Dorian handed his engraved invitation to a lovely liveried footman—accepting the smile of appreciation as his and his tailor’s due—and frowned, charmingly. Silly quasi-diplomatic affairs like the Thorssons’ were useless for his professional needs—all the jewels were as stodgy as his sisters’ husbands. On the other hand, Z had rung him up out of the blue to chat and ask him if he’d still be in Bonn for the party, which implied Klaus would be here. Curiosity alone would have impelled him to attend, even if Dorian hadn’t immediately remembered how delicious Klaus looked in formal white tie.

He relieved another pretty young man of a glass of champagne and looked around the room. Of course he’d arrived fashionably late, and the room was the expected crush of the overdressed and overdull. "Lord Gloria," he heard, and turned. Klaus, standing out beautifully from the herd, was waving peremptorily at him. Not exactly what he’d expected, but Dorian loved surprises, and this one looked especially nice. Smiling, Dorian threaded his way through the crowd to Klaus, reflexively lifting the wallet of a man in a poorly fitted coat before noticing Klaus’ frown and returning it to his oblivious victim.

"What are you doing here?" Klaus barked.

Fighting a desire to salute and click his heels together, he said, "Hoping to see you, my dearest Major." He didn’t mind being honest when truth was as likely to annoy Klaus as any lie he could think of. With a elegant flick of his wrist, he clicked their champagne flutes together and took a sip, as if they’d just toasted each other. Braced for a tastefully diplomatic version of Klaus’ usual abuse, he was surprised by Klaus’ absent "Stop that" and downright startled to have Klaus take his elbow and start guiding him around the ballroom. Dorian allowed himself to be led, enjoying the press of the crowd slowing their progress and occasionally driving them together.

They had nearly circumnavigated the party—Dorian refreshing himself anew from waiter-held salvers of champagne glasses as necessary, Klaus merely holding a glass—before Klaus began abruptly. "Dorian, I’ve heard rumors about you and the new Egyptian display at the National. I know how you love gold work, and how much a slave to your passions you are—"

Klaus’ frown on that line was the only detail that had rung true since Dorian had walked into the Embassy. Who had written this script? More importantly, who’d had the balls to teach it to Klaus? He wanted to laugh, and concentrated on Klaus’ nearness to stop the urge. Opportunities like this came too rarely to waste. "—ut you simply must not try to break in. The security is unbeatable, and I would hate the embarrassment of catching you and putting you in prison."

Dorian looked around carefully, trying to detect for whose benefit this little speech might be. He noticed no obvious eavesdropper (though they did seem to be keeping their host within earshot), wasted a pleasurable half second contemplating and rejecting the idea that Klaus might actually be worried about him, and smiled. "Oh, Klaus, don’t worry so, you know I can trust my luck." Klaus looked as severe and uptight as usual, but he was still holding his elbow. Dorian didn’t know whether anything had changed. Should I trust my luck? "It’s almost midnight, and I drove." He added wattage to his smile. "Might I drop you somewhere?"

A sotto voce, "Pervert," penetrated as Klaus dropped his elbow, bowed stiffly and walked away. As Dorian waited for his wrap, he glanced back at Klaus lighting a cigarette out on the front balcony. Klaus’ hair gleaming in the lamplight reminded him of East Berlin, of hiding with Klaus on the docks, of holding Klaus as they hid, of touching Klaus with danger all around them. Dorian sighed, also remembering Klaus nearly killing him once Mischa’s men had given up the chase….

• • •

Dorian arched, stretching the kink out of his back, before bending again to remove the alarm on the display case lock. Last of a series of thirteen in the main museum gallery, it would savage him if he got sloppy now. "Aah." Even the murky security lighting couldn’t dim the glitter of the Princess Khnumet necklace as he carefully released the latch of the glass case and reached inside.

"Eroica, I presume? Or perhaps… Lord Gloria?"

Dorian froze, clutching the necklace so tightly in his hands he wondered the gold links didn’t bend. "Ah, excuse me?" He just managed not to stutter in his surprise. It’s at moments like this that breeding really tells, he laughed at himself. Where’s Bonham?

The speaker—Germanic-looking but as chubby as Klaus was slender—was holding a small leather bag in one hand and a large German gun in the other. "I feel I must thank you for your efforts, Herr Eroica. You’ve done wonderful work for me: knocking out the guards, shutting down the defenses, opening the cases… beautiful! I don’t know what I would have done without you." The words seemed cheerful, even ingratiating, but the tone was pure arrogance.

Dorian croaked out "You’re welcome," swallowed, and managed, "And you are?" with some degree of casualness. He’d thought springing this trap was going to be more fun than this; he realized in fact, staring at the necklace in his ever-so-slightly trembling hand, that with the excitement of breaking in and touching the exquisite workmanship, he’d completely forgotten he was walking into a trap in the first place.

"Please place the necklace in the bag, Lord Gloria." The gunman avoided Dorian’s question, and held his gun rock steady. "Who would have guessed a foppish nobleman like yourself would be so good at this?"

Was it a German attribute to despise the foppish? Dorian didn’t actually embrace the term: he thought of himself more as, well, style conscious. "Lord Gloria? I think you have me mistaken for someone else." He reluctantly placed the necklace in the first pocket of the leather bag, not wanting to lose touch with the beautiful piece of jewelry. How did he let Klaus get him into situations like this?

"Now, the other pieces of jewelry. And no more conversation." The man continued to hold the bag open until Dorian had transferred all the gold pieces into its many compartments. "Now, lie down there on the floor."

The man gestured with his gun hand, a habit Dorian had often deplored in people who’d held him hostage. He slowly bent down, eyeing first his beautiful black velvet cat-burglar outfit, then the dusty museum floor, then his assailant, appalled to see the German was laughing at him.

"I don’t think untidiness is your biggest problem right now, Herr Eroica…." His eyes flicked searchingly around the gallery, never leaving Dorian for more than a second. "Yes, yes, lie down. I think I’ll just leave your body here." He walked closer, and took careful aim. "Won’t they be amazed to know Eroica’s real identity? It is too bad I can’t apply for the reward." He cocked his gun audibly. "You would like to pray?"

Dorian composed his hands in front of him and bowed his head, absolutely willing to fake a religiosity he’d rejected by the age of seven if it would win him some additional moments. He knew he was afraid, but that wasn’t the way it felt: instead it was as if someone had turned up the volume on his senses. He vividly felt the hard marble floor beneath him, and tried fruitlessly to quell the shaking of his hands.

"Put down the gun, Urgesson!"

Klaus, saving him in the nick of time. He couldn’t separate the influx of exultation over being saved from certain death, from the joy he felt from seeing Klaus. Heat rushed through his body, the well-loved payoff for the danger. "Klaus!"

"Damn you!" Urgesson lowered his gun upon Klaus’ order and stood, defiant, as Klaus’ men streamed in from the window balconies lining the room.

Dorian shrugged mentally, and thanked God. "Oh, Klaus!" His savior was looking particularly dramatic tonight, in black turtleneck, black trousers and black boots. He regrettably ignored Dorian’s grateful cries.

"I won’t ask what you are doing here. I trust you’re not injured?" Klaus’ voice was quietly contemptuous and hot as he pulled Dorian up off the floor, and clipped handcuffs around Dorian’s wrists. "And don’t steal anything, damnit! It is hard enough justifying saving you without that."

There was less bite than usual in the cruel words: Klaus’ face was aglow, lit from the excitement of the evening. My hero, saving me in the nick of time, so that he can abuse me himself, Dorian thought, I rather like the thought. He rather liked the handcuffs too, a new touch from Klaus…. He patted awkwardly at his clothes, noting with irritation his hands were still shaking. "You could say ‘thank you,’ Major."

"Lord Gloria, he saved your life." Z pointed to Herr Urgesson being led from the room, and then to Urgesson’s gun, now safely in A’s capable hands.

He ignored Z completely and stood by the wall, panting lightly, amused at his own excitement. There was almost nothing in the world so rousing as nearly dying. People bustled around him importantly—museum security, Z, local police, A through F inclusive—but Klaus alone held his attention. He loved this part: any fear or hardship from working with Klaus was redeemed by seeing Klaus in the full flush of chase and capture; the usual vivid drive of the man transmuted into an even more attractive electric sureness. He listened to Klaus give the ‘official’ version of events, amused at the rewriting, and curious to hear his own supposed part in the drama. Klaus saw him listening, and ended abruptly, "Have the preliminary reports on my desk by ten-hundred."

Those are reports I wouldn’t mind seeing…. He got Z to remove the cuffs and cast a final covetous glance at the wire necklace. It was as beautiful in its way as the wire rope he loved best. Dorian grabbed his Louis Vuitton burglary satchel and followed Klaus back onto the balcony. The moonlight on Klaus’ fair skin and dark hair made him look bloodless, cool, even less approachable than usual, but Dorian knew the pale light lied. He knew that Klaus was on fire, suffering from the same pent up fear-turned-exhilaration he was. "I only did it because you asked."

"I asked you nothing."

Klaus’ breath, turned substantial in the cool evening, hovered between them, mixing with his own. He saw Klaus shiver, and knew it had nothing to do with the cold. It was just Klaus’ reaction to the deadly game: to him. He could see Klaus so clearly in the dark. "You needed me." Dorian crowded Klaus on the small balcony, pressing him up against the rough stone of the building. He stared, entranced, at the jump of pulse at Klaus’ throat, the quick rise and fall of Klaus’ chest, the growing flush on Klaus’ cheeks, swearing that Klaus looked equally entranced. It was just like in East Germany after their escape; just like when they’d—

"Herr Major?"

B’s voice from the darkness beneath the balcony broke the spell Dorian had started to weave. "It’s not over, Klaus," he said quietly to Klaus’ retreating back. He was plotting his next move—tomorrow? Yes, tomorrow—before Klaus made it out of his sight.

• • •

Klaus stomped back from Baum’s office breathing high in his chest, almost panting, trying to walk out his fury. Chief Wissman, may his retirement be long, boring and painful, had been an incompetent ass, and Klaus had prayed twenty times a day for him to be replaced by someone competent, someone who knew his job. Too bad he hadn’t prayed for someone who could be trusted.

He plowed through the anteroom looking neither left nor right—his men knew better than to talk to him at a time like this—slammed his door, and made it to his desk. His heavily laden desk. Seven weeks of work by himself and eleven of his agents: arrest reports, evidence reports, known associates lists, enough to bury Urgesson for life, or so he’d thought. He lit his ninth cigarette of the morning as he remembered being assigned to go after him.

He’d known Urgesson’s history: the fact that neither Interpol nor the Sureté had been able to build a case against him due to evidence being ‘lost,’ witnesses having ‘amnesia,’ officials of each department taking ‘leaves of absence’ when it came time to testify. And he’d scorned all them. Urgesson’s victims, ha! There was no criminal the justice system was helpless against—those witnesses and officials had been weak fools.

He, Klaus Eberbach was not going to fail. He’d been assured he’d have a free hand; he’d insisted on hand-choosing all the men on the case. And now, seven weeks later, it was Baum himself who seemed to be hinting they should scuttle the investigation.

Baum… he’d come well recommended. When he’d heard the short list of people for Wissman’s job, Klaus had talked to men from Baum’s last command. After all, Klaus might well have made enough enemies that he’d never get the job, but he damn sure had the power to veto another complete idiot moving into it. Only now did he know enough to translate some of the comments he’d gotten: ‘Hands in the right sort of report…’, ‘Knows everybody, and I do mean Everybody…’, ‘Understands when to cause trouble, and when to lie low…’.

Klaus wasn’t an idiot. He’d noticed men -- good men by and large -- being promoted above him. He remembered the first time an former member of his squad had made it to Major, and then Colonel. He knew he didn’t have the political skills that the establishment valued in their higher officers. But this was the first time he’d regretted his lack. Of course, he could try. He could call around, find people who could put pressure on Baum, see whether Baum’s people could put pressure on his people. He groaned in disgust.

