Amanda Knight was a British thief-for-hire. Slim with blonde hair, Knight was also an accomplished pilot of small planes.
Biography[]
In 1937, she was hired by Ian Soames to steal the Eye of Shamash and a related clay tablet from the Connecticut branch of the National Museum. Her plan was to pose as Victoria Keith, a representative of the British Museum to gain access to the National Museum, steal the amulet, and then fly her own plane off, ditching it over the Atlantic Ocean and parachuting onto an ocean liner to return her to Europe.
Putting her plan into action, she sent one of the National Museum's trustees, Tavistock, a telegram from the British Museum to open the way for her in Connecticut. At the National Museum, Tavistock passed the responsibility for escorting her around the Museum to Indiana Jones, who was immediately interested in their beautiful guest. She toured the museum with Jones, who showed her a valuable Cretan urn and a worthless Sumerian amulet, as well as yet-unopened "Man in Flight" exhibition. Later, over dinner at a fancy restaurant, she brought up her love of flying and promised to take Jones for a flight on the next day. With Jones walking her back to her hotel, she bid him goodnight with a passionate kiss - and pilfered his keys to the museum.
Returning to the museum in a black bodysuit, she knocked out the night watchman and rigged several booby traps to chase off potential pursuers. Jones, realizing his keys had been stolen, arrived and heard Knight break some glass. She made off with the Cretan urn, and the Sumerian amulet, and tried to kill Jones with a falling Mayan calendar stone, tripwire-triggered crossbows, and falling armor. With Jones knocked over, she theatened to kill the archaeologist with an Amazonian arrow tipped with curare if he didn't reveal the location of a Sumerian clay tablet. Hearing the police arrive, she fled, using a set of Leonardo da Vinci flying wings to escape from the third story window. Outside the museum, she fled to the Airfield.
As Knight got into her modified DeHavilland Puss Moth plane and began to take off, Jones arrived in his car, and tried to drive in front of her moving plane. She abruptly lifted off and headed out toward the sea. Jones, in a biplane, piloted by a crop dusting pilot, showed up again, and she taunted him with a kiss. Jones tried to walk out on his plane wing to jump to her plane, and she expressed concern for his safety. After he mentioned the threat to kill him with the poisoned arrow, she revealed that it was a bluff - there had been no poison, but she swerved her plane as Jones leapt for her wing to avoid him boarding her craft.
Amazed the Jones had caught onto her wing's lower strut and had now climbed into the back seat, Knight threatened to throw the valuable Cretan urn overboard. As Jones backed down, she flipped the plane over, and fell out of the cockpit. Parachuting to freedom, she landed on the passing ocean liner, leaving Jones in a plane he couldn't fly. The next morning, Jones, Tavistock and Marcus Brody learned from Scotland Yard that "Victoria Keith" was actually Amanda Knight, professional thief.
Meanwhile, Knight had flown a new plane to the Orkney Islands, hidden it on in a cliffside cave on Estry Island, and at a place called The Ring, met up with her mysterious hirer, who refused to pay her because she had only recovered the amulet and not the related clay tablet. The sorcerer Soames captured Knight and bound her to a chair in a hidden room beneath his lighthouse.
Having discovered her stashed plane and ID, Jones searched the island for the thief, and eventually discovered her in the lighthouse's secret room. After being ungagged, she revealed that she no longer had the amulet, and she needed Jones' help to escape from the magician. Angry at having been sweet talked before, Jones nevertheless untied her, and she hit him over the head with a chair and escaped outside. Stumbling in the moors in the dark, she discovered several corpses and was found by her kidnapper, the sorcerer Soames. Soames tried to cast off the arriving Jones by giving him a fake amulet, but Jones responded that he would take Knight into proper custody. Kngiht watched as Soames used the Eye of Shamash to summon Viking skeletons from the ground to attack Jones.
Struggling with Soames to escape, she slipped inside his reach and snatched the amulet off his chest. Trying to club with with it, she was astounded when a bolt of moonlight reflected off the round artifact and onto Soames, inflicting magical pain. Pushing the wizard over, she ran off with the amulet, leaving Jones to fight the skeletons. She reached Angus' hovel and hid in a trunk. After Crazy Angus found Jones and the two returned to his shack, the old man smelled something amiss in his house, and discovered Knight inside his trunk. Jones confronted her about leaving him to die, and she revealed that she intentionally stole the amulet back, but couldn't escape in her plane since Soames was blocking the path. As Jones recounted the legends of the Eye of Shamash, trying to figure out the secret of the amulet, Knight sat bored, offering sarcastic comments, and then tried to slip out. Opening the front door revealed Soames, who burst into the hut. When Jones used the amulet to blast Soames again with reflected light, Knight discovered that the amulet was being damaged with each use. Knight and Jones were then compelled by mystical means to flee from the house, and Knight realized that it was Angus trying to protect them.
On the way back to town, Jones held onto Knight, and planned to get his gun and return to stop Soames. In town, Knight and Jones were surrounded by Sinclair and other townsfolk who thought that Jones was after the treasure of Mangus Redhand, rumored to be buried on the island. Jones, unaware of the local treasure, alerted them to Soames' evil magic. Soames arrived and argued with Sinclair over how to deal with their captives. As Soames unleashed a windstorm that devastated the town, Knight and Jones fled. As Jones speculated on where Soames' tower might be, Knight pointed out his lighthouse. Unwilling to fight the wizard, Knight tried to convince Jones to just leave the scene and contact the authorities, even allowing Jones to turn her in to the law for her theft. Jones realized that there was no one likely to believe them in time, and decided to stop Soames. Knight tried to leave on her own, but a group of armed skeletons rising from the earth drove her back into the lighthouse and Jones. Showing Jones the horde of undead, they bolted the door and fled up into the tower. Knight and Jones planned to use the lighthouse's lamp to provide light to the amulet to attack Soames, as the skeletons tried to break into the upper room. Using the archaeologist's bullwhip to position the Eye of Shamash with the lighthouse light, they struggled to aim it at Soames on the ground while the skeletons broke into the room. Finally, Knight knocked the whip into the right position, and Soames was blasted with the amulet's reflected light, causing his skeletons to revert to being unanimated. Soames shifted his attack, causing an earthquake and lightning storm to topple his own tower and Knight fled the crumbling building, leaving Jones to retrieve the amulet.
By morning, the tower lay in ruins, Soames had left, and Knight recovered the amulet and dangled it in front of a sore Jones. She expressed her ire at his constant rist-taking for the artifacts, considering it suicidal behavior. Realizing that their relationship was at an impasse, she handed back the amulet and walked off to her plane, telling Jones not to stop her this time.
