The Sins of the Fathers

Chapter Six

The Rosen Estate

Sanibel Island

Florida

"You know my background, Mr Montague?" Gideon Palmer said, watching Montague get comfortable in his seat, putting a cushion behind his back and crossing his legs. Palmer was using Jacob Rosen's old office in the bunker, where Jacob had dealt with CIA business when something serious interrupted his holidays. They were sitting on two little sofas, opposite each other, miked up, and there were cameras in the room, recording the interview both for posterity and an eager audience around the world.

"I do, Professor...perhaps you will get another book out of this, when the dust settles?"

"I think that might take some time, don't you?" Palmer suggested, balancing his notebook on his knee. Montague was wearing a suit and tie, but Palmer was wearing chinos and a polo shirt, not wanting to show his prey any respect by dressing up for him, like Brianna. He knew that his wife was doing it for Helena Montague, rather than her father-in-law, but he was still seeing Charles as the enemy, even if he was helping them knock down the castle he had built back home.

"I hope not...this should be cleared up quickly...so that a new government can be elected and allowed to get on with the job." Montague said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"How do you clear up the death of a billion people?"

"One man was responsible...aided by a few others...mostly dead, I grant you...and it has been covered up by quite a few more..."

"Including you, Mr Montague?"

"Yes...including me, Professor."

"Is that something you regret?"

"No...I regret that Drew Symonds did it, but I could not go back and change that...and I believed in the project," Montague sighed, closing his eyes just for a moment. "Deliberately starting the pandemic was dubious...the world is always at risk from outbreaks of something nasty and it so easily could have been a mistake? And I will admit that the great opportunity to start our little revolution from a ground zero position seduced me...but eight or nine years later, I found out about the delayed release of Hycanil...and that was too much...I did not want to be associated with that? And I was tired..."

"You were tired?" Palmer repeated, sounding incredulous.

"Those were stressful years, Professor...I am sure your brother-in-law finds his job very stressful at times...but in twenty-thirty, I was also trying to stop the more extreme elements in the party going too far...that was bloody hard work? Impossibly hard, sometimes."

"Is that why they told you?" Palmer asked, raising one eyebrow. "To get you out of their way?"

"Yes, I think so...I had almost challenged them several times, I could have asked questions over the years...but I did not want to hear the answers...so, in the end, Symonds just told me and forced me to decide."

"Symonds told you himself?"

"Yes...over yet another row about compulsory equipping...he asked me just how far I was prepared to go to impose the doctrine on the people and I said not that far, before turning the question back on him?" Montague said, pursing his lips before reaching for his water. "He told me to prove his commitment to the cause."

"So...you were opposed to equipping?"

"God, no...I had my daughter fully-equipped when we moved to Meadvale in the summer of twenty-nineteen," Montague chuckled, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "I was against compulsory equipping for all...all women, obviously...because it was just such an unnecessary escalation...we only needed to control the elite, the big bosses, the owners of businesses, the example setters and the influencers? Everyone else would follow...if we only had the patience...but Drew and Michael are not patient men."