The message arrived in London on a damp, grey morning, a small, discreet package of folded paper that felt as heavy as a gravestone in Jake's hand. He waited until he was completely alone in his small, spartan room, the sounds of the city a distant, muted roar, before he decoded it. The message was from Danilov, a triumphant report relayed through Kamo.
"Handler is pleased," the decoded text read. "Highest level commendation received. They have captured the 'Menshevik traitor' Luka. They proceeded with the interrogation as we anticipated. His confession was deemed a fabrication, an attempt to sow discord, perfectly aligning with my prior warning. His testimony has been officially disregarded. Our position is secure. They now consider me their primary, and most reliable, source on all Bolshevik internal politics. Trust is absolute."
Jake read the message twice, then a third time. He had won. The word VICTORY should have been blazing in his mind. He had faced a catastrophic, operation-ending failure and, through sheer, audacious nerve and intellectual brutality, had turned it into his greatest success. He had not only saved his network; he had strengthened it. Danilov was no longer just an asset; he was now a trusted, cherished one. Stolypin's confidence in him was absolute. His empire of secrets was safe.
But there was no elation. No triumph. As he sat on the edge of his lumpy mattress, the decoded message resting on his knee, the only thing he felt was a profound, hollowing emptiness. The silence in the room was immense, broken only by the frantic, useless beating of his own heart.
He thought of Luka. He saw the man's quiet, steady eyes, the way he would listen intently in meetings, his brow furrowed in concentration. He remembered Luka's grim, resolute face in the tannery as he accepted the charge to be a witness, a "memory of the party." Luka had been a good man. A loyal comrade. A man who had looked up to him, who had trusted him completely.
And he, Jake, had not only sent him into the arms of the Okhrana, but he had systematically, deliberately, and with surgical precision, annihilated the man's very identity. He had taken Luka's final, brave act—his truthful confession under torture—and had twisted it into a mark of shame. He had ensured that Luka would die not as a hero of the revolution, but as a reviled traitor, his name cursed by his enemies and, if the truth were ever known, forever suspect by his own comrades.
It was a new, profound level of moral degradation. It was one thing to sacrifice a pawn, a worthless, treacherous informant like Fikus. It was another thing entirely to take a loyal knight, a man who had stood by your side, and not only sacrifice him but posthumously brand him a traitor to cover your own tracks. The cold, utilitarian logic of the revolutionary arithmetic, which had been his shield and his guide, now felt like a curse. The numbers on the ledger were beginning to have faces.
He folded the message and tucked it away, the paper feeling slick and unclean in his hand. He stood and walked to the small, grimy window, looking out at the endless rows of London rooftops, slick with rain. He had won the game. But what, exactly, was the prize? Power? Influence? The ability to steer history a few degrees in a different direction? And what was the cost?
He felt a sudden, desperate longing for Kato. For the simple, uncomplicated goodness she represented. But the memory of her flinching away from his touch was a fresh, searing wound. He had sacrificed his humanity to gain this power, and in doing so, had made himself untouchable to the only person who could have saved him from it.
As he stood there, wrestling with the ghosts of his own making, the cold, pragmatic part of his mind, the part that was now Stalin, began to stir. It was a merciless, unsentimental voice that cut through the fog of his guilt. The game was not over.
Luka was still alive.
He was a loose end.
The risk was minuscule, almost nonexistent. His testimony had been disregarded. He was a discredited traitor rotting in a forgotten cell. But he was not dead. And as long as he was alive, there remained a one-in-a-million chance that some new piece of evidence could emerge, that a different, more perceptive interrogator might re-examine his case, that his "wild conspiracy theory" might suddenly start to sound plausible.
The old Jake Vance would have accepted that risk. He would have told himself that he had done enough, that Luka's fate was now out of his hands. He would have lived with the small, gnawing fear.
But the new Stalin, the man building an empire of secrets, the man who had executed Orlov because a political defeat was not final enough, could not tolerate loose ends. He could not tolerate even the smallest, most infinitesimal crack in the foundation of his power. The risk was not zero. And therefore, it was unacceptable.
He had to ensure Luka was silenced. Permanently.
But how? He couldn't send Kamo. A prison break was impossible and would only draw more attention to Luka, making him seem important. He couldn't trust any of his other contacts. The risk of exposure was too great.
He needed the enemy to do his dirty work for him.
He sat back down at the table, his moment of moral crisis over, replaced by a chilling, absolute clarity of purpose. He took out his cipher book one last time. He began to compose a new message for Danilov to send, the final, monstrous act in this tragic play.
"URGENT AND HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL," he began, framing the message as a piece of intelligence of the utmost value. "INTERNAL SITUATION IN TBILISI HAS BECOME UNSTABLE FOLLOWING LUKA'S CAPTURE. THE MENSHEVIKS ARE AGITATED, CLAIMING HE IS A MARTYR, NOT A TRAITOR."
He was building the fictional pretext for his true objective.
"MY LEADER, SOSO, IS MOVING TO CONSOLIDATE HIS POWER AND ELIMINATE ALL THREATS. HE HAS BECOME OBSESSED WITH THE LUKA AFFAIR. HE FEARS THE CAPTURED 'TRAITOR' MIGHT BE RESCUED BY HIS SUPPOSED MENHSEVIK ALLIES IN AN ATTEMPT TO EMBARRASS HIM. MY SOURCES INDICATE SOSO IS SECRETLY PLANNING A BOLD, HIGH-RISK RAID ON THE OKHRANA PRISON. HIS STATED GOAL IS TO SILENCE LUKA PERMANENTLY, TO TIE UP THE LOOSE END AND, AT THE SAME TIME, BLOODY THE NOSE OF THE STATE."
He stared at the words, at the perfect, diabolical logic of the lie. It was a message designed to force Stolypin's hand. When the Prime Minister of the Russian Empire was informed that a high-value, high-risk prisoner in a provincial jail was now the target of a potential rescue and assassination plot by a notoriously ruthless Bolshevik leader, what would be his logical response? A public trial was too risky. Moving the prisoner was complicated. The simplest, most secure, and most efficient solution would be to eliminate the target. To quietly execute the prisoner, dispose of the body, and remove the piece from the board entirely.
Jake was about to manipulate the Prime Minister into acting as his personal executioner, murdering the very man Jake himself had branded a traitor, all to protect a lie.
He finished encoding the message. He knew, with a certainty that was as cold and hard as the stone walls of the cellar, that he was signing a loyal friend's death warrant. He was saving his revolution, he was protecting his mission to change the future, but the price was the last, lingering piece of his own soul. He had looked into the abyss, and he had not only jumped; he had learned to fly.