His hands shuffled Urgesson’s reports into an official file while he continued to nag at his problem. Problems, really—he couldn’t forget Eroica; nobody could.

Baum seemed to think having a contractor working for NATO who was not just a civilian, but a criminal as well, was the height of insanity. Klaus couldn’t disagree; in fact, it was word for word what he’d told Wissman every time that ass had assigned Eroica to one of his cases! But Baum didn’t want to cut Dorian loose. He wanted to arrest him, he wanted the kudos for being the law enforcement agency to finally catch the world famous thief.

Well, it wasn’t as if Eroica shouldn’t be behind bars. For life, dammit. But…

For Dorian—for Eroica—Klaus was supposed to give up all his work on Urgesson? And not just Urgesson, but potentially his entire cell—

And he didn’t want to think about Eroica, not ever if he could help it. He’d managed to distract himself every time he’d thought of Eroica for the last seven weeks, and he’d hoped to continue not thinking of Eroica forever, if possible. But turning the problem over to his team hadn’t worked too well either. He absently pushed his hair behind his ear and lit another cigarette. Damn Z for being too good, for using tools, while effective, that Klaus didn’t ever want to touch. The only advantage of all of this was, Baum was almost as upset as Klaus was that they were using Eroica to capture Urgesson.

Yes, Z’s original plan had succeeded a little too well; it had succeeded before they’d realized Baum might not want Urgesson caught at all.

Every time he'd begged to be free of Eroica, every time he'd snubbed him, or ignored him, or gloried in winning over him -- every time he’d hit him: he was paying for all of those times now.

• • •

Dorian awoke as the curtains were pushed back, blinking sleepily in the morning’s bright sun. He stretched lazily and put a hand out for his hot chocolate, only to recoil from the time on his bedside clock. "Bonham, what am I doing up at this hour?"

"You’re dropping by NATO to ask von Eberbach about the job last night."

"Oh yes; I must pay my devoirs," he murmured sleepily. He threw the covers back with a flourish and arose; willing to sacrifice, yet again, for the man he loved.

He even cut his bath short, but dressing… A frustrating forty minutes later, he was still in front of his closet trying to find the perfect outfit to ‘blend in’ at NATO headquarters. He reluctantly made his choices and let Bonham help him dress. Really he’d lived quite a full day already, and it not yet eleven.

The sun was shining brightly as he pulled into NATO-Bonn visitor’s parking. Once past the guard desk, he slipped his escort with almost frightening ease; he didn’t like to think of Klaus not being safe at work. Now where was Klaus’ office? Wissman used to taunt Klaus by saying he’d let Dorian visit, but Dorian had never actually seen it. He doubted strongly it was anywhere near the accounts-payable office he’d been directed to, but didn’t much care. No one but Mr. James actually thought he was going to NATO to find out why their last contract hadn’t yet been paid. He knew it had to be near Wissman’s…. He started treating it like a job, checking everywhere for signs of Klaus, or one of Klaus’ alphabet, while acting like he belonged so that no one would throw him out. Catching a glimpse of his boring Armani office-drag outfit in a grimy office window, he grimaced. How can people willingly dress like this?

Finally he saw someone he recognized, and followed him. Ah hah, a room full of alphabet people! He wove through the maze of cheap metal desks and file cabinets and aimed for the small office tucked into a corner of the room, amused at the looks, nudges and whispers marking his path. Only M and Z maintained any level of decorum. Too bad he couldn’t recommend them to the Major….

"Yoo-hoo, Klaus, it’s me." Dorian didn’t waste any time waiting to be invited in to Klaus’ office, and promptly propped a hip on the edge of Klaus’ desk.

"So how was I as a stalking horse, hm?" Dorian drawled. "A veritable stallion, I hope." He twirled a curl around a finger in a far from stallionly fashion. Klaus looked beautiful, as usual—his stark tailoring set off his stern good looks so well, Dorian occasionally wondered if it was intentional—though perhaps he hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night. Klaus’ eyes were following each twirl of his curl-clad finger as if hypnotized, and the usual flush of anger he got around Dorian hadn’t developed much past puce. "I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing a NATO paycheck for this job?"

"You were not working for us." Klaus twitched back as Dorian leaned further across the desk, and finally stood to put more room between them. "You were trying to pay yourself in gold antiquities." Dorian watched Klaus move back; he didn’t know when his love had stopped pushing him away, and started backing away from him instead, but he was sure it was a good sign.

"How did you get in here without an escort? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Wait here." Klaus marched around the desk and barked at the nearest agent in the anteroom, "Take this," Klaus almost spit the word, "man, down to reception, and don’t come back until he is out of the building."

He was in no mood to let Klaus off so easily, not today. "Oh, Klaus, how kind. I feared I could get lost in this big stern forbidding building. Unfortunately, I’m not ready to leave yet." He saw Klaus’ eyes narrow as he took in the challenge; Dorian knew Klaus could think of a dozen ways to have him evicted, but trusted that none of them would seem worth the bother. "F, is it? Thank you ever so much, and I’ll take you up on your ever so kind offer as soon as I’ve done talking to the Major." Smiling sweetly, and moving as he talked, Dorian shut Klaus’ door on F’s curious face, trapping himself inside with his very own wild animal.

"Damn you, Eroica!"

"I know English is a second language for you, Klaus, but I believe you could come up with more imaginative invective: ‘pervert’ comes up a little too often as well." He gave Klaus a little space this time, arranging himself as comfortably as possible in the torture device disguised as a chair across from Klaus’ desk. No wonder the alphabet hate coming in here.

Klaus grabbed the top manila file folder from the perfectly aligned pile, and opened it in front of him, reaching for a cigarette with the other hand. "I don’t know why you wish to stay. I have nothing to say to you, and much work to do." He busied himself with paperwork, ignoring Dorian furiously.

Being ignored was rarely a goal for him—well, except when he was stealing something—but it was oddly enjoyable sitting quietly watching Klaus work. Just as out in the field, all of his movements were quick and sure as he efficiently did incomprehensible things to each folder in the pile. Dorian tried not to look like he was reading German upside down, and smiled when he saw the name Urgesson.

How far could he trust Klaus?

With his life? Definitely.

With his reputation? Hardly.

Urgesson knew who he was, and Klaus had been the one who’d told him. Dorian wanted to see that file. Would Klaus make sure Urgesson didn’t talk?

Whether intentionally or not, Klaus covered the Urgesson file with another and continued to work, freeing Dorian’s attention. He was afraid that staring at Klaus would get him kicked out, so he tried to vary his staring with checking out Klaus’ surroundings. Klaus’ desk was the expected marvel of neatness—plain phone, plain ashtray, no pictures of family or fancy pen holders—but it did have a small toy soldier standing up near the phone. He would have to ask about it. He rubbed his hand on the smooth surface of the desk, unable to refrain from imagining lying across it, Klaus spread across him. The rhythm of Klaus smoking was almost hypnotic, the long drags curving Klaus’ lips, the smoke wreathing his face. Dorian almost jumped with the phone rang, he’d relaxed so.

"Eberbach," Klaus answered. Dorian, unabashedly eavesdropping and watching Klaus talk, gradually became aware of a change. Klaus was barely breathing, squeezing the phone so tightly Dorian could see muscles bunching at his wrist.

"Klaus?" he whispered, not sure reminding Klaus of his presence was a good thing. Suddenly Klaus looked as though he’d been shot, quite literally: Dorian had been there the last time Klaus had been shot, and remembered it all too well.

"Damn you to hell." Klaus slammed down the phone and stood so quickly he overturned his chair. Moving astonishingly fast, he grabbed at his jacket, dragging it half across his desk in his hurry. Brushing by Dorian without a word or look, ignoring the files falling from his desk, Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach almost ran from his office.

Dorian dashed after and managed to slip the surprised-looking F, but two corners later, Klaus disappeared behind a secured door to the parking garage. The lock would have been childishly easy, but even for Dorian, it seemed a little… obvious to pull out his picktools in the middle of a hallway in NATO. He almost stamped his feet in frustration.

Conscious of the looks his chase was causing, Dorian changed tactics, slowed down slightly, and followed alternative signs to parking. He feared he was getting distracted. The more important issue was, what had driven Klaus—Iron Klaus—into running on his own ground? Closely following a chatting couple, he again had no trouble passing the security gate. These people need a good burgling to wake them up!

He saw Klaus ahead, still moving quickly. In fact, as Klaus threaded his way through the parking lot, he looked like he was scared. Worse, Major ‘the world is a hostile place always out to get me’ Eberbach didn’t even seem to be aware of Dorian following him. Dorian sped up, but Klaus unlocked his car door, threw in his briefcase and half swung into his seat before he noticed Eroica behind him.

"Eroica!" Klaus stopped, neither in nor out of the car, and looked… frightened?

"Major, are you all right?"

Klaus lunged out of the car. "Go away!" he yelled. Before Dorian could react, Klaus had already grabbed him. Even at their worst times, Dorian never admitted to being truly afraid of Klaus, but Klaus’ determined lack of expression was, um, disquieting. "Damn you!" Klaus yelled, and shook Dorian, slamming him against the car, bending him back onto the car hood.

Dorian tried vainly to read Klaus, trying not to react to Klaus’ body pressing on his, tight enough that he could feel the pounding of Klaus’ heart playing furious counterpoint to his own. This was a little too close to East Berlin: their bodies pressed up against each other, Klaus’ heart beating fast enough that he could feel it through Klaus’ clothes, unseen danger…. Knowing better, not being able to stop, he felt himself responding, filling, pressing against Klaus’ hip, responding willessly to the fire in Klaus.

Klaus yelled, "No!" and threw Dorian to the ground. He stood over Dorian for a moment, Klaus’ chest rising and falling like a bellows, but Dorian wasn’t sure Klaus was seeing him at all. Without a word, Klaus jumped into his car and started the engine.

• • •

Klaus turned the key and pumped the gas, nearly flooding the engine. "Spring an, verdammt nochmal!" he threatened his car, fist pounding the steering wheel. He drove off with a screech, checking briefly to see that Eroica wasn’t following, then consigned him to oblivion.

There was no finesse in the way Klaus fought his way through traffic, he just sped up behind each car and tailgated mercilessly until they swerved, cowed, out of his way.

The corner parking spot on Hauptstrasse and Ostallee was taken, but he pulled up behind and sprinted for the phone box. He could already hear the phone ringing. "Damnit, I’m here."

The anonymous voice on the other end of the phone merely gave another phone box location, and a maximum time to reach it. Klaus expected nothing different; they were trying to get him off guard as much as anything. With modern bugging and tailing devices, this sort of charade would be hopelessly ineffective at protecting the blackmailers from Klaus’ team. If he’d assigned them. If he weren’t living in Hell.

Klaus knew the drill—before he’d gotten caught up in this personally, he could have written a NATO instructional manual on the capture of blackmailers and extortionists. He knew with every fiber of a life spent dedicated to duty that he should have reported his first contact with the blackmailers immediately, that he should have professional support. But he couldn’t. Not until he knew what was going on. Not until he was sure that his family was safe. Schloss Eberbach, his father, Johannes, even his mother, kept flashing through his head.

He drove to the next phone box, lighting another cigarette from the one still in his mouth, then another.

Klaus had never realized that there was such a thing as latent knowledge. All these years since Johannes’s funeral he’d never heard a word that implied anything less than that Johannes had died a hero of the state, killed while investigating terrorists for the Bundesgrenzschutz. But, from the blackmailer’s first words, "Your brother was the one who set the bomb that killed him and I can prove it," he knew—he realized he’d always known—that there had been something very wrong about his brother’s death.

