Several months later, the Major found himself in Ankara. He was on a mission to intercept an agent that had defected to NATO and was handing over the location of several secret weapon storage facilities across Europe to a radical group headquartered in Syria. It was straightforward, but important, and he hadn't let the agent out of his sight over the past three days. 

He looked through his binoculars into the agent's hotel room across the street. It felt a little indecent, really, especially since the agent he was trailing was a woman. Well, it was her fault for not closing the curtains, anyway.

She was still in bed at this early hour, so while the Major watched, he let his mind wander without taking his eyes off her. And really, it was that thief's fault for having hair like a woman's anyway. What self-respecting man goes around with long, blond curls like an enemy agent, anyway?

His hair and his bloody irritating habits. He could hear the voice running through his head unbidden. "Ankara, one of the oldest cities in the world, has 3,500 years of history, and its location both on the silk road and generally on the borders of several important kingdoms in the past and present has made it a melting pot of both Eastern and Western culture. It has gone through several name changes and cultural masters over the millennia, and was called home by the Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Phyrgian, Byzantines, and Ottomans over the years. One might call it the capitol of Anatolia, though it has never had that name." And then he might prattle on about...  well... some art thing or other. The Roman temple, maybe. 

The Major had to admit the thief had proven himself trustworthy in the weeks that they had been meeting together, and he hadn't interfered with his missions one time since they began their regular appointments. While the Major couldn't divulge information about his missions, the thief would readily admit targets he had been planning, and the Major would let him know what cities to stay clear of in the near future. This had also saved the thief some trouble in at least one instance, when he would have been caught when a country had been locked down in the middle of a terrorist action.

And it was nice to have someone to talk to, the Major admitted to himself. He imagined the thief's laugh when he admitted the briefing for Ankara had been running through his head in the thief's voice.

The sound of a gun being cocked behind his head brought the Major out of his admittedly foppish reverie. Silently cursing the thief again, he put his hands up and slowly turned around to see two Turkish men behind him.

"Iron Klaus of NATO. A rare honor to meet a living legend like you."

The Major kept his expression blank, wandering what had happened to the agents he had stationed as the overnight watch in the hotel lobby. The two men regarded him for a minute, then continued.

"Right. You're coming with us, Major von dem Eberbach. You, search him before we leave."

The man who was not pointing a gun at the Major came over and began patting him down. The Major took his chance while the man was crouched at his legs, reached down, and threw the man into the one with the gun. A single shot was fired as the man went down. The Major had enough time to grab his magnum from the side table, clap on the silencer, and then fire two shots to disable the men and flee out the door of the room.

He was really going to lay into C and B when he saw them in the lobby. Lazy sods. They probably fell asleep again.

He turned and took a few running steps into the hallway, but then slowed and stopped when he saw a dozen men on either side of the door.

Well, the odds weren't in his favor. They probably wouldn't kill him though, so maybe it was a good idea to do some evening right now.

He managed to unload all four of his bullets into agents and took out two more in hand-to-hand combat before he was overpowered and knocked across the back of the head.

*****

When the Major came to, he found himself tied very tightly in a chair. A headache threatened to split his temples, and as his vision cleared, he found himself in a dimly lit basement room. Looking to either side, it seemed pretty large, but he had been set facing the wall, so he could not see behind him.

"Ah, the Major has come around. It looks like I won the betting pool, then. I told you he wouldn't be out for more than an hour after a knock like that. It takes more than 26 men to bring Iron Klaus down properly."

The Major found four sets of hands gripping his arms roughly as his chair was spun around. A large man, flanked by three armed men on either side, stood right in front of him, blocking his view into the rest of the room. He placed silent hopes on his agents stationed for outside surveillance. Perhaps they had seen him taken outside the hotel and would arrive with reinforcements. He decided to stall for time, though he wasn't sure what these men wanted with him. The thought of the agents stationed in the hotel lobby occurred to him again, and he thought asking might be the best way to open conversation.

"What happened to my agents?"

The man laughed. "The two in the lobby? We weren't successful in finding anyone else, though I'm sure there are others. We've got men still stationed at that hotel looking for disturbances. The two in the lobby, though... well, what happened to them, Mercury?"

The Major recognized the agent as the one that had come into his bedroom and cocked the gun behind his head. He'd shot the man through the thigh. He spared a glance at his leg, but couldn't see any visible signs of a wound through his pants. The man must be tough, not to have to walk with a crutch after taking a hit like that.

Mercury noticed the Major glance at his leg, and he smirked. "Well, I was a bit quieter about them than I was the Major, but they didn't fare any better because of it. Those men were too trusting. We told them we were Greek tourists and asked if they could point us in the direction of the airport. They came out into the street with us." Mercury gestured over to the left side of the room.

