The black car idled in the shadow of the Lubyanka.
Vyacheslav Menzhinsky buttoned his coat. He checked his watch. It was 2:00 AM. The perfect time for disappearances.
He walked down the steps of the secret police headquarters. He felt eyes on him. Not the Whites. Not the British spies.
His own men.
He opened the car door. The backseat was empty.
"Drive," Menzhinsky said to the chauffeur. "My apartment."
"No," the driver said.
Menzhinsky froze. He looked at the rearview mirror. The driver wasn't his usual man. It was Taranov. The Executioner of Tsaritsyn.
"The General Secretary requires a consultation," Taranov rumbled. The car lurched forward.
Menzhinsky didn't reach for his gun. Taranov would snap his neck before he cleared the holster. He sat back. He watched the gaslights of Moscow blur past.
He thought of the vault. He thought of Kato Svanidze bleeding in the snow. He had promised to help her, and then he had stood by while Trotsky's soldiers stormed the bank.
He was a loose end. And Koba cut loose ends.
The Closet.
The room was filled with smoke. It hung in the air like a blue ceiling.
Jake sat at his desk. He was reading a file on coal production in the Donbas. He didn't look up when Menzhinsky entered.
Taranov closed the door. The lock clicked.
Menzhinsky stood there. He was sweating.
"Sit," Jake said.
Menzhinsky sat on the wooden stool. It was uncomfortable. It was meant to be.
"I expected this sooner," Menzhinsky said, his voice trembling slightly. "Am I to be shot in the courtyard? Or the basement?"
Jake turned a page. Scritch. Scritch.
"Why would I shoot you?" Jake asked.
"Because I let her die," Menzhinsky whispered.
Jake finally looked up. His yellow eyes were void of anger. They were void of everything.
"She died because she trusted the wrong people," Jake said. "She trusted Trotsky to be rational. She trusted you to be brave."
He closed the file.
"Bravery is rare, Vyacheslav. I don't expect it from accountants."
Menzhinsky flinched. He prided himself on being a spymaster, an intellectual. To be called an accountant was a slap in the face.
"I serve the State," Menzhinsky said stiffly.
"You serve Felix Dzerzhinsky," Jake corrected. "Iron Felix. The Knight of the Revolution."
Jake leaned forward.
"Felix is a romantic," Jake said. "He chases spies in the shadows. He worries about honor. He worries about the purity of the Party."
Jake picked up a lead paperweight. He rolled it in his hand.
"I don't care about purity," Jake said. "I care about gravity. I care about the bomb."
Menzhinsky's breath hitched. "The bomb is gone. You sent Ipatieff away."
"The physics remain," Jake said. "The future remains. Dzerzhinsky wants to secure the present. I am building the next century."
He tossed the paperweight to Menzhinsky. The man caught it clumsily. It was heavy. Cold.
"Felix is in my way," Jake said. "He reads my mail. He whispers to Lenin. He is a relic."
"He is the head of the Cheka," Menzhinsky said. "He is untouchable."
"No one is untouchable," Jake said. "Every man has a file. Every man has a weakness."
Jake opened his desk drawer. He pulled out a bottle of vodka and two glasses.
"I want the Cheka," Jake said. "Not to fight spies. To fight the Party."
He poured the drinks.
"Help me remove Dzerzhinsky," Jake said. "And when I rebuild the world, you will be the one holding the keys to the vault."
"And if I refuse?"
Jake drank his vodka. He slammed the glass down.
"Then Taranov drives you to the river," Jake said. "And you go for a swim. It is very cold tonight."
Menzhinsky looked at the vodka. He looked at the paperweight in his hand. He remembered the sound of the Geiger counter screaming in the bank. That was power. Real power.
Dzerzhinsky offered him duty. Koba offered him godhood.
Menzhinsky picked up the glass. His hand stopped shaking.
"Felix has a heart condition," Menzhinsky said softly. "He requires medication. If the supply were... delayed... the stress of his office would be fatal."
Jake smiled. It was a shark's smile.
"To health," Jake said.
Lenin's Office. The next morning.
Vladimir Lenin couldn't feel his left hand.
He rubbed it against his thigh. It felt like wood. Numb. Dead.
He tried to focus on the report in front of him. The Romanov execution. It was a disaster. The foreign press was going to crucify them.
"He didn't just kill them," Lenin muttered to the empty room. "He butchered them."
The door opened.
Dzerzhinsky walked in. He looked terrible. His face was grey, sweating. He clutched his chest.
"Vladimir," Dzerzhinsky gasped. "We have a breach."
Lenin stood up, alarmed. "What is it?"
"The internal lines," Dzerzhinsky wheezed, sinking into a chair. "The Kremlin switchboard. It has been rerouted."
"Rerouted to where?"
"To the Secretariat," Dzerzhinsky said. "To the closet. Stalin is listening to every call. Every order I give... he hears it before my men do."
Lenin felt a spike of fear. "Cut the lines."
"I tried," Dzerzhinsky said. "My engineers were arrested. By the Moscow Garrison. They claimed the engineers were saboteurs."
