After the meeting in Markov's office, everyone continued discussing the finer points of Trent's disappearance in the corridor outside. Rachel stood to one side, lost in her own thoughts until Drefnig approached her. When she looked up, she saw that he was wearing a worried expression.
'Rachel, I need to talk to you,' he said. 'Come with me.'
Rachel followed until they were half way down the corridor and then stopped in her tracks. 'Where are we going?' she said. 'There aren't any Air Routes this way.'
Drefnig stopped and glanced along the corridor behind them. 'I know,' he said. 'I just wanted to speak to you alone, away from the others.'
'Why?'
'There's something I need to talk to you about.' His intelligent blue eyes settled on hers.
Rachel spoke in a sincere but mechanical voice. It was something she felt she had to say, but her heart wasn't really in it. 'I'm sorry I crashed your operation,' she said. 'I know I shouldn't have been there without clearing it with you first. It won't happen again.'
'Thanks, Rachel, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about.'
'I didn't hurt Trent. I just wanted to talk to him, that's all.'
'I think I know why you wanted to speak to him. It was about your father wasn't it?'
Rachel avoided Drefnig's eyes.
'There's never a good time for these things,' Drefnig said, 'but I guess the time has come to tell you.'
'Tell me what?'
Drefnig placed a hand on Rachel's shoulder. When she looked down at it, he took it away. He looked into her eyes as though judging her mental state.
'I'm fine,' she said. 'Whatever it is, just tell me.'
Drefnig nodded, looking suddenly young again. When he opened his mouth, he spoke in a low voice that was more experienced than his young face suggested.
'During the investigation of Gail Thompson, a number of sections of the visual logs were extracted,' he said. 'As a result of those logs, we now know just how corrupt Thompson really was.'
'What does this have to do with me?'
'The evidence against Thompson was damning and disturbing.'
'What evidence?'
'Thompson is guilty of so many crimes. They span back years. We found far more evidence than we were expecting. Sometimes we looked for one thing but found another.'
'I don't understand.'
'What I'm trying to tell you Rachel, is that Thompson killed your father.'
Rachel shook her head. 'No. It was Trent. I saw my father's body in the Mekinet News building. He was right there in the basement. Trent killed him.'
'How, Rachel? Think about it. Your father's body was several levels above the basement. Trent has a wheelchair. There's no elevator down there. How could he have reached the upper levels and killed your father?'
Rachel shook her head. 'I don't know. Maybe his brother helped him. Trent escaped from that basement, didn't he? He knows how to move around. You saw how hard it was to catch him. He's a hacker. He knows how to keep a low profile. He knows how to slip away. Trent's not afraid of taking risks. I saw what he did to my father. I was there. I'll never forget what I saw.'
Drefnig held Rachel's shoulders in both hands. 'Did you see him pull the trigger, Rachel? Were you there when it happened?'
Rachel held his gaze. 'I was too late. I couldn't help him.'
'It wasn't Trent, Rachel. I saw the visual logs. I saw Thompson pull out her impact pistol and shoot your father in the face. Thompson killed your father, not Trent. There's no doubt about it.'
Rachel's face contorted in pain. 'You saw it?'
Drefnig nodded. 'When the net-feed droids turned up at Havers Compound, Thompson had your father brought in for questioning. He was here in the interrogation rooms. He didn't cooperate with her so she shot him with her impact pistol. She shot him in-'
'No. Don't say any more.'
'I'm sorry, Rachel. I was hoping I wouldn't be the one who had to tell you all this. I've been putting it off for longer than I should have. I thought you'd take it better if I allowed you some time to ease back into things, but I realise now that I was only fooling myself. The longer I leave it, the worse things will get. You need to know the truth. After you attacked Trent, I realised that I should have told you this sooner. If you had taken it further, it would have been my fault as much as yours.'
'I wouldn't have killed him. I told you that.'
Drefnig nodded but he didn't look convinced. 'I'm not saying Trent is a good person. He's probably responsible for the deaths of many people. I'm just saying he didn't kill your father. You need to know that.'
'Room twenty-three,' Rachel said, staring at the wall.
'What?'
'It was interrogation room twenty-three, wasn't it?'
'Yes, I think so. Did someone tell you already?'
Rachel shook her head, her eyes glistening in the overhead lights.
'I'm sorry, Rachel. The other Commanders speak highly of you. I was hoping there would be a better way to tell you, but you gave me no choice.'
'It's okay,' Rachel said. 'It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing can bring my father back. I thought it was Trent but it turns out I was wrong. Nothing has changed. My father is still dead.'
'I'm sure he was a good man,' Drefnig said.
'There's still something I don't understand,' Rachel said.
'What's that?'
'If Thompson killed my father in the interrogation room, how did his body end up on the lower levels of the Mekinet News building?'
'Thompson murdered him, Rachel, but she wanted to blame it on someone else. Trent was a convenient scapegoat. You were already going after him. She knew that if she gave you enough reason to hate him, you would kill Trent for her. She didn't want him to be around long enough to deny any charges against him. She had your father's body carried to the Mekinet News building and dumped on the lower levels. She wanted to remove any evidence that led to her, and transfer the blame onto you and Trent. She didn't expect either of you to make it out of there alive. She had other plans to make sure that nobody survived. She wanted you to find your father's body and go after Trent.'
'And that's exactly what I did,' Rachel said. 'Fool of fools.'
'It wasn't your fault. Thompson fooled all of us at one time or another. It was something she was very good at. That's why it took us so long to realise what was going on.'
Rachel let out a long sigh. 'So Trent didn't do anything to me? I've hated him all this time for nothing?'
'You can talk to Trent, if you really want to, when we find him again, but I had to tell you the truth. He didn't kill your father. Whatever happened between you two, you cannot hold that against him. We need to capture him alive and question him. That's all we're trying to do. He should be able to clear up a lot of loose ends from our investigation. I have a feeling that he may have been monitoring us for some time.'
Rachel stared at the wall in silence.
'Thompson did a lot of bad things in the name of Central Command,' Drefnig said. 'We have to be better than that. We have to set the path straight.'
Rachel nodded. 'I'll be okay,' she said. 'You've told me now. You did the right thing.'
Drefnig looked as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He turned and walked away, leaving Rachel alone with her thoughts.