The roses appeared on Major Eberbach’s desk just before lunchtime. Since the Major habitually lunched on a sandwich brought to him by whichever subordinate looked most useless at the moment, the brief interval during which he lifted his eyes from his current fact sheet and unwrapped the sliced-sausage-on-dark-bread-with-mustard-and-no-pickle delivered by Mr. N, should have been too short for any new problem to occur.

But it sufficed.

By the time Klaus Eberbach turned back to the statistics compiled (he didn’t like to think how) on black market goods in various Soviet satellite states, the damage was done. The flowers were there, and subordinates M, N, O and P had all seen them. All four of them looked disgustingly entertained at the sight. The Major quickly sharpened his glare to an outright scowl, which got them back to their desks and marginally more sober, but it didn’t change the fact of the flowers’ existence. It also couldn’t raise the competence level in the office at the moment: Mr. Z was off on a mission in Austria, with A and B. Even the fact that G had gone with them as well didn’t compensate for the loss.

Klaus looked at the flowers again. They were red. That was, a mixture of pink and red, with white frothy stuff around the edges of the bouquet. There was nothing else with them besides the vase: no card or other message. Even so, Klaus was in no doubt as to who would send him flowers, at headquarters, on St. Valentine’s day. It was a frivolous, wasteful gesture which had no place in a military intelligence office. It was, even for Eroica, extraordinarily stupid and sentimental. Particularly just now. St. Valentine’s day was so…obvious.

The Major singled out the nearest subordinate by eye and jerked his head. Mr. N obediently rose and reported to the Major’s desk. "Sir?"

"What," inquired Eberbach dangerously, "are these? How did they get here?"

"They’re roses, sir," said N, unhelpfully. "Reception sent them in."

Which meant that someone in Reception had slipped up to the extent of sending them without notifying the Major of their arrival. Klaus glared at the flowers. Reception was normally reliable as a screen. The flowers were, he hoped, no more than embarrassing. Reception was not part of his department and he could not discipline it directly for a joke which would have the sympathy—and amused knowledge—of everyone involved. Damn Eroica. Aloud, the Major said, "Take them away."

"Er, thanks," said N, and removed the offending vase with its dozen blossoms no further than the next desk, where he returned to his industrious cataloguing of NATO’s Baltic defences. The subordinate next to him looked up at the motion, shrugged, and likewise returned to his desk work. Smiling.

Klaus felt his stomach clench as he glared down at the pages of his report. Was he afraid of a bowl of flowers? It was a stupid, romantic trick, and entirely characteristic of Eroica, but what did he hope to accomplish? What could the damned thief get out of it? Was he hiding somewhere, snickering in the hallways of NATO, laughing even now at what everyone would assume his reasons were? The Earl loved to play up to people’s expectations and in the abstract Klaus could admit that it was a good trick, but this example surely took the matter too far.

The Chief poked his head out of his office just then, and the Major cringed in spirit. The busy white eyebrows went up when the Chief’s eyes reached N’s desk, but he made no other sign of noticing the unofficial decoration. When the office door closed again, without any indication of what the Chief had wanted, Eberbach very nearly allowed himself to relax. All he had to do was order N, or anyone, to take the damned flowers completely out of the room. That would be an end to it.

Before he could put this intention into words, one of the subordinates’ phones rang and was answered, and a moment later Mr. P rose and left the room, murmuring something about a summons to duty. The Major let that pass, still staring vaguely at N’s desk. It was several minutes later that the outer door opened again to re-admit Mr. P and another person. Who was, all too naturally, Eroica.

Klaus knew he should have anticipated this, but he smiled in real pleasure. Eroica couldn’t possibly have restrained himself from coming in person to crow over his silly coup, and now the interfering idiot could be shouted down in person, and his flowers sent away with him.

Eroica, a red rosebud in his lapel, advanced joyously upon the Major’s desk. "I happened to be in the neighborhood," Klaus had known that perfectly well, "so I dropped in for a chat." Someone among the subordinates gave a suspiciously hasty cough. Then someone else.

"You’ve had your joke," said Klaus coldly. "Everyone has been most amused at it, I’m sure. If you’re done now, please take them away and get out."

Eroica’s surprise lasted only a moment, as he spotted the flower vase on N’s desk. "Ah, you think I sent the roses." He smiled in artistic puzzlement. "Surely you know I’d have sent them to you, Major. But it’s sweet of you to care." His smile broadened. "I’m sure Mr. N has his share of admirers, too. You mustn’t be jealous."

Mr. N, subjected to Eroica’s relentless beaming smile, reddened, and when he caught the Major’s eye he hastily returned to his papers. The pretences he managed of concentration was almost convincing.

Eroica returned his attention to the Major, ignoring the rest of the grinning subordinates as if they didn’t exist. "Was there some problem? I just dropped in to ask…"

"I don’t appreciate being made to look foolish. I don’t like it. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

The golden hair floated as Eroica shook his head slowly. "I’ve never seen you look foolish, Major. I don’t think you could." Then he smiled with renewed brilliance into Eberbach’s mounting rage. "But I had an idea for the Chief, and I wanted to see what you thought of it."

"Are you going to bring him an armful of edelweiss?" asked the Major, still breathing fire. There was a muffled snicker from a back desk. And another.

Eroica stopped, looked around at the tittering pair of agents, the enraged Major, the innocent vase of flowers. "Oh. You do think I sent those. I’m sorry, Major, I truly didn’t. Edelweiss for the Chief? I’ll keep it in mind."

"If you didn’t send those damned, frivolous, red flowers, then who did?" demanded Klaus. "Are you satisfied, you decadent pervert?"

