“Shit,” Thompson said again.
“Now,” Logan said, hands still behind his head, “I have a question for you.”
Thompson — gun in hand but not pointed at Logan — just looked at him, obviously still pissed at himself for picking a name that could be traced to him, a pro who should’ve known better.
“Why didn’t you run?” Logan asked.
“I didn’t know, at first.”
“That you were set up, you mean.”
“Yeah. I mean, I knew I was being railroaded out of the NSA; but I was healing up from a broken arm—”
“Your file says you took early retirement on full disability pay.”
“That’s right... which, frankly, made me even more suspicious. It was almost like—”
“You were being paid off.”
“Yes! But finally I knew White and his people would be looking for me, and after I sent my family away, I knew they would think I ran too. So... I didn’t.”
That made only vague sense to Logan, who said, “Look — could I put my hands down?”
“Yeah... yeah... sorry.”
“Why don’t we sit and talk about this?”
Logan took the chair and a dejected-looking Thompson sat on the bed, the Glock in his hands, draped between his legs. He looked like a man trying to decide whether or not to kill himself.
“Your arm looks like it healed fine,” Logan said conversationally.
Flexing his left arm, Thompson said, “It’s still sore sometimes.” His face changed, curiosity overcoming fear. “Why are you here? Why come looking for me?”
“Surely you know about what’s going on at Terminal City?”
Thompson nodded. “About all I do is watch the tube — I see the news. What about it?”
“Those people are the friends I was talking about — and I’m trying to help them. White’s putting the squeeze on, to get the federal government to invade and kill all the transgenics. Total genocide.”
Thompson shook his head. “Can’t help you, then. After what one of those... those freaks did to my partner, killing ’em all is fine by me.”
“Are you sure that a transgenic killed your partner?”
Thompson nodded so vigorously he bounced on the edge of the bed. “Listen, Cale — before the NSA, I did time in the Army and was a cop in Los Angeles. I’ve seen the evil shit that people can do to each other... but I’ve never seen anything like what happened to Hankins.”
“He wasn’t the last, either.”
“No — I mean, skinned! No normal person could do that — only a monster bred to do atrocities, trained to kill—”
“Bred by the government. Trained to kill by men like Ames White.”
“Even so, these transgenics need to be put down — whether it’s out of getting even for victims like my partner, or just to put the bastards out of misery — I don’t really give a damn. As long as those monsters are wiped out.”
“And yet... you still believe you were set up by Ames White, right?”
The two men locked eyes, and Thompson said, “We were sent into combat with rubber bullets, Cale. Look — Hankins was a son of a bitch, but he was goddamn good at his job. We were using those new portable thermal imagers—”
Logan held up a hand. “Whoa — I don’t know what a... thermal imager?”
Thompson nodded.
“I don’t know what a thermal imager is.”
The agent explained the devices and how they worked; the new devices were under White’s personal lock and key. “Anyway, that night last March, in that warehouse — the imager would have shown Cal something if it was working right. Mine too — only it showed nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“That’s how I got my arm broken! The thing at first gave me a hot reading, then farted out on me. It should have read hot for that homeless guy in that office — he just wouldn’t have come up as hot as a transgenic. But it didn’t show shit! The imagers don’t lie, and yet this one told me that room was empty. And Hankins wasn’t up against some homeless mook — he was facing a transgenic.”
“I’m sorry about your partner,” Logan said.
Thompson shrugged. “Thanks. Funny thing is, I never even liked the guy. He really was an asshole... but nobody should have to die that way...”
Logan watched the man’s face tighten in remembered horror as he relived the moment of discovering his mutilated dead partner.
“Nobody,” Thompson repeated, “...’cept maybe Ames White...”
“Do you still have the imager?”
Thompson shook his head. “Company property. Like my gun and my badge. Your buddy Agent Gottlieb took it all when he hauled me to the hospital. Having my partner killed, being injured — plus I shot a civilian — I was put on immediate administrative leave. Last I saw my imager, it was in Otto’s hands.”
Logan made a mental note to ask Gottlieb about that. “What happened after that?”
“Agent White was livid that one of the imagers had been stolen by the transgenic. He said if the transgenics — and some of them are very smart — figured out the technology, they could also figure out a way to beat it. He expected us to guard those things with our lives. Anyway, after Agent Gottlieb took my gun, my badge, and the imager, I could see the writing on the wall. My career was over.”
“How did they manage that? You don’t go on full disability for a broken arm.”
“They had me talk to an NSA shrink — that was the excuse. I shot that homeless guy, remember. Isn’t any of that in the file? That my disability is mental?”
“Not what I saw. But it sounds like you had a free pass — why are you in hiding?”
“That first night, at the hospital — while I was waiting for them to cast my arm — I started thinking about those imagers, and how they couldn’t possibly have been working right. Agent Gottlieb had already left — there was no reason for him to babysit me, so he was gone.” Thompson sat forward, his eyes haunted. “But the more I thought about it, the more I thought these two imagers were defective and, so, were dangerous... and someone else could run into the same fatal snag we did.”
“So you called Agent White.”
“A few days later, finally I called him. He told me he’d meet me at my house later, to talk about the problem. Then he asked me if I’d talked to anyone else about the defective equipment. When I said no, he said, ‘Good,’ and then told me not to mention it to anyone until after I talked to him. Man, my hackles rose — him wanting me to meet him, alone. At my house!”
“And you ran instead.”
“I ran instead.” Thompson shivered. “There was something cold in his voice, almost... inhuman. My gut told me that if my family and I didn’t bolt, we’d all end up dead.”
“You took this extreme action, based on a gut reaction?”
“That, and, well — I believed... and I believe right now... that the only way those imagers could be defective, both of them, was if White arranged it himself. He sent me, and my partner, into that warehouse, to die.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But I worked with White long enough to know that people around him had a bad habit of dying when they got in his way. And I wasn’t about to take any chances with my family.”
“When do you plan to join them?”
“When I... finish what I have to do.”
Suddenly Logan understood. “You’re lying low... waiting until you think you’ve dropped off White’s personal radar, and then...”
“And then I’m going to kill his evil ass.”
Logan could well understand the impulse. “Agent Thompson, there’s only one problem with your plan...”