The weight of Lenin's hand on Koba's shoulder felt less like praise and more like the locking of a final bolt.
The Dagger of the Party.
Jake felt the words settle in his mind like a brand. It wasn't a title—it was a sentence. He had sought power to save lives, and in return, he had been anointed as the revolution's executioner. The irony was so perfect, so brutal, that it almost made him laugh.
Trotsky was the first to leave. He paused at the door, his sharp eyes studying Koba as though trying to understand the creature he'd just met—a quiet, analytical predator wearing the skin of a man. Then he turned and left, carrying with him his new mission and the storm of manifestos already forming in his head.
When he was gone, the air shifted. The tension drained away, replaced by something colder—two pragmatists who no longer needed to pretend.
"He has the soul of a poet," Lenin said, watching the door close. "Useful, but dangerous. Poetry must be managed."
He looked back at Koba, the faintest glint of approval in his eyes. "You, on the other hand, have the soul of a quartermaster. You count the bullets. It's not romantic, but it wins wars."
For a moment, Jake felt something unexpected—hope. Lenin's approval was intoxicating, a drug that dulled the ache of guilt. Maybe, just maybe, there was room for a bargain.
"Comrade Chairman," Koba said, his tone steady. "There is the matter we discussed in Zurich. My comrade in St. Petersburg. Katerina Svanidze."
Lenin waved his hand, already moving back to the table. "Yes, yes. It's being handled." He picked up a folder, tapping it with a finger. "The Trubetskoy Bastion. Difficult, but not hopeless. We have a sympathizer in the Ministry of Justice—a junior clerk compiling transfer records. Slow work, but steady. The Party does not abandon its own. We'll find a way."
We'll find a way.
The words hit Jake harder than he expected. After months of loneliness and paranoia, the plural—we—felt like a lifeline. He had finally earned the Party's attention, Lenin's resources. Maybe his monstrous choices had bought something worth saving.
Then came the knock.
It wasn't cautious. It was frantic.
Yagoda burst in, sweating, his composure gone. A cream-colored envelope trembled in his hand.
"Comrade Chairman, Koba," he gasped. "This didn't come through any of our channels."
Lenin's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
"A man delivered it downstairs. German, I think. Professional. He asked for 'the man from the Caucasus who deals in timber.' Said it was personal."
The room turned to ice.
Jake knew before he touched the envelope who had sent it.
Thick paper. Expensive. His name—Koba—written in perfect, elegant script.
He broke the wax seal. The monogram pressed into it was simple and unmistakable: PS.
Pyotr Stolypin.
The message was typed, neat and clinical, the tone as polite as it was poisonous.
Koba,
I trust your timber negotiations in Vienna and Geneva were productive. A word of advice from one strategist to another: always protect your queen.
The nightingale from Tbilisi sings for me now. She is quite lonely.
You possess a certain ledger concerning Russian naval construction. An item of state property. The original and all copies are to be delivered to the Russian Embassy in Berlin within thirty days.
Failure to comply will result in a tragic decline in your friend's health.
I do so hate to see a pretty bird's wings clipped.
PS
Jake's vision tunneled. The words blurred, burned, branded themselves into his skull.
Always protect your queen.
The nightingale from Tbilisi sings for me now.
It was a message written not just to threaten—but to humiliate. Stolypin knew everything: Vienna, Geneva, the ledger, Kato. Every code word, every lie.
For one dizzying instant, the mask cracked. The panic roared up, wild and human. Jake's thoughts were pure noise. He had spent months weaving history's chessboard into his control, and Stolypin had walked in and overturned it with one move.
He forced himself to breathe. Forced Koba to the surface. The scream inside went back into its cage.
He handed the letter to Lenin.
The Chairman read it, his expression cold, his eyes calculating rather than sympathetic.
"So," Lenin murmured. "The Prime Minister joins the game himself." He tapped the page. "Clever. He doesn't want you—he wants the ledger. It's the one weapon that could destroy him. This is bait. He's trying to make you expose our network. To force you into the open."
He tossed the note aside.
"The woman," Lenin said, voice flat, "is an acceptable loss. You will not respond. You will not deliver the ledger. Her fate was sealed the moment she was captured. That is the price of revolution."
The words hit like a bullet.
This was the test. Lenin's first, and perhaps greatest. Was the Dagger sharp enough to cut through his own heart if ordered?
Inside, Jake was collapsing. Every fiber of him screamed to act, to fight, to save her. But Koba—the thing he had built to survive—remained utterly still.
He met Lenin's gaze. His voice was calm, his face unreadable.
"You're right, Comrade Chairman," he said softly. "From a strategic standpoint, the woman is lost."
The sentence tasted like poison.
Lenin nodded, satisfied. The Dagger was loyal. The machine worked.
But Koba wasn't finished.
He leaned forward, his eyes shadowed, the faintest flicker of something ancient and cold behind them. When he spoke again, his voice was almost a whisper—quiet enough to make Lenin's hand still on the table.
"But this," Koba said, "is no longer a strategic operation."
He paused.
"This is personal."