Remembering should have made him angry, and it did, but mostly it just reminded him of the power they had. Suddenly Klaus had crossed the line and didn’t have the rules to fall back on.

Military college, the army, NATO: one refuge after another. They’d given him clear rules and regulations—finally a way to know whether he was doing the right thing—and all they’d asked in return was that he dedicate his entire life to living up to those rules. And when he’d realized that doing his job, being one of the best at his job, wasn’t enough—wasn’t enough to earn respect from his boss, wasn’t enough to keep him from being mocked and forced to work with a perverted unprincipled thief, wasn’t enough to win a promotion—he’d continued following the rules, not knowing what else he could do. He wondered if the rules had changed without him noticing, but until now never feared that the rules might always have been a chimera.

He was good at his work. He knew it. His single-mindedness assured it. All he had to do was not think about his father being disappointed in him, not think of his mother, cold in her grave, of Johannes lying next to her. Not think about Eroica, about East Berlin, about Dorian’s hands on him in that dark alley. Klaus was an expert at it. He’d long since built little walls that kept all such thoughts safely imprisoned. But now, with the rules failing him, his walls were failing him too.

• • •

In all of Dorian’s years-long chase of Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach, he’d never been able to tail him successfully. Right now, a careful few cars back, he’d have been happy to see Klaus raise a fist at him and swerve off, but throughout all of the odd starts and stops of the last half hour, Klaus seemed oblivious to his pursuit. They’d been all through the business section of Bonn and seemed to be moving back to the Rhine when Klaus pulled over again before a large traffic circle.

This time Klaus parked his car and turned off the parking lights. I guess this is it, whatever it is. Dorian double-parked his Lamborghini Miura where he was, and headed carefully after. Klaus walked across the stone paving out into the middle of the square and paused as if admiring the fountain gargoyle, waiting. Dorian concentrated on getting close while trying to be inconspicuous, using the pre-lunch crowd and the occasional statue as camouflage. This would be so much easier if I weren’t gorgeous.

"Call me Smith, Major." The man with Klaus had appeared smoothly from the crowd. He was the opposite of either Klaus or Dorian: seemingly almost bred to be unobtrusive. Instead of their long leanness he was average height, perhaps ten pounds overweight, and in contrast to their bright blond or nightblack tresses, he had slightly wavy mouse-brown hair, definitely thinning on top. Dorian hated him. He had never seen Klaus pay such close attention to another person in all the years he’d known him, not even someone holding a gun on him.

"No pleasantries." Klaus looked back under control; no, more than that, almost rigid. A parody of his usual upright sternness.

"All business. A man after my own heart." Smith’s smile bounced off of Klaus without a sign as he held out a dark green envelope, almost camouflage colored; Klaus took it with visible reluctance. "I have five more documents like this; I offer this as a sign of goodwill."

Dorian thanked the Lady that they were speaking English—he was having enough trouble hearing them through traffic noises and the splashing water without translating too. He gazed around the square, pretending to study the flower pots while looking for Klaus’ support staff. What could be going on? Buying secrets? Blackmail? Klaus couldn’t have come here alone with no back-up, no witnesses…. Dorian was almost relieved when he noticed someone hiding behind a statue paying too much attention to Klaus’ conversation, but one glance assured him that this man had never worked for Iron Klaus. He tried to memorize the man’s features, thinking NATO composite artists wouldn’t be amused by a description of ‘basic thug #2.’ He still couldn’t make sense of this: Klaus upset, alone, meeting strangers in carefully public places.

He missed a few lines of conversation, circling back through passersby around Klaus to a better position, then heard, "Go on, open it." He turned slightly and watched Klaus slide one finger under the flap, opening the envelope very carefully. Peering inside, Klaus became impossibly even stiffer; his face unmoving in a way faces weren’t meant to be. Dorian wanted, more than anything in the world, to put an expression—even the superior sneer—back on Klaus’ face.

Without another word, Klaus turned and started to walk away, almost catching Dorian by surprise. He wanted to follow him, but instead circled around the parkway, and followed Smith to a taxi stand. He wished he had any idea what was going on. Smith would be out of sight in seconds in the congested lunchtime traffic. What to do? Avoiding the eye of the second thug, he shrugged, mentally abandoning his own car. He had to do something.

Fighting the need to take a last look at Klaus and make sure he was all right, he waved to the next cab in the stand. Now what?

"Wohin moechten Sie?"

His German suddenly seemed to desert him. "Um, ah…."

"Englisch?"

"Yes!" he said gratefully. "Tell me you speak English."

The cabby’s, "Jah," wasn’t completely reassuring but, when, unable to resist, Dorian said the immortal words, "Follow that taxi," he was relieved to find the cab heading the right direction. He laughed at himself, and pulled out his new cellular phone. He said, "I need to talk to Bonham—yes, of course it’s me," into the phone, and waited, staring sightlessly out at the traffic. "Well, find out where he is and send someone to collect the car." He heard James’ voice in the background, and added, "Don’t tell James I phoned." He rang off quickly, still trying to decide what to do.

Twenty minutes later, he was on the other side of the Rhine, his driver was getting restive, and Dorian was getting worried. If only he had some of NATO’s tricks: a bug in the other car, or a tracer. Why hadn’t Klaus done something like that? Where was Klaus’ team? He watched the cab three cars in front of them pull a sudden, unsignaled right turn, and sighed, wishing he knew the city better. "What’s down there?"

"Nut much. Just old factory buildings." His cabby’s thick Yank-flavored and German-accented English had stopped being funny miles back; he was just glad they could communicate at all.

He tossed a mental coin and trusted his luck. "Pass that turn, pull into the next right, and park." He’d had all too long to try to memorize that cab, and decided to trust that it was a simple fake-out. "If you see them drive by on the main road, pull out slowly after them." A sufficiently large tip right at the beginning and an obvious lack of desire for conversation had done the trick again; the cabby was well on his way to being as useful as one of his inside team. He rubbed his fingers along the on button of his phone. He’d given Bonham the license number of the other cab ten minutes ago, so calling and harassing him now wouldn’t gain Dorian anything. But he hated time to think; he just wanted to move, let the chase consume his mind as it had so many times before.

"Hey. There it is." He looked up in time to see the cab pull out and turn left in front of them.

"Let them go a couple of blocks before you turn around." He stared intently, making sure the cab had the same passenger. Another five minutes of seemingly aimless driving brought them to a quiet residential area. His cabby had gotten pretty good at staying a couple of cars back, and Smith’s cab hadn’t done anything else to try and shake off a hopefully-hypothetical follower.

"Hey, blondie, he’s turning off the main street. What’d’ya wanna do?"

Dorian fumbled for his wallet, and handed the cabby an additional tip. "Just let me out, a little past the corner." He walked back into sight of the street Smith had driven down, sighing a little at the clothes he was wearing. Could have been worse; at least he wasn’t in full lace and bright colors. He saw the brake lights of Smith’s cab a couple of blocks down, and crossed his fingers.

A person got out of the cab, too far away to tell details. He started down the street before it became impossible to see, dialing Bonham again as he walked. "I think I’ve got him. Send someone to come get me, and get someone watching the house." He stopped at the next corner, trying not to look as though he was hiding behind the Hainbuche overgrowing the sidewalk. "There he goes. I can’t quite see the address, but it is the yellow house on Ringstrasse, just past the cross street," he looked at the street sign above him, "Hopfenweg. I’ll be at the corner of Maigweg and Hopfenweg." He put the phone back in his coat and looked around, wondering whether the lace curtains in the nearby houses hid people wondering who the funny man was talking to his hand. He almost rang Bonham back and told him he’d be waiting out on the more major road, but felt that calling yet again would make him even more conspicuous. He tugged at his conservative gray sleeve and tried to blend in. This whole day was turning out to be a learning experience.

Finally home, he fought the call of a hot bath and settled for a hot tea, liberally dosed, while deciding what to do. He spent a tedious and slightly embarrassing twenty minutes convincing Mr. James he was needed in England immediately, changed shirts to hide the tear stains while James was calling around trying to find the least comfortable bargain charter or cargo trip back to the Island, and finally called everyone together. "So that’s what I know." He finished recounting his day, ignoring the clear voice inside saying that if for no other reason, Klaus would kill him as soon as he realized Dorian had divulged his personal secrets.

Jones looked up from his notes. "The MO doesn’t sound familiar, but they do sound professional. First step is to find out if he’s connected."

Bonham nodded agreement, but frowned. "You haven’t been in contact since you’ve been here…."

"I haven’t done anything but that job for NATO." Dorian blessed his ability to convince good people to work for him; as he’d expected, they were already turning the problem over in their minds.

"My lord, the fact that you’re stealing for NATO doesn’t make it better, it makes it worse! As you well know."

"Bonham, don’t fuss. Jones, didn’t you say you knew the King of Thieves in Stuttgart? Make nice and get an introduction to the local King. We’ll have to grovel a little, and hope he didn’t hear about the museum…. Bonham, you cover it from the other side; what if ‘Smith’ isn’t connected. Get a picture of him ASAP, and pass it around. We need to know who we’re up against."

"Then what, boss?" Bonham seemed to be pushing.

Perkins, as usual, leapt right in. "Maybe we can ring them up and say that we’re competitors, say we’ve had our own operation devoted to ruining Klaus for some time," which wasn’t far from the truth.

Dorian laughed. "I think I can ooze enough sincerity in the line ‘I’ve been trying to get Klaus for years’ to make them believe it. Or, ‘Klaus has something I want very much; if you could make it possible for us to get it, we could be very generous.’"

"Yeah, convince them it is a bidding war, and we have a much deeper pocket than Klaus has." Perkins started pacing. Dorian had known some people who could barely seem to talk without gesturing, but Perkins seemed to need to move his entire body.

"No, not that. We don’t want a bidding war. More a confident, ‘I can get what you need; just ask.’

"How are we going to get what they need? We don’t know what they want!"

Dorian drained the last of his glass and stood, unwilling to wait for a refill. "Worst comes to worst, I can break into NATO myself and steal what they need. Their security is terrible."

"No, not NATO. Why don’t we just break in to the blackmailers and steal it from them?"

There might be honor between thieves, but obviously not between thieves and blackmailers. "We don’t know that they don’t have backup copies somewhere else, and we dare not upset them. It’d just encourage them to publish." He topped off his glass and got comfortable again.

Caught up in the moment, Perkins yelled, "We’ll break in twice, once to find out what it looks like, another time to replace it." He subsided under Bonham and Dorian’s quelling looks.

"Bonham, you’ll continue the surveillance on Smith’s house? We’ll talk later when we know more." Dorian cut the meeting short, but sat brooding long after his men had filed out of the room.

• • •

Dorian rang the doorbell again. He knew Klaus was home, he’d seen him at the living room window, and after the excitement this afternoon he wasn’t going to leave without getting some explanation. What was that about? Despite everything, he somehow couldn’t believe someone was really trying to blackmail his upright German love. But if someone were…. Had Klaus expected him to follow? Was Klaus actually using him as his backup? He wanted to believe that his love was that clever, and more, that Klaus trusted him that much, but he was afraid he knew better.

He pressed the bell again, long and hard, and punctuated the bell with well-bred raps on the door itself. "Klaus, I know you’re home."

It should have been the abrupt door opening that startled him, but instead, it was the look on Klaus’ face. "Klaus, are you all right?"

"Yes," Klaus said blankly. They paused, mutually awkward, before Dorian shook off his surprise and stepped into Klaus’ city apartment. Dorian looked around shamelessly as he pushed past Klaus—stereo off, telly off, curtains half-closed, one half-empty glass sitting next to an overflowing ashtray, both placed in the exact middle of the table across from the precise center of the couch, all barely visible in the evening gloom. It looked like Klaus had sat drinking long enough through the afternoon for the room to grow dark around him, though now some abortive host reflex had Klaus turning on lights.