The Major was glad he had been sitting down. He could keep the look off his face, but he wasn't sure he could have kept the weakness of the shock out of his legs had he been standing. B and C had been shot execution-style through the head and were sitting propped against the wall, expressionless eyes and looks of shock permanently fixed on their faces. 

The Major's stomach rolled. They hadn't been spotted! Both he and the agents had kept an eye out for suspicious intelligence activity. Not even the Major had noticed any tails or plants at either of the hotels!

He turned his head from the men and looked back at the leader, fury on his face.  Fifteen years he'd been in charge of his unit, and hadn't lost a single man. Skill and luck had always been with them. The two men had been good agents, for as much as the Major had complained, and he trusted them with his life on a regular basis. They just couldn't be replaced. Not their lives or their place on his team.

He managed to keep his voice even. "So, you have me. Certainly you are one of the contacts for Sargeant Connor? She has your information. What could you want with either me or my men now that you have what you're looking for?"

The leader laughed again. "No, Sargeant Connor was never one of us. I'm glad to see our ruse worked so well. We had one of our men seduce her over the past year and ask for elopement recently. She, of course, rushed here to meet him, and it was easy to plant information in her absence to make her look like a double-agent taking a suspicious leave of absence and fleeing to Turkey. We were actually looking for the top Spymaster that NATO would send to collect a double-agent. We were hoping for one of three agents, but I have to admit, you were at the top of my list."

The Major kept his expression blank as he let the news sink in. So they had been set up. Well, that explains why everything had been so easy. If they were looking for him, though, they hadn't needed to kill B and C. He was relieved to hear that the rest of his men weren't in danger. He prayed for their safety in coming here all the harder.

"So. You have me here. Was there something you wanted to ask?" The Major smiled up at the man benevolently.

The man got angry and whipped the butt of his rifle against the Major's jaw, rattling the brains in his head. The Major spat blood and stared back with the same smile.

"Of course. We need the information that Seargeant Connor was supposedly bringing. Any resistance needs weapons, after all. And only a top agent would know the location of all the wonderful toys NATO must have stored all over Europe."

The Major stopped smiling and narrowed his eyes. "Oh, of course! Let me tell you right away! I am more than willing to arm a group of terrorists with the entire strength of the NATO military in exchange for my life! You lot had me pegged right."

This earned him a more vigorous pistol-whipping.

"Well, I suppose it was more than we could have hoped that the sight of your dead men would rattle Iron Klaus's pride enough to sing. And, quite frankly, I am more than sure torture won't work on you. So we did a little bit of research. We thought capturing your men would work, but after we killed these two, we couldn't find any more. I suppose I can admit that, since I've already said as much. We do have a bit of an insurance policy here today, though."

The man and his six guards stepped aside to reveal the rest of the room. The Major's blood ran cold when he saw Dorian Red Gloria, the Earl of Gloria hanging from the ceiling by his wrists, gagged and frightened. His hair was mussed and the red silk trousers he was wearing, his only item of apparel, seemed a little tattered, but he looked otherwise unharmed. The Earl groaned when the Major locked eyes with him.

The Major thought quickly, then yelled >"Blink once for yes and twice for no when I ask questions!"< He slurred several German curses before and after the sentence to cover himself.

The man smirked. "Well. I see I've gotten a bit more of a reaction to you than I did with your agents. Perhaps this will work quicker than I thought."

The Major turned and gave the man a cold smile. "Perhaps you have me confused with a homosexual. Why would you bring this civilian here to try and get information out of me?"

The Man laughed again. "The art thief Eroica is known to our organization, and is a known collaborator with Iron Klaus. He is far from a civilian."

Well, that hadn't worked. Something else then. "Well, then your organization will know that the art thief Eroica has been dogging my steps and ruining my missions for the past thirteen years. I would stop you if I could, but in all honesty, you would be doing me a favor. Perhaps torturing him will teach him to stay out of my way and stay in England where he won't get caught." The Major was furious. He cut a glare towards the thief, hoping the man caught the question in the statement.

Still frightened, the man locked his blue eyes with the Major's. And then blinked twice, very deliberately.

Well, then. The maniacs had pulled the Earl from England. Great. From bed, by the looks of it. He wondered what had happened to the Earl's men as he turned and looked at the leader, who was still smirking.

"Well, I have to give you a hand for your performance, Major, but I'm afraid I can catch you in the lie this time. You see, we've had reports of what you do on Saturdays in Rotterdam." The Major's stomach turned once again, but he kept his expression blank as the leader continued. "You can see how we might have mistaken you for a homosexual then, since you don't meet with anyone else regularly in secret in other out-of-the-way spots in random European cities."