Dzerzhinsky groaned. He dug into his pocket for his pills. He pulled out a small glass bottle.
It was empty.
"My medicine," Dzerzhinsky whispered, panic rising in his eyes. "I ordered a refill yesterday. It didn't come."
Lenin grabbed the phone. "I will call the infirmary."
He lifted the receiver. There was no dial tone. Just a soft, rhythmic clicking.
Click. Click. Click.
Someone was listening.
"Koba," Lenin hissed.
The door opened again.
Jake walked in. He moved silently, like a ghost in grey wool. He carried a tray with a teapot and three cups.
"Good morning, Comrades," Jake said.
He placed the tray on the desk.
"Get out," Lenin said. His voice was weak. "Get out of my office."
"I brought tea," Jake said. He poured a cup. "And I brought the new organizational chart."
He placed a document over the Romanov report.
PROPOSAL 55: CONSOLIDATION OF INTERNAL SECURITY UNDER THE GENERAL SECRETARIAT.
"You want the Cheka?" Dzerzhinsky gasped. "Over my dead body."
Jake looked at the empty pill bottle in Dzerzhinsky's hand.
"That can be arranged," Jake said coolly.
Lenin slammed his hand on the desk. "You threaten him in front of me? I am the Chairman!"
"You are tired, Vladimir," Jake said. He didn't back down. He stepped closer. "You are old. You let the Romanovs live for months because you were afraid of the optics. I solved it in one night."
"You are a murderer!" Lenin shouted.
"I am a surgeon," Jake said. "I cut out the rot."
Lenin's face turned red. The veins in his temple pulsed. The numbness in his hand shot up his arm, turning into a bolt of lightning that struck his chest.
"You... you..." Lenin stammered.
His speech slurred. The world tilted.
Lenin collapsed back into his chair. His mouth drooped on one side. The cup of tea knocked over, spilling brown liquid across the map of Russia.
"Vladimir!" Dzerzhinsky screamed. He tried to stand, but his own heart seized. He fell to his knees, clutching the desk.
Jake didn't move.
He stood there, watching.
He watched the Architect of the Revolution grasping for air. He watched the Knight of the Revolution crawling on the floor.
"Help him!" Dzerzhinsky choked out. "Call the doctor!"
Jake took a sip of his tea.
"The phones are down," Jake said. "Technical difficulties."
He walked around the desk. He looked down at Lenin. The leader's eyes were wide, terrified, trapped in a body that was shutting down.
"You should have given me the bomb," Jake whispered to Lenin. "You should have trusted her."
Lenin tried to speak. Only a wet gurgle came out.
Jake looked at the clock on the wall.
He would wait five minutes. Five minutes of oxygen deprivation. Enough to cause permanent damage. Enough to turn the brain of the Revolution into mush.
"Rest now, Grandpa," Jake said gently.
He sat on the edge of the desk, swinging his legs.
He watched the second hand tick.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
It was the sound of a new era arriving.
Dzerzhinsky passed out from the pain. Lenin's breathing grew shallow.
Jake finished his tea.
He stood up. He adjusted his tunic.
He walked to the door, opened it, and yelled into the hallway.
"Guards! Help! The Chairman has collapsed!"
He turned back to the room. He looked at the two broken men.
He smiled.
He wasn't just a secretary anymore.
He was the only man left standing.
The Hospital Wing. That Night.
The doctors were grave.
"A massive stroke," the chief physician said, wiping his glasses. "He is alive. But he cannot speak. He cannot write. The right side of his body is paralyzed."
Trotsky stood by the bed. He had rushed back from the railyard. He looked at the husk of Vladimir Lenin.
"Who is in charge?" Trotsky asked, panic edging his voice. "If he cannot speak... who gives the orders?"
Jake stood in the corner, leaning against the wall. He was cleaning his nails with a knife.
"The Party speaks," Jake said.
"The Party needs a voice!" Trotsky shouted. "I am the War Commissar! I should take temporary command!"
"We should vote," Jake said.
He looked at the gathered members of the Central Committee. Zinoviev. Kamenev. Bukharin.
They looked at Trotsky. They saw a brilliant, arrogant man who commanded the army. A man who made them feel stupid. A man who might become a dictator.
Then they looked at Jake. The quiet man in the grey suit. The man who filed the papers. The man who fixed their problems. The man who seemed... harmless.
"A collective leadership," Jake suggested softly. "A Triumvirate. To share the burden."
Zinoviev nodded. "Yes. That is sensible. No one man should have all the power."
Trotsky looked around the room. He saw the trap closing. Koba was using their mediocrity against his brilliance.
"You are fools," Trotsky hissed. "He is playing you."
"We will vote tomorrow," Jake said. "For now, let us pray for Comrade Lenin."
He walked out of the room.
He didn't pray.
He went to the telegraph office.
He had a message to send to the Southern Front.
TO GENERAL BUDYONNY. PREPARE THE CAVALRY. MOSCOW MAY REQUIRE STABILIZATION. LOYALTY TO THE SECRETARIAT IS PARAMOUNT.
He signed it simply: STALIN.
The name felt heavy. Solid.
Indestructible.