…I think you know it. The Major knew very little, about subjects that interested Dorian. He could learn, of course. Dorian smiled. Given tutoring.

It should be a delightful project. But for the moment, Klaus was off at the Arts Hall. Yesterday, or the day before, he’d have spent hours crossing every t and dotting every i on the relevant and irrelevant paperwork. Today, would he merely turn the exquisite horse over to whomever it belonged with, to satisfy his duty’s conscience, and come directly back with mute pleading in his beautiful eyes? Klaus was so silent, so unable to ask in words for what he clearly wanted…

No, Klaus had plenty of spine and he’d walked out to let his back show Dorian what was important in NATO and what was what in the world of international politics. Dorian rolled his eyes and, given the least excuse, would have fluttered his wrists at anyone around, the Major for preference. Or his jolly, pragmatic and terribly hypocritical little Chief. Klaus would stay at the Arts Hall for hours, to finish the job and to show that he wasn’t under Dorian’s thumb.

Let him. He’d finish eventually. One hard lesson Dorian had learned from the world, and blithely expected the world to learn back from him, was patience. Infinite patience, leading to infinite possibilities… Klaus would return, mute pleading in his beautiful eyes, and Dorian had every intention of satisfying it in every possible particular.

Meanwhile, there was still his most pressing reason (after the Major’s presence) for being in Seoul: something to make Mr. James happy, and Bonham, and all the other people who’d been so full of commendable initiative last night. It would take time to get them back out of Manchuria and placate the Chinese authorities, and they deserved some reward for their troubles. Dorian had a lovely coup in mind, but he’d need information. A bit of information-gathering wasn’t stealing, was it? He could go discreetly and check his source and return in good time to meet Klaus.

The Major’s conscience might be something of a complication in the future, it seemed. Was it worth it?

Yes.

There it was, no help for it. Dorian was accustomed to letting his whims rule him. Klaus might turn out to be more ruling a whim than even Dorian had hoped. It might be…interesting, but surely there would be some leeway in the Major’s attitude. Dorian intended to see to that. Tonight was just some preliminary research, he assured himself. Nothing to bother the Major.

Besides, he was already dressed for it.

Eroica drove himself, with elan, out of Seoul and into the posh, hilly suburb that contained the private houses of wealthy Western visitors who were sometime residents of the city. Most ware in residence now, for the Games; most had excellent security.

He circumvented a gate alarm with a delicate bit of electrical fiddling, strolled casually and openly up an ornamental path in the balmy midnight air, and studied the house from a prudent distance. Bonham’s early report had been most specific. Eroica decided to gamble that it had been accurate as well—knowing Bonham, it was a very good gamble.

This was life: using his wits and skills against the so-called normal world, doing precisely as he pleased. No one and nothing could keep out Eroica. Certainly not the fifth ground-floor window from the left on the east side of the house here. It opened to his lock override code, and he climbed long-legged into the darkened study within.

He made sure the curtains would keep light in as well as out, and switched on his torch. The Ambassador had a taste for expensive women, and the Ambassador’s woman had a taste for expensive antiques. Very admirable, if only she didn’t lock them up so well. Her houses elsewhere boasted treasures unseen in Europe for centuries. If the new security system here was breachable, so were the others. He hoped. Now where would a businesslike person keep her security consultant’s papers?

The desk safe was easy to find, tricky to crack. Bonham usually did this sort of thing…there. It opened onto a stack of documents in back-curling script. Dorian peered at them in the torchlight. Turkish. Arabic. Ah, Italian. Dorian caught some politeness from a Cardinal, sniffed, and went on down the stack. Greek. The Ambassador’s woman had no lack of learning. Korean and English, yes, here was something with the chop of the newest high-tech private security firm in Seoul. He seized it. Photography was so useful. As were translators for both Korean and technical dialects. When the document was captured on film, he riffled through the remaining papers.

Almost, he ignored the European envelope, smeared with dirt but new and clean underneath it, on the narrow second shelf. The contents were in French, and very technical. Dorian read through it idly, and did not realize until the last page that it was an internal NATO Intelligence report. Signed by Klaus’s Chief.

It had no legitimate business in the Turkish Ambassador’s mistress’s desk safe.

Dorian worked it out in a flash. If NATO Intelligence had a leak, the Major’s work, as well as his Chief’s, might be compromised. Klaus might be in danger. He surely needed this report back.

It was an opportunity not to be passed up. Dorian picked a similar envelope from the first stack, left it in place of the NATO report, returned the other documents to order and began the tedious, exacting process of closing the safe up again without tripping any of its alarms.

He wondered if NATO even suspected it had a Turkish spy. Or any spy. There was danger at the Major’s back; his car swept down toward Seoul fast as a bird, open to the wind.

