The Zurich apartment felt smaller than ever. The feverish activity of the past week had drained away, leaving only the dense, suffocating quiet of waiting. The air itself seemed to hum with tension. It wasn't peace. It was the pause before a verdict.
Lenin sat at his desk, methodically disassembling a Nagant revolver. Piece by piece. Cylinder. Barrel. Frame. Each motion was slow, deliberate, controlled. The smell of gun oil hung faintly in the room. It wasn't about the weapon—it was about control. The act gave him something to master in a world spinning out of his grasp.
Across from him, Trotsky sat in a worn armchair, staring at the map of Europe pinned to the wall. His eyes flicked over it like a man trying to read a code written by a madman. He was tracing Koba's path, trying to turn chaos into narrative. For Trotsky, everything had to make sense as a story. But this one—the story of the rogue Bolshevik in Berlin—refused to obey any logic.
The silence between them was thick, fragile, held together by shared dread. It was less truce than exhaustion.
Then Yagoda entered. Quiet, tense, his face pale from too many sleepless nights. He held a small slip of paper between two fingers. "Message from Berlin," he said. "From Comrade Stern."
Both men straightened. Lenin set down the revolver's frame. Trotsky leaned forward, eyes sharp again.
Yagoda read: "TARGETS SECURED. TWO MEN TAKEN FROM CAFE. METHOD EFFICIENT, BRUTAL. DESTINATION UNKNOWN, BUT NOT A KNOWN PARTY ASSET. PROCEEDING WITH CAUTION."
The words hung in the air like smoke. Short. Clinical. But both men filled the gaps instantly—with meaning, with fear, with theory.
Lenin was first to speak. A small, grim smile touched his lips. "Efficient. Brutal. Naturally." He picked up the revolver's barrel, sighting down it as if confirming a thought. "He's the perfect weapon. But look—'destination unknown.' That is the disease. A Dagger that strikes in the dark, with no master. It proves what I have been saying: we need a Commission. A structure of control. Our own internal intelligence—organized, disciplined, loyal to the Party alone."
He rose, his voice growing harder, faster. "This is not about punishing him—it is about evolution. We need a system that tracks our own agents as well as the enemy's. A permanent apparatus of oversight and discipline. Without it, the Revolution will devour itself."
Trotsky pushed himself up, half in disbelief, half in awe. "A leash?" he said. "You can't leash a storm, Vladimir Ilyich. You must ride it." He gestured toward the window, toward some imagined horizon. "Koba is not just a tool. He is a force. A hurricane tearing through the enemy's heart. The Okhrana, the Germans—they will never recover from this chaos. Our task is not to cage it. It is to harness the wind."
He opened his notebook, scribbling rapidly. "Do you see? While you build your cage, I will build the legend. The lone Bolshevik who struck at two empires and lived. Even his crimes can be turned into symbols. If he wins, he's a hero. If he dies, a martyr. Either way, the Party gains."
Lenin gave him a sharp look, but didn't argue. They weren't contradicting each other anymore. They were refining the same idea from two sides.
Lenin's mind built the cage—the future Cheka, born out of fear and logic.
Trotsky's mind forged the sword—the propaganda that would turn chaos into myth.
Two heads of the same new beast.
Yagoda watched silently from the doorway as the future of the Revolution took shape.
Finally, Lenin spoke again, quieter now, but with absolute conviction. "He's created a vacuum," he said. "And power hates a vacuum. We will fill it. But not blindly."
Trotsky nodded. "Stern must keep his distance. Observe. Nothing more. A wounded wolf is dangerous."
Lenin shook his head. "Observation is no longer enough. We must know. Who he works with. Who he serves. That knowledge will decide the next stage of the Revolution."
He turned to Yagoda, his tone sharpening to command. "Encode this message to Comrade Stern. Highest priority." He paused, choosing each word carefully.
"ABANDON CAUTION. YOUR LIFE IS SECONDARY TO THE MISSION. IDENTIFY HIS CONTACTS. AT ANY COST. THE PARTY MUST KNOW WHO NOW HOLDS THE LEASH OF OUR DAGGER."
Yagoda hesitated only a moment before nodding. The pen scratched quietly across the page.
The order was clear. The war between control and chaos had begun—not in Berlin, but here, in Zurich, with a single sentence.