The message from Tbilisi was a ghost's report, a confirmation of a death Jake had ordered from a thousand miles away. He decoded it in the pre-dawn gloom of his London room, the words appearing stark and final in the thin, grey light. CONFIRMED. THE PRISONER WAS TRANSFERRED FROM THE TBILISI CITADEL LAST NIGHT. HE IS GONE. YOUR PLAN WORKED.
The plan had worked. The final, terrible thread of the Luka gambit had been tied off. The man who knew everything was gone, silenced not by Jake's hand, but by the hand of the very enemy he was trying to expose. It was a perfect, elegant, and monstrous victory.
Jake carefully lit a match and held it to the corner of the decoded message. He watched as the flame consumed the paper, turning the report of his success into a black, weightless ash that drifted down onto his windowsill. He felt no relief. He felt no triumph. He felt only a profound, chilling emptiness, the quiet that comes after a storm has passed, leaving a landscape of unrecognizable ruin. He had become so proficient at this deadly game that he could now orchestrate the murder of a man he had once called comrade, using the most powerful man in the Russian Empire as his unwitting triggerman, and all he felt was the cold satisfaction of a problem solved. The part of him that recoiled in horror was now a distant, muffled echo.
He pushed the thought away. There was no time for ghosts. The living were far more dangerous.
In a grand, sunlit office in St. Petersburg, Pyotr Stolypin reviewed the morning's intelligence reports. His aide, Colonel Sazonov, stood at rigid attention, presenting the folders in order of importance.
"Sir," Sazonov began, his voice a dry, professional monotone. "A final report from the Tbilisi directorate on the matter of the captured Bolshevik, Luka Mikeladze."
Stolypin took the folder, his expression unreadable. He opened it and read the clipped, official language. Prisoner Mikeladze, identified as a high-risk security threat and the target of a potential rescue/assassination plot by his former comrades, was transferred to a secure, undisclosed location for final sentencing. The threat has been neutralized.
"Expedited his final sentencing," Stolypin murmured, the euphemism not lost on him. "How efficient of them." He placed the report on his desk. It was a neat, tidy conclusion to a messy affair.
"It would seem our asset, 'The Accountant,' was correct in his assessment of the threat," Sazonov offered. "His intelligence has proven invaluable once again."
Stolypin steepled his fingers, his gaze distant. "Indeed," he said slowly. "Invaluable." But his mind was not on the success of the operation. It was on the structure of it. He was a master of political mechanics, and he could feel the ghost of a hidden gear, the hum of an unseen engine, beneath the surface of these events.
"It is all too neat, Colonel," he mused, more to himself than to his aide. "Let us review the sequence. Our asset warns us of a traitor in the Bolsheviks' midst, a man named Luka. We then capture this very man. Our asset then warns us that this traitor is the target of a plot by his own leader, 'Soso,' to silence him. This forces our hand, compelling us to… expedite his sentencing."
He looked up at Sazonov, his eyes sharp and analytical. "It would seem our asset's leader, this 'Soso,' has a remarkable, almost supernatural gift for solving his internal party problems using our state resources. First Orlov, now this Luka. He is either the luckiest man in the empire, or he is playing a very, very clever game."
Sazonov, a man of direct action, saw only the result. "Either way, sir, the Bolsheviks are weakened. Another one of their key operatives is dead."
"Are they?" Stolypin countered, a flicker of intellectual challenge in his eyes. "Or has their leader just successfully purged a potential rival, solidified his own power, and tested the responsiveness of our entire intelligence network, all without firing a shot himself? He made us his executioner, Colonel. An intelligent man does not give away such a service for free."
Stolypin stood and walked to the grand map of the Russian Empire that dominated one wall. He was not a fool to be easily played. He suspected he was being manipulated, but the sheer, breathtaking audacity of the manipulation fascinated him. This Soso was not just another revolutionary thug. He was a chess player of a caliber Stolypin had rarely encountered.
"This 'secret internal party trial' our asset mentioned," he said, tapping a finger on the map over the Caucasus region. "The one Soso was supposedly holding for the traitor Luka. It is a fiction, of course. A pretext. But it is a fiction with a structure. A formal proceeding implies a protocol. It implies witnesses, judges, the presentation of evidence. And any structure, Colonel, no matter how flimsy, can be mapped. It has pressure points. It can be broken."
He turned back to his desk, a new, subtle and far more dangerous test forming in his mind. He would not confront his asset. He would not show his suspicion. Instead, he would test the fabric of the lie, to see how well it was woven. He would demand a detail that an ordinary informant could not possibly provide, a detail that would force the true puppet master to reveal himself.
He dictated a new directive, his voice calm and precise. "To our asset in Tbilisi. Via the usual channels."
The message arrived in London two days later, a small, innocent-looking note delivered by the party's secret courier network. Jake decoded it in his room, the victory over the Luka affair turning to ash in his mouth. He had expected a note of thanks, perhaps a new, simpler task. Instead, he found a polite, almost academic request that was more dangerous than any direct threat.
He read the decoded words, his blood running cold.
"Your intelligence regarding the Luka affair was exemplary and has solidified your value to our enterprise. Your analysis of the internal threat he posed was proven correct by subsequent events. To further aid our efforts in understanding the new power dynamics within the Bolshevik committee, a detailed protocol of Luka's secret party trial is required. We wish to understand the formal mechanisms this 'Soso' uses to enforce his discipline. Who were the other judges on the tribunal? What specific evidence was presented against him? What were the exact charges? We believe these details can be used as a powerful psychological weapon to sow further discord among the remaining Menshevik sympathizers."
Jake stared at the message, a wave of vertigo sweeping over him. It was a brilliant trap. A request for the minutes of a meeting that had never happened. The details of a trial that was a complete fabrication. He had to invent a legal proceeding from whole cloth, a complex lie that would require him to name his own comrades, his own inner circle, as judges and witnesses in a phantom tribunal. A single mistake, a single name that Stolypin could cross-reference and find wanting, a single piece of "evidence" that seemed implausible, and the entire deception would be exposed.
Stolypin was not just asking a question. He was demanding to see the blueprints of the lie.