Epilogue
A Pair of Queens
Britt's remaining time in England passed in a blur. He found exactly what he was looking for at Asprey Monday evening and spent Tuesday catching up on what newspaper business he could do from the London office, after which Carol Henley insisted on taking Britt and Simon out for dinner so she could hear all about the "real" SWORD and how she compared with Galaxy. "Oh, you're much prettier, darling," Simon told her, and on reflection, Britt privately agreed. At least, Miss Henley was more wholesomely pretty than Galaxy, even though he was reasonably sure Galaxy's sexpot image was calculated.
Neither of them was a patch on Casey, though. And Simon tactfully said nothing about brains.
Much as he enjoyed Simon's company, though, Britt was relieved to arrive in Century City Wednesday morning. Casey was waiting for him at the far side of Customs, so he greeted her with a kiss and the cat, which she put on her desk as soon as they got to the office. Amid the whirlwind of correspondence and meetings, he found time to take Mike to lunch at The Golden Lotus; Mike congratulated him on the SWORD story and gratefully accepted his bonus check and notebook.
"You know, Britt," Mike said as they were leaving, "your pa, rest his soul, would be so proud of you, going to a movie premiere like that and landing a big story about a real-life crime ring."
Britt grinned. "Thanks, Mike. Sure wasn't the way I'd expected the weekend to go."
"Sgt. O'Mallory says Interpol's investigating the possibility that Warlock's next target was in Gotham or even in Century City somewhere. Boy, if he was in league with the Green Hornet—"
"I don't think even the Green Hornet would do business with that kind of nutcase."
"Yeah, maybe you're right. Guess it's a moot point anyway, seeing as how he got himself killed with his own laser beam."
"Thank goodness," Britt murmured.
After work, Britt went home to change and check in with Kato, then picked Casey up for their date and delivered his second set of surprises: an emerald necklace, which he presented as an early anniversary present, and a check for $10,000. The necklace got a pleased "Aw, you shouldn't have," but when she saw the amount of the check, she gasped loudly. "Britt!"
"Well, I promised you a bonus, didn't I?" Britt returned.
"Yes, but—but—I was expecting maybe $100, not—this is more than I make in a year!"
"I know. That's your share of the reward money from Hermetico and DeBeers."
Her jaw dropped.
"Please take it, Casey," he urged gently. "I have a feeling you may want the money sooner than you think."
She looked at him warily. "That sounds ominous."
"I didn't mean it that way. Neither your job nor our relationship is in any danger."
"Well… all right… I guess I can put it in savings for a rainy day."
"Let's hope the rain holds off a good long while," he said and helped her into her wrap.
She'd reserved a private dining room for them at the restaurant, so over dinner, he told her all about the trip, including the fact that Amos Klein was a woman. "Wow," Casey said as he finished. "You'd said it was a bigger mess than we'd thought, but even with the news reports, I hadn't guessed it was that bad."
"You've probably got a better idea than I have of what was in that basement," he said. "Whoever this Warlock character was, it's obvious there was something deeply wrong with him to want to build working models of that torture equipment. That's the kind of thing you expect from the Gotham Rogues' Gallery."
"Well, I'm still not a fan of the books, but I'm glad you got the author out safe."
"Yeah, me, too. And I'm glad you stayed home this time."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I missed you, but I did need you here filling in for me, and… I can't stop thinking about what might have happened if you'd come with me, if Simon had used that as grounds to refuse Hugoson's request or if we'd all gone down to Hascombe together and the kidnappers had found us there." He shook his head. "It could all have gone so much worse."
She nodded slowly.
"But that brings me to the other thing I can't stop thinking about. Miss Henley, Galaxy, even Miss Klein… they're all beautiful, and Miss Klein is smart, but… they're not you. I don't think any other woman ever could be."
"I hope not," she said with a wry smile.
"I talked it over with Simon after we took Miss Klein home, and I asked Kato about it, too. We all agreed. So there's just one question left to ask." He slid out of his chair to one knee and presented her the other box from Asprey. "Lenore Case, will you marry me?"
She gasped and burst into smiling tears. "So that's what you meant—$10,000 will buy a lot of wedding."
He smiled. "Is that a yes?"
"Yes! Oh, yes, darling!" She slid on the ring and kissed him.
Weeks passed, and life returned to normal in Century City, keeping Britt occupied with his usual round of reporting the news by day and fighting crime by night. Britt and Casey agreed to take their time planning the wedding and their life together; besides Simon and Kato, the only people they told about the engagement were her parents, Frank, Mike, and Bruce Wayne, who agreed to be best man. Interpol and MI-5 finally identified "Warlock"—he'd been a Dunkirk survivor, which had unbalanced him enough to be discharged from the Army and institutionalized until the end of the war, and he'd been involved in low-level white-collar crime until becoming obsessed with the idea of SWORD. The rest of SWORD stood trial under their real names and received hefty prison sentences. And Amos Klein's new book outsold all four of the previous volumes in the series, which Hugoson found immensely gratifying.
As the summer wound down, Britt got a call from Simon. "I just talked to Amos," Simon said. "She's starting the research for her next novel and wonders whether the Hornet would mind calling her this week-end. She'd like to pick your brain about a few things."
"Sure," said Britt. "What's her number?"
Simon gave it to him, along with the best times to call. "She said she'd love to see you again, but only if you're in the area. I told her it might be quite a while."
"Probably," Britt agreed ruefully.
He called her from home with the scrambler on, braced to have to decline answers to her more technical questions. And there were some he had to deflect, especially about the Sting and Hornet Gas, but more were immersive-detail questions—what it felt like to be shot, how to describe the smell of someone being vaporized by a laser, how long it had taken him to learn Kung Fu and to incorporate it in his usual fighting style. They were good questions, on the whole, and some really made him think.
"Are you sure you're not a writer?" she asked genially at one point. "You've an awfully good descriptive vocabulary."
"I don't have much cause to embroider my work," he replied. "But I appreciate the compliment."
As the interview wound down, she asked, "I say… do you mind if I put you in my next book? Not you as the Green Hornet, crime lord of Century City, but an analogue, say, an American businessman with a secret identity who's a friend of Charles Lake. I'd change the costume color, too, to something like blue."
"Sounds more like Batman," he observed.
"Oh… yes, I suppose it does, rather. All right, not blue, then, and not an animal mascot—but do you mind? I don't want to ruin your reputation, but you were frightfully kind, and you and Simon are such good friends."
"Simon's personality isn't very much like Charles Lake's. Simon's the sort of person who has friends everywhere; Lake strikes me as the sort of person who doesn't have friends at all."
"Well, all right, an ally, then. Or a colleague from the CIA."
"CIA agent might work," he agreed. "That would eliminate the need for a masked identity—his mild-mannered side could just be his civilian cover. And that would make it much harder for anyone to connect the character to me."
"Perfect." He heard the faint scratch of her making a note. "Ta ever so much. I really think this next one's going to be the best yet."
He smiled. "You sound excited."
"I am! Finlay tried to talk me into writing myself into it, you know, but I said that was far too Kurt Vonnegut for my audience."
"I can see that."
"Well, I shan't keep you. Thank you again for everything, and I do hope we meet again someday."
"Maybe we will, Miss Klein," he said. "Maybe we will."