Insults had never had any effect on Eroica; the words had none now. "Dear me, I wish I had sent them, since you’re so worried about it. But I’d have—"

There was a minor commotion at the door, and both of them broke off the argument as agents Z, A, B and G came in all somewhat the worse for wear, G in a red frock whose tattered condition could not disguise its expensive origins. The Major wondered whose expense account it would appear on.

Eroica’s eyes widened happily. "I like the outfit, but where has the poor boy been?" he asked, in an undertone. "Does this happen often?"

"It’s none of your business. In fact," the Major said with relief, "You can’t stay here any longer. Mr. P!"

"Sir?"

"Escort the Earl of Gloria to the visitors’ lobby and see that he doesn’t return." He dropped the matter from his mind. "Z, I’ll hear your report as soon as…"

Eroica’s eyes went from G to the roses still on Mr. N’s desk, and back. There were roses in G’s hair to go with his ridiculously frilly outfit: pinkish-red roses very like the dozen the Major already knew too well. The Major fixed his least-preferred subordinate with an unfriendly glare.

Mr. G took in the glare, and Eroica’s interested gaze, and finally looked at N’s desk. His face lit with apprehension. "Weren’t those addressed to the Chief?"

Silence. Everyone in the room froze. Finally the Major said, "Do you mean to tell me you sent flowers—on St. Valentine’s day—to the Chief of Bonn NATO Intelligence, and expected them to arrive?"

G, for once, didn’t simper or quail. "Yes, sir. I did." He sent a flickering glance around the large room, taking in M, N, O and P. "May I ask why they have not been delivered?"

G must have known how that would be received, but (later) the Major had to credit his determination in asking it. The answer, however, could not be other than: "NO!" shouted Major Eberbach. "You may not ask anything! Until you get to Alaska!"

Motion and noise returned to the room as the subordinates gasped and babbled. G, still in the grip of whatever freak courage possessed him, walked over to the vase, picked it up, and carried it to the Chief’s door. As the young agent knocked, the Major caught a glimpse of Eroica in the act of blowing a kiss at G, and that annoyed him too.

The Major turned back to agent Z, who shrugged as if to say that nothing could be done about it. Perhaps, all in all, nothing could, but the Major would go on trying. "Eroica—"

The Earl’s smooth drawl interrupted him. "I can see you’re busy, Major, so I’ll be leaving now, but it’s been charming to see NATO at work. I’ll drop in some other day." The kiss he blew from the doorway was definitely aimed at Major Eberbach, and the subordinates all tittered again, except Z.

They fell silent abruptly as the door closed behind Eroica and the Major’s eyes pinned them, one by one, to an imaginary map of Alaska.

Z’s report of a certain diplomatic confusion on the Austro-Hungarian border, with the usual addenda from A and B, occupied the next half-hour, and in the process the Major’s rage calmed to no more than virulent annoyance. His mood had almost returned to normal when G reappeared from the Chief’s office in a perfectly ordinary pinstriped suit, a pink-red rose in his buttonhole. The Major surmised, from past experience and the quality of G’s expression, that orders superior to his would prevent any trips to Alaska for one favored young agent. His temper skyrocketed into incandescence again, and he glared through Z’s conclusion of the events in Austria. Eroica as he was, was one thing. Decadence and perversions in this office—in a fashion that circumvented the Major’s authority—were another.

The Major drew breath to blast Mr. G and his flowery excrescences into a cold hell when, once again, he was interrupted.

This time is was P and a large box. "Delivery for Major Eberbach. Urgent and confidential. Sign here, please. It’s been cleared by Reception."

The Major scribbled a curt "KHvdE" on Reception’s logsheet—at least someone was attending to duty now—and contemplated the package. It was plain white, oblong and guaranteed by the Reception department not to explode in the near future. He reached cautiously to open it.

The lid came off easily, revealing a mass of greenery and…the subordinates who were craning to see what the Major would do this time all giggled or exclaimed, alerting those who had opted to pretend interest in their desk work. The Major dropped the box, spilling two dozen…or perhaps it was three dozen…deep-red hothouse roses to the floor. A white card sailed from among the stems, but in the cascade of flowers it was impossible to decide whether it was specially scented: "From Eroica with love," it read in strong, flowing penmanship, with a hand-drawn heart under the words.

The room became silent as Klaus felt his face and neck heat like a furnace. He must, he supposed with impossible detachment, be nearly as red as the blossoms now scattered over his desk and the nearby floor in such profusion. The agents seemed to be holding their collective breath except for G, who simply stared: at the roses, at the Major, and then at the ceiling. His freshly-combed head shook slowly back and forth.

In the tense silence, the telephone bell jangled like an alarm, but nobody jumped. The Major picked it up. "Eberbach." Eroica’s voice drawled breathily into his ear. "Do you like them, darling? I couldn’t let your Chief upstage you like that. And I wrote the card myself." There was a soft chuckle. "I’m going home now. You know where to find me. Have a good afternoon." The line gave a click as he hung up.

The Major set his telephone mouthpiece back into the cradle. Face impassive, he found Mr. N with his eyes. "Put all these flowers back in the box, and leave it on my desk. I’ll deal with it later. G, have you anything to add to Mr. Z’s report, now that you’ve rejoined us?"

Oddly, he was not shouting. He didn’t know what was the matter with him.

Eroica had said he was going home. His own home, in London? No, that couldn’t be what he meant. He was here, in Bonn. Where Klaus’s home was.

Where Klaus was, every night.

The Major listened with careful attention as G began to speak. Frivolity had no place in a well-run office. Eroica, at home, was another matter.

Entirely.

END