The office of the Deputy Minister of the Interior in St. Petersburg was vast and heavy with authority. Dark wood panels, old maps, and the kind of silence that made people stand straighter. Pyotr Stolypin stood by the window, watching carriages move through the snow-covered streets. He liked order. And the Caucasus, lately, was chaos.
His aide, Colonel Sazonov, slipped inside, quiet as always. The man looked like he'd been carved out of discipline itself. He held two folders. "Sir," he said, "two priority reports from the Tbilisi directorate. They seem connected."
Stolypin took the first file. It was written in clipped military phrasing—efficient, bloodless.
During the chaotic retreat of the Bolshevik expropriators from Erevan Square, our agents successfully apprehended a high-value target. Subject: Luka Ivanovich Mikeladze, associate of the Bolshevik cell under the operative known as 'Soso.' Subject secured and under interrogation.
A small victory, Stolypin thought. A single clean note in a discordant symphony. He opened the second folder. This one was a decoded message from their prized inside source—the man known only as The Accountant. Stolypin's eyes sharpened as he read.
URGENT OPERATIONAL UPDATE.
A CRISIS HAS DEVELOPED.
MY LEADER, SOSO, HAS UNCOVERED A TRAITOR WITHIN HIS INNER CIRCLE: LUKA MIKELADZE.
Stolypin reread the name. Luka. The same man his agents had just captured. Too perfect to be random.
The report continued:
EVIDENCE SUGGESTS LUKA WORKED FOR THE MENSHEVIKS. SOSO HAS ORDERED A SECRET TRIAL AND EXECUTION. I HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO GUARD THE PRISONER. THIS WILL GAIN SOSO'S COMPLETE TRUST.
Sazonov spoke carefully. "Sir, the report can't be correct. Luka is in our hands, not theirs. 'Soso' must be misleading our source."
Stolypin didn't answer immediately. He set the two documents side by side, eyes flicking between them. Where others saw contradiction, he saw pattern. A puzzle.
"No," he said finally. "The message was sent before our capture report. He couldn't have known. Which means…" He began to pace, his mind already several moves ahead.
Option one: coincidence. He dismissed it. He didn't believe in those.
Option two: the asset had uncanny access. Possible, but too neat.
Option three: this was deliberate. "Soso" was playing the game on another level—anticipating the capture, shaping the narrative before it happened. Branding the prisoner a traitor to poison his words before they could ever reach an ear.
Stolypin stopped. A rare smile flickered at the edge of his mouth. "This man," he said softly, "is dangerous. A strategist."
He turned to Sazonov. "Send word to Tbilisi. Continue the interrogation. Use every method. But treat every word as deception. I don't care about truth anymore. I want to know what lies this Soso wants us to believe."
In Tbilisi, truth was bleeding on the floor.
Luka hung by his wrists, his body a patchwork of bruises. He had lasted two days. Two days of silence, two days of pain. But even iron cracks.
"All right," he gasped. "I'll talk."
The chief interrogator leaned forward. "Start with your leader. Soso."
And Luka told them everything. Every dark secret he thought could save the movement.
He spoke of Soso Jughashvili—the ruthless genius who had turned the revolution's chaos into structure. He described Orlov's execution. The informant Fikus. The mysterious "accountant" who was no spy at all but an Okhrana assassin turned double agent. And the strangest of all, he spoke of a man who saw the world like a machine, a man from the future.
The interrogators listened. Wrote everything down. But their orders were clear—assume every word was a lie.
By the time Luka finished, trembling and half-conscious, he had damned himself completely. His confession sounded too wild, too layered, too convenient. Like the desperate fiction of a cornered man trying to twist the story before the rope came down.
That night, the chief interrogator finished his report. His handwriting was neat, indifferent.
The prisoner Mikeladze has confessed to an absurd conspiracy involving the Bolshevik leader Soso and our own asset. His tale matches the asset's prior warning that Mikeladze is a Menshevik plant attempting to create discord. Testimony is unreliable but provides insight into revolutionary propaganda.
In St. Petersburg, Stolypin would read it and nod in approval.
In Tbilisi, Luka would die with the truth unheard.
And somewhere in the shadows, Jake Vance—now Soso—had just pulled off his most perfect lie.