The cell in the basement of the Lubyanka didn't smell like a prison. It smelled like ozone and rotting lemons.
Lenin held a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. His eyes watered. The air tasted metallic.
Inside the cell, Professor Ipatieff lay on a cot. His skin was gray, like wet ash. His hair was falling out in clumps on the pillow.
In the corner sat the lead box. It was heavy, ugly, and silent.
"Wake him up," Trotsky ordered.
A guard stepped forward. He looked terrified. He poked the scientist with a baton.
Ipatieff's eyes fluttered open. They were bloodshot, the whites turned a sickly yellow.
"Tell us how to use it," Trotsky demanded. "How do we drop it? How do we detonate it?"
Ipatieff laughed. It was a wet, bubbling sound.
"You don't," the scientist wheezed. "It is not a bomb. It is a furnace."
He pointed a trembling hand at the box.
"To make it explode... you need compression. Precision lenses. Triggers faster than light. We don't have them. We just have a pile of hot rocks."
Lenin stepped closer, despite the instinct screaming at him to run.
"So it is useless?" Lenin asked.
"It is killing you right now," Ipatieff whispered. "The particles... they go through the lead. Through the walls. Through your skin."
Trotsky took a step back. He looked at his own hands, as if expecting to see burns appearing.
"You built a coffin," Trotsky spat. "And you tricked that woman into dying for it."
"She knew," Ipatieff smiled, his teeth stained with blood. "She knew it was a bluff. A poisoned apple for the King."
Lenin turned around. He felt sick. Not from the radiation, but from the realization.
Kato Svanidze had played them from the grave. She had forced them to kill her to seize a weapon that was actually an assassination attempt in a box.
"Seal the room," Lenin ordered, his voice muffled by the cloth.
"But the prisoner—" the guard started.
"Seal it!" Lenin shouted. "Pour concrete over the door. Bury it. Bury all of it."
He stormed out of the dungeon, Trotsky at his heels. They walked fast, putting distance between themselves and the invisible fire.
They reached the upper offices. The air was clean here, but the panic remained.
"We have a problem, Vladimir," Trotsky said, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"We have many," Lenin muttered, pouring a glass of water. His hands were shaking.
"No," Trotsky said. He pointed to the window overlooking Moscow. "I mean him."
A telegraph operator was standing in the doorway. He looked like he was about to faint.
"Report," Trotsky snapped.
"The Southern Front," the operator stammered. "They aren't answering calls."
"And the train?"
"It passed Tula an hour ago," the operator said. "It didn't stop for the checkpoint."
Lenin lowered his glass. Tula was the last defense line before Moscow.
"Did the garrison fire on them?" Lenin asked.
The operator swallowed hard. "The garrison joined them, Comrade."
The armored train tore through the birch forests like a black iron shark.
Smoke poured from its stack, staining the white winter sky. The noise of the wheels was a rhythmic, grinding thunder.
Jake sat in the dining car. It was stripped bare. No tablecloths. No silver. Just a map spread out on the wood.
Taranov stood opposite him. The Chekist executioner looked nervous.
"We are burning coal too fast," Taranov said. "The boilers are redlining. If we don't slow down, the pistons will seize."
"Let them seize," Jake said. He didn't look up from the map.
"We have three thousand men on board," Taranov pressed. "If we break down in the open..."
Jake looked up. His face was gaunt. He hadn't slept in two days. He hadn't eaten. He was fueled by a cold, dark energy that felt endless.
"We don't stop," Jake said. "We arrive in Moscow tonight. Or we arrive in hell."
The door at the end of the car opened. Anatoly walked in, dragging a man by the collar.
The man was a political commissar, one of the few Jake hadn't drowned in the Volga. He was young, with round glasses and a terrified face.
"Caught him by the wireless set," Anatoly grunted. "Trying to warn the capital."
Jake looked at the man. He stood up slowly.
"I... I have a duty to the Party," the commissar stammered. "Trotsky is the War Commissar. This is mutiny. You are leading these men to treason!"
Jake walked around the table. He moved with a predator's grace.
"Treason," Jake repeated. The word tasted like ash.
He stopped in front of the man.
"Do you know what loyalty is?" Jake asked softly.
"Loyalty to the Revolution!" the commissar cried, finding a shred of courage. "Loyalty to the Central Committee!"
"Loyalty is a contract," Jake said. "I fight. They support. They broke the contract."
He reached out and gently adjusted the man's collar. It was an intimate, terrifying gesture.
"They killed my right hand," Jake whispered. "They killed the woman who built their bank. Do you think I care about their rules?"
"You are mad," the commissar spit. "You are a monster."
Jake smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Yes," he said.
He nodded to Taranov.
"The boiler needs fuel," Jake said.
The commissar's eyes went wide. "No. No, please! I am a Party member!"
Anatoly grabbed him. The man screamed, kicking and thrashing. Taranov opened the door to the engine tender. The roar of the fire was deafening.
