The Yaroslavsky Station was silent as a tomb.
Usually, it was a hive of shouting porters and steam whistles. Tonight, it was frozen.
Thousands of Red Army soldiers lined the platform. They didn't stand at attention. They stood in a loose, dangerous formation, weapons held low. They were waiting for a war to start.
The armored train hissed, venting steam that smelled of bad coal and sulfur. The wheels screeched a final, agonizing protest against the rails.
The door to the command car opened.
Jake Vance stepped out.
He didn't look like a conqueror. He looked like a mechanic who had just finished a dirty, bloody shift. His coat was stained with oil. His boots were caked with the mud of the Southern Front.
He walked down the metal steps. Clang. Clang. Clang.
A nervous young officer from the Moscow Soviet stepped forward. He held a clipboard like a shield.
"Comrade Stalin," the boy squeaked. "The Central Committee has ordered... they have requested that your troops remain on the train. You are to proceed to the Kremlin alone."
Jake stopped. He lit a cigarette. The flame illuminated the deep lines etched around his mouth.
"The troops are cold," Jake said. His voice was a dry rasp.
"Comrade?"
"They are cold," Jake repeated. "They are hungry. They have killed Whites, drowned traitors, and shoveled coal for forty-eight hours."
He blew smoke into the boy's face.
"They are sleeping in the station," Jake said. "And if anyone tries to stop them, they will burn this city to the ground."
He walked past the officer. He didn't look back.
Anatoly and Taranov fell in behind him. They were his shadows now.
Jake walked out of the station and into the Moscow night. He hailed a carriage. The driver took one look at his face and didn't ask for a fare.
"To the Kremlin," Jake said.
The gates of the Kremlin were barred.
Searchlights swept the cobblestones of Red Square. Machine gun nests were sandbagged around the Spassky Tower. The Latvian Riflemen, Lenin's Praetorian Guard, manned the walls.
They were disciplined. They were loyal. They were the only thing standing between the government and the Demon.
Jake got out of the carriage. He walked toward the gate.
"Halt!" a Latvian sergeant shouted. "State your business!"
Jake kept walking. He was a target in the middle of the spotlight, a lone figure in a grey coat.
"I am here to give a report," Jake yelled. "Open the gate."
"We have orders to fire!" the sergeant warned. He racked the bolt of his rifle.
Jake stopped. He looked up at the wall. He saw the faces of the Riflemen. They were hard men, veterans.
"Do you smell it?" Jake shouted.
The sergeant blinked. "Smell what?"
"The radiation," Jake lied. It wasn't a lie, not really. "The sickness coming from the Lubyanka."
A murmur went through the guards. Rumors traveled faster than telegrams. They had heard about the lead box. They had heard about the soldiers vomiting blood.
"Your masters are playing with poison," Jake roared. "They killed the woman who built their bank. Now they are poisoning the air you breathe."
He took a step forward.
"I brought you cannons from Tsaritsyn!" Jake shouted. "I brought you victory! What did they bring you? A box of death!"
He walked to the heavy wooden doors. He put his hand on the iron ring.
"Shoot me if you want," Jake said softly, looking through the crack at the guards inside. "But you better kill me with the first bullet. Because if I stand back up, I will kill every single one of you."
Silence stretched. It was heavy, suffocating.
The sergeant on the wall looked at his officer. The officer looked at Jake. He looked at the empty square behind Jake, imagining the three thousand angry veterans at the train station.
The officer nodded.
The heavy beam inside was lifted. The hinges groaned.
The gates opened.
Jake didn't smile. He didn't thank them. He walked through the archway like he owned the stones beneath his feet.
The hallway to Lenin's office was long and lined with red carpets.
Jake walked fast. His boots left muddy prints on the wool. He could hear voices arguing inside the room.
He didn't knock. He kicked the double doors open.
The boom echoed like a gunshot.
Inside, the air was thick with tension. Lenin sat behind his desk, looking pale and shrunken. Trotsky stood by the fireplace, a glass of brandy in his hand. Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Cheka, stood by the window.
They all froze.
Jake walked into the room. He brought the cold winter air with him.
"Koba," Lenin said. His voice was weak. "We expected you to announce yourself."
Jake walked to the chair opposite Lenin. He didn't sit. He stood behind it, gripping the leather backrest until his knuckles turned white.
"Where is she?" Jake asked.
"We have already sent the official report," Trotsky said, stepping forward. "Citizen Svanidze resisted arrest. It was an unfortunate incident during a security operation."
