The Smolny Institute was the frantic, beating heart of a new world.
In the grand ballroom, phones rang off the hook, their shrill cries a constant, chaotic symphony. Telegraphs clattered without pause, spitting out ribbons of paper that carried news of cities falling and armies surrendering. Men with rifles slung over their shoulders hurried through the halls, their faces grim and purposeful, carrying decrees that would change the lives of a hundred million people.
Jake stood before a massive map of the former Russian Empire, a canvas now bleeding with freshly drawn red flags. This was his victory. His new world.
At the head of a long table, Lenin was a whirlwind of pure, condensed energy, dictating decrees that dismantled a thousand years of history. Trotsky was beside him, his voice sharp and academic, arguing about the precise phrasing of their proposed peace treaty with Germany.
The Soviet Union was being born, right here, in this room, in a storm of ink and ideology.
Lenin finished scribbling on a document, his signature a sharp, angry slash. "Decree on the Disposition of Enemies of the Revolution," he announced to the room, his voice ringing with finality.
He slid the paper across the table. Jake picked it up. His eyes scanned the bureaucratic text, the cold, hard language of state-building.
Then he saw it. Article 7.
All members of the former ruling dynasty, the House of Romanov, are to be considered enemies of the state and held in secure custody by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (the Cheka) pending final judgment.
Final judgment.
The words were a death sentence, cloaked in legal jargon. Jake felt a cold knot tighten in his gut. The clock had just officially started ticking.
He showed no reaction. He simply folded his copy of the decree, his face a mask of stone, and tucked it into his coat pocket. He gave a curt nod to Lenin and left the room. He needed air. He needed to think.
Later that night, long after the meetings had devolved into drunken, victorious songs, Jake slipped out of the Smolny. He was a ghost in the bustling capital he had helped create, his face hidden in the collar of his coat.
He made his way to the river, to a fog-shrouded pier on the Neva where deals were made and secrets were kept buried under the dark, cold water.
A figure was waiting for him, leaning against a stack of damp crates. The man was a silhouette in the fog, the orange glow of his cigarette the only point of color in the grey night.
This was Shliapnikov's contact. "The Finn."
He was a wiry, silent man with the kind of eyes that had seen everything and trusted no one. The fog curled around him as if it were afraid of him.
"Shliapnikov said you have a job," the Finn said, his Russian rough and clipped. He didn't offer a greeting. He didn't waste time. "He said it was a big one."
"The biggest," Jake replied, stepping out of the shadows.
He got straight to the point. "The former Tsar and his family. The Cheka will be moving them soon. To a secure location, probably somewhere in the Urals."
Jake locked eyes with the smuggler. "I want to know where. I want to know when. And I want a route out of the country for them. A clean one."
The Finn stared at him, his cigarette forgotten, a thin trail of smoke rising from his fingers. He let out a low, soft whistle that was barely audible over the lapping of the water.
"You are either the bravest man in Russia," he said, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief, "or you are the most insane."
He took a long, thoughtful drag from his cigarette. "The Cheka doesn't make mistakes. Getting a package that big out from under their noses… it's impossible."
"Everything is impossible until it's not," Jake said. "What's your price?"
The Finn's eyes glinted in the faint lantern light. "For this? For betraying the revolution and smuggling out the Tsar? There is not enough money in the world."
Jake had expected that. He didn't offer money. Money was useless in this new world. He offered something far more valuable.
He placed a small, heavy leather bag on the crate between them. The Finn eyed it suspiciously, then opened it.
Inside, nestled in dark cloth, were not coins or jewels. There were a dozen pristine, blank passports. Swedish. Swiss. Norwegian. Complete with the official, authentic embassy stamps Jake had "liberated" from the Admiralty during the assault.
To a man like the Finn, a man who lived in the cracks between borders, these were a king's ransom. A get-out-of-hell-free card.
"And a boat," Jake added, his voice a low promise. "A fast one. To get you and your family out of Russia for good when this is all over. A new life."
The Finn's eyes widened. This wasn't a job. This was a new reality. A future. He took one last, long drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt into the dark water, where it hissed and died.
He had made his decision.
"The man the Cheka has assigned to command their guard," he said, his voice dropping to a conspirator's whisper. "A commissar named Yakovlev. A true believer. Incorruptible. But he has a weakness."
The Finn leaned closer. "A daughter, here in Petrograd. Very sick. The doctors can do nothing. Yakovlev is desperate. He is looking for a miracle. He has a taste for things a commissar can't get anymore. French champagne. And Western medicine."
A connection fired in Jake's brain, a sudden, jarring collision of his two worlds. Western medicine.
He thought of the rumors he'd heard just that day, the whispers among the wounded soldiers at Smolny. Whispers of a miraculous German nurse who had appeared out of nowhere. An angel of mercy who could get any medicine, who could cure any sickness.
"Sister Anna," Jake breathed, the name feeling strange on his lips.
The Finn nodded, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. "The very one. The Angel of Smolny. Yakovlev has been trying to get an audience with her for days, begging for her help."
Jake's carefully separated worlds—his public role as the iron-fisted Koba and his secret, desperate mission as Jake Vance—were about to collide in the most unexpected and dangerous way imaginable.
His path to saving the Romanovs was blocked by the revolution's newest saint.
He had to get to Commissar Yakovlev.
But to do that, he first had to go through this mysterious, untouchable nurse. Who the hell was Sister Anna?