– The Forty-Four Extended Collins Relatives were permanently stripped of their un-earned executive compensation packages, evicted from their company-subsidized residences, and required to execute five million dollars in restitution agreements, currently working entry-level retail and warehouse shifts across the Midwest, having finally discovered that an honest wage must be earned with genuine sweat rather than nepotism arrogance.
– The Seventy Billion Dollars in recovered strategic defense reserves and forfeited offshore assets were formally deeded in absolute, un-encumbered fee simple to The Mercer-Whitaker Sovereign Sanctuary Trust, administering free advanced geodetic technology training, emergency housing for economically abused families, and debt-free university scholarships for twenty-four thousand daughters and sons of working-class families across North America every year.
The crushed-gravel path from the lower garden gate crunched softly.
Walking up the cedar steps of the terrace, wearing an unbuttoned flannel work shirt over a clean gray t-shirt, carrying a wooden tray holding six warm blueberry scones and two steaming ceramic mugs of fresh coffee, was Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Bennett.
He had formally stepped down from military trial counsel six months ago.
He was now the Master Chief Executive Director for the Mercer Sanctuary, spending his Saturday mornings teaching young apprentices how to audit sovereign charters and defend constitutional rights with uncompromising, twenty-five-dollar-an-hour honesty.
Walking beside him, his step firm, his eyes bright with deep, untroubled pride, was Vice Admiral David Mercer.
He wore a comfortable wool chore coat, his hands warm, steady, carrying his brother Arthur’s restored brass surveying transit.
Thomas set the tray on the chestnut table between our chairs.
He didn’t speak immediately.
He took a deep, clean breath of the sweet river air, looked out over the water where two bald eagles were circling high on the thermal updrafts above the bluffs, and smiled—a real, wide, magnificent smile that held zero debts, zero lies, zero grief, and zero graves:
