“Willy Horton?” Hanover asked. “Never mind; you have a point. Do we grab someone who would have committed a crime in the original history? Do we allow a known criminal to be discriminated against for a crime he hasn’t committed yet? Hell, there must be dozens in the Contemporary Forces.” There was a chuckle. “The Oversight Committee never thought of that one.”
“And just wait until the Press gets hold of it,” Heekin said. “De Valera is sitting on the Irish press, but it won’t be long before our press learns of it. Coming to think of it, do we have a duty to warn people of possible abusers?” He scowled. “This is going to cause a great deal of trouble with the Church.”
“Fuck them,” Hanover said, with all the courage of a man who followed a different religion. “They didn’t condemn the Holocaust, so the Pope can go hang.”
Heekin scowled. “Sir, what are we going to do?”
“I’ll have a discussion with the Law Lords and then try and push some emergency legislation through Parliament,” Hanover said. “Dear God; I understand her point and I understand why she did it, but why now?”
“I’ll try and convince De Valera to give her a suspended sentence,” Heekin said. “With all the troubles up north, he has more to worry about than one semi-murderess. Still, once the press hear of it…”
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
London
25th July 1940
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which still enjoyed the nickname of the ‘Law Lords’ despite having come into existence to replace the original Law Lords, had had very little to do with the Transition and the response to the Nazi attack. Indeed, so many of their functions were irrelevant to the ongoing war that they had even disbanded themselves for the summer, until Hanover had summoned them back to London.
Kristy Stewart, fuming over the Government’s ongoing refusal to allow her to slip into Nazi Germany and interview Hitler, paced in the pressroom. The debate between the assigned team of judges was taking place in private; they would provide a temporary ruling until Parliament decided upon its response to the crisis. The news had broken only two hours ago, and the Supreme Court had been in closed session ever since. Only the brief note that a decision had been reached had brought her and her fellow reporters to the chamber.
“I apologise for the delay,” the man said at the end of the room, striding to the podium. He didn’t fit her mental impression of a judge – being dressed in a conservative business suit rather than a robe and wig – but he seemed efficient enough.
“The Supreme Court” – he strongly resisted the term Law Lords – “has been asked to rule on the question of future crime and the criminals who committed them. This has proven to be an issue of some concern; there are reports that several other Irish expatriates are planning to bring a civil suit against the Irish Government. There is also the danger that someone in the Contemporary Forces will have a history of future crimes, some of them calling for the death penalty.”
Stewart nodded, wishing he’d get to the point. The death penalty had been reintroduced in 2010 for serious repeat crimes; she had no doubt that the Nazi leadership would receive the same penalty as they had before.
“We have had great difficulty in coming to even a temporary verdict,” the Judge continued. She used her camera to film him; knowing that dozens of photographers would be making the same decision. “In some regards, it is clear that their crimes have not been committed – yet – and so they do not deserve punishment. In other regards, their crimes were serious enough to warrant some observation, if not outright removal of their freedom.
“Finding a compromise was not easy,” he said. “Finally, we ruled that a Contemporary person, even a criminal, was not the same as the historical person. What that means is if Ordinary Seaman Jones committed a crime in 1950; Ordinary Seaman Jones cannot be discriminated against for a possible future crime. We drew a precedent from the genetic testing ruling of 2009; it’s illegal for employers and insurance salesmen even to ask about it.
“However, working from the Repetitive Criminals Act of 2012, we have endeavoured to warn everyone we could of any possible revenge acts, and we will regard a repeat – if that term can be used – of their crime as a repeat crime, and thus earning severe punishment. Certain people responsible for acts of child abuse will be quietly watched by parole services, although there will be no limits on their legal activities.
“This is not a perfect solution,” he said grimly. “Parliament is due to debate the matter in a week; there seems to be some thought that the war is more important than this. Still, it’s a compromise – and we hope it will stand long enough to let us get back on our feet.”
Chapter Seventeen: The Would-Be Powers
The White House
Washington DC, USA
25th July 1940
Ambassador Jackson King was confident that there had been other free black men in the White House of 1940; he’d even read about some of them in Grade School. Frederick Douglass, Washington’s freedmen, even perhaps the President who was supposed to have ‘passed’ as white. The America of 1940 had abolished slavery, but it was still twenty years before they would be forced to confront their own social issues; black men were still not considered equals. It would be impossible for any lesser man to face the concentrated disdain from some members of Roosevelt’s Cabinet; some of them had hated him at first sight.
He sighed internally. Beside him, Colonel George Palter seemed to be receiving some of the same treatment, even though he was white. His obvious deference to King wasn’t being well-received; the computer files now displaying on the laptop had been provided from RAF Feltwell’s internet cache and files borrowed from the British. The ten-page summery of the future lay beside Roosevelt’s wheelchair, very well thumbed.
At the rear of the room, Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador from the Contemporary 1940, was talking in hushed tones with Captain Sir Lethbridge-Stewart. Apparently, they were related on some level; the Contemporary seemed to be having trouble grasping the concept. HMS Edinburgh, which had escorted the Queen Elizabeth, had astounded the Americans when it had arrived. Ambassador Quinn, a personal friend of Hanover – the 2015 ambassador to the United States having been left in 2015 – had given Lord Lothian a briefing and the ambassador had never been the same since.
The attention of the room focused on the projector from the Edinburgh. Communications with Britain were tricky without satellite relays, but by bouncing a signal off the atmosphere the British could contact HMS Edinburgh, which had forwarded the message on to Ambassador Quinn’s computer system.
“So, I am to die in 1945,” Roosevelt said. His wheelchair squeaked alarmingly. “And it seems I am to go through two more Vice Presidents.”
Vice President Garner snorted. He already knew that his term as Vice President would end if Roosevelt won or lost; Henry Wallace would be Vice President if Roosevelt’s quest for a third term were successful.
“You would do better to move directly to Truman,” Palter said calmly. “It has long been suspected that Wallace was a Soviet agent.”
“Hoover is going to go nuts when he sees all of these,” Garner said calmly. The Texan didn’t seem to be too irritated. “This list of spies includes a lot of…”