The Volga River was hungry.
Jake stood on the wooden pier, the wind whipping his heavy greatcoat. Below him, the dark water churned against the pylons.
A line of prisoners shuffled forward. There were hundreds of them. White officers, local merchants, priests, suspected spies. They were bound together with wire, stumbling in the snow.
"Move!" a Chekist soldier shouted, smashing his rifle butt into a man's kidney.
The man fell, dragging the two prisoners tied to him down into the slush.
Taranov stood next to Jake. The executioner looked pale. He had killed many men, but this was different. This wasn't justice. It was industrial waste disposal.
"The barge is full, Comrade," Taranov said, his voice tight. "Five hundred souls on board."
Jake didn't look at Taranov. He watched the prisoners being herded onto the rotting wooden barge like cattle.
"It's not enough," Jake said.
"Comrade?"
"Load the second barge," Jake ordered. "And the third."
A prisoner broke from the line. He was a young boy, barely eighteen, wearing a torn cadet uniform. He threw himself at Jake's feet.
"Please!" the boy sobbed. "I am not a White! I was conscripted! I have a mother in Kiev!"
Jake looked down.
Three days ago, Jake Vance would have hesitated. He would have seen a human being. He would have remembered his history classes, the horror of the Red Terror.
But Jake Vance was dead. He died in an alley in Petrograd with a bayonet in his lung.
The man standing on the pier was Koba.
He pulled his Mauser from its holster.
"We all have mothers," Jake said flatly.
Bang.
The shot was swallowed by the wind. The boy collapsed, his blood steaming on the frozen wood.
Jake holstered the gun. He didn't blink. He didn't feel a spike of adrenaline. He felt nothing. It was like stepping on a cockroach.
He stepped over the body.
"Sink them," Jake said to Taranov.
Taranov swallowed hard. "Sink them, Comrade?"
"Tow the barges to the middle of the river," Jake said, lighting a pipe. The smoke curled around his face, masking his yellow eyes. "Open the seacocks. Let the Volga have them."
"But the ammunition... we could just shoot them..."
"Bullets cost money," Jake said. "Water is free."
He turned and walked away, leaving Taranov staring at the corpse of the boy.
The Kremlin, Moscow.
The room was warm, smelling of beeswax and stale cigarette smoke. But Vladimir Lenin felt cold.
He sat behind his massive desk, rubbing his temples. The headache was back, a throbbing pressure behind his eyes.
Trotsky paced the room like a nervous cat. He looked triumphant, buzzing with energy.
"It is done," Trotsky said, pouring himself tea. "The bank is secured. The woman is gone. The threat of a separate power center is neutralized."
"Is it?" Lenin asked softly.
He looked at the report on his desk. It wasn't about Kato. It was from the scientists examining the 'prize' they had seized.
Professor Ipatieff was currently vomiting blood in a cell in the Lubyanka. The soldiers who had carried the lead box were already showing burns on their skin.
"The weapon is useless, Leon," Lenin said.
Trotsky stopped pacing. "It is a breakthrough. The power of the atom—"
"It is a tombstone!" Lenin snapped. He slammed his hand on the desk. "The device weighs four tons. It leaks poison that kills anyone who stands near it for an hour. We cannot fire it. We cannot move it. We can only bury it and pray it doesn't kill us all."
Lenin stood up, his chair scraping against the floor.
"We killed Koba's partner for a rock that gives us cancer," he hissed.
"We killed a traitor," Trotsky countered, his eyes narrowing. "She was building a kingdom within the state. She had to be removed."
"And Koba?"
Trotsky waved a hand dismissively. "He is in Tsaritsyn. He is isolated. He will be angry, yes. But he is a pragmatist. He knows he needs the Party."
The heavy oak doors swung open.
Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Cheka, walked in. Iron Felix looked rattled. He was a man who never showed emotion, but today, his hands were twitching.
"Comrades," Dzerzhinsky said.
"What is it?" Trotsky asked. "Is the gold secured?"
"We have lost contact with the Tsaritsyn Cheka," Dzerzhinsky said.
Lenin froze. "Explain."
"My station chief there... stopped reporting to me," Dzerzhinsky said. "His last message stated that command has been transferred directly to the Front Commander."
"To Koba," Lenin whispered.
"And we have reports from the river," Dzerzhinsky continued. "The Volga is... clogged."
"Clogged?" Trotsky asked. "With ice?"
