The word struck like an axe blow—hard, clean, final.
Treason.
It hung in the freezing air of the flatcar, poisoning what had moments ago felt like triumph. The rhythmic click-clack of the wheels no longer sounded like progress. It was a dirge, the slow tolling of their own execution. The men stared at Koba—faces pale in the weak lantern light—as if he had summoned the hangman himself with a single word.
Murat was the first to speak. His laugh came out thin and broken. "Treason?" he whispered. "That's not a word for men like us. That's a word for dukes, for generals who lose wars." He took a step forward, his voice trembling. "You don't understand, planner. A thief is sent to prison. A revolutionary is tortured by the Okhrana, yes—but he still has a name, a file, a sentence. Treason?" He jabbed a finger toward the crates, toward the weight of their prize. "Treason is military. Treason means the Third Section. They don't arrest you. They erase you. Your family gets a telegram saying you died of cholera. You don't rot in prison—you vanish. You cease to exist."
The words hung heavy, choking the air.
Their theft was no longer a crime. It was a declaration of war on the Empire itself.
Murat's fear turned to panic. "We have to dump it," he said, voice rising. "All of it. The rifles, the timber—everything. We push it off the train and disappear into the forest. We go back to being ghosts. You can't fight the Tsar's army with four men and a stolen ledger!"
He was pleading for the old simplicity—for the safety of running, of surviving. For the comfort of fear.
Koba stood apart, the wind snapping at his coat. His men's voices blurred into background noise as Jake Vance screamed inside his mind.
Jake:He's right! This is too big. We've crossed a line we can't come back from. This is the military, Koba. We stole from the Tsar's fleet! We're dead men! We need to run, vanish, buy passage, anything!
Koba:Fear acknowledged. Irrelevant. The parameters have changed. The asset's value has increased exponentially. This is not catastrophe—it is opportunity.
Jake:Opportunity? We're standing on the tracks with a gun to our heads!
Koba:Then we learn to aim.
He turned back to his men. The lantern's light caught his eyes—cold, bright, unwavering. "You're thinking like thieves," he said softly. "You see this timber as a curse. You see this ledger as our death sentence. You are wrong."
He lifted the heavy book, its leather cover gleaming in the dim light. "This is not a death warrant. This is power."
The words cut through their panic like steel.
"This ledger," Koba continued, "records every shipment, every contract tied to the Tsar's new fleet. The Gangut-class battleships—his answer to Britain's Dreadnoughts and Germany's Kaisers."
The names meant nothing to them, but Koba's voice carried such certainty that they listened as if to scripture.
"Europe is arming itself for the next great war," he said. "Britain, Germany, France, Russia—they're all drowning in steel and debt to build these monsters. The Empire's survival depends on these ships. And this"—he slapped a hand against the crates—"this timber is their spine. Their decks. Their bones. Without it, construction stops. The fleet stops. Every day we hold this ledger is a day the Tsar's navy falls behind."
He paused, letting the truth take root. The air in the flatcar felt charged, alive.
"This is not a robbery," he said, his voice rising. "It's leverage."
He turned to the others, eyes blazing. "We were four men running for Kiev, chasing ghosts and small dreams. That's over. The world just gave us a new mission. We don't crawl to Vologda to beg from starving Bolsheviks. We go to Moscow."
The name hit like another thunderclap.
Murat blinked, dazed. "Moscow?"
Koba nodded once. "We don't trade rifles for forged papers. We trade the fate of the Imperial Navy for power."
Murat's voice cracked. "Power? With who?"
Koba smiled, slow and sharp, the expression of a man who could already see ten moves ahead. "With the men who think they understand revolution but have never held it in their hands. The Bolsheviks. The Moscow Committee. Lenin's dreamers, Trotsky's pamphleteers—they have words. We have leverage."
He held up the ledger again, as if offering them the future.
"We will walk into Moscow with this book—the keys to the Tsar's fleet—and we will not kneel. We will not ask for sanctuary. We will demand partnership. We will find the ones with ambition, the ones who understand what this means, and we will show them how to turn paper into power."
He looked from face to face, his voice lowering to a near whisper. "The Tsar builds ships to rule the seas. We will use them to rule the revolution."
No one spoke. Even the wheels seemed quieter, the rhythm of the train a heartbeat in the dark. Murat's terror had curdled into something else—something dangerously close to belief. Pavel watched his leader, seeing not madness but momentum, an unstoppable will that demanded to be followed.
Koba stood at the edge of the flatcar, the ledger in his hand, the cold wind snapping at his coat like a banner.
"Men die for crimes," he said softly. "But empires die for mistakes. And tonight…" His eyes turned toward the black horizon. "The Tsar made one."