In the sudden glare, it was nothing like Schloss Eberbach. The entry area and living room were so tastefully and unexceptionably beige, Dorian suspected Klaus’ decorator of doing hotel design jobs on the side. "How nice."

"That means you hate it." Klaus didn’t wait for an answer, but turned around for his drink and took it over to the wet bar near the couch to refresh it. He grabbed some whiskey from an alarming array of decanters and name brand bottles. Probably decades of Christmas booty for the boss impossible to shop for.

"I’ll take a Dubonnet," he chose almost at random from the labels he could see. Without comment, Klaus picked out a glass and poured his drink. Confused but pleased, Dorian accepted it, trying and failing to make Klaus meet his eyes. Were it not so ludicrous, he’d say Klaus looked afraid. He saluted Klaus with the glass. "Thank you, and no, I don’t hate it. There’s not much of you about it though."

Klaus stared into his drink. "There’s not much of me anywhere."

"Eberbach?"

"Eberbach was never meant to be mine…. Did you know I was a second son? That’s why I ended up in the army." As if reciting, "‘First son for the land’ (that’s Eberbach)" he said, confidingly, "‘the second son for the army, the third son for the church,’ but we only had two. Johannes and Klaus—the Eberbach boys." Klaus turned back and splashed more whiskey in his glass, without having drunk any. "He was as fair as I am dark—he was cheerful and I was quiet. I was content to be a shadow behind his glory… he was so bright. They called us Day and Night."

Dorian’s social address rarely failed him, but he hesitated before asking, "What happened to him?" He’d waited years for Klaus to open up to him, talk about personal things, but Klaus and emotions didn’t combine well—he’d witnessed near catastrophes from Klaus mixing mere adrenaline and fury; he was quite wary of the fusion of whiskey, anger and grief.

"Our mother," Klaus swallowed, "died, when I was young. Johannes came back home for the first time in years. I was angry at the whole world. At Johannes for not seeing Mother before she died, Father…." He knocked his drink back, immediately turning and pouring another. Deep breath, "…At the funeral, I hated everyone. Everyone who cried, everyone who didn’t."

Dorian snagged Klaus’ coat sleeve and towed him gently to the couch, smiling carefully as Klaus sat down, once again in the exact middle of the couch. On the soft sofa cushions Klaus was sitting carefully upright, and in Klaus’ thin slacks, Dorian could see bunched muscles matching those in his neck and shoulders. The alcohol might have been acting as a depressant, but it certainly wasn’t relaxing him.

Each word spoken, each memory disclosed seemed to hurt. No wonder Klaus never talked about his family. "They fought, angrily and coldly, even during the funeral. Even after the last spadeful of dirt had been packed down, it wasn’t ended. The next day, Father threw him off the estate. When Johannes came back, Father had…" Klaus’ voice was getting quieter, "had two servants beat him as a common trespasser." Quieter still, "And I did nothing.

"Our uncle helped him get a job with the Bundesgrenzschutz, something like your MI5. Father was furious, almost insanely angry. I left for Bundeswehruniversität, the military college in München, but father wanted me to switch and go to Stuttgart University then come back and learn the estate. I said Eberbach was for Johannes. He hit me." Dorian stared unabashedly, Klaus far too absorbed now to notice. "I was determined to triumph; sure if I did well enough, it would reconcile him to my army career. Johannes seemed to be thriving: fast promotions, important investigations. Then he was assigned to a neo-Nazi group that was threatening Christmas bombings. Next thing we knew, he was dead, killed by one of their bombs.

"I did not cry at Johannes’s funeral; maybe I’d used up all my tears on Mother. The eulogy was strained; Father hadn’t let anyone talk about Johannes in his presence for years, and everyone feared a scene." For the amount of pain each of them had caused, it sounded like Dorian could trade his mother for Klaus’ father straight across. "Could Father have known? Was that the real reason for the strain?"

Klaus seemed totally under control. Only his eyes, and only now and then through a passing trick of angle, held the look of some stricken and bewildered child. The eyes frightened Dorian far more than the stern mouth. "Everything has been for nothing. Years of study, service… my father…." Klaus appeared to be talking to his glass. Even at the risk of losing these confidences, Dorian didn’t intend to be ignored.

"Klaus," he said adamantly. "Never regret! All you can do with life is live it. Make the best choices you can with the facts you have, and then never look back. That’s what I believe." He took off his coat and laid it on the back of the couch, preparing to pace. Klaus had accidentally touched on one of the few things, other than Klaus himself, that Dorian felt seriously about.

Klaus took a huge swallow of the whiskey in his glass and set it on the table very precisely. "You believe? Nothing is worth believing in."

"What did you believe in? Before all this." Dorian carefully let ‘this’ go undefined. He still didn’t know whether Klaus knew he’d been followed, and was certain this wasn’t the time to ask.

Klaus was sitting very erect, very still; his long hair hung in his face, shadowing it from Dorian’s gaze. "I wanted to carry out the aims of NATO intelligence, and bring pride to my name. I never thought I’d have to choose between them."

"Forget choosing. Neither of those things are about you anyway. They’re what the Chief wanted; what your father wanted. What do you want?"

Dorian wished he could see Klaus’ face more clearly. He endured the silence, determined to wait Klaus out. A thief learns to wait, and he’d learned it as thoroughly as any other part of his job, once he’d realized its importance.

"I want…."

He had waited years to hear Klaus say those words… and he was prepared to wait days if necessary to hear just what Klaus wanted from him, but Klaus seemed stuck.

"Anything, Klaus."

Another pause, then, when he’d nearly given up hope, "I want to stop thinking." Klaus carefully set his empty glass on the table, leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes.

Klaus couldn’t have made it more obvious with a sign. Well, if he wants to be pushed to where he can’t even think, he’s chosen the right man.

He knelt in front of Klaus, unobtrusively pushing the coffee table away with his back, and placed his hands on Klaus’ legs. He was going to make this so good for Klaus. He was already panting, thinking that where his hands had delved last time, this time he was determined his tongue would follow. He leaned forward and opened Klaus’ suit jacket, part of him still expecting Klaus to stop him, to say no, even punch him and send him halfway across the room.

But Klaus’ hands were clenched in the couch cushions. He almost wondered, to stop himself from touching me, or killing me? but Klaus had made it very clear what he was asking for. Dorian was trying to connect this unprecedented submission to the secrets Klaus had been revealing, but being so close to something he’d wanted for so long, Klaus’ acceptance of his touch and affection, made it hard to think. Unzipping Klaus’ trousers, he reached inside, unsurprised but still thrilled to find an already swelling warmth under his hand. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the feel of a body he’d nowhere near gotten used to having permission to touch. If only Klaus could relax.

He undid the bottom buttons of Klaus’ shirt then impatiently pushed up under it to rub slowly across the soft cotton of his undershirt, carefully thumbing Klaus’ nipples on each pass. Klaus’ cock continued to swell, slowly but surely growing to a respectable, even impressive length. He smiled, thinking ‘size queen’ and looked up to share the joke, but Klaus’ eyes were still tightly closed, his whole face clenched tightly. The only sign of consent he had was that Klaus hadn’t stopped him.

He reflected, not for the first time, that with Klaus, you take what you can get.

Klaus’ cock was now rock hard. He finished unzipping Klaus’ trousers. The zip was amazingly loud in the quiet room; Dorian wasn’t used to having sex in total silence, but he was getting off on it. It made the whole situation seem more illicit and exciting, as if they were hiding something, or hiding from something. He managed to move Klaus’ underwear mostly out of the way, but got no cooperation trying to drag trousers and underwear over Klaus’ hips. Klaus wasn’t stopping him, but apparently he wasn’t going to help.

Dorian found himself having to pay attention to the smallest of clues: a brief shudder, a small irregular intake of breath. He admired (without any desire to emulate) Klaus’ control, but it only reinforced his desire to shatter it utterly.

Despite Klaus’ reactions, Dorian finally gave up trying to caress Klaus’ balls through the confining fabric and concentrated on his cock. He held it tightly around the base, taking a minute to feast his eyes before bending down to touch his tongue to the delicate head. He licked, starting tentatively, not wanting to push too fast or too far, still afraid that at any moment Klaus would change his mind. He feasted with his mouth, swirling his tongue over the hooded head. As Klaus shook with each stroke, Dorian smiled inwardly and ran a hand over Klaus’ trouser leg, rubbing the smooth wool, wishing he dared stop and pry Klaus out of his armor. Go slow and take a chance Klaus will come to his senses? Nah, overwhelm him, show him how good it, I can be. Klaus’ cock in his mouth: some part of him had never thought it would happen.

Caught briefly by the flex of muscle in his forearm, he smiled to himself, amused with his own narcissism. He wanted it to last forever; after his long famine, it couldn’t possibly last long enough to sate his hunger. But Klaus, he knew, would come immediately if he’d let him. He decided to give his love a gift. Relaxing the hand clutching the root of Klaus’ cock, he simultaneously deep-throated his lover, taking him inside himself. And then, swallowing hard, his face cemented to Klaus’s groin, bringing Klaus to the edge and past, he dropped his other hand onto his own cock, letting the knowledge of what he was doing, to whom, after all this time, carry him over the top with Klaus.

Sitting on the floor, come on his clothing, Klaus’ cock softening in his mouth, the length of his relaxed afterglow could be measured in pico seconds. Almost immediately, Dorian felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He slowly released Klaus’ cock from his mouth, and carefully and quickly tucked it away. He didn’t feel he could look up until that was done. He couldn’t forget Klaus had almost killed him last time.

He pulled a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and tidied himself, before tucking himself back in and refastening his own slacks. Only then did he look up at Klaus. Far from lethal appearing, Klaus picked up his empty glass and was again staring into its depths as if he were alone in the room. Now that Dorian could think again, he had a million questions about Klaus’ father and brother and mother. He’d learned more about Klaus’ childhood tonight than at anytime in the last eight years.

But now…. Klaus looked even less approachable than usual, and Dorian sighed, realizing he’d probably made a big mistake. He’d might have accepted comfort from me, before this.

"Klaus?" As he’d feared, Klaus wouldn’t even look at him. He took some consolation from the relaxation in Klaus’ body.

Dorian shrugged and got up from the floor, stretching out the kinks. His jacket was still lying next to Klaus, and without thinking about whether it was wise, he ran his hand across Klaus’ shoulder. Klaus shuddered, but didn’t pull away. Knowing he was pushing, unable to stop himself, he asked, "May I stay?"

He felt Klaus shudder again, and barely heard Klaus say, "No." He grabbed his jacket and let himself out.

• • •

After gathering everyone together for this, Dorian was having second thoughts. What could Klaus be hiding? Well, too late now. "Quiet everyone. I’m going to put it on speakerphone so that everyone can hear, but you’ll have to keep silent." Dorian could hear his heartbeat over the sound of the phone ringing. Answer, damnit. "Smith?" This is the critical moment. "Don’t hang up. I am a man who’s spent the last eight years trying to ‘get’ the ever so upright, ever so proper Klaus Heinz Eberbach. I happened to have him under watch Tuesday afternoon. And I find myself most curious about the offer you have made him."

"What? I should hang up now before you can trace this call. No, wait, you called me. How did you get this number?"

Dorian scowled and put a finger to his lips, cutting off the snickers from his men. "Never mind all that. I have no interest at all in your business except for how it affects my prey. I believe we can help each other."

"I don’t understand."

"Have you ever met Major Eberbach? He has many enemies." Dorian mused that that at least wasn’t a lie.

"But I can’t trust you. How do I know you’re not the government?"

Dorian said dryly, "I think seeing me will cure you of that thought. And should that not be enough, I’m connected." He put the extra little weight on the word that carried its additional meaning. "I have people, people in your line of work, who will vouch for me…."