The Major made no response. The leader smirked in triumph and gestured to his men.

Two of them approached the Earl with weapons. One held a length of rope in one hand, while the other held a handle with a short length of chain attached to it. There were worse tortures, and the Major noted silently that the Earl hadn't been hung with his hands bound behind his back, a mercy that meant his shoulders were still in their sockets. 

The Major locked eyes with the Earl. An understanding passed between them, and a look of resignation passed over the Earl's features. 

Major kept his face straight and maintained as much eye contact with the Earl as possible. The Earl performed admirably. The rope was looped around his torso and twisted so that the fibers rubbed against his bare skin. This was done during the pauses in the flogging, which started with his legs and worked up and down his body. The Earl groaned against his gag, but neither he nor the Major offered any words to the group, who remained silent throughout the affair.

After an eternity had passed, the Earl lost consciousness and the leader called a halt.

"Bah! Iron Klaus indeed! I thought it might not be this easy." He walked up to stand directly in front of the Major and bent down low into his face. "Well, yell if you feel like talking, but I think we'll leave the two of you down here for a few days and see if starvation does anything for you." The man smirked. "Let's see how desperate Iron Klaus can get."

The Major, without changing his expression, spat into the man's face. This earned him another crack across the head with the rifle, this blow landing beside his right eye. He could feel blood running down the side of his face as his eye teared and quickly swelled shut.

After staring at the Major for another minute, the leader turned and gestured for the six men. As an afterthought, he turned to the last in line at the guard and spoke.

"The Earl of Gloria is a vain creature, and most of the beating missed his face, so his pride is still intact. Let's fix that." He pulled a weapon the Major could not see from his belt and handed it to the man. "It appears Eroica hasn't been to a proper barber in awhile, see that he looks like a man when you are done with him." And with that, the leader left the room with his other five men.

As the Major watched, the agent cut off all of the unconscious Earl's blond curls. When he was finished, what was left curled tightly to the Earl's scalp, but luckily, the man hadn't drawn blood with the scissors on his head, face, or ears. Throwing a glance at the major, the agent smiled, walked over, and stood behind the Major. He proceeded to relieve the Major of his shoulder-length dark hair in the same way he had done the Earl, except he seemed to be going much closer to the scalp due to the lack of curls. The Major kept his head still, hoping the man would show restraint once again and not physically cut him with the scissors. A bite or head butt would be in order if that happened.

The Major was irked by the gall of this man, acting without orders to humiliate him without his leader present. He had always kept his hair long in order to infuriate his Chief. Well, he would die with a hairstyle that lazy sod would approve of, anyway.

But, for whatever reason, the agent once again showed restraint. He stood a safe distance in front of the Major, admiring his work, and then without another word, turned around and left the Major with the unconscious Earl, two piles of hair, and the dead bodies of B and C.

The Major sighed and hung his head. He had been with NATO for twenty-five years, and he'd never had a mission that went this badly. He had been tortured on several occasions in his youth, usually to make a CO talk, he had been starved and endured beatings and several bullet wounds and swims in lakes at subzero temperatures. But he'd never had to endure watching a civilian be tortured.

He swallowed. A civilian and a friend. He realized that perhaps keeping to himself had been a good idea. It kept the loonies away from other people. He glanced up at the thief and realized that he probably hadn't had a chance anyway, since he had tailed the Major relentlessly anyway.

He was surprised when he glanced up at the Earl and saw his eyes open. The two stared silently for a moment, and then the Major watched in amazement as the thief bent at the waist and began picking the knots at his wrists with his toes. After several minutes, the thief let his legs drop and the major saw he was holding on to the rope with his hands, then dropped down on the floor.

Though the drop was silent, his legs had given out on him and he had collapsed in a heap. His body was covered in horrible welts, his chest was a mess of bloody and alarmingly deep rope burns, and the Major wasn't so optimistic to think that he hadn't received a few broken bones. But his hands and feet had escaped the scourging, and it was lucky that the thieves had underestimated Eroica.

The Major didn't dare call attention to the room by speaking, waiting for the thief to collect himself on the floor. After several minutes, he reached up and fumbled with the gag, pulling it over his head and throwing it across the room. Audibly gasping, he crawled slowly across the floor to the Major and pulled himself behind the chair, where he slowly undid the knots that bound the Major's wrist and torso. The Major pulled his hands free, and silently bent down to untie his ankles, nearly passing out from dizziness as the pain in his head intensified from bending over. He waited patiently for his vision to clear, then quickly undid the knots on his chair.

