Chapter 13: Gerald Remembers
Gerald Pike woke inside the Albany care facility after doctors adjusted his medication.
For nearly a year, he had been kept heavily sedated under orders signed by a physician connected to the Montgomery Foundation.
When federal agents removed the medication from his system, fragments of memory returned.
Emily spoke to him by video.
Gerald’s face was thin, and a scar crossed his temple.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he saw her.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Mrs. Montgomery ordered Martin to damage the railing. She said it only needed to look old.”
“Were you there?”
“I drove him.”
“Did Charles know?”
Gerald nodded weakly.
“He planned the timing. He knew when you would be on the balcony.”
Ethan, listening nearby, looked sick.
Gerald continued.
“After you fell, Mr. Montgomery called from overseas. He said Martin had failed.”
“Where is Martin now?”
“A shipping facility in Newark.”
Daniel alerted federal agents immediately.
Gerald tried to lift his hand.
“There’s more.”
Emily waited.
“The Senator keeps recordings.”
“Of what?”
“Everything. Charles never trusted him, so Halston recorded their calls as insurance. He stores them in a private office beneath his family home in Virginia.”
“How do you know?”
“I drove Victoria there once.”
“Why would Victoria visit him?”
Gerald closed his eyes.
“She offered to help Halston destroy Charles.”
The conspiracy was splitting apart.
Victoria wanted Charles gone.
Charles wanted Victoria imprisoned or dead.
Halston wanted both of them dependent on him.
And Emily had become the evidence none of them could control.
Federal agents found Martin Vale alive in Newark.
He had been locked inside a secured room for six days with water and packaged food.
Charles’s men had planned to move him onto a cargo ship.
Martin agreed to testify.
He admitted cutting the balcony bolts.
He also identified the man who paid him.
Charles Montgomery.
But when agents prepared to raid Senator Halston’s Virginia property, they discovered something alarming.
Halston had left Washington.
His official aircraft remained grounded.
His security detail had been dismissed.
And his private phone last connected to a tower near a small airfield in New Jersey.
May you like
The same airfield Charles had used before faking his death.
They were preparing to leave the country.
