilante V and
Peacemaker. These two were highly unstable personalities who liked to embark on
unauthorized operations that led to high-profile exposure of the Agency's secret business.
Vostok brought former New York Police Lieutenant Harry Stein into the Agency to oversee
their activities. Stein soon replaced Vostok in The Agency's command position.

Stein's field operatives (Knights) were recruited from the best of the armed forces and
police forces nationwide. One such Knight, Gary Washington, previously worked with
Stein in the NYPD. Checkmate's hierarchy is modeled on the game of chess. There is one
Queen, one King, and several Bishops. The Bishops remain behind-the-scenes and
supervise the Rooks. The Rooks are field directors who plan missions and supervise the
primary field agents, the Knights, and their support staff the Pawns.

The team was originally based in Konig Industries in Shelby Virginia. Checkmate moved
their headquarters to an old Norad base in Colorado when Konig was destroyed during the
Janus Directive (a 1989 crossover). In this event, a majority of the Knight force were killed.
One former Knight, Jacques Reynard, felt betrayed by Checkmate and became the armored
assassin called Bishop. After this, Waller was replaced by Sarge Steel.

Later, Roy Harper, Arsenal joined Checkmate for a time.

Recently, Bruce Wayne and his bodyguard, Sasha Bordeaux, were framed for the murder of
Vesper Fairchild in Wayne Manor. Sasha was wrongly convicted and sent to prison. Before
she could be freed, she was reportedly killed by another inmate. In truth, she was taken by
Checkmate, underwent plastic surgery, and given a new identity and a position in
Checkmate. (Detective #773-775) Fairchild quickly ascended the ranks of Checkmate,
becoming the Black Knight for the organization's new Black King: Maxwell Lord.

Lord's beginnings and ascension within Checkmate remain a mystery. He secretly initated
several major projects, unbeknownst to his fellow inner circle members: the White King
(Ahmed Samsarra), the White Queen (Oksana Verchenko) and the Black Queen (Patricia
Grace-Colby). Since the time of his involvement in the Justice League, Max had been
secretly amassing information about Earth's metahumans. He harbored a great hatred of
them and hoped to eventually eradicate them (ironically, Max is a metahuman himself).
More recently, he stole two key pieces of technology. First, he acquired Skeets, Booster
Gold's robot sidekick from the 25th century. He implanted Skeets' into the Blue Beetle's
goggles, which gave him a ringside seat to key cases. This information presumably helped
him next acquire the Batman's Brother MK I satellite, a semi-autonomous artificial
intelligence surveillance system.
Before this, Max himself had cheated death by taking the power of the Kilg%re to become
the techno-organic being called Lord Havoc. He hid this fact from everyone, but it enabled
him to build on Batman's technology and develop the "OMAC virus" (Observational Meta-
human Activity Construct). The virus can be downloaded from the satellite into human
operatives, turning them into energized killing machines. It can quickly be turned on and
off, leaving no trace of the OMAC's presence.

The Blue Beetle eventually discovered Max's plans and tracked Lord to Checkmate's
European mountain headquarters. When the Beetle refused to join him, Max murdered him.
He ordered Sasha to clean up after this, but she alerted the Batman. Like everyone else in
Checkmate, Sasha found Max's methods distatsteful, but she continued to put up a faithful
front. (DC Countdown) Max was finally called by his peers who sought to challenge his
recent activities. Rather than risk his own death, Max mentally coerced the other Black
Knight, Jessica Midnight, to kill the other three "monarchs." He next sent Sasha to Chicago
to cleanse the Beetle's home and businesses. Max discovered her duplicity and sent several
OMACs to intercept her and Batman. Sasha was capured before she could reveal Max's
involvement to Batman, but she did tell him that Checkmate was behind Beetle's death.
Batman was saved from death by Superman, and the OMACs disappeared. (OMAC Project
#1-3)

Checkmate's sibling organization is the Suicide Squad, another division of Task Force X.