Jake looked at Trotsky. He looked at the man's manicured hands. His clean uniform. His arrogance.
"Security operation," Jake repeated.
He moved.
It was a blur of violence. Jake lunged across the gap. He grabbed Trotsky by the throat and slammed him into the wall.
The brandy glass shattered. Trotsky gagged, clawing at Jake's iron grip.
"You killed her for a rock!" Jake hissed, his face inches from Trotsky's. "You killed her for a weapon you can't even lift!"
"Release him!" Lenin shouted, standing up. "Dzerzhinsky!"
Iron Felix reached for his holster.
"Don't," Jake said. He didn't look at Dzerzhinsky. He kept his yellow eyes pinned on Trotsky, watching the War Commissar turn purple. "Anatoly is on the roof across the street. He has a rifle aimed at this window. If I die, you all die."
Dzerzhinsky froze. He slowly took his hand off his gun.
Jake held Trotsky for another second, letting him taste the fear of death. Then he dropped him.
Trotsky slid to the floor, coughing and gasping for air.
Jake turned to Lenin.
"Sit down, old man," Jake said.
Lenin sat. He looked at Jake with a mix of horror and fascination. This wasn't the eager revolutionary he had met in exile. This was a thug. A tsar in a service jacket.
"You want power," Lenin whispered. "Is that it? You want to replace me?"
"No," Jake said. He walked to the window and looked out at the Kremlin walls. "You are the symbol. The people need their Lenin. They need their grandfather."
He turned back.
"And him," Jake pointed at the wheezing Trotsky. "He is the voice. He makes good speeches."
"Then what do you want?" Lenin asked.
"I want the machinery," Jake said.
He walked to the desk. He picked up a pen.
"You are going to create a new position," Jake said. "General Secretary."
"A secretary?" Trotsky rasped from the floor, rubbing his throat. "You want to file paperwork?"
"Yes," Jake said. "I will handle the files. The appointments. The personnel. You two can make the speeches and dream about world revolution. I will decide who gets hired. Who gets fired. Who gets extra rations."
He leaned over the desk.
"I will be the plumbing of the state," Jake whispered. "And you will just be the faucets."
Lenin understood. He saw the trap instantly. The man who controlled the personnel controlled the Party.
"And if we refuse?" Lenin asked.
"Then I walk out of here," Jake said. "I go back to the station. And tomorrow morning, the Civil War changes direction."
The threat hung in the air. It was absolute.
Lenin picked up the report on the atomic weapon. The useless, poisonous prize that had cost them everything. He looked at the mud on Jake's boots.
They had no choice. They had created a monster, and now they had to feed it.
"Draft the order," Lenin said to Dzerzhinsky.
Trotsky struggled to his feet. He looked at Jake with pure hatred.
"This isn't over, Koba," Trotsky whispered. "You are an uneducated peasant. You will fail."
Jake didn't respond to the insult. He didn't care about their opinions anymore.
He walked to the door.
"One more thing," Jake said.
"What?" Lenin asked.
"The scientist," Jake said. "Ipatieff."
"He is dying," Dzerzhinsky said. "Radiation sickness."
"Give him to me," Jake said. "And the box."
"Why?" Trotsky asked. "It is trash."
Jake opened the door.
"Because it is mine," he said. "And I keep what is mine."
The Lubyanka Basement. One hour later.
The concrete poured over the vault door was still wet.
Jake stood in the hallway. He wore a lead apron over his coat.
Two soldiers dragged Professor Ipatieff out of the quarantine cell. The man was barely conscious. His skin was covered in sores.
"Koba," Ipatieff wheezed. "You came."
"I told you I would," Jake said.
He didn't offer sympathy. He didn't hold the man's hand.
"Can you still think?" Jake asked.
"My brain... is fire," Ipatieff whispered. "But yes. I can think."
"Good," Jake said. "Because we are leaving."
"Where?"
"Siberia," Jake said. "Far away from them. Far away from the spies."
He signaled the soldiers. They lifted the professor onto a stretcher.
Jake looked at the sealed door where the lead box sat. The demon core.
It wasn't a weapon yet. But it was a promise. A promise of absolute power.
Kato had died for it. So Jake would make sure it worked. Even if it took twenty years. Even if he had to burn through ten thousand scientists to do it.
He walked out of the basement.
He had the Party. He had the secret. He had the hate.
Jake Vance was gone. Stalin had arrived.
And the 20th Century was just getting started.