The two weeks that followed were a descent into a strange, hermetic world of intense psychological pressure. The wine cellar was sealed to all but Jake's innermost circle. The world outside, with its revolutionary debates and Tsarist patrols, faded into a distant abstraction. The only reality was the mission: the programming of their human machine, Danilov.
Jake's days became a grueling, monotonous cycle. He would spend ten, sometimes twelve hours a day with the former assassin, not in the role of a handler, but as a director, a scriptwriter, and a relentless psychological coach. The sessions were held in the small, windowless room, the air growing thick and stale, the only light from a single, steady lantern that seemed to burn away the very concept of night and day.
He began by creating the "bible," a thick ledger filled with his own cramped handwriting. It was a complete, two-month chronicle of a fictional future. He fabricated an entire narrative arc for the Tbilisi Bolsheviks. There were detailed accounts of ideological disputes, with carefully constructed arguments attributed to different members of the Central Committee. He invented new recruits, new safe houses, and new, minor operations—a successful pamphlet run in a factory, a failed attempt to infiltrate a police barracks. Each event was given a date, a list of participants, and a plausible outcome. It was a work of immense, paranoid fiction.
"This is your life for the next two months," Jake told Danilov, pushing the heavy ledger across the table. "You will memorize it. You will not just read it; you will absorb it. When Stolypin asks you a question, the answer must come to you not as a line from a script, but as a memory of an event you truly believe happened."
He drilled the man relentlessly. He would wake him in the middle of the night, shining the lantern in his face, and snap questions at him. "Week three. The dispute over the Batumi funds. What was Luka's position?"
"He… he argued for sending more to the miners…" Danilov would stammer, his mind clouded with sleep.
"Incorrect!" Jake would bark. "Luka argued the funds should be held in reserve! You are not paying attention, Danilov! Do you think Stolypin will be so forgiving?"
He created complex conversational trees, flowcharts of deception that he forced Danilov to learn. "If your handler asks about Shaumian's faction, you will report that they are gaining influence with the intellectuals. If he then asks for names, you will give him these three. No more. If he asks about our weapons, you will tell him a quarter of the Mausers were faulty and had to be discarded. You will always, always under-report our strength."
It was a slow, agonizing process of breaking down a man's reality and replacing it with a new, artificial one.
To test the system, to see if the puppet could truly dance on its own, Jake decided on a dress rehearsal. He had Danilov send his first pre-written report to Stolypin. It was a detailed, and entirely fabricated, account of a bitter ideological dispute that had supposedly erupted between Jake ("Soso") and Shaumian over the use of the funds acquired from the Batumi arms deal. Soso argues for immediate, aggressive action, the report stated. Shaumian counsels caution, urging that the funds be used for propaganda and network-building. The committee is split. Soso's violent tendencies are beginning to alienate the more moderate members.
It was a perfect piece of disinformation, feeding Stolypin's desired narrative of a fractured, unstable Bolshevik leadership. The message was sent. Then, they waited.
The reply came two days later. It was a testament to the brilliant, insidious mind they were up against. Stolypin did not question the report. He did not ask for more details. He saw an opportunity not just to observe, but to interfere. To pour oil on the fire Jake had invented.
The decoded message read: "Your report on the Shaumian dispute is noted. An excellent opportunity to widen the cracks. As a sign of goodwill to the 'pragmatic' faction, we are authorizing you to make a small donation of our funds to Comrade Kamo's men. Five hundred rubles. Tell them it is a gift from an anonymous sympathizer who admires their… decisiveness. Let us know how Soso reacts to his rival, Shaumian, being proven right about the need for funds, and how he reacts to his chief lieutenant being funded by an outside source."
Jake stared at the message, a chill running down his spine. This was a move of genius. Stolypin wasn't just playing chess; he was reaching onto Jake's side of the board and moving his pieces for him. He was trying to create a real schism by funding one part of Jake's own inner circle, a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. It was a direct, active provocation, a test of their internal cohesion.
Kamo, when he read the message, was furious. "The snake! He is trying to buy me! To turn me against you!"
For a moment, Jake was thrown. The move was unexpected, brilliant. He had to counter it in a way that was equally brilliant. He couldn't just refuse the money; that would be suspicious. But he couldn't allow it to seem like Stolypin was pulling his strings.
A cold smile touched his lips. He had the counter-move.
He spent the next hour coaching a terrified Danilov on the precise wording of his reply. The next day, Danilov sent his new message.
Action completed, the report began. Result unexpected. Soso discovered the source of the funds almost immediately. He did not react with anger. He laughed. He called a meeting of the rail-yard workers' committee. He presented the five hundred rubles to them publicly. He announced it as a 'conscience donation from a repentant Menshevik sympathizer who has finally seen the error of his party's cowardly ways.' He has turned your gesture into a propaganda victory, humiliating our rivals and making himself look both magnanimous and cunning. His influence has grown, not diminished. The man is more politically astute than we anticipated.
It was a perfect counter-punch. He had not only dodged Stolypin's trap but had used it to enhance the fictional reputation of his own phantom, painting the "Soso" left behind in Tbilisi as an even more formidable and unpredictable opponent.
The final preparations were made. The "bible" of lies was complete. Danilov was as programmed as a human being could be. It was time for Jake to disappear. In the dead of night, in the cellar, he took a straight razor and, looking into a small, cracked mirror, began to shave off the thick mustache that had been a defining feature of his new face. He then took shears and cropped his hair short, altering his silhouette. The man staring back from the mirror was a stranger once again—thinner, harder, but no longer immediately recognizable as Soso Jughashvili.
He was given a set of forged papers identifying him as Vissarion Lomidze, a Georgian merchant specializing in the tea trade. He had a final, intense meeting with Kamo and Shaumian, the weight of the entire enterprise now settling on their shoulders. He entrusted the city, his power, his very existence, to them.
He looked at Danilov one last time, the man a pale, trembling ghost in the lantern light. "You are Soso now," Jake said, his voice a low, final command. "His voice. His eyes. His will. Do not fail me."
With that, he turned and walked up the cellar steps, leaving his own phantom behind him. The heavy door closed, and the final, terrifying act of the London deception had begun. Danilov was left alone, a puppet on a vast and empty stage, holding the fate of the entire operation in his trembling, sweating hands.
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