The first sound was a splintering crack from below—the unmistakable crash of a boot breaking down a door.
Jake froze, the decoded message still in his hand. They are coming for you.
Kamo was already moving. No hesitation, no thought—just instinct. He crossed the room in two strides, the heavy click of his Nagant revolver echoing through the silence.
"The roof," he hissed, eyes sweeping the exits.
But the sound on the stairs wasn't a small search team. It was a flood.
Then—their own door exploded inward.
The world erupted.
Smoke. Shouting. Gunfire.
Okhrana agents in black coats stormed the room—fast, professional, efficient. Not the bumbling local police of Tbilisi. Stolypin's elite. They moved like a single organism, rifles and pistols gleaming in the lamplight.
For one heartbeat, Jake was paralyzed. The strategist was gone; the man remained. The chessboard had turned into chaos.
Kamo didn't freeze. This was his element.
He shoved Jake behind him and opened fire.
The Nagant roared. The first agent fell. The second ducked back through the smoke. Bullets tore through wood and plaster, the air thick with gunsmoke and screams.
Jake's body finally caught up with his mind. He drew the small Browning pistol at his belt—the one he'd practiced with, never used. His hands shook. His heart hammered.
He saw an agent raise a rifle at Kamo. Jake took aim.
Front sight. Rear sight. Squeeze.
The pistol cracked.
He missed. Completely.
The agent turned—eyes wide, more surprised than angry—and fired.
White-hot pain ripped through Jake's arm. The impact spun him around. He hit the wall, gasping. The Browning slipped from his grip. He was bleeding, useless, his brilliant mind reduced to a haze of panic and pain.
Kamo saw him fall. A sound ripped from his throat—not a word, just rage.
"Go!" he roared, shoving Jake toward the back window. "Now!"
He upended the table, sent it crashing into two advancing agents, kicked the burning stove, scattering coals. Then, with his revolver empty, he charged—headlong, unstoppable.
Jake stumbled through the back room, clutching his arm, the warmth of his blood slick on his fingers. He threw open the window and climbed out onto the fire escape. The cold night air hit him like a slap.
A heartbeat later, Kamo followed, a gash across his forehead, blood mixing with soot. "Up!" he barked. "Roof!"
They climbed. Below them, the street erupted with noise—carriages, boots, shouts.
Colonel Sazonov stepped out into the street, looking up. He spotted them instantly, two dark shapes outlined against the faint glow of the sky.
"There!" he shouted. "Fourth and fifth companies—seal the block! Snipers on the roofs! They are not to escape!" He paused, his voice hardening. "And I want them alive. The Prime Minister was clear—he wants the ghost alive!"
Jake and Kamo pulled themselves over the edge of the roof. The city stretched before them, wet slate and chimneys glistening under the dim light. Far away, the spires of the Winter Palace gleamed like mockery.
Jake's arm throbbed. The pain was dull now, distant, buried under the weight of realization.
His arrogance had destroyed them.
They were trapped—two fugitives on a rooftop in the heart of the empire, hunted by its best soldiers. The game of ideas, of strategy and control, was over.
This was survival now.
And the cage was closing.