He tried to stand, but found his legs were uncharacteristically weak and the floor rushed up to greet his face. He put his hand to the back of his head and face. The wound he'd received when he'd been knocked out at the hotel was still bleeding rather badly, which meant the Major had lost a lot of blood. The wounds on his face where he had been beaten had also bled, but the one at his temple was particularly worrying since blood flowed freely from it and he found he could not force his eye open. He pulled himself up in a sitting position and spun around to regard the Earl.

The man laid on the floor, still positioned behind the chair, silently looking at him with a blank expression. Without thinking, the Major pulled himself across the floor and pulled the man close to himself awkwardly. He put one arm under his shoulder, careful not to touch the rope burns on the Ear's back, and held the Earl's head from behind. With the other, he supported the man by gripping his upper arm. He pushed the thief's head onto his shoulder and turned to whisper in his ear.

>"I think they are serious about not coming back down. We can rest before escaping, if you need to."< As an afterthought, he glanced down at the watch he was still wearing. 11:00. It had been 07:00 when he had been surprised in his hotel room, and if he had been unconscious for an hour, that meant the thief had endured 3 hours of torture.

>"You survived three hours. I would not have been able to untie myself as you did even without the torture. You have saved both our lives."<

The Earl reached up and put his hand weakly to the Major's head, turning it and brushing his lips to the Major's ear. The Major colored slightly as the Earl whispered a response into his ear.

"I could do nothing less, seeing my beloved Siegfried with his weakness bared to the enemy."

>"If you are well enough to flirt, perhaps you are well enough to stand?"<

"Not just yet. Give me a few minutes, as long as you think they won't come back."

>"No, there are no cameras in this room, so if they intend to starve us, I'm sure they won't bother to check on us every ten minutes. Take all the time you need."<

The Earl wrapped his arm around the Major's shoulder and pulled himself into a proper sitting position, though still with his head against the Major's shoulder. They were silent for several minutes.

>"How long have they kept you hostage?"<

"I don't know. A long time, I think." The Earl answered weakly. "I went to bed... Monday, and they woke me up sometime during the night in my bedroom. They used chloroform and held me down. I woke up in this room."

Monday. He'd been down here for five days, then.

>"Have they fed you?"<

"No. What day is today?"

>"Saturday."<

"Oh." The Earl sat for a few minutes with his head on the Major's shoulder. "It was time for our meeting, anyway. I had to free my Siegfried so that we could meet this evening in..." he trailed off, tightening his grip on the Major's shoulder, "...in Rotterdam."

The Major sighed, growing a little alarmed. >"I need you to keep your wits. I won't be able to escape by myself. I seem to have lost blood and can't open one eye. Play Brunhilde a little longer."<

"Brunhild? Can't I at least be Kriemhild?" The Earl's other hand strayed up to run through what was left of the Major's hair, carefully avoiding the wound on the back of his head. "She was Siegfried's wife. A terror when angered."

The Major rubbed his hand through the Earl's short curls in response and tightened his grip on his shoulder. >"No.  Brunhild was a queen and a warrior who won fights against many man who underestimated her. She was only beaten in the end by Siegfried's tricks, but would have won against him and King Gunther in a fair fight."<

The Earl took a minute before responding. "The way some histories tell it, Brunhild also fell madly in love with Siegfried after she realized how cunning his trickery had been. After he was dishonorably defeated, she killed herself. Siegfried was Brunhild's true love, but he had already fallen for Kriemhild before they met and wouldn't look her way once. When given the chance, Siegfried can't help but make love to Brunhild even after being warned away, so there is evidence the attraction was mutual and perhaps something rather primal. Perhaps they were soul mates that met with unfortunate circumstances."

>"Idiot. Even after being beaten to a bloody pulp, you can still spout nonsense."<

The Earl laughed weakly in response, but said nothing. The Major continued, hoping to keep the Earl conscious.

>"You know, right before they broke in on me, I was thinking of you. The bloody mission briefing with the history of Ankara was running through my head in your voice, the way you praise any city you fancy."<

The Earl shifted slightly, and the Major could feel him wince against his shoulder.

"Ankara, one of the oldest cities in the world, has 3,500 years of history, and its location both on the silk road and generally on the borders of several important kingdoms in the past and present has made it a melting pot of both Eastern and Western culture. It has gone through several name changes and cultural masters over the millennia, and was called home by the Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Phyrgian, Byzantines, and Ottomans over the years. One might call it the capitol of Anatolia, though it has never had that name... something like that?"

The Major closed his eyes as he felt something tighten in his chest. He tightened his grip on the Earl unconsciously. "Yes, that's it exactly, you degenerate!" He had switched to English, and was a bit disappointed to hear his voice waver a bit. His throat closed off.