In spite of everything, Eroica laughed. This was life.

He drove directly to the Arts Hall, and set about bluffing his way to the security offices—not an easy thing in the middle of the night, even for such a well-known art lover and eccentric as the Earl of Gloria. He was prepared to break in if he had to, and it would have been a delightful technical challenge, but he decided it would be more amusing to challenge the human protectors of the Hall.

He convinced a watchman to consult the guard-captain, and the captain to call one of the nameless NATO agents the major terrorized so efficiently. Mr. D took a long look at the Earl, the unadorned black jumpsuit he wore, the cascading wind-swept curls, the paisley-wrapped package under his arm, and the request to see Major Eberbach immediately. Mr. D conducted him from the dingy guard office to a luxuriously sterile waiting room with a lock on the door. "Please wait here."

Dorian gave him five minutes. Mr. D had worked with the Major before, and would not fail to report Eroica’s presence.

In four minutes, Mr. D was back. "The Major is occupied with a current crisis. He will be in contact with you later."

"Tell him," said Dorian, using a deadly soft tone that occasionally worked wonders with his tailor and butler, "that I am here on NATO business to do with his Chief and nothing more."

Mr. D was visibly disconcerted by the difference between the bohemian appearance the Earl knew he presented, and the imperative voice. He hesitated, frowning.

"Give him that message, in those words," said Dorian, in the same voice.

Mr. D went.

This time it took only three minutes. The door jerked open, and into the dismally impersonal room stalked Iron Klaus in a towering rage. "All right, Eroica, you have my attention. What is it?"

It suddenly occurred to Dorian that his acquisition of the envelope was going to be hard to explain. No matter; this was more important for Klaus. "I found this in the Turkish Am—" The Major stared transfixed at the manila envelope now uncovered in Dorian’s hands.

"Where did you get that?" He did not reach for it. The open, exasperated rage was gone, replaced by something icy and infinitely more piercing. "Eroica, if you—" He was white, eyes hard.

"It was in the Turkish Ambassador’s mistress’s desk safe," said Dorian carefully. "At midnight, an hour ago."

The Major might have relaxed a fraction, but not much. "And you just happened across it at a garden party."

"If you like. I believe it’s been misplaced. It’s your department’s, so I brought it back to you."

Hard, hard eyes flicked over his face, taking in the disheveled mane of hair, the no-longer-pristine jumpsuit. There was a spark of something in the depths of those eyes, which was the only uncontrolled thing in the Major’s precise, puppetlike stance. "I suppose you’ve seen the contents."

Dorian shrugged. How else would he have known whose they were? Not that he had understood one word in three. It occurred to him, belatedly, that he could have photographed the document for his own curiosity. Looking at Klaus’s strained face, he decided it was better that he hadn’t.

The Major’s voice would have shattered tool steel. "Forget it. Anything about it. And put it back where it was, exactly. You weren’t detected in the theft?"

The last was nearly an afterthought; Eroica was not detected until Eroica chose to be. Dorian was glad to see Klaus still believed that much of him. "No. Of course not." He gave Eroica’s smile. Klaus didn’t react.

"Your gang…"

"My staff," said Dorian, "are still in Manchuria. I was alone." After you left me alone.

"Good." The Major went back to the Iron Klaus expression, which Dorian at least understood. "If you’re telling the truth."

"Yes."

The Major stared at him with dispassionate evaluation. Dorian wondered if truth meant the same thing to each of them.

"Put it back. Don’t get caught. If you are caught, steal something else, something flashy." He sagged infinitesimally. "You probably already have. I should send someone with you to observe. Shall I?"

"I’d work better alone," said Dorian, nettled.

"Just make it good, Eroica. Now get out. I’ll deal with you later." The inhumanly stiff puppet of a man stalked out, and Dorian was alone.

What had that been about? An envelope? A theft? Remembering the cold eyes, Dorian wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He abruptly felt sympathy for the terrified alphabet of Iron Klaus’s underlings. Alaska would be a relief, after those eyes.

Klaus would return, to "deal with you later." Dorian clung to that thought, as he drove through Seoul, to the dark house with the unlocked study window. All remained quiet as he replaced the envelope and reshuffled it all into its original order. He must remember to compliment Bonham on his information.

If Klaus was angry enough to break away from Dorian…because of a NATO secret… He’d just have to start over. Dorian considered how he might go about it, then reconsidered and chuckled aloud into Seoul’s predawn streets. He wouldn’t have to start over. There could be no going back for Klaus or himself.