"With bodies," Dzerzhinsky said grimly. "Thousands of them. White officers. Civilians. Even our own political commissars who were loyal to you, Leon."
Trotsky's face went pale. "He executed the commissars?"
"He tied them to the White officers and drowned them," Dzerzhinsky said. "He sent a message attached to the last barge."
He placed a wet, crumpled piece of paper on Lenin's desk.
Lenin picked it up. It was written in red grease pencil. Just three words.
DEBTS ARE PAID.
Lenin sank back into his chair. He looked at Trotsky. The arrogance was gone from the War Commissar's face, replaced by a dawning horror.
"You said he was a pragmatist," Lenin said quietly. "You were wrong. He is a force of nature."
Tsaritsyn, The Command Bunker.
Jake sat alone in the dark.
The room was stripped bare. He had ordered the comfortable furniture thrown out. He sat on a wooden crate, sharpening his knife.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
The rhythm was soothing.
On the floor lay a small pile of items. A locket Kato had worn. A letter he had written to himself about the future. A list of names of people he had planned to save.
He picked up the list. The Romanovs.
In his old life, in the 21st century, saving the kids—Anastasia, Alexei—had seemed like the ultimate redemption. A way to prove he wasn't a monster.
He held the paper over the flame of a candle.
Why save them?
They were symbols. Symbols rallied armies. Symbols caused wars.
If he saved them, he would have to hide them. Protect them. Worry about them.
Caring about things made you weak. Caring about Kato had given Trotsky a target.
He watched the paper turn brown, then black, then curl into ash.
"No more hostages," Jake whispered to the empty room.
He dropped the burning paper. He watched the names of the children disappear.
There was a knock on the metal door.
"Enter," Jake said.
Anatoly stepped in. The sailor looked different now. Harder. He wore a new leather jacket taken from a dead White colonel.
"The train is ready, Comrade Stalin," Anatoly said. "The boys are asking... where are we going?"
Jake stood up. He sheathed the knife.
He walked to the large map of Russia pinned to the wall. He didn't look at the South, where the White Army was regrouping in terror.
He looked North.
"Moscow," Jake said.
Anatoly frowned. "But the Central Committee didn't recall us."
Jake turned. His yellow eyes caught the candlelight. There was no humanity in them. Only the cold, crushing weight of history.
"I am recalling myself," Jake said.
He walked past Anatoly, grabbing his coat.
"Lenin thinks he is the brain of the revolution," Jake said, his voice echoing in the corridor. "Trotsky thinks he is the voice."
He stopped at the door and looked back.
"I am the fist," he said. "And I am going to break them."
The Train Station, Midnight.
The armored train hissed steam into the freezing night. It was a black iron beast, bristling with machine guns and stolen artillery.
Thousands of soldiers stood on the platform. These weren't the ragged conscripts Jake had found a month ago. These were veterans. Their boots were polished. Their rifles were clean.
They were silent.
Jake climbed onto the rear platform of the train. He looked out at his army. His cult.
He didn't give a speech about freedom. He didn't talk about the proletariat or Marx.
He raised a single clenched fist.
"For Sister Anna!" a soldier screamed from the back.
"NO!" Jake roared. The sound cracked like a whip.
The crowd flinched.
"Anna is dead," Jake shouted. "She was weak. She died because she trusted liars."
He leaned over the railing, scanning the faces.
"Trust no one," Jake hissed. "Trust only the gun. Trust only the victory."
He pointed North, into the darkness.
"They are sitting in warm palaces in Moscow," Jake shouted. "Drinking tea. While you bleed. While you freeze."
A low growl started in the crowd.
"They think we are dogs to be kicked!" Jake yelled. "Are we dogs?"
"NO!" the crowd roared back.
"Then let us go show them," Jake said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper that somehow carried across the wind. "Let us show them who owns Russia."
The train whistle screamed. It sounded like a demon shrieking.
As the wheels began to turn, grinding against the frozen tracks, Jake didn't go inside to the warmth. He stood on the platform, watching the city of Tsaritsyn fade into the dark.
He lit his pipe. The sparks flew into the night.
He wasn't afraid of the future anymore. He knew exactly what was coming.
He was going to purge them all.
The train picked up speed, hurtling toward the capital. Toward the men who had killed the only thing he loved.
Jake Vance smiled. It was a terrifying, humorless stretching of lips.
The world wanted Stalin.
Now, they were going to get him.