After a careful exchange of bona fides, there was a long pause. "If you give us what we need, the power to ruin Eberbach will be yours. If you don’t, we now know enough to start investigating you, understand?"

"Understood," Dorian answered dryly. "Well, what is it that you want?"

There was another long pause, long enough that Dorian began to give up hope. Finally a different voice said, "A man was arrested by NATO here in Bonn a few nights ago: Herr Urgesson. We need to know what he has said to NATO about his various colleagues. And we need to know soon. Get his file; talk with the lead investigator—whom we know to be Major Eberbach—talk with Eberbach’s boss, we don’t care. Just do what you need to do to find out exactly what Urgesson has said. Then we’ll contact you with our final request."

Urgesson. Dorian rather wanted to see that file himself. The question was, did he dare ask Klaus for the information? And what did these men hold over Klaus? "And in exchange…."

The first voice—Smith?—returned to the phone. "I’m sure you know if you’ve done so much investigating," the sneer was palpable, "that Eberbach had a brother who died, supposedly while working for the government. But there were rumors. And more rumors about those who made sure there were nothing but rumors. But what I have is unequivocal proof that the rumors were nothing compared to the truth of it."

Dorian shut his eyes, seeing Klaus sitting before him, saying, ‘the Eberbach boys, Johannes and Klaus; I was content to be the shadow behind his glory; …he was so bright.’

Bonham shook his shoulder; the blackmailers were waiting still on the line. "Sorry to make you wait. I am interested, very interested, in completing this transaction with you. I will contact you, Sunday?"

"Major Eberbach will be wondering why we haven’t contacted him. If you are still tailing him, enjoy watching him twisting in the wind…."

"Good bye." Great, the blackmailer’s trying to bond with his sadistic buyer. Now that’s customer service in the eighties. He turned off the speakerphone and turned to his men. "Let’s get moving."

• • •

Triumphe had really come through; not only had he found someone who knew Smith right off (he had to remember to thank Perkins: that fax machine had really paid off) but he’d also acquired information on NATO security systems. Bonham and he had spent the afternoon reviewing them, after his short nap and long bath. He felt confident about his ability to get in and out, and only a little queasy about his motivation. To a reasonably ethical thief, blackmailers seemed, well, dishonest. And stealing information; well, information was rarely beautiful. He consoled himself by reminding himself that he was also helping Klaus, at least hopefully, and if not helping Klaus, he was sure to be annoying Klaus, and either one was worth the effort. He did wish that Wissman was still around; he’d always been able to talk the old fool into anything. He could have just asked for the bloody files.

The NATO visitor’s parking lot was empty as they drove past and parked a few blocks away. He sent Bonham to hide in the grounds and play decoy if necessary, while Dorian moved to the back door. He slid the jiggered cardkey through the scanner and smiled as the door-lock clicked open. Lowest bidder; works every time. His Italian leather driving gloves left no marks on the glass doorhandles.

"Klaus’ office first, I think; at least I know where it is," Dorian said aloud, slightly intimidated by the concrete silence around him. In the tight beam of his pen light, the office he blundered into was Wissman’s. Or, well, what’s his name. He swung his light around. Wissman’s replacement—what was that man’s name—had redecorated a little (nothing but insipid prints in bad colors) but he’d left Wissman’s old desk. Laughing: at least one, a worthwhile theft out of this evening, he pried at the bottom drawer looking for the hidden cubbyhole that Wissman used to keep his Dutch chocolate stash in. Dorian slowly pulled out the secret drawer and sighed. No chocolate, just a fax flimsy in, yes, Italian. Dorian’s Italian was even rustier than his German, but he simply had to steal something. A flicker of light reminded him of the time passing; he stuffed the piece of paper in a pocket and prowled back out into the hallway.

Around the next corner and, yes, "Second time lucky." The alphabet’s anteroom looked different in the moving light: larger, less chaotic but just as messy and poorly decorated. He prowled into Klaus’ office and looked around: unlike his apartment, Klaus had put a definite stamp on this room visible even in the man’s absence. Austere, tidy, functional, a place for everything and everything in its place. No, there was a pile of files sitting in the visitor’s chair; the files Klaus had knocked off the desk as he ran out yesterday. Hard to believe he hadn’t been back since. The Urgesson file was on top, and now that Dorian picked it up, he saw it was amazingly thick for a man that had only been arrested the day before. Someone— Klaus?—had really dedicated a lot of time to catching this man. Other than a lazy thief, who was Urgesson? "Thirty-seven years old," looks older, he thought, "suspected to work with a well-known gang with contacts throughout Europe…" he read aloud. Hmm, thief/blackmailer teams? "One steals the jewels, the other looks for incriminating details while they’re there." He mentally disavowed any similarity between Urgesson and himself, wondering idly what the man had been doing in the museum—it didn’t exactly sound like his kind of job—and flipped through the rest of the file.

He skimmed laboriously through A’s, and then M’s report, wishing he’d studied harder with his German tutor. "Yes! I knew it." He smiled to himself; M’s version did mention him as a contractor. "Klaus, why did you deny it to me, in front of people who must have known better? I wish I could believe it was just to further pique my interest…." He put it down and thoroughly read Z’s far more comprehensive report. As he had begun to expect, it was all there: the plan to use him as a stalking horse, all the way from Z’s call making sure he’d attend the Thorssons’ party. And in Z’s version, Dorian was in-the-know at all stages of the operation…. "Damn you, Klaus," he muttered wryly. At the bottom of the report there were references to Urgesson’s interrogation transcript. He flipped quickly through the other alphabetical corresponding reports, and homed in on the transcript. He skimmed, muttering aloud, "Other cases, other crimes… trying to get him to turn over on an old accomplice…." Klaus never did understand the idea of honor among thieves, he mused sadly. "Here it is. Tsk, tsk, Urgesson, offering to give them information on a famous thief’s alter ego." Urgesson apparently didn’t understand honor among thieves either, he laughed quietly, and kept reading. He tsked again when he got to Thorssons’ name. Klaus, don’t you have better manners than to set up your host?

And then, "Klaus! I don’t believe it." He reread the section of the transcript, translating mentally:

KHvdE: Eroica? What do you know of him?

U: I know who he is. The thief you arrested at the museum is actually Eroica.

KHvdE: I should apologize for the deception at the museum. Such a paltry trap for such a master criminal. We had of course arranged for the locks and alarms at the museum to be disabled and used a contractor of ours to act the part of the master thief. Someday we’ll get Eroica, just like we got you….

Klaus lied in an official interrogation to protect me, and then lied to me about involving me. Dorian laughed mirthlessly. He thought he’d been confused before.

He continued reading through the transcript, marking the pages he’d need to give Smith, and finally closed the file, taking it with him back into the corridor. Three a.m.? He needed to get moving. His search for Central Files took seconds: as he should have expected, every corridor crossing had a complete list of major office locations. Ah, the German mind. Once in Central Files, he was briefly daunted by the banks of computers along the wall, but cheered seeing the rooms of file cabinets behind them, each labeled: Closed Cases, Informants, Open Cases, Employee Files… There we go. Klaus’ file was easy to find; his own was more elusive. He finally found it under Gloria, in the Informants cabinet. He wasn’t happy to be there.

He didn’t even try to read them there. Instead he wasted precious minutes trying to find the ON switch for the copy machine in the main room. He stood in the huge room, lit only by his penlight and the green glow of the copy machine, and checked his watch. 3:15 a.m. He’d been so engrossed reading Urgesson’s file he’d only just missed the last guard pass, and he knew the next one was soon. The last sheet pulled through the feeder. He thrust the sheets back in the folder any which way—there had to be a least one sloppy file clerk in this mausoleum—and thrust his and Klaus’ files back into the file cabinets. After wasting another moment finding a blank file folder to stuff the loose sheets in, he set off back to Klaus’ office.

The temptation to leave a calling card, just one small, pink, From Eroica, With Love, on Klaus’ desk…. He fought it off, but ran a finger down the toy soldier near Klaus’ phone. It would be wrong not to do something frivolous. With some difficulty, he slid the toy soldier into his snug black slacks, patted the pocket, waited a couple more minutes for the guard to pass, collected Bonham and headed home, just before the Saturday morning skeleton shift headed into the building.

• • •

Dorian put the phone down and sighed, leaning back in the big chair. Every muscle in his body ached for bed, and as he finished reading the stolen files, his temples throbbed arhythmically. Damnit, burglary’s supposed to be fun. He couldn’t put off asking the right questions just because he was afraid he wasn’t going to like the answers. It wasn’t much like him, for one thing.

But this wasn’t about him, it was about Klaus.

He picked up the file again, rubbing the cheap paper between his fingers. Smith wasn’t asking for much, he supposed. He just wanted what he wanted, and of all people, Dorian felt he should sympathize.

Making sure Urgesson wouldn’t talk should be no huge problem: a little research, a bit of cash. But Klaus would be furious. Months—for all he knew years—of work lost. Not to mention Klaus wondering why the blackmailers never contacted him again. He realized he still didn’t know whether Klaus had deliberately set him to following Smith….

He wasn’t sure if it were his good sense, or heretofore-unrealized inner cowardice but Dorian decided it was best to present Klaus with a fait accompli. Make Smith happy by freeing Urgesson, and only then confront Klaus, tell him everything and find out what was really going on.

• • •

It’d been easy to get Urgesson liberated, even easier than he’d expected, considering it was NATO that had arrested the man. Faking a court order, sending Bonham and Perkins in to act as plausible transferring officers, greasing the right palms, all led to Urgesson here, in an alley two blocks from the main Bonn prison. Looking at the man, ridiculous in his prison clothes and handcuffs, it had been worth every penny. Now all he had to do was teach him his part in this silly play, and they could all be home in time for breakfast.

Urgesson looked at the three of them, understandably not sure he’d actually been rescued. He had rather a frying pan and fire sort of expression, lightly buried beneath seemingly perpetual arrogance. Dorian ignored him negligently as he tied up the evening’s loose ends, scribbling a note to Smith and giving it and Urgesson’s release papers to Bonham. "This goes to Smith. Proof of our goodwill, I suppose. Don’t leave without getting something back from him."

Bonham took the papers and tucked them in his jacket one-handed, disregarding the man he firmly gripped with his other hand. "How will we know it’s the right information?"

Dorian wanted to clutch his blond locks and scream, how would I know?, but settled for a quelling stare. "Bonham, with Smith not knowing exactly what we’ve done with our guest here, I don’t think he’ll consider cheating us to be in his best interests." Dorian turned slightly and regarded Urgesson with a certain lack of warmth. "Herr Urgesson. I feel certain you remember me?" Dorian was surprised at the well of anger in him for this man. Certainly Urgesson wasn’t the first person to hold a gun on him, or threaten him with death. But all of Klaus’ pain and his confusion of the last few days could be pinned on one man: this man standing in front of him. Dorian hated him.

"So the mouse can roar? I suppose I should get down on the ground now?" Urgesson looked down at the muddy ground, and then back at his scruffy prison garb, none too subtly taunting.

I will not get angry, I will not get angry. "Don’t judge me by your standards. Your life isn’t in danger. We just need to reach a simple agreement." He motioned Bonham and Perkins to flank Urgesson, blocking him in between them. "Between now and your trial date, friends of mine will arrange for all of the evidence in your case to go… missing. In exchange, you promise not to discuss any of your past associates, myself included, if at any time in the future you are a guest of the Bundesrepublik. Understood?"

"Wait a minute. Major Eberbach, my interrogator, said that you weren’t really Eroica—that you were just a contractor working for NATO." He laughed, harsh and unmusically. "NATO, Eberbach, is shielding an international criminal?"

Perkins was young, tall and strong, a combination that usually worked despite his obvious cheerful enthusiasm; Bonham was big and old and tired and smart, a combination that many had learned to fear. Between them, Dorian hadn’t expected any trouble, but Urgesson…. Dorian was amazed at the man. Fat, tired-looking, wearing nothing but prison garb, handcuffed between two bravos in an alleyway, Urgesson seemed completely uncowed.

