The secondary safe house on Erevan street became a crucible, a closed universe of two souls where one was systematically dismantled and the other was forged into a terrible new shape. For Jake, the world outside ceased to exist. The frantic energy of the main headquarters, Kamo's growing unease, the ticking clock of Shaumian's impending indictment—it all faded into a distant, irrelevant hum. His entire focus, his entire being, was concentrated within the four walls of the small, bare room where he was engaged in the monstrous art of creating a man.
The process began with an act of purification. Pyotr Dolidze, the drunkard, had to be scrubbed away, physically and psychologically. He was bathed, shaved, and given clean, simple clothes—clothes that vaguely resembled those worn by Luka Mikeladze in the single, faded photograph Jake possessed. The tremors of alcohol withdrawal were agonizing, but Jake was an unsympathetic nursemaid. He provided water and black bread, nothing more. He let the poison sweat out of Pyotr's system, a necessary exorcism before the real work could begin.
"Look at him," Jake commanded on the third day. Pyotr, clean but skeletal, his hands shaking, was forced to sit on his cot and stare at the photograph of Luka, which Jake had pinned to the opposite wall.
"This is not a picture," Jake said, his voice a low, hypnotic monotone. He paced behind Pyotr, a director shaping his actor. "This is a mirror. This is who you are now. See the lines around his eyes? That is from years of worry for the cause, for his family. That is your worry now. See the way he holds his head, tilted slightly to the left? That is how you hold your head. He is not you. You are him. The man you were is dead. He died in a tavern, drowned in cheap wine. This is your resurrection."
For hours, Pyotr was forced to do nothing but stare at the image, a form of brutal, relentless meditation. At first, he would weep, his own identity struggling against the psychic invasion. Jake was unmoved. The weeping would stop, replaced by a dull, exhausted resignation.
The next phase was the reconstruction of a soul. Jake had a small, precious collection of Luka's effects: a half-dozen letters he had written to his wife from exile, and a thin diary containing mission notes and fragments of revolutionary poetry he had copied down. These became their holy texts.
Jake would read them aloud, his voice devoid of his own personality, a neutral vessel for Luka's words. The letters were filled with a raw, simple love. My dearest Elene, the nights are cold here, but I keep warm with the thought of your smile... Tell the little ones their father fights for a world worthy of them... The diary entries were stark, filled with a grim, unwavering conviction.
"Now you," Jake would command, handing a pen and paper to Pyotr, whose hands still trembled. "Write the letter to Elene. From memory. Not just the words. Feel the longing. Feel the ache of being a hundred miles from your children."
The first attempts were pathetic scrawls, stained with tears of frustration. The handwriting was wrong, the words jumbled. Jake would take the paper, crumple it, and drop it to the floor. "Again."
Day after day, the process was repeated. They lived inside Luka Mikeladze's mind. Pyotr was forced to eat Luka's favorite foods—simple things Kamo's men procured: black bread with salty cheese, boiled beans. He was taught to walk with Luka's slight limp, a souvenir from a run-in with Cossacks years earlier. Jake would make him pace the small room for hours. "No, you're favoring the wrong leg. The pain is in the left knee. It is an old, dull ache. Feel it. Again."
Then, the training shifted, becoming more brutal, more adversarial. Jake transformed himself from a director into an Okhrana interrogator. He would burst into the room at odd hours, kicking over the stool, his face a mask of cold fury.
"What is your name?!" he would roar, his voice a sudden explosion in the quiet room.
"Luka Mikeladze," Pyotr would stammer, his eyes wide with fear.
"Liar!" Jake would shout, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. "You are Pyotr Dolidze, a disgraced drunkard and a thief! Your own comrades threw you out like garbage! Where were you born, Dolidze?! Who was your mother?!"
The first few times, Pyotr shattered completely. He would collapse into a weeping heap, confessing his real name, his real past, begging for mercy. Each time, Jake would back away, his face impassive, and wait for the sobbing to subside.
"We will do it again," he would say, his voice returning to its calm, instructional tone. "You are Luka Mikeladze. You have dedicated your life to the revolution. You faked your death to escape. You are seeking protection. That is your truth. There is no other. Again."
He was not just teaching the man a story; he was attempting to burn away his old neural pathways and carve new ones. He was destroying a personality and implanting another through sheer, relentless psychological force.
Kamo, who would bring their meager meals and stand guard outside, grew visibly disturbed. He could hear the sessions through the thick wooden door—the shouting, the weeping, the endless, monotonous repetition. He looked at Jake with a new kind of awe, tinged with fear. The Soso he knew was a master of ambushes and purges, a man of brutal, tangible action. This was different. This was a cold, dark magic he did not understand.
A week into the process, a terrifying change began to occur. Pyotr's weeping fits grew shorter. His hands trembled less. A new, grim light began to flicker in his hollowed-out eyes. The lines of his face, through exhaustion and sheer force of will, seemed to subtly shift, to align more closely with the photograph on the wall. He began to speak of Luka's wife, Elene, as if she were his own, his voice filled with a genuine, aching sadness.
One afternoon, Jake was drilling him on Luka's personal history when Pyotr, unprompted, paused and looked at the sliver of grey sky visible through the barred window. He began to recite a poem, his voice low but clear.
"And the day will come when the tyrant's throne, Crumbles to dust, and we are not alone..."
It was a passage from a Georgian poet, a fragment Jake had read once from Luka's diary. But Pyotr recited it not as a memorized line, but with a profound and weary conviction, as if the words were rising from the depths of his own soul.
Jake watched him, and in that moment, he felt a sensation that was entirely new. It was not revulsion at the monstrous thing he was doing. It was not pity for the broken man before him. It was a surge of pure, intellectual, and profoundly intoxicating power.
It was the thrill of creation.
He, Jake Vance, had taken a piece of human wreckage, a soul shattered beyond repair, and was successfully rebuilding it into something new. He was not just a player in this grand historical game; he was a creator, a shaper of men, a god in this small, dusty room. The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of it, the undeniable success of his terrible method, was more seductive than any political victory. A cold, quiet smile touched his lips. He was not just becoming Stalin. He was becoming something more.
His reverie was broken by Kamo, who entered the room without knocking, his face grim. "Soso, a report from our man in the citadel. They are moving Comrade Shaumian. He's being transferred from the preliminary holding cells to the main Metekhi prison block. They say his formal indictment is being read tomorrow." He paused, his eyes flicking from Jake to the strangely serene Pyotr and back again. "We are running out of time."
Jake looked up from his work, his eyes cold and distant, like a master sculptor interrupted mid-chisel. He looked at Pyotr, his creation, who sat with a martyr's calm on his face.
"Let them," Jake said, his voice quiet. "Let them set their stage and arrange their players. The audience will be expecting a tragedy." He turned his gaze to Pyotr. "But we are preparing a ghost story."