The flimsy paper of the decoded message felt as heavy as a gravestone in Jake's hand. He stood in the cramped Geneva apartment — the nerve center of the Bolsheviks' newfound power — and felt his entire world tilt. He had been winning. He had played like a grandmaster, moving pieces no one else could even see. And now his opponent had flipped the board over and pressed a knife to his queen's throat.
He drew in a slow, steady breath and read the words aloud, his voice flat and mechanical.
"Fortress breached. Shaumian taken. Okhrana charge is murder. Victim Luka Mikeladze. Your protocol. They know. How do they know?"
Silence fell. Then, chaos.
"Murder?!" Zinoviev blurted out, his face draining of color. "They're manufacturing capital charges now! We'll all hang!"
Lenin didn't flinch. He erupted. His fist slammed against the table, rattling inkwells and scattering papers. "A rescue!" he thundered. "An immediate, armed rescue! We will not abandon our comrades to the Tsar's gallows. Koba, send word to Kamo — the combat wing is to storm the Tbilisi citadel and bring Shaumian out. At any cost!"
Zinoviev nodded nervously, feeding on Lenin's fury. "Yes! A show of strength! We must answer violence with violence!"
Their instinct was pure revolution — swift, emotional, righteous. It was also exactly what Stolypin wanted.
"No," Jake said.
The single word cut through the uproar like a blade. Lenin froze mid-motion. Zinoviev stared at him, wide-eyed.
"No?" Lenin repeated, his voice soft and dangerous. "We are to do nothing? Let a Central Committee member rot in prison under a false charge of murder?"
"It's a trap," Jake said quietly. His voice was calm, but his pulse thundered. His mind was running faster than his fear could keep up. "It's the most elegant trap I've ever seen."
He began to pace, slow, methodical. "Think, Vladimir Ilyich. Why murder? Not sedition — not conspiracy. A capital crime. And not just any victim — Luka Mikeladze. A name only a handful of us even know. Stolypin isn't guessing. He's playing us."
Lenin's anger faltered. He said nothing.
Jake pressed on. "He doesn't believe Shaumian is a murderer. He doesn't care about guilt or innocence. This is a move on the board. He's forcing our hand."
He held up a finger. "Door number one — we attack. Kamo's men storm the citadel, guns blazing. And what happens? The Okhrana is waiting. Stolypin turns the city into a slaughterhouse. We lose our best fighters, our safe houses, our structure. Even if we succeed, the newspapers will scream that Bolsheviks murdered police to free a criminal. Shaumian will be 'killed during the attempt,' and Stolypin will have his justification."
He raised a second finger. "Door number two — we do nothing. We send petitions, denounce the injustice, appeal to the conscience of Europe. And what happens? Shaumian hangs. We look weak. The rank and file lose faith. The Mensheviks gloat. The party fractures. Either way…" His voice fell to a whisper. "Stolypin wins."
Lenin's jaw tightened. The fury in his eyes dimmed into something colder — recognition. He saw the logic, hated it, but couldn't deny it.
Then his expression shifted again. Anger needed a target. "How did they know, Koba?" he demanded. "That report — that protocol — was known only to you. It came through your network. Through your channels. There's a leak. A traitor."
The accusation hung in the air like smoke.
Jake felt the blood drain from his face, but his mind didn't hesitate. He couldn't admit the truth — that the entire operation depended on Danilov, the double agent feeding lies to Stolypin. To reveal it would destroy him.
He met Lenin's stare without flinching. "The source of the leak doesn't matter right now," he said, voice controlled. "Could be a courier, a new cipher, even an informant inside the Okhrana office. We'll find it and close it. But right now, Shaumian is on trial for his life. Debating leaks won't save him."
It was a perfect deflection. And Lenin, though unconvinced, let it go — for now.
Jake could see it, though: a flicker of calculation behind Lenin's eyes. A seed of doubt, small but planted.
"I need to think," Jake said abruptly. "Alone."
He retreated to his room, closing the door softly behind him. Only then did the mask crack. The calm strategist vanished, replaced by the man underneath — sweating, shaking, barely holding himself together.
He had been outplayed. Stolypin hadn't just seen through the lie; he'd weaponized it. Jake leaned against the door, breathing hard. He couldn't attack. He couldn't stand still.
He needed another way — a third door.
His eyes swept the room. The answer didn't come from logic, but from something desperate, half-mad. In the corner sat a stack of old boxes, filled with records from the Caucasus — membership files, disciplinary notes, forgotten names. The paper ghosts of a hundred failed revolutionaries.
He tore one open and began rifling through the contents. Names. Faces. Notes. Men dead, missing, exiled. He flipped through them like a gambler looking for one last card.
Then he stopped.
A faded photograph, clipped to a brittle file. A thin man, late thirties. A face with hollow eyes, a weak chin, a resemblance that made Jake's pulse spike.
Name: Dolidze, Pyotr Mikhailovich.
Joined: 1902.
Expelled: 1905 — theft of funds, drunkenness, dereliction of duty.
Action taken by: Comrade Soso Jughashvili.
Status: Unknown. Believed to be living in Gorgasali district slums, Tbilisi.
Jake stared at the picture.
A forgotten name. A disgrace. A ghost.
And then the spark caught fire.
Pyotr Dolidze — a failure, a drunk, a man who no longer existed in any official record. A man he himself had erased.
He felt the shape of the plan forming, monstrous and precise. Not rescue. Not surrender. Something beyond either. Something that Stolypin, for all his brilliance, could never anticipate.
He wasn't going to open the cage.
He was going to make the cage disappear.
And to do it, he would have to perform an act of pure, surgical deceit — a resurrection.
He would bring Luka Mikeladze back from the dead.