"I don’t know why I thought to merely kill you before. Nobleman turned thief—I’m sure there’s a story there…." Urgesson chuckled deep in his throat, a sound with no glee or warmth. "But more: von dem Eberbach. A Major in NATO itself, and from the name, one of the old families too. What a find. I could own Eberbach! Own him!"

Dorian abruptly realized that both Perkins and Bonham were staring at him, not their captive. "Put him in the car; you two will have to find your own way back." He expected Bonham, at least, to complain, but neither said a word. They dragged Urgesson over to the Lamborghini and put him in the passenger side. He seemed to be taking the whole thing rather lightly. Bonham produced a key for the handcuffs. Dorian watched him unlock the cuff on Urgesson’s left wrist and close it on the inside door handle. Bonham flipped the key over to Dorian before saluting him casually.

"We’ll see Smith and meet you at home, me lord." Bonham’s accent was stronger than usual, but Dorian didn’t have the attention to wonder why. The world had taken on a strange cast: colors were brighter, sounds seemed muted, and he didn’t seem to be able to think about what he was going to do next. He just kept moving, and the next thing seemed obvious just before he needed to do it.

He got in the car, ignoring his passenger, rolling down his window to increase the road noise when Urgesson started to speak. He headed out of town, driving comfortably about fifteen klicks over the speed limit. Any less in a car like this just made the police curious. He didn’t know why he was going that way until he saw the sign.

He pulled off the autobahn at a river exit and parked next to the fishing pier access. The Lamborghini’s settling noises mingled with the river sounds as he got out of the car and walked around, yanking the passenger door open, spilling Urgesson out on the ground. He looked down at his hands. One held the key, the other his favorite knife, sharp and strong, the shaped steel as much art as any bauble he’d picked up over the years. He unlocked the cuff from the door, and held it out, knife in the other hand. "Give me your wrist," he said gently.

Urgesson, still on the ground, looked up at him, one arm pulled up by the cuffs. Dorian just stared down, calmly, breathing slowly. It was as if Urgesson was another character in a play. Rehearsals were over, the audience was waiting, and there were no surprises. They all just had to play out their parts. He waited, and felt no surprise when Urgesson lifted his other arm, offering it to the restraint.

Dorian pulled him up effortlessly, even now amused by the look of respect the other thief gave him. That his slim stature could hide muscles seemed surprising to so many. He pushed, hard, to get him going, but Urgesson didn’t move. The knife came up as if choreographed, pressing, so sharp the flesh parted for it. Emotionlessly, he smelled the tang of blood as it trickled down the back of Urgesson’s neck, and pushed him again with his free hand.

Urgesson’s attempt at savaté should have worked, but Dorian’s leg parried the first blow before he saw it coming, and quick as death itself, he had Urgesson choked with one hand, knife still in the other. He didn’t waste any breath threatening or conversing. "Walk. Just walk."

One-handed, he opened the locked gate, translating mindlessly the "Closed Dusk to Dawn" sign, and continued walking Urgesson down to the edge of the quiet dock.

Next thing he knew, he was standing alone on the on the end of the pier staring into the water. All of his muscles ached, and the acrid tang of blood filled his nostrils, the sticky heat of it everywhere; his knife dripped red, in need of cleaning. The steel was sweet and sharp, but fragile; it would rust in seconds. He tried to strop it against his leather glove to clean it, but the glove was soaked too. He could hear his father’s friend, Krieger, saying, "I’m not saying you should do it, just that someday you may be glad you know how," and stared at the blade, rubbing it harder against the bloody leather. He ripped off the gloves, passing them and the knife from hand to hand, then pitched the gloves one by one into the lake. His stained scarf revolted him, wet and viscous, clinging to his neck, and he took it off as well, still holding the knife, and threw it along after. Putting the knife between his teeth, he started frantically unbuttoning his shirt, disgusted at the sticky clinging of the thin silk, almost ripping it in his speed and then stopped. Stopped and swayed on the edge of the pier, looking down at the water sparkling in the moonlight. Stop it! You’ve killed a man. It’s done. A chasm seemed to have formed before him. All he would have to do was take a step into it, let himself fall, and it would be over; his sanity a distant memory. But beautiful and ugly, Dorian knew himself, knew that true insanity wasn’t an option. He knew he was just avoiding facing the truth. He’d just killed a man, and what was really ugly was that it hadn’t been that hard.

He wondered if this was what Klaus felt like when he killed. He hoped not. This was so far from the thrill that danger gave him; so far from the intensity of fire racing through his veins when he managed to acquire some piece of beauty destined to belong only to him. This had been ugly, and even now he was having trouble remembering exactly what had happened, knowing he really didn’t want to know.

He walked back to the car, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, fastidiously trying to avoid the drying blood. He went through the motions, wiping the knife clean, taking off his shirt and belt, and putting them all in the boot, trying to decide what to do next. He wanted to see Klaus, talk to him; he wanted to be alone and never see another living soul.

• • •

Klaus refused to yield to his ill health, marching up the hill of the parking garage at his normal speed and ignoring the hangover-induced greasy film of sweat. It was a price worth paying for thirty-six hours without memories, and now that he’d paid, he didn’t want to think about it. He swiped his ID card through the parking lot door, glad that during the weekend there was no human guard to face. The hallway was empty, blessedly so, and he unhunched his shoulders slightly on making it to his office without seeing a single soul. NATO looked unchanged: except for the files stacked on the desk, his office looked unchanged. Something should look different, he thought. There should be some visible effect of the end of the world.

Grimacing in disgust at this further sign of mental breakdown, he grabbed Urgesson’s file, and stomped down to the evidence room. Getting Urgesson illegally released would accomplish little unless the evidence against Urgesson was removed as well. He signed in at the door on reflex, started to cross his signature out, then wrote it back out again. Covering his tracks seemed both useless and honorless at this point. After a short search, he collected each plastic-bagged piece of evidence into a box and carefully signed out, listing each numbered bag and initialing KHvdE on every line.

Back at his desk, he checked the computer to see if Urgesson’s fingerprints had been uploaded yet. Nein. It had been three days since the arrest, and his fingers itched to write a blistering memo, but of course, their inefficiency made it easier to make sure the prints didn’t end up in the system. He’d get the originals from the pending file after he wrote his letter. Knowing he was putting it off, he pulled out his pen. This was it, the end of all he had worked for. The end of a life independent of his father’s. "I, Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach, do on this day…" he looked at his calendar. "…Sunday, 4 September, 1990, leave my post as lead investigator for NATO—Special Operations—Bonn," His pen was running dry, and he rummaged angrily in his desk for another suitable black or blue-black pen, "and resign my rank as Major in the NATO Special—" He heard a noise in the outer office, and gratefully put down the new pen.

"Z!" Klaus looked at his watch. "What are you doing here now?"

"I was called in." Z looked at him oddly, or was he just interpreting it that way? "B was supposed to continue Urgesson’s interrogation? At four p.m.?"

"Of course," Klaus said impatiently, waiting for the point.

"Urgesson has been released."

"Nonsense." Nothing could be that easy. "What do you mean, released?" He barely listened to Z’s admirably clear report, but grasped enough to realize that Urgesson really was no longer under NATO’s authority. At Z’s uncomfortable cough, he untangled his fingers from his hair. Klaus could hear Baum telling him to ‘tread carefully’ in the Urgesson investigation; he could hear Smith saying ‘everything is understood, hmm?’ Who was responsible for this? "Call in A, B, D and M immediately; call in any of the others if you need them." For a moment, he almost regretted losing G along with Wissman: say what you would about him, (and Klaus had said more than his share), G had been an unusually gifted interrogator, especially of young men. Thinking of Wissman reminded him of Baum. "Z," he waited until he had his full attention. "I’ll inform Baum regarding this case. Refer any questions directly to me."

Z gave him a searching glance before answering, "Of course, sir."

The last thing he wanted was to be alone. Even after Z called in other agents, there were plenty of empty desks in the main room, and nobody seemed to think anything strange of him working alongside them. He supposed they thought he was keeping closer than usual tabs on them considering the importance of their missing quarry.

He knew Z was wondering why he hadn’t put out an all points bulletin or Fahndung out on Urgesson, but Z was well enough trained not to ask; a blessing since he didn’t have the slightest idea what to say. Amongst the subdued sounds of the half-full office, he could hear Z’s voice lowering confidentially, and listened more closely. "…One was quite young… um hum… the other officer had a blond bowl-cut and a long dirty blond mustache? Yes, that’s very helpful."

"We’ll send someone over immediately to pick you up; we need you to look at mug shots…. It’s very important, sir. Yes, I understand things are understaffed down there on Sunday."

Blond bowl-cut! Bonham! Somehow, stupidly, he’d expected almost anything but that, almost anyone but Eroica. Damn him! The phone was in his hand before he’d thought about it, and he listened to the rings as though each one were an enemy trying to avoid him. Before whoever answered the phone could say more than ‘Hello’, Klaus yelled, "Lord Gloria, NOW!" He tried to amuse himself imagining Dorian’s minion running fearfully to his master, but the word minion had unfortunate connotations, suddenly.

"Klaus? He said a madman was on the phone, so of course, I assumed it was you." The words were right, but the tone was flat. Not that it sounded guilty, but he wasn’t sure guilt was an emotion Dorian was even capable of.

"Dorian, what have you done with Urgesson? And why did you concern yourself in this affair?" A long silence; not quite what he expected from the irrepressible Earl of Gloria. "Dorian, answer me!" The click of the receiver infuriated him.

He slammed the phone down, ignoring the stares of the his men. "Z, I’m going over and interrogate Eroica. Call me if there are any new developments in the case." He marched into his office for his jacket and saw the box of Urgesson’s evidence, and the half-finished resignation letter lying on his desk. He threw a file over the letter then paused. Lifting the file, he grabbed the letter and placed it in his drawer, then fumbled around looking for the never-used desk key. He could feel heat flooding his face as he locked the desk and pocketed the key. He felt humiliated, like ‘traitor’ was written on his face, but no one even looked up as he stormed through the main office and out into the hall.

• • •

"Bonham, go away." Dorian took the offered glass, but immediately set it on the end table with the three other unrequested, unlooked-for offerings: the Times, just a day old; his latest and therefore favorite acquisition, a beautiful (of course) snuff box; and a cup of tea, doubtless made just the way he liked it. "I appreciate the thought, but I just need to be alone." Bonham, though bearing no earthly resemblance to the bitch who’d borne him, looked motheringly at him, and suddenly Dorian couldn’t stand it. "Damnit! Leave me alone! Take Perkins and the others with you, and," he looked at his watch, "I don’t want to see anyone until after midnight."

He watched Bonham leave, vaguely guilty at the rebuking posture of his most faithful aide, but his need to be left alone was much stronger than his regret. He was still shaking from hearing Klaus’ voice on the telephone. With a curse, he picked up the glass and downed the wine in a single gulp, wishing his helpful angels had brought chartreuse instead.

He vaguely realized that someone was pounding on the door. He ignored it incuriously, until he heard a bellow, "Let me in or I will shoot out the lock."

Klaus. He yelled, "Go away!" but he was sure Klaus couldn’t hear him over the renewed pounding. The one force of nature Dorian couldn’t tame, the one source of strength he couldn’t figure out how to tap, the one love unfulfilled in a lifetime spent lucky in love. Of the long list of people Dorian didn’t want to see right now, Klaus was at the top. Too bad in his own way, Klaus was as unstoppable as Dorian himself. He sighed heavily and got up, grimacing as he passed the mirror by the door, but not stopping to fix a thing.

