“I have some people for you to see,” Ben said. He led Grant into office where Grant found Tom and Brian and even Carly!
Hugs all around. Grant was tearing up. So were they.
They all shared their fears that the other had been killed.
They caught up on how they’d escaped and hidden out as POIs, giving the short versions of each story because they didn’t have much time. Grant had the strongest feeling that everyone in that room had been protected by a mighty hand. It was an unmistakable feeling.
When the catching up was over, Grant asked, “How did you know I was in Olympia?”
“That’s actually why you’re here,” Ben said. “Send in General Roswell, please,” Ben said to Tom and Brian, who were sitting at the table in Ben’s office. Brian got up and went out of the office.
Ben said, “We have some business to talk about, Grant.”
This was it. The reason for the cabin, Pierce Point, the 17th. All of it. They were the prerequisites necessary to put Grant and Ben in this office to talk about this topic. Grant could feel the goose bumps. He knew, with absolute certainty that all the “coincidences” had led up to this office meeting. There had been a plan, a roadmap. None of this was happening by chance.
Grant hoped reconciliation would be the topic. If not, he would make it the topic, even if it meant angering Ben and losing a friend. He knew what he was supposed to do and he knew it would happen. He expected a miracle. The odds no longer applied to Grant. That wasn’t arrogant, it was humbling. He was part of something huge, a little tiny player in a vast, magnificent theatrical production that happened to be real life.
A distinguished looking military man walked in with Lt. Col. Hammond. They both came to attention when they got near Ben.
“At ease, gentlemen,” Ben said. It sounded weird to Grant, hearing Ben talk in military lingo, but someone had told Ben that saying “at ease” was what the Governor does, so Ben obliged. And he did it well, just like a real Governor. He was a real Governor, Grant kept telling himself.
“General Roswell and Colonel Hammond,” Ben said, “this is Lieutenant Grant Matson.” They exchanged pleasantries. Grant wanted to high five Hammond, but that wouldn’t exactly be protocol.
“General Roswell tells me,” Ben said, again sounding just like a Governor, “that we’re having some trouble with what to do with prisoners and collaborators. He and Colonel Hammond had an idea that just happened to be along the lines of what I was already thinking, and I thought of you, Grant, as maybe the person who could do it.”
Grant knew exactly what it was, but he listened patiently anyway. He needed to hear the Governor and General out.
“From a humanitarian and political perspective,” Ben began, “we can’t have a bloody twenty-year simmering civil war. We just can’t. We have to get this behind us. We have a state to rebuild. We can’t get the economy back up and running if neighbors are killing each other over old grudges about who collaborated with which side. We just can’t have it.”
Ben added, “Obviously, from a military perspective, to which I defer to General Roswell, we can’t have a long fight like this. So we need…” Ben struggled for just the right word.
“Reconciliation,” Grant said confidently.
“Yes, reconciliation,” Ben said. “Thanks, Grant.”
“So,” Ben continued, “there’s a political and military need for reconciliation. I have brought together my political and military people to try to solve it. Suggestions?” He looked at General Roswell, Lt. Col. Hammond, Tom, and Brian.
General Roswell spoke up. “Sir, from a military perspective, we need to have a plan and issue orders down to every soldier and our civilian sympathizers making it clear that we won’t kill prisoners and collaborators. We then need to have a method for processing prisoners and collaborators, to find out which ones are truly bad guys and which ones don’t need to be punished. We have a system in place for collecting and interrogating prisoners; that’s standard military protocol. But we need a way to take it one step further: punish the bad ones and let the good ones go, but with some conditions.”
“On the political side,” Tom said after a brief pause, “we need this reconciliation process to be fair. The public has to believe in it. We can’t be too harsh on the Loyalists or too lenient. We can’t favor Patriots who committed war crimes, either. People will be expecting us to let ‘our guys’ go even if they did bad things. But we can’t be too harsh on our guys who were put in tough situations.”
“And,” Ben said, “on the legal side, the Governor has the power to pardon under the old constitution. I’m sure we’ll keep that part in the con con.” Grant quietly assumed that “Con con” must be a constitutional convention. Before the war, Ben and Grant had dreamed about a con con to fix all the bad things that were being done.
“Yes, sir,” Gen. Roswell said, “You can pardon people. Everything that was done was a state crime. I guess they were federal crimes, too, but we’re not part of that federal union anymore, if it even still exists. You have the power to pardon state crimes. That’s how we can do this.”
“We set up a Governor’s commission of some kind,” Brian said “that determines who should be pardoned and who should be prosecuted. Civil prosecutions, I presume?”
Gen. Roswell nodded. “Technically, we might be able to do this with military tribunals, but…” he paused, “look how the Limas used those. Everyone they disagreed with was an ‘enemy combatant,’ even American citizens whose only crime was disagreeing with them. I highly recommend against military tribunals, sir,” Gen. Roswell said, as he looked at Ben.
“No military tribunals,” Ben confirmed. “Nope. Not after what those turned in to. I can’t reassure the population that I’m a constitutional reformer and then do something like that. Nope. Civilian trials only.”
Ben paused and thought about what all that entailed. Juries, court rooms, prosecutors, defense attorneys, rules of evidence. “Civilian trials will be a big pain in the ass, but it will be constitutional. We have to be the models of decency, gentlemen. Everyone will be expecting us to be just like the old guys. They’ll be chomping at the bit to call us hypocrites. We won’t give them that chance. We didn’t fight this war and go through all this crap only to end up being just like them.”
It was silent in the room. Grant felt so grateful Ben had just made such a statement. Thank God.
“So a civilian commission to recommend pardons of state crimes is what we’re thinking?” Brian asked.
Everyone thought about it.
Gen. Roswell was the first to speak up. “I can see that working,” he said. “Obviously, our military people will have a role in getting prisoners and collaborators to a secure setting. Then the civilian commission people can work with our military intelligence units to figure out who the bad guys are. Then the civilian commission can do its thing and have trials for the really bad ones. The not so bad ones can be given pardons. It should work.”
“I foresee lots of pardons,” Grant said. “It will be hard to prove many of these crimes. If we have a full-blown trial for every crime, we would have to have hundreds of judges and thousands of jurors going at any given time. When, instead, people should be working to rebuild the economy. There’s a huge ‘forgive and forget’ factor to all of this. Many pardons will foster that.”
“But not too many,” Tom said. “The bastards who did this,” he said pointing to some burn marks along the window frames of his former office, “they shouldn’t get off scot free.”
“True,” Grant said, arguing a little with his old boss. “But how many resources do you devote to figuring out who did this and then giving them a jury trial? Wouldn’t those resources be better spent on fixing the window frames?”