The air in the new safe house—a disused grain silo that smelled of dust and mouse droppings—was thick with the gravity of Jake's proposal. The plan hung between them, a monstrous, intricate thing of terrible beauty. Kamo stood frozen, the phantom weight of Fikus's life in his hands. He was a man of violence, but this was different. This was not the hot-blooded chaos of a gunfight or the righteous fury of executing a proven enemy. This was cold. This was the calculated sacrifice of a pawn, a man they held prisoner, to win a larger game.
"Soso," Kamo began, his voice a low, troubled rumble. He shook his head, struggling to articulate the source of his unease. "To send a man to his death like this… to lead the wolves to his door… it is not honorable."
Jake looked at him, his expression unreadable, his eyes as hard and dark as river stones. All the fear, the hesitation, the Jake Vance that had once screamed inside him, was gone. In its place was an unnerving, absolute calm. He had crossed a threshold in the cemetery, and he had no intention of looking back.
"Honor is a luxury for men who are not at war," he said, his voice quiet but cutting. "They chose this path when they betrayed the revolution for silver. They chose this when they decided our lives, your life, my life, Kato's life, were worth less than a government paycheck. We are merely forcing them to walk their chosen path to its logical end."
He took a step closer to Kamo, his gaze intense. "Ask yourself this, my friend. Is your sentimentality for one lying, pathetic informant greater than your hatred for the men who are selling us all out to the hangman? One man's life to expose a cancer that will kill hundreds? Do the revolutionary arithmetic."
The phrase, revolutionary arithmetic, struck home. It was the cold, pragmatic language of their cause, the justification for every hard choice. Kamo's conflict was visible on his face—the warrior's code clashing with the revolutionary's brutal calculus. Finally, with a deep, shuddering sigh, the warrior lost. He gave a single, grim, reluctant nod. He was in.
With Kamo's allegiance secured, Jake's demeanor shifted. The quiet intensity transformed into a focused, terrifying competence. There was no more debate, no more persuasion. He was no longer a politician. He was a director. He strode to a large, dusty crate and began arranging pebbles and scraps of wood on its surface, laying out the geography of their deadly play.
"The leak must be perfect," he began, his voice crisp and authoritative. "Anonymous, untraceable, and believable. We will have a street urchin, one of the orphans from the rail-yard, deliver a note. He won't know who we are or what the note says. We will give him a kopek and he will disappear." He looked at Pyotr, who had joined them. "The note will be addressed to a known low-level contact in Yagoda's network—the cobbler we identified two days ago."
He paused, already thinking through the psychology of the message. "The wording must be precise. It will sound like a panicked plea. A Bolshevik, horrified that his comrades are holding an Okhrana agent, wants to trade the information for a small amount of cash and safe passage out of the city. It must sound greedy and cowardly. It must sound real."
He then turned his attention to the stage itself. "The ice house. We will leave Fikus there. He will be tied to the central pillar, but the ropes will be frayed, scored with a knife. A half-empty cup of water and a crust of bread will be on the floor, just out of his reach. We must create a scene. It must look like our security is lax, that we are amateurs, and that he has been trying to escape. They must feel confident when they go in. Arrogance makes men sloppy."
Next, he addressed the audience. He looked at Kamo. "You will choose the witnesses. Three men. Not the hot-heads like Levan. Not talkers. I want the quietest, most disciplined, most observant men you have. Men whose word will be believed because they are known for their silence."
Kamo nodded, already running names through his head.
"You and your three men will be positioned in the rafters of the empty warehouse opposite the ice house," Jake continued, his finger tracing a line in the dust on the crate. "You will have a clear view of the door. Your only job is to watch. You do not intervene. You do not make a sound. You do not fire a single shot, no matter what happens. Am I clear? You are not a firing squad. You are the memory of the party. Nothing more."
The chilling phrase hung in the air. The memory of the party. It elevated their ghoulish task from mere spying to a sacred revolutionary duty.
Finally, Jake laid out the last, most crucial piece. The alibi. He showed them how far ahead he was thinking, that he wasn't just planning the act, but the inevitable investigation that would follow.
"While this is happening," he said, looking from Kamo to Pyotr, "you and I, Kamo, will be somewhere else. Somewhere very public. The rail-yard workers are holding a cell meeting tonight to discuss the new strike actions. We will be there. We will speak. We will argue about union dues and pamphlet distribution. Two dozen people will see us. Two dozen people will swear that Soso and Kamo were with them all night. We will have an iron-clad alibi."
The sheer, cold-blooded brilliance of it was breathtaking. He had planned for everything: the bait, the stage, the audience, and the curtain call.
He looked at Kamo, his expression hardening. "There is one last thing. A detail."
"What is it?" Kamo asked.
"Fikus," Jake said, his voice dropping. "When his killers find him, he needs to look the part. He needs to look like a man who has been… questioned. Thoroughly."
The unspoken order was clear. Jake was not just asking Kamo to deliver a man to his death; he was ordering him to rough up their prisoner first, not for information, but for purely theatrical effect. To bruise him, to bloody him, to make the scene more convincing for the assassins who were coming to put a bullet in his head. It was a final, chilling detail that demonstrated a complete detachment from human sentiment. He was now considering every angle of the deception, no matter how cruel or depraved.
Kamo stared at him, his face a grim mask. There was no flicker of protest this time. He was no longer Jake's partner in planning. He was an instrument of Jake's will. He nodded slowly, the motion stiff.
"I'll see to it," he said.
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