He opened the door without warning, and Klaus, overbalanced, almost fell on him. They clutched at each other awkwardly before jerking away, and Dorian realized he desperately wanted to be held, touched, told that he was loved despite what he’d done. Unfortunately, he probably had a better chance of becoming Pope than receiving that gift from Klaus. He realized he shouldn’t have ordered his staff away; being alone with Klaus now was probably a mistake, but he didn’t much care. He just clutched his misery to himself and walked back into the sitting room. Klaus was yelling at him, but the words didn’t seem to matter. The room seemed hot, and his throat was tight and dry. He poured himself a glass of water at the sideboard and waited until Klaus wound down.

Klaus followed him over to the sideboard and took the glass out of his hand, the other hand grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around. Dorian pulled back. "Klaus, don’t touch me. No one should touch me." Honesty didn’t flatter him, but he was far too wrung out to spin a tale right now.

"Eroica?" Klaus put down the wineglass and stared closely at him. "Dorian, get a hold of yourself!" Klaus abruptly turned and poured a glass of whiskey. "Drink this." Dorian flinched away, but Klaus grabbed his shoulder again and forced the liquid down him. "What’s wrong with you?" His words were harsh, but he was not ungentle as he pulled Dorian over to the sofa.

Dorian could feel his heart pounding. He grabbed the now cold cup of tea from the end table and managed to swallow some of it through the hard knot in his throat. "Do you think of yourself as a killer, Klaus? Do you like it? Are you glad your job includes killing people?" Klaus flinched, and didn’t answer. "I killed someone tonight, Klaus." He stood up, unwilling to be towered over as Klaus walked over and looked at him. "I’m not even sure why. For you? For me? It doesn’t matter. I didn’t have to, but I did. I’m a killer, Klaus."

"You? I don’t believe it." At another time, the look of dawning realization on Klaus’ face might have been funny. "Urgesson." Klaus grabbed his arms and started to shake him. "Why? How did you get involved with him?"

Dorian twisted in his grasp, making Klaus hurt him before he wrenched himself back out of Klaus’ reach, breathing hard. "You introduced us, of course." He reached into his blazer and pulled out Smith’s packet, still in its dark green envelope. "I believe you wanted this."

Klaus stared at him, at the envelope. He finally put his hand up, but made no further move. "What do you want for it?"

For a horrified instant, Dorian almost thought he was going to cry. It was insane to be alone with Klaus while he had no defenses, but it would be even worse to be alone. Why couldn’t Klaus trust him, just this once when he needed to be trusted so badly? Dorian’s throat tightened so he could barely speak, and he was afraid his lower lip was quivering as he said, "I want to stop thinking."

• • •

At first, Klaus just repeated over and over to himself, I have no choice. This is the price of my freedom. It was a cheaper price than Smith had put on it. If only it was a price he could survive paying. He didn’t really know what to do, but he knew what had worked on him. He pushed Dorian lightly back to the couch, and then knelt stiffly on the floor between his legs and reached for the for the clasp on Dorian’s slacks.

"Klaus?" Dorian looked shocked.

Klaus stopped, horrified, still kneeling between Dorian’s legs, flushed red, more embarrassed than he could ever remember. To offer this and be wrong… Dorian pulled him up off the floor, ignoring his discomfiture, and held him tightly. Dorian’s arousal pressed unmistakably against his leg, hardening noticeably. No, he hadn’t misunderstood. He forced his head up, and stared back as Dorian looked him in the eye, ignoring the evidence of his own growing arousal. This was one agreement he was going to live up to; he wasn’t completely faithless, damnit.

The embrace lasted long enough for Dorian’s body warmth to spread into him. It was surprisingly pleasant. Dorian looked sad. Klaus had no idea what to do or say, so he waited, still and almost calm. Now that he was committed, it was clear: just another task in a long life of hard tasks that tested his abilities and honor. Dorian sighed. "Klaus, let’s go upstairs."

Just what he didn’t want, delays, time to think about what he was getting into. But Dorian pulled his arm and headed to the ornate stairway, and he followed.

Afterwards, long afterwards, Klaus lay in the silken sheets under Dorian’s arm, listening to the even rhythm of Dorian’s breathing. The room was still and very quiet; the heavy curtains and thick carpet absorbed the little traffic noise of this secluded cul-de-sac. He should leave, but every time he moved even slightly, Dorian’s breath caught, and he seemed about to wake.

Klaus didn’t want Dorian to wake up. He didn’t want to talk to him, or worse, see himself reflected in those blue eyes. Dorian was a very unreliable mirror, revealing a Klaus that could do things like he had done tonight, and it wasn’t any easier that those eyes had been proved right.

Just as getting up didn’t seem like an option, he couldn’t imagine sleeping. And, although all the thoughts running madly through his brain were upsetting, remembering betraying himself with Dorian was minisculely easier than remembering almost betraying NATO, or being betrayed by NATO, or thinking about Johannes at all….

In the dark, Klaus felt Dorian jump as the phone rang. Dorian reached out a hand blindly and listened briefly before handing Klaus the phone.

Fumbling in the dark with the strangely shaped handset, it took him a moment to realize it was M talking to him. "Sir. It’s the police." His voice lowered. "They’ve found Urgesson."

"What? Found him?"

"Yes, sir. Dead, sir." M sounded like he was already deciding which of his clothes would be most useful in Alaska.

"Is Z there? Let me talk to him." A soft light flared on. Dorian blinked sleepily as Klaus waited for Z to pick up. Dorian’s hair was more mussed than Klaus had ever seen it, and his eyes were huge in the sudden light. Klaus looked away, trying to concentrate, but every wall seemed to have a mirror reflecting Dorian back at him. "So?"

"They’re still working on the forensic report, sir, but it looks like his throat was cut; killed almost instantly. No other clear signs of violence; it doesn’t look like someone was trying to wring secrets out him, rather more like they were simply trying to shut him up." Klaus wasn’t sure how late it was, but Z sounded very clear and alert still. "He was found thrown in the Rhine."

He padded over to his clothes and dug out his cigarettes, grateful for even so small a crutch. "I’ll have to call Baum."

"Major?" Z paused. "It was Baum that called us with the information."

He swallowed hard, and barked, "I’ll be in soon." Klaus hung up, still holding a cigarette, looking anywhere in the room but at Dorian. "I have to leave. They have found Urgesson’s body."

Dorian took a deep breath, his shuddering exhale loud in the quiet room. He got up and walked over to the wardrobe. "I’m sorry I don’t have an undershirt to loan you. Do you have time for a shower?" His voice was even but colorless as he acted the perfect host.

Dorian held clean socks and underwear out. Klaus stared at them. Wearing Dorian’s underclothes, wearing them into NATO…. Frowning at his dirty clothes on the floor, still not quite looking at the unselfconsciously-naked Dorian, Klaus grabbed them out of Dorian’s hands and started to dress. "No, I’m needed immediately."

"Can I get you something to eat?"

Dorian was still standing an arm’s length away. Klaus could almost feel Dorian’s body heat. He could smell him. He wanted away, now—from the room, from the situation, from Dorian. "No!" Klaus threw his clothes on, desperate to cover up from Dorian’s far-too-seeing eyes, only relaxing a bit when Dorian got back in bed.

Stupidly uneasy about to bending over, he bent and twisted to get his shoes on, unwilling to look and see if Dorian were laughing at him. Still buttoning his shirt, he left without a word, locking the street door behind him on his way out.

As he raced back across town in the empty three a.m. streets, he felt that his mind was clear for the first time in days. Things were making sense finally. Pieces were coming together. In his rare moments of work-related introspection, Klaus saw himself as separate from the adrenaline junkies he worked with. He was in it for the puzzle; Klaus thought of himself as a hunter who did his best work when the prey was dangerous, but it was the skill of the hunt he really lived for. He still didn’t know what was going on, but he was planning his attack patterns.

There were only a few cars in the NATO parking garage, and the building appeared empty till he approached his office. Z was keeping rein on the few staffers on duty. Klaus stomped directly through the main room into his office and bellowed for Z.

"Z, which of the newest alphabet members are here?"

"F, L and T, but they’re exhausted. I’ve been having them do the leg work."

Klaus winced at the mention of T, a political appointment even worse than most of his trainees, but growled, "Perfect," to Z’s obvious surprise. "Assign just L and T to the Urgesson investigation, and send everyone else but M home. Then you two, come with me.

Briefing M and Z was just as awkward as he’d anticipated it would be. It was late, they were tired, but they realized there were things he wasn’t telling them. He didn’t explain that some of it was even for their own sakes. If he didn’t bring Baum down, there was no reason to ruin their careers as well. As he expected, once briefed, they went to it with a will.

Hours later, Klaus sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes. The morning sun was shining, the main room was filling up as the rest of his men reported to work, Monday morning briefings were going on, the coffee trolley had just pulled through. But all the signs of returning normalcy were wasted on him. Klaus was exhausted, unshowered and growing angrier by the moment. He didn’t have a single fact to go on. Hints, suspicions, warnings, innuendo: no one willing to say anything right out, but the trail would have been clear to even a much less experienced hunter. He couldn’t prove it, but Baum had set him up.

He was surprised to realize that he really had trusted NATO. Trusted them to push him almost as ruthlessly as he pushed himself, to take his best work without a thank you, to use him to train incompetent political appointees and gung-ho children alike, to never promote him for his work, and to stick him under an undisciplined burnout case like Wissman, yes, all those. But he never thought they'd use him up like this. He'd thought he'd had trust burned out of him; what a strange way to realize he was wrong.

But he wasn’t going quietly. Urgesson, whom he’d despised, Smith whom, damnit, he’d both hated and feared; they were just decoys. The real prey was Baum.

• • •

Dorian lay in the big bed alone, unable to get back to sleep. He was still tired, still worried, still afraid of seeing Urgesson when he closed his eyes, but now he had a talisman against his fears: the clutchheld memory of Klaus staying with him last night.

He could smell the lingering scent of Klaus’ cigarette, feel his warmth on the sheet next to him, touch the come mingling with his own on his stomach. His skin was tingling—gently bruised and scratched—his cock, lax and sticky, yet another reminder of the night before.

Finally, Klaus…. He didn’t care what lies Klaus had had to tell himself to go through with it. Klaus had stayed with him last night, touched him and held him, and it had been wonderful: cautious, careful, but definitely passionate. No, he didn’t care what lies Klaus had told himself last night, but he was worried about the lies Klaus might be telling himself today: It had been  awful? No, even Klaus wouldn’t be able to say that with a straight face. It made me less of a man? Dorian was afraid that lie was all too likely. He looked at Klaus’ toy soldier standing on the bedside table. Upright and hard and proud, and now living in his house. He decided it was a good omen that Klaus hadn’t taken him back.

He couldn’t conceive that getting up early was likely to help anything, but he was too antsy to linger. In between a long bath and a late breakfast, Dorian rang NATO headquarters every half-hour, only to be told each time that Major Eberbach was not available. He was feeling a most uncharacteristic creeping dread, waiting for the shoe to drop. Bonham and the others were almost tip-toeing around him. He didn’t know quite what to say, but there was too much to do to indulge their fears, or his own. He finally called out, "Bonham. Collect the team, we need to talk."

He waited, fairly patiently, for everyone to gather, lightly swinging a leg from his chair, aping his usual nonchalance. "We were able to liberate Herr Urgesson from prison yesterday, thanks to some very good work from you all." Congratulatory murmurs. "Unfortunately, Urgesson was found deceased early this morning." He ignored the first moments of commotion, looking to see how Perkins took the news. Bonham at least had the sense to look surprised. "I never meant to put you all in this situation, and we all need to make sure we’re as covered as possible. First, anyone who thinks they can be positively identified needs to be sent back to England immediately." He knew he should be more worried; knew his men, despite their faith in him, were frightened, but he couldn’t concentrate on what to do next. At the least, there were going to be plenty of people happy that Urgesson was dead, and Klaus—

Oh God, he’d confessed to Klaus! He’d occasionally worried about the habit Klaus had become, but he’d never expected it to absolutely overcome his sense of self-preservation. He motioned to Bonham to take over the meeting, and went back to trying calling NATO again. This time he asked for Z instead of Major Eberbach.

