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When Letty andHawkins walked out of the containment compound, they stripped out of the isolation suits and were met by Lucasand Weather, and by Elizabeth and Clarence Hawkins, Hawkins’s parents, and by Greet, and by Rae, and by Cartwright, and unexpectedly, by the British embassy’s first secretary, a friendly mustachioed fellow whose wife knew Elizabeth Hawkins’s sister-in-law.
The first secretary handed Hawkins a heavy envelope with a red wax seal on it and said, “Congratulations, my boy. You are the recipient of the George Cross, the first awarded since 2017, and one of only two in the past forty-odd years. There’ll be a presentation of the actual medal back in London. You are now Alec Hawkins, GC, and, I’ve been told, will soon enough be Sir Alec Hawkins, GBE.”
Hawkins was flustered and a trifle overwhelmed; Letty asked, “Hey, what do I get?”
Rae: “You live in the wrong country to get anything.”
Greet said, “Not true. We plan to take you to Smith’s supermarket. Play your cards right, we’ll buy you a Fudgsicle on the government tab.”
“Don’t eventhinkabout opening your purse,” Cartwright said.
“That’s it?”
Lucas gripped her around the shoulders and squeezed her tight under his arm: “You’re alive, girlie. That’s good enough. You are still walking around in this world.”
