The news from St. Petersburg arrived in Tbilisi like a distant tremor, the aftershock of an earthquake a thousand miles away. A courier, his face slick with the sweat of a man who knew he was carrying dynamite, delivered the latest bundle of newspapers.
Jake and Kamo sat in the relative safety of the bakery apartment, the smell of yeast and warm bread a surreal counterpoint to the grim news they were about to read. Kamo, whose reading of Russian was slow and deliberate, spread the papers out on the rough wooden table. The headlines were sensational, the language lurid.
STATE'S WITNESS SUFFERS SPECTACULAR MENTAL COLLAPSE! one headline screamed above a grainy, chaotic photograph of Pyotr Dolidze thrashing in the arms of his Okhrana handlers. MYSTERY FAMILY APPEARS, CLAIMS KINSHIP WITH BOLSHEVIK 'HERO'! another proclaimed.
Kamo read the articles aloud, his voice a low growl of grudging admiration. The reports detailed Pyotr's public breakdown with journalistic glee, describing his inhuman howls, his frantic denials, and the silent, haunting presence of the woman and her two boys. The narrative Stolypin had so carefully constructed had been utterly demolished.
"He is finished," Kamo said, tapping a thick finger on Pyotr's contorted face in the photograph. "Stolypin's prize witness is now a raving madman. They cannot put him on any stand. They cannot have him speak to any more journalists. You did it, Soso. You destroyed him without firing a single shot."
The grumbling among the men, the whispers that Soso's plans were too clever, had ceased entirely. They were now replaced by a renewed, almost fearful respect. The men understood bombs and bullets. This was something else, a kind of black magic they couldn't comprehend, and it terrified and impressed them in equal measure.
Jake listened, his face an impassive mask. He felt a flicker of the cold, intellectual satisfaction of a successful operation. He had calculated the man's breaking point and had applied the precise amount of pressure needed to shatter him. It was a victory. But the god-like thrill he had felt when first conceiving the plan was gone, burned away by the events of the past few days.
His victory felt hollow, the taste of ash still in his mouth. He had destroyed a pathetic, broken man and had weaponized the pain of a desperate family, all for a political win. The success did nothing to quiet the gnawing emptiness inside him, the void left by Kato's departure. This victory did not bring him one step closer to the quiet cottage in Borjomi. It only dragged him deeper into the bloody, soul-crushing mire of the war he was fighting. It was the weary, joyless feeling of a surgeon who has just completed a messy but necessary amputation. The patient would live, but the surgeon's hands were covered in blood.
The courier, who had been waiting silently by the door, cleared his throat. "There is one more thing, Comrade Stalin."
He stepped forward and placed a small, sealed envelope on the table. It was different from the usual communiqués. It was not a coded message on cheap, flimsy paper. It was a proper letter, the envelope made of thick, good-quality stock. And the handwriting on the front, the looping, elegant script that spelled out his name—Soso Jughashvili—was instantly, painfully familiar.
It was from Kato.
"It came through the sympathizer in Borjomi," the courier explained. "He said it was of the utmost personal importance."
Kamo, sensing the sudden shift in the atmosphere, quietly dismissed the courier. He stood for a moment, his gaze on the letter, then looked at Jake's stony face. With a grunt, he turned and left the room, leaving Jake alone.
Jake stared at the letter as if it were a live grenade. His first instinct, the instinct of 'Stalin,' was to throw it into the bakery's oven unopened. It was a weakness. A vulnerability. A voice from a world he had to forget in order to survive.
But the hand of Jake Vance, the history teacher, reached out and picked it up. His fingers trembled slightly as he broke the seal. He unfolded the single sheet of paper. The scent of pine and clean mountain air seemed to rise from it, a ghost of a different life.
He began to read. The letter was not an angry tirade, not a condemnation of the cold stranger who had sent her away. It was worse. It was a hand reaching out to him across the chasm he had created.
"My Dearest Soso," it began.
"The cottage is as you described. It is quiet. The air is clean, and at night, the stars are so bright they look like spilled diamonds. The silence here is deafening. It gives a person too much time to think.
I think of you. I think of the man I saw in Tbilisi. His eyes were so full of shadows, so full of a terrible weight that I could not comprehend. I know the work you do is dangerous and difficult. I know it changes a man. I saw how it was changing you, even before I left. I was afraid, and I ran. Perhaps that was my mistake.
But I also remember the man who brought me flowers from the market. The man who would read poetry to me by the fire. The man whose passion for a better world was a light that could warm a whole room. I have to believe that man is still in there, somewhere, underneath all the armor you have been forced to wear.
The man who sent me away from Tbilisi, the cold commander with the stranger's eyes, I do not know him. I am afraid of him. But the man who promised, with such sadness in his voice, to meet me here when his work was done… I am still waiting for him. I will wait for as long as it takes.
Please, Soso. Just tell me he is still in there somewhere."
The letter was a direct hit. It bypassed every defense, every wall of cold logic and ruthless pragmatism he had built around his heart. It was the voice of Jake Vance's conscience, given form. It was a reminder of the promise he had made, a promise that was the only thing tethering him to the idea of a future beyond this endless, bloody struggle.
He was torn. The two halves of his soul were at war. The 'Stalin' persona screamed at him that this was a poison. This sentimentality, this longing, was a fatal distraction. It was a weakness Stolypin would exploit in a heartbeat if he ever discovered it. To survive, to win, he had to be pure, cold, unrelenting will. He had to be a machine.
But the ghost of Jake Vance, a man who had once believed in love and second chances, was overwhelmed with a wave of guilt and desperate, aching longing so powerful it almost brought him to his knees. He wanted to write back. He wanted to pour out the whole, insane truth. My name is not Soso. I am from another time. I am wearing your husband's face and I am trying to save the world from the monster he will become, but I think I am becoming that monster instead, and I am so, so alone.
He gripped the letter in his fist, crumpling the paper. He could not. He could not afford this. This single piece of paper was more dangerous to his mission than the entire Okhrana. To ever have a chance of making it to Borjomi, to ever have a chance of being the man she was waiting for, he first had to finish his terrible work. And to do that, he had to be Stalin. The choice was brutal and absolute.
He stood up, walked to the small candle burning on the table, and held the corner of the crumpled letter to the flame.
The paper caught, the orange fire greedily consuming the delicate handwriting. He watched as her words, her plea, her hope, turned to black, weightless ash. It was a symbolic act, a ritual of self-mutilation. He was choosing the monster over the man, because he believed, with a terrible, tragic certainty, that it was the only way to save the man in the end.
Just as the last corner of the letter disintegrated into nothing, the door burst open. It was Kamo, his face grim, a new, urgent message in his hand.
"Soso! Another report from St. Petersburg. It's about the family."
Jake turned from the candle, his face a stony, unreadable mask, his eyes reflecting the flickering flame. "What about them?"
"They're gone," Kamo reported, his voice heavy with foreboding. "The Okhrana took them. Snatched them off the street in broad daylight. But they didn't arrest them. They put them on a private, guarded train car."
"A prison train?" Jake asked, his mind already shifting gears, the ashes of his heart growing cold.
"No," Kamo said, looking at the decoded message with disbelief. "That's the strange part. It wasn't a prison train. According to our contact at the station, the destination is Tsarskoye Selo. Stolypin's personal country estate."