They dragged him out. The screams were swallowed by the noise of the train.
Jake sat back down. He picked up his pencil and drew a big red X over Moscow.
He didn't feel guilty. The man was an obstacle. Obstacles were removed.
The train lurched. The brakes squealed, metal grinding on metal.
Jake didn't flinch. "Why are we stopping?"
Anatoly came back in, breathless. "Blockade, Comrade Stalin. The tracks are ripped up. Armored car on the line. It's the Red Guards."
Jake stood up. He put on his greatcoat.
"Get my pipe," he said.
The mist was thick on the tracks.
Fifty yards ahead, a barricade of logs blocked the way. An armored car with a mounted Maxim gun sat behind it. A hundred soldiers in grey greatcoats stood with rifles leveled.
They were the Moscow garrison. Elite troops. Loyal to Trotsky.
Jake stepped off the train.
He was alone. He didn't carry a rifle. He didn't draw his pistol. He just walked down the center of the track, his boots crunching on the gravel.
"Halt!" the officer behind the barricade shouted. "Identify yourself!"
Jake kept walking. He lit his pipe, the flare of the match illuminating his face. The mustache. The pockmarks. The eyes.
A murmur went through the soldiers. They knew that face. They had seen it on the propaganda posters. The Demon of the South. The Man of Steel.
"I said halt!" the officer screamed. His voice cracked. "Machine gunners! Ready!"
The gunner swiveled the Maxim. The barrel pointed straight at Jake's chest.
Jake stopped ten paces from the barricade. He smoked calmly.
"You are Captain Volkov," Jake said. His voice was calm, conversational.
The officer blinked. "How do you know my name?"
"I read your file," Jake lied. He just remembered the unit markings from his history books. "You fought at Tannenberg. You took a piece of shrapnel in the leg."
The Captain lowered his pistol slightly. "That... that is correct."
"Did Trotsky visit you in the hospital?" Jake asked.
The Captain stayed silent.
"Did Lenin bring you soup?" Jake took a step closer. "Or did they sit in Switzerland while you bled?"
"This is an illegal approach!" the Captain shouted, trying to regain control. "Turn back, or we fire!"
Jake spread his arms. He made himself a target.
"Look at my train," Jake said, pointing behind him. "Three thousand men. They fought the Whites. They stole cannons with their bare hands. They are heroes."
He looked the gunner in the eye.
"You want to shoot heroes?" Jake asked. "Go ahead. Pull the trigger. Be the man who started the civil war inside the civil war."
The gunner's hand trembled. He looked at his Captain.
"Fire!" the Captain ordered. "That is an order!"
The gunner didn't move. He looked at Jake. He saw a man who wasn't afraid to die. He saw a leader who stood in front of his army, not behind it.
"Fire, damn you!" the Captain screamed. He raised his own pistol toward Jake.
Crack.
The Captain's head snapped back. He crumpled into the snow.
The gunner hadn't fired.
Anatoly stood on the roof of the train, a sniper rifle smoking in his hands.
Silence fell over the tracks.
Jake didn't flinch at the gunshot. He walked up to the barricade. He looked at the gunner.
"Clear the logs," Jake said gently.
The gunner swallowed. He looked at the dead Captain, then at Jake.
He stood up and saluted.
"Yes, Comrade Stalin."
The soldiers rushed forward. Not to arrest him. To move the logs. They worked with frantic energy, eager to please the monster who walked through bullets.
Jake climbed back onto the train. He didn't look back at the dead officer.
The Kremlin. One hour later.
The telegraph machine in Lenin's office began to click.
It wasn't a message from the garrison. It was a direct line request.
Lenin stared at the machine. He felt old. He felt the weight of the useless lead box in the basement pulling him down.
He sat down and tapped the key. LENIN HERE.
The response came fast. The rhythm was aggressive, staccato.
TRAIN ARRIVING. PREPARE STATION.
Lenin typed back. WE CAN NEGOTIATE. COME ALONE. WE WILL DISCUSS TERMS.
There was a pause. The machine sat silent for a long minute.
Then it clicked one last time.
NO TERMS. ONLY TARGETS.
I AM COMING FOR THE CHAIR.
KOBA.
The line went dead.
Lenin stood up. He walked to the window. He could hear it now. A faint, distant whistle carried on the winter wind.
It sounded like a wolf howling at the door.
He looked at Trotsky, who was frantically loading a pistol by the fireplace.
"He isn't stopping," Lenin said softly.
"Then we fight," Trotsky said, though his hands were shaking. "We have the Kremlin guard. We have the Latvians."
"He has the momentum," Lenin said. "We created a god, Leon. And now he has come to judge us."
Lenin looked at the red flag flying over the square.
For the first time since the revolution began, he wondered if he would survive the night.
The train was coming. And it was bringing the 20th century with it—brutal, cold, and unstoppable.