299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 320 Reconciliation

“The Governor?” Grant asked the soldier who had grabbed his arm. The governor of the old state? The Lima governor? Huh?

“The Interim Governor,” the soldier said. “Gov. Trenton.”

What?

“Ben Trenton?” Grant asked, jokingly.

“Yes, sir,” the soldier said. “That’s his first name. I’m pretty sure.”

No way. How could this soldier know that Grant and Ben were old friends? Or that they had talked about how crazy it would be if Ben ever were the governor. Grant thought he was hallucinating from the sleep deprivation.

“Are you kidding me, soldier?” Grant asked, in his lieutenant’s voice. “I’m not in a laughing mood right now,” he said, looking over at Wes.

“No, sir,” the soldier said confidently. “Gov. Trenton’s office wants to see you. A security detail will be arriving in a few minutes to take you there.”

This must be real, Grant thought. Shit. Ben was really the governor—or Interim Governor or whatever he was. What are the odds?

You should know by now.

Hearing the outside voice gave Grant goose bumps. It comforted him, too, because he knew the things that were happening, especially Wes’ death, were supposed to happen.

Grant still couldn’t fully believe that Ben was the Governor. All the evidence pointed toward that—especially if a security detail came soon and took Grant. But… Grant couldn’t really comprehend it all. He had slowly come to understand and accept all the “coincidences.” Getting the cabin, knowing Ted and Chip, Gideon’s semi, having all the food and guns out at Pierce Point. But Ben as Governor was just too much. It made all the things out at Pierce Point and with the 17th seem like they were mere preparations for something truly big.

Yes.

Grant’s goose bumps came back when he heard the outside thought confirm his assumptions. Grant had thought things were already pretty amazing, but this was an order of magnitude more amazing.

This got Grant thinking. He tried to suspend his normal thought process which looked at things in terms of what is likely to happen, instead of what miracles could possibly happen. Okay, he told himself as he waited for the security detail to pick him, anything is possible. Anything. Think big. Don’t limit yourself to the likely.

What should Grant try to do at the Governor’s Office? What would be considered thinking big?

Blank. Grant’s mind was blank. He had no idea. He didn’t know what to ask the Governor for or what he needed to accomplish. Blank.

Reconciliation.

That was it! Avoiding a French Revolution outcome. Preventing the people of this state from tearing each other apart for decades with reprisals and blood feuds. Getting people to reconcile with their former enemies and to move on and make things livable again in this place.

A pick-up full of contractor-looking guys pulled up to the vehicle checkpoint at the intersection in front of the brewery. The driver showed something to the guards, they pointed toward Grant and Grant signaled that he was coming over.

Grant started walking toward the truck. He came up to the driver, who had a State Patrol badge out. The old state badge. It was pretty obvious he wasn’t a Lima, though.

“Looks like you’re my ride,” Grant said to him. He noticed that many of the contractor guys had “Wash. State Guard” name tapes on their jackets.

“Your name, sir?” the driver asked.

“Lt. Grant Matson,” Grant said.

“Then we are your ride, sir,” the driver replied.

One of the occupants of the cab, who was in standard State Guard fatigues with name tapes and all, got out and made room for Grant.

“No,” Grant said to the soldier, who he noticed had captain’s bars on his uniform. “No, sir,” Grant added, seeing the bars. “I ride in the back. I’m used to it.”

Grant had a surge of cockiness come over him, so he added, “I’m a 17th Irregular, sir. It’s how we roll.” He had no idea why he said that, except that he was thoroughly enjoying this moment. He knew nothing bad could happen to him, not if the Governor wanted to see him.

The captain smiled and got back into the cab. He was happy to stay warm while their guest rode in the back.

Grant climbed in the back of the truck with three other guys and the truck took off. Grant was happy that the rain had finally stopped. Grant asked the guys what unit they were in.

“We’re assigned to SOC,” one of them said, referring to the Special Operations Command.

“Let me guess,” Grant said, “You used to work with Lt. Col. Hammond at Ft. Lewis back in the day.”

