The return to the wine cellar headquarters was a surreal, almost dreamlike experience. Kamo was practically vibrating with triumphant energy, his face split by a grin of pure, savage joy. "It worked, Soso! It worked!" he kept repeating, his voice a low, booming echo in the stone chamber. "They bought it completely! They think he is theirs!"
Danilov, trembling and pale, was half-dragged, half-supported into the room, his knees weak with a mixture of terror and relief. He had walked into the lion's den and emerged, impossibly, alive. He looked at Jake with an expression of terrified awe, as if staring at a mad god who had just rearranged the heavens for his own inscrutable purposes.
But Jake felt none of Kamo's elation. He barely registered Danilov's presence. As he bolted the heavy cellar door behind them, his mind was a million miles away, trapped in the cold, candle-lit darkness of the St. George Cathedral. He could see the face, illuminated for a single, stark second. The neat beard, the intelligent, unforgiving eyes.
Pyotr Stolypin.
The name was not a whisper; it was a physical weight pressing down on him, threatening to crush his ribs. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. His entire grand, audacious gambit, which had felt like a masterful act of control just an hour ago, now seemed like the foolish pride of a child who had successfully tugged on a tiger's tail.
He wasn't fighting the Tbilisi Okhrana anymore. He was not just tangling with a few corrupt police captains and their network of pathetic, greedy informants. He had, through his own desperate cleverness, kicked a hornet's nest the size of the Russian Empire. Stolypin was not a regional player. He was the state itself, in its most ruthless, efficient, and intelligent form. Jake knew from his history books that this was the man who had crushed the 1905 revolution with his infamous field courts-martial and "Stolypin's neckties"—the hangman's noose. He was not a man who made idle threats or engaged in petty provincial games. If a problem in Georgia had reached his desk, it meant the stakes were infinitely higher than Jake had ever imagined.
The sheer, terrifying scope of his new reality was almost paralyzing.
"Soso? Did you hear me?" Kamo's voice cut through his internal maelstrom. "What are our next orders? What do we have him send them next?"
Jake looked at Kamo's eager, triumphant face and felt a profound sense of isolation. How could he explain the true nature of the beast they had just provoked? How could he articulate that the man they had just deceived was not some faceless bureaucrat, but one of the chief architects of their future history? He couldn't. He was utterly, completely alone with this terrible knowledge.
He had to channel the fear, to transmute the terror into focus. He took a deep, steadying breath. "The game has changed," he said, his voice quiet but firm, immediately silencing Kamo's elation.
He turned his attention to Danilov, but his gaze was different now. Before, Danilov had been a liability to be managed, a problem to be solved. Now, Jake looked at this broken, trembling man and saw him for what he had become: a priceless, terrifying asset. A direct, open line of communication to one of the most powerful men in the world.
"The meeting is over," Jake said to Danilov, his voice cold and clinical. "The interrogation is not." He began to circle the man, his movements slow and deliberate. "Tell me everything again. Not just the words that were spoken. I want to know the exact tone of his voice. The way he stood. The questions he did not ask. The new codes he gave you. The new drop points. The new signals. Every single detail. We will sit here until I can see the meeting in my own mind."
For the next several hours, Jake meticulously, painstakingly debriefed his new double agent. He was no longer just a strategist; he was a spymaster, learning to handle his most precious and volatile weapon. He had to master every nuance of this new, high-stakes communication protocol.
As Danilov recounted the details, a new, chilling strategy began to form in Jake's mind. He could not afford to be passive. He couldn't just feed Stolypin a diet of low-level, useless information about party squabbles. A man like Stolypin would see through that in an instant. To be a believable, valuable asset, Danilov had to provide something real. Something of genuine value. A sacrifice.
Jake knew he had to give Stolypin a victory. A victory that he, Jake, could control. A victory that would solidify Danilov's position, earn him the trust of his new handler, and, most importantly, benefit the Bolsheviks in the long run, even if it meant a short-term loss.
He stopped his pacing and looked at Kamo. "The time for revolutionary unity is a lie we can no longer afford to tell ourselves."
Kamo frowned, confused. "What are you talking about?"
"The Mensheviks," Jake said, the name dropping into the cold air like a stone. "They are our rivals. They compete with us for the hearts of the workers. Their belief in a broad coalition, in a slower path to revolution, is a weakness. It is a poison that dilutes our purpose."
He was beginning to channel the cold, factional pragmatism he had read about in Lenin's own writings. The historical inevitability of the Bolshevik-Menshevik split was, for him, a present-day strategic opportunity.
"Stolypin needs a victory to justify the use of this new asset," Jake explained, his voice devoid of emotion. "We are going to give him one. Danilov's first official report as our double agent will contain a piece of high-value, entirely accurate intelligence."
He looked Kamo directly in the eye, his expression as hard as granite. "He is going to betray the location of the main Menshevik printing press."
Kamo stared at him, his mouth slightly agape. For a man like Kamo, the revolutionary world was divided into two camps: the revolutionaries and their enemies—the Tsar, the police, the factory owners. The idea of deliberately betraying another revolutionary faction, even a rival one, to the secret police was a profound, almost unthinkable violation of a sacred code.
"Soso… to feed our own to the wolves?" Kamo whispered, horrified. "They are misguided, but they are not the enemy."
"Anyone who is not with us is against us," Jake countered, the words cold and absolute. "The Mensheviks are a distraction. Their weakness puts us all at risk. By removing them from the board, we consolidate our own power. We become the only true voice of the revolution in this city. Stolypin gets a victory, Danilov becomes a trusted asset, and we emerge stronger. It is the only logical move."
He was no longer just fighting the Tsarists. He was now actively, ruthlessly purging his rivals from within the broader revolutionary movement itself, using the enemy as his scalpel. He was consolidating power, not just for the party, but for his faction within the party.
He looked from Kamo's shocked face to Danilov's terrified one. "This is the new war, Kamo," he said, his voice leaving no room for debate. "It is not just fought in the streets. It is fought in the shadows, with whispers and betrayals. And we will be better at it than they are."
He turned and began crafting the first official report of his new double agent, a cold-blooded act of calculated treason. He was no longer just speaking or acting like the historical Stalin. He was beginning to think like him.
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