The port city of Batumi was a world away from the dusty, conspiratorial confines of Tbilisi. Here, the air was thick and heavy with the smell of salt, tar, and foreign trade. It was a city of transients, of sailors and merchants, of secrets passed in a dozen different languages in the smoky dockside taverns. It was the perfect stage for a deal born of deception.
Jake did not go himself. His place was now in the center of the web, not on its fringes. To risk himself on a field operation of this nature would be a strategic blunder, the move of a common soldier, not a general. He was the commander now, a role he was settling into with an unnerving, natural ease. He directed from the rear.
His chosen instrument was Kamo. Before his most trusted and brutally effective operative departed, Jake spent a full day drilling him, not on tactics of violence, but on the delicate art of the con. "You are not Kamo, the Bolshevik bank robber, on this mission," Jake instructed, his voice low and intense. "You are 'Gigo,' a mid-level arms broker from Rostov with a stolen product to move. You are greedy, slightly nervous, and you trust no one. Your loyalty is only to the money."
He gave Kamo a meticulous, multi-layered plan, complete with contingencies, code phrases, and abort signals. He was not just sending a thug; he was deploying a carefully programmed weapon.
Kamo arrived in Batumi with two of his most disciplined men, all of them dressed in the rough, non-descript clothes of itinerant laborers. Their first task was to make contact with the cutout, a weaselly little smuggler named Mikheil, one of Danilov's former contacts whom Jake had chosen as the perfect, expendable middleman. Kamo, playing his role as 'Gigo,' offered Mikheil an outrageous percentage to broker a deal for a single crate of "high-quality European merchandise."
The meeting with Stolypin's man, the "sympathetic" customs officer, took place in a bleak, windswept warehouse at the edge of the port. The officer, a man named Sidorov, was not the simple, bribe-hungry bureaucrat they might have expected. He was sharp-eyed, his posture rigid, his questions polite but probing. He was a professional, playing his part just as Kamo was playing his. The air in the warehouse was thick with a quiet, tense battle of wits, two actors on a hidden stage, each trying to discern if the other was what he seemed. Kamo, channeling Jake's instructions, played the part of the nervous, greedy broker perfectly, his impatience to see the merchandise a convincing performance. Sidorov, for his part, was the picture of cautious officialdom, demanding assurances and protocols. The first test was passed.
The next step was the buyers. Mikheil, the cutout, arranged the meeting with the Armenian Dashnaks. They met in the cellar of a dingy boarding house, the air smelling of cheap wine and boiled cabbage. The Dashnaks were a trio of hard-faced men, their eyes filled with a deep, bottomless well of paranoia. Their leader, a man with a magnificent, drooping mustache and dead, black eyes, introduced himself as Armen.
"You have merchandise," Armen stated, his voice a low growl. "We have money. But we are not fools, broker. We know the Okhrana are everywhere. How do we know this is not a trap?"
Kamo, as 'Gigo,' gave a nervous laugh. "A trap? My friends, I am more afraid of a trap than you are. I am just the middleman. All I want is to make my profit and disappear."
Despite his performance, the Dashnaks were skittish. The deal felt too good, the merchandise too high-quality. Their instincts screamed that something was wrong. They demanded to inspect the goods first, a clear violation of the protocol Jake had laid out. The deal was on the verge of collapsing.
Kamo knew he had to improvise. A direct refusal would spook them entirely. He needed to make them feel that not doing the deal was the more dangerous option. He excused himself, citing the need to "speak with his associates." He met his own men in a back alley. A new, audacious plan, born of Jake's own brand of theatrical ruthlessness, was put into motion.
An hour later, as the Dashnaks were still debating, the sound of police whistles suddenly erupted from the street outside. Shouts and running footsteps echoed through the district. Kamo's two men, now dressed in ill-fitting police coats they had acquired, burst into a nearby warehouse known to be a low-level smuggling den, causing a tremendous commotion.
Kamo rushed back into the cellar, his face a mask of authentic panic. "The police! An Okhrana raid! They are sweeping the entire district!" he hissed. "They are not here for us, but they are everywhere! The deal is off! I am leaving!"
The Dashnaks were thrown into a panic. The staged raid, so close, so real, had shattered their caution.
"Wait!" Armen commanded, grabbing Kamo's arm. The fake raid had convinced him. The broker was legitimate, and the police presence meant this was their one and only chance to get the guns and escape the city before the net truly closed. Greed and desperation won out over paranoia. "We will do the deal. Now. Your terms."
The transaction took place in a frantic, hurried ten minutes in the back of a moving cart. The customs officer Sidorov, also spooked by the "raid," was eager to get the crate off his hands. The Dashnaks barely inspected the merchandise before handing over a heavy leather briefcase. The crate of Browning pistols was transferred. The deal was done.
Kamo and his men slipped away from Batumi in the pre-dawn mist, leaving behind a port city buzzing with rumors of a police raid, a mysterious arms deal, and a trio of heavily armed Armenians who had vanished as quickly as they appeared. They had successfully laundered the poison.
Kamo's return to Tbilisi was triumphant. He walked into the cellar headquarters, a conquering hero, and placed the heavy briefcase on the table before Jake. "As promised," he said, a wide grin splitting his face. "A gift from Pyotr Stolypin."
Jake opened the briefcase. Inside, nestled in neat rows, were stacks of gold rubles, a fortune that would fund the party's operations for a year. It was a staggering victory, a masterstroke of strategy and execution.
As Jake was admiring the fruits of his dangerous labor, Pyotr rushed into the cellar, his face flushed, an envelope in his hand. "Comrade Soso," he panted. "A priority courier just arrived. From the external network."
He handed Jake the envelope. It was thin, worn from a long journey, and bore the unfamiliar seal of the party's London exile group.
Jake's heart began to pound against his ribs, a sudden, frantic drumbeat that drowned out the sweet victory of the gold. The timing was impossible. It was too fast.
He looked from the briefcase full of Tsarist gold to the sealed letter. With Kamo and a stunned Pyotr looking on, he broke the wax seal and unfolded the single, thin sheet of paper inside. The answer to Stolypin's question, the key to the next move in the grand game, and perhaps the key to his own fate, was right here, in his hands.
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