Berlin Hauptbahnhof wasn't just a train station.
It was a cathedral of iron and steam.
The air vibrated with precision. Trains arrived and departed like clock hands snapping into place. Officials in dark uniforms moved with perfect rhythm. Every sound, every motion, spoke of a nation that believed in its destiny.
Five grim-faced "Austrian merchants" stepped down onto the platform and were swallowed by the ordered chaos.
At the far end waited their new contact. Unlike the smooth Herr Schmidt, this man was short and square-shouldered, with the blank, heavy face of a bureaucrat who lived for orders. A cog in the machine.
Before they followed him, Koba stopped. He turned to Yagoda—but spoke to the German.
He held out the sealed envelope, the one addressed to Le Temps in Paris.
"This is for our network," Koba said. His tone left no room for question.
Yagoda, once his handler, now listened like a student before a teacher.
"It must be sent through the most secure channel—preferably a diplomatic pouch—to our people in Paris. Inside are instructions. It stays sealed. If they don't receive a coded telegram from me within one month of my confirmed arrival in Zurich, they are to deliver it to its addressee. Is that clear?"
The Berlin contact took the envelope carefully, as though it might explode. "It will be done, Comrade," he said. The title landed like a small, final victory.
The bluff born in Warsaw was now real. Koba's dead-man's switch was armed. His silence had become its own insurance policy.
The overnight train from Berlin to Zurich felt different. The tension of flight had burned away. What replaced it was something heavier—anticipation.
Outside, the world was calm. Orderly villages and moonlit fields blurred past the windows. Inside, they sat in silence, four men riding a line of steel toward history.
Sometime after midnight, Pavel finally spoke.
"That letter," he said quietly. "About the coming war. You truly believe it? Millions fighting, dying?"
Koba turned from the window. His reflection in the glass looked older, sharper.
"It isn't belief," he said. "It's pressure. The empires of Europe are tectonic plates grinding against each other. Germany wants a place in the sun. Britain guards its seas. France wants revenge. Austria is cracking apart. The Tsar's empire rots from within."
He leaned forward, his voice low but certain.
"They need a war to release it. They'll bleed a generation dry trying to cure their sickness. Boys from Bavarian farms will die in France. Boys from Volga villages will die in Poland. It's a fever that's been building for decades—and it's about to break. Nothing can stop it."
The words settled over them like a prophecy.
For Pavel, it was the moment he stopped seeing Koba as a man. He was something else now—a prophet who could see the machinery of the world turning before it moved.
Zurich felt unreal.
After the gray sprawl of Russia and the rigid grandeur of Berlin, the Swiss city was pure calm. Clean streets. Clear blue water. Air that smelled of snow and money. It was neutrality turned into an art form—a laboratory where exiles and revolutionaries mixed ideas like chemists mixing poisons.
Their escort led them through narrow streets to a modest apartment on Spiegelgasse. Inside, the air smelled of old paper, tobacco, and strong tea. Newspapers in three languages were stacked to the ceiling. Books spilled from every shelf—Marx, Engels, Hegel, Darwin.
The Berlin man stopped at the door. "Make yourselves comfortable," he said. "The Chairman is finishing an article at the library. He'll arrive soon."
The door closed. Silence followed.
Ivan and Murat moved by instinct, checking their pistols. The quiet click of metal sounded wrong here, out of place among the books. Pavel stood by the window, his massive frame blotting the light, watching the empty street below.
Koba alone seemed untouched by the tension.
He walked to the table in the center of the room. Slowly, deliberately, he placed the leather-bound ledger on the wood. Beside it, he laid down his handwritten thesis—the one born from rage and grief on the train.
These were his weapons now. Not guns, not fear. Ideas.
He sat, back straight, hands resting on his knees, and waited.
The seconds stretched. The only sound was a faint clock ticking somewhere beyond the wall.
Then—footsteps. Fast, sharp, certain.
A key turned. The door opened.
The man who entered was shorter than they expected. Compact. Broad-shouldered. His suit was neat but worn, his goatee trimmed with care. His eyes—bright, intelligent, alive—moved like scalpels, slicing through the room, taking in every detail.
The armed men. The ledger. The man who waited beside it.
His gaze stopped on Koba. He gave a curt nod, both greeting and test.
"Comrade Koba, I presume."
His voice was quick and high, but carried iron. "I am Ulyanov. Yagoda's reports are… intriguing. You've brought me a crisis."
He glanced at the table, at the two documents lying side by side.
"Let's see," he said, a small, sharp smile flickering. "Perhaps it's also an opportunity."
Lenin had arrived.
And the game had begun.