Silently, the Earl took his head from his shoulders and put a hand on either side of the Major's face. He pulled himself back far enough so that they were face to face. They locked eyes and sat in silence for a moment, and then the Earl leaned in and put his lips against the Major's.

The Major closed his one good eye and pulled the Earl closer to him. Even after not having a shave for five days, the man lacked a beard, and only had short stubble that rubbed against the Major's face. Their lips moved against each other for a few seconds, and then the Earl's mouth opened and the tongue began probing the Major's lips.

The Major opened his mouth to let the thief explore. The tongue had twisted around the Major's, and the Major had responded with his own tongue. The Major had been appalled at the thought of having someone else's saliva in his mouth, and was ashamed that the thought of the thief not brushing his teeth for five days sprang unbidden to his mind, but he found that the taste of Eroica was still not unpleasant. Even so, he couldn't bring himself to try and explore the thief's mouth with his own tongue.

His relief at the possibility of making it through the ordeal alive began to abate, and the inappropriateness of the situation began to set in. He closed his mouth and began to move away from the kiss slowly, breaking contact, and then taking one more thick, kiss before pulling himself farther away. He opened his eye and saw that the thief was staring at him with his blue eyes, his face completely unreadable. He looked away.

>"This isn't something we should do right now. We need to focus on getting out alive."<

The Earl favored him with a brilliant smile. Even without his halo of golden curls framing his face, the Earl still managed to look positively angelic. The Major was glad they had not damaged his face, since he feared what the thief'’s response would have been.

"Well, thank you for that. I feel like I'm up for anything now, really. Let's see about standing, shall we?"

The men broke their embrace and began working on getting themselves upright. Both had to use the chair. Once on his feet, the Major felt less dizzy, but was looking at the Earl in dismay. Mercifully, his legs didn't appear to be broken, but the wounds on his chest, combined with what was probably several broken ribs, were making it hard for the man to breathe and hold his arms in a comfortable spot around his body. He probably wasn't going to be able to run, and the Major hoped that a rib had not pierced any organs.

>"Do you think you can walk?"<

The Earl's look of pain was replaced with another smile. "Of course I can. I style myself a hero, and now I've got a hero by my side. I feel like we can do anything today, including escaping from a terrorist compound after being beaten to a bloody pulp."

The Major smirked. >"Good. I think I will need you to pick the lock on the door."< He patted himself down, but found he had nothing in his pockets or on his person, as expected. He looked around the room for any type of lockpicking tool. His eyes landed on the dead agents. Hating himself, he went over and searched C's pockets. Luckily, they had not bothered to search the dead agents, so the Major found not only the pocket knife that he knew C carried around, but the transmitter on B, carried by every odd agent in his force. He activated the transmitter and put it back in B's pocket, then walked back over to the Earl.

>"I set something off that calls the other agents. They may be here before we escape ourselves, if they didn't manage to tail me from the hotel. Can you use this to pick the lock on the door?"< He handed the pearl-handled knife over to the Earl.

"Yes, I think I can manage." The Earl said sadly, looking at the agents. "Oh, B. You were one of the fun ones. You'll break Bonham's heart like that. You too, Agent C." He turned to the Major. "I'm sorry that had to happen. I've never known you to lose a man. I can't imagine how devastated you must be."

>"Yes. They were... Their names. Their names were Frederich Ebert and Gustav Bauer. They aren't agents any more. You don't need to use their code names."< The Major's throat tightened again, but he didn't discuss the matter with the thief further. >"Let's just get out of here."<

He turned and looked at the chair, and grabbed it as the Earl began working at the lock from inside. He walked back over and whispered. >"Once you pick the lock, I'm going to kick the door in. They are probably not stupid enough to leave the room unguarded, so I'm going to use this chair and beat whoever I find out there senseless. They will have guns, so stay in here until I'm finished. I will take their guns. The men in here were armed with sub-machine guns, and if I find one out there, I will give it to you. They do not need to be aimed. Just don’t point it at me and you should have no trouble, even with your skill."< He smiled when the thief turned to give him a sour look. >"Then we will go from there. They will not be expecting us. Do you think you will be okay?"<

The Major heard the lock click as the Earl gave the knife a final twist. He turned to the Major and smiled. "Of course. We will make it, Major."

The Major smiled. >"Very well, Eroica. Remember, I can't see out of my right eye, so keep that in mind and watch that side closely."< The Major paused, regarding the short-haired Earl. "Good luck."He added in English.

The Earl looked at him in surprise, but before he could respond, the Major kicked the door in. He'd had all he could take today.

*****