And I think you know it, you beauty. I’ll make sure you do. After the night’s excitement the Palace of Seoul was clean and cool. Dorian’s penthouse suite breathed fresh warm scent of roses and jasmine; the second shift of Bonham’s staff must be at work, called to fill in for the absentees. Dorian admitted that the comforts of wealth and title could be welcome, in a restful way. Now and then.

He sent a car to wait for Major Eberbach at the Arts Hall, left orders to be notified the moment it returned—with or without the Major—and retired for what was left of the night.

The message came, with coffee and breakfast, at noon. Moments later the Major entered the suite, storming. Dorian took a look at him and smiled. Klaus was in an overwhelming rage—quite normal. The servants, trained well, fled. Dorian poured coffee into bone china and offered it to Klaus. "Yes," he said.

"You are insufferable, dishonest, childish, verrückt, entehrend, einfältig…" He began on an agglutinated term of contempt that Dorian thought included some references to a camel, and sputtered to a halt.

"I agree completely. You, too. Breakfast?"

"No!" He put the coffee cup back on the breakfast tray, untouched. "You have no idea what you were in the middle of, and I can only pray God you haven’t ruined everything my department has done for the past month." He favored Dorian with a searing glare. "Everything! Considering that you undid Arts Hall security while you were—you say—asleep, no wonder your efforts awake have threatened everything I could do!"

Dorian let his eyes open wide, which was only partly artistic. Klaus scathing was no novelty, but Klaus in this mood suggested apocalypse. A world well lost, Dorian thought dreamily, waiting for Klaus to run down, nodding agreeably at his invective. Klaus was here, and that told its own story. They would finish it presently.

The Major’s storm gathered momentum as he advanced on Dorian’s position step by emphatic step across the carpet. "…untrustworthy so-called informant disrupting my missions, confusing my subordinates, who have enough to do without your interference…" The one word Klaus had not hurled at him was "pervert." Dorian wondered if Klaus was even aware of the change of habit.

Dorian stood to meet him eye to eye, which caused a momentary falter in the flow of words. As the Major drew breath to continue, Dorian stepped to him, put both arms around him, and kissed him.

The Major froze for an instant. Dorian made sure the embrace could not be mistaken for anything chaste or merely friendly. The Major tensed. He was quite capable, Dorian knew, of disabling any amorous approach in a few violent seconds. Dorian continued the kiss. It was a gamble, a good gamble.

Klaus shivered and joined Dorian’s mouth with his own, all vehemence transformed into passion.

It was what Dorian had hoped and hungered for all this time. As he fitted their bodies more firmly together, silk dressing gown against tailored serge, Klaus’s arms tightened hard around him; but he was caught more certainly by the greedy, eager tongue pushing against his, the blind, shivering response of the body pressed against him.

It was not a surrender, not the dazed cooperation of the day before, but a feverish attack. Dorian loved it, accepting it all and wooing it to continue until the first frenzy could wear down. He wanted to get Klaus out of that uniform.

When Klaus finally let go of the kiss, he pulled back only far enough to open his eyes. He looked lost, eyes dark and face flushed; Dorian could imagine that unfamiliar pinkness over all of his skin, and freed a hand to begin undressing him.

The eyes closed and Klaus’s arms let Dorian go. His hands moved to help Dorian’s, shaking but never fumbling.

Dorian loosed an embroidered silk belt and let his own robe drift to the floor before he put both hands on Klaus’s bare chest, caressing. It felt good, better than he’d ever thought it would. Better than yesterday. Better than anything. No, better than anything except getting Klaus onto a real bed and into a horizontal clinch with lots of embellishments. Dorian wanted to decorate Klaus with a thousand kisses. He wrapped himself, naked, around a naked Klaus for the first one, and wasn’t surprised at the silent avalanche of response. When he was free to move again, he unwrapped one—only one—of Klaus’s arms to clasp him by the hand and lead him into the bedroom.

Despite his decorative intentions, the lovemaking was fast and furious. There was no time for a thousand kisses as they slithered and grappled together on the bed, Dorian rubbing body against body in sensual heat that rose as quickly in him as in Klaus’s desperate, ever-silent struggle between control and abandon. Abandon won.

He wasn’t sure Klaus even knew where he was or with whom, until the weight on him shifted and Klaus’s eyes suddenly stared into his for a fierce moment. Accusation? Hatred? Dorian wasn’t focusing on niceties just then, and sensed only a piercing moment of Klaus’s attention: thoroughly self-aware attention.

It was more answer than he had expected. He moved his head, caught the other mouth with a brief kiss, and returned to the all-absorbing drive of groin against groin. Klaus’s eyes glazed over again, his body’s call more imperative than anything else for the moments before climax. Thought left behind, Dorian clung to him from beneath, matching and directing his thrusts. He remembered not to use words, though he could not stop himself from crying out as body and mind were released from the building pressure at last.