"Good timing, I just got back." Z sounded tired, but not unhappy to hear from him.

"Back, from where?" Dorian had a skill for asking direct questions that sounded like the merest pleasantries.

"Seeing an ex-alphabet member. He was Z when I was first on the squad; now he’s a Colonel in Counter-Intelligence." Z’s voice suddenly hushed. "You are loyal to Major Eberbach." It wasn’t quite a question.

"You know that."

Z, calling from a NATO phone, talked in rambling generalities, but the message managed to come through clearly. Smith wasn’t the only one after Klaus, and Klaus had Z and M helping him investigate. "I will phone you again if I can."

Dorian put the phone down, thinking every moment he’d ever spent making nice with Klaus’ alphabet had just been paid back ten-fold. While he waited, he sat down with the files he’d originally copied at NATO, and Smith’s file on Klaus’ brother that Bonham had copied. He knew that he was missing something. He compared the two versions of Johannes’s involvement carefully, but they were roughly identical; with his forger’s background, he’d say they were almost certainly copied from the same source. He read the portions of his own file he’d copied; NATO knew more about him than he wished they did, though he was amused to see they gave him credit for a couple of jobs he hadn’t even done.

He read Klaus’ notations about him with especial care. "Erratic and unreliable to work with. Though clever with disguise, is incapable of being unobtrusive. Skilled with alarm systems and locks of all kinds. Dangerously unskilled with guns. Completely unsuited for work with NATO operations." The comments were dated six years ago. Did you ever change your mind, Klaus? He’d never understood exactly why Wissman kept assigning Klaus to work with him. Yes, they did have some very successful cases, and yes, Wissman seemed to hate Klaus even more than Klaus hated Dorian, but…. Well, Wissman was gone now, and he couldn’t imagine NATO having another chief that would use an outside contractor who just happened to be an internationally known criminal. Too bad; even at their worst, Klaus and he did work well together, whether Klaus would ever admit it or not.

He flipped through the files one page at a time. "Bonham?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Do we have anyone who reads Italian?" As Bonham stared questioningly, Dorian took a good look back. Bonham looked tired. Dorian abruptly realized that his aide was worried, might have been worried for days. Dorian had dragged his team, heedlessly as always, into his latest escapade, but this time it had included murder, and Bonham knew he was implicated. Worse, he knew that Bonham was probably more worried about Dorian than himself. Impulsively, he stood and put his arms around him. "I’m sorry, Bonham."

Bonham backed quickly out of his embrace, as he always did, but that was all right. He looked calmer now. Dorian’d long since come to terms with whatever fire within him that pulled other people to follow. He tried not do it intentionally, but no longer fought his nature, his role as a male siren dragging otherwise sensible people to, if not their deaths, certainly their dooms.

Fully knowing it was no way to get fast, accurate results, he leaned over Tibault’s shoulder the whole time he was translating the flimsy. Each word answered questions Z had put in his head. To think he’d thought of Klaus as paranoid.

The memo was from someone he didn’t know, explaining to Baum what to do re: the Urgesson situation. Baum apparently thought that Urgesson was too dangerous to be caught, but after the latest suicide attributed to him, the political pressure to do something had become too strong to ignore. Baum needed someone he could sacrifice and Klaus seemed perfect: respected but not liked, his well-known reputation for upright behavior made him a natural choice. Knowing Klaus’ family history was the cherry on top for Baum. Either Urgesson would get Klaus and Urgesson would go free, or Baum would get Klaus and Urgesson would go free.

Dorian couldn’t imagine how Klaus was going to react to this. Honor was such an issue for Klaus; that’s why Dorian had spent so much time over so many years proving that he was worthy of Klaus’ trust—at least in his own way. Dorian picked up the phone and rang NATO again, determined not to take no for an answer this time. "Give me Major Eberbach NOW!" He used the voice he’d had used on him so many times over the years, and the poor preprogrammed L snapped into action. It would have worked too, but Klaus was in another meeting. He quieted down and asked, quite nicely, if Z could speak to him, and when he turned out busy too, gave up and left a very careful message.

• • •

Dorian had spent the last five minutes driving himself crazy. For Klaus to ring and say he’d be right over, and not a word more, was so aggravatingly typical of the man. He had Bonham throw everybody out; he hoped his team was getting used to it; he hoped they’d have a reason, that Klaus would be over often.

As punctual as ever, Klaus parked at the kerb and walked up the drive. He knocked twice and waited.

Dorian let him in without a word, searching for a glimpse of the Klaus he’d seen the night before, the Klaus who’d touched him, held him. Dorian motioned him toward the sitting room.

"Z says you have information on the case I need to hear. Are you giving yourself up?" Klaus’s brusque manner might have fooled someone who knew him less well.

"Hardly."

In a dry tone Dorian hadn’t realized he was capable of, Klaus said, "You did confess to me, you know. I could take you in."

Stung, Dorian answered, "And I could mention what we did immediately afterward, when you could have been arresting me."

"So, I have traded one set of blackmailers for another?"

Dorian throat tightened so hard he couldn’t swallow. Klaus was determined that the best defense was a good offense and understanding this didn’t make living through it any less painful. "Damn you." His curse didn’t affect Klaus at all. "Don’t try to convince me that you thought I was trying to blackmail you last night. That is not why it happened." He moved closer, reminding Klaus that they were virtually the same height, and looked him right in the eyes. "Admit it, you son of a bitch."

Klaus took a step backwards. "Why did you get involved at all? How dare you?" Klaus said angrily.

I hope he’s ready to hear some truth, tonight. "Klaus, I could no more see you in so much pain and walk away, than…."

Klaus rolled his eyes disbelievingly.

"Listen to me, damn you! You know how hard it was for you to decide to betray NATO. It would have been that hard or harder for me to walk away from you in that much pain and do nothing about it. I don’t know how else to say that." His fingers started to cramp. He realized he had been holding his hands stiffly at his sides, resisting the urge to grab Klaus and make him, force him to listen. "Oh, what does it matter? You have the documents." He hadn’t expected gratitude, hadn’t wanted it, but this cold suspicion was harder to deal with than Klaus’ usual anger.

Klaus whirled around and caught him by the arm, twisting it behind him. "Did you kill him because he knew you as Eroica? Thief to the end—thief no matter who it hurts! Damn you!" Klaus shoved him and released his arm, driving him into the sofa back. "Smith wanted Urgesson freed, not killed." He pressed Dorian against the couch, almost spitting. "They must have copies you know; have I now changed one blackmailer for two?"

Dorian wasn’t going to beg. "Trust me or not, Klaus. I don’t care." He shoved his way past Klaus, and headed for the sideboard. Alcohol wasn’t likely to help the situation, but it didn’t look like anything could hurt it at this point.

"Of course you don’t care. Why should you—what do you have to lose?" Klaus, rather new to emotional scenes, certainly was carrying his own weight so far. "I’m sure Smith thinks he owns me now; he doesn’t even have to find someone to publish it. Eberbach is a respected old name in Germany. My father knows half of the high ranking officials in the administration; He knows men in the cabinet. Merely having this packet go around from hand to hand, being passed like the hot potato it is, would devastate him."

"Klaus, NATO already knows; they’ve known for years." Dorian had seen more new expressions on Klaus’ face in the last week and a half than in the last eight years, but this was a new one still. Not shock, not confusion, but some quantity of loss that Dorian hadn’t yet seen.

"They know?"

Oh my God, the look on Klaus’ face. "It’s in your file, Klaus. Baum knew when he assigned you to the case." He rushed to keep speaking, to say something, anything to fix what he’d broken. "I read it when I read Urgesson’s. I couldn’t be sure that you weren’t involving me intentionally. I mean, the museum job." Dorian was afraid he was stuttering. Klaus’ eyes had never seemed so blank. "And some other, I mean–sometimes you have a very oblique way of asking for help."

"I asked you nothing!"

"You ran out of NATO in front of me. Maybe you weren’t asking, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have expected my help." Dorian laughed bitterly. "Pulling a weapon would have been a more subtle way to get my attention." Klaus moved uneasily, discounting the words, keeping the distance between them. "Klaus, I watch everything you do, in the hope that it means something. When you look at me a second too long, I imagine that you care; when you stand a millimeter closer to me than usual, I pray it’s an avowal; when you say my name unnecessarily to get my attention, I hope it’s an invitation. What you were doing were pleas for help," more quietly, "or I prayed they were."

"I did not ask you, I was not asking you for help. I cannot…." Klaus, agitated, tried to light a cigarette and drink at the same time. "You’ve seen my file. You know the secret that I was willing to betray NATO to keep." Klaus stepped closer. "You know too much."

The last line was said with such an air of finality, Dorian immediately wondered if Klaus still had his gun on. Dorian’s thrill of fear exceeded even his comfort level, and he wondered just what, exactly, Klaus meant. But he didn’t back away. "I know even more than that. You wondered why you were assigned to the Urgesson case? I know about Baum setting you up."

"What don’t you know about me, damnit?"

Dorian put his hand on the wall behind Klaus as close as he could without actually touching him, and leaned in, invading his space as scrupulously as possible. "I don’t know how to make you mine." Klaus, backed against the wall, moved aside, but Dorian leaned over just enough to keep the same distance. "Listen to me, Klaus, you asked for it this time. I’ve never known whether you care and are not willing to admit it, or if you care and are attracted, and aren’t willing to admit either, or if I want to see caring from you so much that I have made it all up: interest, attraction, desire, any feeling for me at all. What don’t I know? Klaus, I sometimes think I don’t know anything about you." Dorian reached out to Klaus’ face and touched his jaw, holding it, waiting for a protest from Klaus that didn’t seem to be coming. "The first time, after the East Berlin, you said it didn’t happen. Friday night in your apartment, Saturday night in mine: Did it happen or not?" Klaus didn’t answer, didn’t move. As far as Dorian could tell, Klaus didn’t even breathe.

All he wanted was a hint that Klaus understood, that Klaus wanted him. A blink might have done it. Klaus stood there, motionless.

Dorian whirled around and grabbed the translation of the fax, suddenly furiously angry. "Here it is, proof that Baum has been setting you up, stolen directly from the horse’s mouth." He held it out to Klaus, who made no move to take it. "Still can’t trust me?" How could Klaus stand there and distrust him after all of this? Dorian want to hurt him. And he knew how. "Very well. Shall we assume the now-traditional payment? Tonight, say, ten p.m.?" He turned carelessly, but looked at Klaus out of the corner of his eye.

Klaus didn’t stir. Dorian counted to twenty, and then twenty again, before Klaus said quietly, "Yes, that is acceptable."

Dorian spun back, impossibly angrier than before, opened his mouth, and stopped before he said a word. Klaus didn’t look angry. Mind, he didn’t look happy, precisely, but for the first time in a week he didn’t look tense and withdrawn. In fact, as much as it was possible for a wire rope to look, Klaus looked relaxed. Relaxed?

Absently he fiddled with his collar, taking a second to think this through. Quid pro quo? Was that what Klaus needed; some sort of acceptable excuse? Have you changed from pretending you hated me, to pretending you’re hating having sex with me? Oh, Klaus.

Dorian turned back and caressed Klaus’ jaw again, undisturbed when Klaus eventually pulled away. I bet in no time at all, any sort of excuse will do. He wandered around the room tidying up a little, finished his drink, checked his hair in the mirror and grabbed his jacket and keys, teasing Klaus just a little. Finally he handed the fax over, and smiled as Klaus immediately started reading it, snapping back into action. He held his Lamborghini key out. "I’ll drive; you can read in the car."