The Fifth Party Congress was a war of words—a grinding, endless battle fought with resolutions, amendments, and procedural traps. Inside the cold stone walls of the Hackney church, Jake played his role to perfection.
He was Stalin now—the disciplined politician.
He sat through debates that dragged on for hours, his face unreadable, his voice steady when called upon. Every argument he made was short, practical, grounded in reality. No poetry, no ideology—just precision. He was becoming what Lenin needed him to be: not just a man of action, but a man of politics.
But his mind was somewhere else.
Every hour, every dull speech, his thoughts drifted thousands of miles east—to Tbilisi.
That was where his real war was being fought.
He was conducting an invisible orchestra from London, his baton made of coded messages that crossed continents. And one of those messages, now sitting in a safe house half a world away, was about to change everything.
In Tbilisi, Kamo unfolded the latest cipher by the flicker of a candle.
The message was short. The words burned like ice.
PROCEED WITH OPERATION BEAR.
EXPECT HEAVY RESISTANCE. ENEMY HAS FOREKNOWLEDGE. TRUST NO ONE.
He stared at the page, his pulse steady but his face pale. Soso's warnings were never idle.
If he said the enemy knew, then they knew.
Kamo wasn't stupid. He could read the subtext.
This was an ambush. A death sentence.
But Kamo's faith in Soso was absolute. He didn't see the warning as doom—he saw it as a challenge. If Soso said to proceed, it meant there was a way through. The message wasn't a death sentence; it was a test.
Kamo grinned in the candlelight. He wasn't a robber anymore.
He was a soldier about to walk into a battle—and outsmart it.
In London, Jake couldn't risk saying more.
If the Okhrana intercepted a detailed warning, his "omniscience" would expose him. He had to guide Kamo indirectly—through analysis, not prophecy.
His next message arrived in Tbilisi a few days later. It was written like a report from London's "central committee," but every line was a hidden piece of life-saving intelligence.
London Center's analysis of Okhrana tactics indicates a strategic shift. Static guard posts have been replaced by mobile Cossack cavalry patrols hidden in nearby streets. Future operations must prepare for flanking attacks, not frontal ones.
He was describing the exact historical circumstances of the Tiflis robbery—but dressing it up as deduction.
A few days later, another message followed.
Expect larger armed escorts for all bank transfers. The new police chief is eager to impress the capital. Do not underestimate their numbers.
And finally, the message that tied it all together, cloaked in ideological language.
A revolutionary action's success is measured not in money, but in survival. Preserve cadres above all. An operation without an escape plan is not Bolshevism—it is adventurism.
Each line was a warning. Each phrase, a shield.
In Tbilisi, Kamo absorbed every word. To him, these weren't warnings about a specific job—they were doctrine.
And so, the plan changed.
The simple ambush became a full-scale tactical operation.
Kamo scrapped the old idea of blocking the coach and fighting it out. Now, he prepared for the cavalry that Soso's "analysis" had predicted.
He assigned six men to watch the side streets, armed with flags and whistles to signal the enemy's approach. He ordered more grenades—not to attack the coach, but to seal off escape routes and confuse pursuit. He walked Erevan Square again and again until he knew every brick and sewer grate by heart.
Three escape routes.
Redundancy.
Flexibility.
He was still walking into a trap.
But now, thanks to a man thousands of miles away, he would meet it on his own terms.
Across the city, in the Okhrana headquarters, another plan was unfolding.
Captain Valerian Rostov stood over a map of Erevan Square, calm and confident.
He was new to Tbilisi—fresh from St. Petersburg, handpicked to run Stolypin's new intelligence directorate in the region. The orders from the capital were clear. The intelligence was flawless.
Their mole had provided everything: time, place, and names.
"They're violent," Rostov told his lieutenants, tapping the map with a gloved hand. "But predictable. They'll block the coach and attack the guards."
He pointed to the rooftops. "Marksmen here, here, and here. Once the shooting starts, Captain Suladze's cavalry will charge from this street, Orbeliani's from the opposite side. A perfect kill box. They won't last a minute."
His officers nodded.
It was a flawless plan.
Rostov allowed himself a smile. He would crush the Bolsheviks in one stroke, erase their entire combat wing. Stolypin would remember his name.
His only mistake was believing his intelligence was one-sided.
The day came.
In London, Jake looked pale and sleepless as he prepared to speak on party discipline before the Congress.
In Tbilisi, Kamo's twenty-man team moved through the morning crowds, coats heavy with pistols and grenades.
The sun rose over Erevan Square.
The armored carriage rattled into place.
Cossack patrols waited, hidden.
Bombs lay ready under greatcoats.
Everyone knew their role. Everyone believed they held the advantage.
The hunter and the hunted were perfectly aligned—each convinced the other was walking into their trap.
And somewhere across a continent, a man who didn't belong in this century guided them all like an unseen conductor, his orchestra poised on the brink of history.