They were still welded stickily together when, moments later, Klaus opened his eyes again. Under the brilliant, wide-pupilled glare, Dorian raised a hand and stroked through the silky dark hair, and saw the eyes go vague, almost soft, at the renewed caress. Finally they closed, and Klaus relaxed a last iota into sleep, head pillowed neatly and heavily on Dorian’s chest.

Dorian lay content under the strong, beautiful body of his lover, but the relaxation was very brief. Before Klaus even became too heavy for comfort, he was awake, pushing himself off Dorian with a grimace of fastidiousness.

He retreated only far enough to lie beside Dorian instead of on him. Dorian stretched, brushed curls out of his eyes, and turned to lie watching as Klaus stared at the ceiling for some time, silent but not forbidding. Klaus needed time, Dorian thought, to return to himself. The wild man struggling with passion in his arms had been immensely arousing, real and necessary, but Klaus could not—would not—be that at any other time. Not even now, while they were alone and perhaps only waiting for desire to rise again.

Klaus sat up and looked at the nightstand. Dorian passed him the cigarettes he’d asked to have put here: Klaus’s brand, not the Earl’s. It was no use to hide something like this from servants, so one might as well make use of them.

Klaus nodded, eyebrows rising momentarily, and accepted the pack. He chain-smoked silently while Dorian watched him in a pleasant haze. Finally he looked around, stubbed out the latest smoked-down butt, and sighed. "I suppose it never occurred to you that NATO knows exactly where its information is at any time, Eroica?"

Klaus was back, all right. Dorian shrugged. "It was an unusual placement, you must admit. Mistakes can happen."

"Yeah." The syllable was not conciliatory.

"I didn’t want them happening to you, if I could help it."

"So you brought the packet back to me."

"Well, naturally." Dorian was mystified at the other’s irritation.

"It didn’t occur to you to ask the Chief where it belonged, did it?"

"No," said Dorian, still mystified. "It had—"

"Don’t tell me anything about it!"

"Why n—" Light struck. "Oh." Dorian thought for a moment, then reached for one of Klaus’s cigarettes. The overstrong rush of nicotine suddenly suited his mood.

"Just forget everything you read."

"That won’t be difficult."

"Good."

Klaus was watching him, now, as he held the uncomfortably harsh cigarette and let it burn down, slowly. Pale smoke twisted upward in the window’s blind-softened noon sunlight. Finally Klaus said, "Dorian, you don’t know how dangerous this all is. Your escapades are child’s play in comparison, not even worth stopping."

"Interpol doesn’t think so."

"Interpol is children’s play too."

Dorian flashed a smile. "I could easily agree with you there."

"You won’t give up being Eroica, will you? Not for anything?"

"Eroica is what I am, you know. I can choose what I do, not what I am."

"I suppose not." Klaus’s eyes on the cigarette reminded Dorian to hold it over the ashtray nestled in the bedding. "You’re too honest."

Dorian put the cigarette down completely; it went out. "What?" He moved the ashtray back to the nightstand to give himself time. "There’s no need to be insulting."

"I could think of some good reasons," Klaus’s grin took in the bedroom and Eroica, and was not at all reassuring.

"You’ve never thought I was…trustworthy. The opposite, to hear you."

"I didn’t say trustworthy. You make up your own truth, and you don’t believe anyone will step outside it. What if someone doesn’t play your game? What if someone betrays you?"

"Is it likely?"

"You never considered, did you, that I might have given the Turks that packet on my own, for instance?"

Dorian stared at him, flipping mentally through the ugly set of speculations Klaus had given him, then said calmly, "No, I didn’t. I don’t."

"You should have thought of it. You wondered, didn’t you, if someone else might not have done the same thing?"

"Someone else, yes. Your Chief, even. Not you."

"Not him. And why not me?"

"Because I know you. Very well."

Klaus colored faintly. "Don’t remind me."

"I will when I want—but I knew you that well a year ago."

"How do you mean, then?"

"I’ve seen you at work: duty and nothing else. Ever." Dorian added, "You worked with me when you had to."

"Only when I had to. What has that to do with the case?"

"You didn’t like me then. You believed I’d rape you at the first opportunity."

Klaus was pinker than before. "Not after…not for long."

"No, it took a very long time. Longer than anything else I’ve ever done."

"Oh?" Klaus abruptly fell silent.

"I had to catch you off duty." Klaus losing his words was a good sign. Dorian moved closer and murmured, "It should take a very long time. Very, very long…" and he finished with the first of a thousand kisses. Klaus had a lot to learn.

END