The contractors smiled. “Yes, sir,” one of them answered.

“Ted Malloy is my First Sergeant,” Grant said. They all knew Ted. Some of them knew Sap, too. They talked about how many former Special Forces guys were Oath Keepers and had come over to the Patriot side. Knowing how many SF guys were at Boston Harbor shed light on why HQ was able to do all the amazing things it had been doing. They talked until the truck pulled up at the old WAB building.

Grant was shocked to see his old office. It was trashed, partially burned with broken windows. But it was full of soldiers and civilians and the lights were on. It was full of activity.

He was also surprised to be taken to the WAB offices instead of the capitol itself. He basically trusted these guys who had taken him, but he was always on guard for a trap. He wondered if this was one.

“This where we’re supposed to be?” Grant asked the driver with the State Patrol badge.

“Yes, sir,” the driver said. “This is where the Governor is. That’s classified, of course.”

“Of course,” Grant said. Okay, if this was a trap, it was so elaborate that it probably wasn’t a trap. No one would go to this much trouble just to capture little ole’ Grant Matson.

The driver led Grant into the building. Two uniformed State Patrol troopers were at the reception area. . They were in old state uniforms and had a piece of tape on their badges that said something, probably with the name of the new state on it. The new state? That sounded weird. Grant wondered what the name of his new state even was.

The troopers saw Grant with his AR, kit, and pistol and started to stop him. One of them said, “No weapons past this point, sir.”

Then Grant heard a very familiar voice, a wonderful and joyous sound.

“He’s cool, gentlemen,” Ben said to the guards. Ben came over and hugged Grant. He had to lean into it to get an above-the-arms hug because Grant had his AR slung across his front.

“That won’t do,” Grant said, referring to the partial hug. He took off his rifle, which caused the troopers to put their hands on their pistols. Grant handed his AR to the captain.

“Now we can do this,” Grant said as he held out his arms. He hugged Ben. It wasn’t a mere bro hug. It was a full-on “haven’t seen you in years, dude, thought you were dead,” hug.

Things were normal. Ben was alive. Grant was at the WAB building, just like the old days. Except Ben was the Governor and Grant was a soldier. That was definitely not normal, though it was going to be the new norm now.

“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?”

Everyone nodded. Grant used the perfect analogy at the perfect time. He knew that brilliant thought didn’t come from him. He was just the medium through which brilliant things were happening right now. It felt awesome.

“That’s exactly the spirit I need,” Ben said. “Grant, you will chair the Reconciliation Commission.”

What? Grant felt a surge of surprise come over him although the announcement was also what he was expecting would happen.

“Of course, Governor,” Grant said matter-of-factly. The biggest honor of his life was just a simple, “You bet, Ben” kind of answer.

“From what I’ve heard about Lt. Matson’s past performance in his little community,” Gen. Roswell said, looking over at Lt. Col. Hammond, who was nodding, “I think he’ll do a fine job. He obviously has your trust, Governor.”

Ben nodded. “That’s an understatement,” he said.

“When do I get started?” Grant asked Ben, knowing the answer.

“Now,” Ben said.

“I kinda thought so,” Grant said.

“We’ll work out the details,” Gen. Roswell said. “Lt. Matson will have all the military assets he needs.” Grant had a rough idea how he would take up the General on that offer. Grant’s reconciliation commission staff would be fed, housed, and protected by the military. Grant would have a personal security detail made up of… who else? The Team.

Ben stood up at his desk, signaling that it was time to go. That’s what powerful people do and Ben fit the role perfectly. Everyone who was sitting stood up. Gen. Roswell and Lt. Col. Hammond snapped to attention.

“Hate to end this, gentlemen,” Ben said, “but I have a bunch of other meetings right now. Not as enjoyable as this one, I might add.” Everyone was shuffling out of the office, except Tom and Brian who seemed to have permanent seats on the couch there.

Ben turned to Grant and said, “Hey, Grant, you remember the 2005 Super Bowl?”

“Of course,” Grant said with a huge smile. “Never thought it would happen… Governor.”