The wheelchair squeaked against the marble floor.
Vladimir Lenin hated the sound. It sounded like weakness.
He sat by the window in his private quarters, a blanket draped over his useless legs. His right hand lay on his lap like a dead fish. His mouth tasted of iron and medicine.
The doctors said he needed rest. They said the stroke was a warning.
Lenin knew better. It wasn't a warning. It was a sentence.
The door opened softly. A nurse checked the hallway, then nodded to someone in the shadows.
Leon Trotsky slipped inside.
He looked like a ghost. His uniform hung loosely on his frame. His eyes were circled in dark bruises of exhaustion.
"Vladimir," Trotsky whispered, kneeling by the chair.
Lenin tried to speak. His tongue felt heavy, swollen.
"Wa... ater," Lenin croaked.
Trotsky poured a glass. He held it to Lenin's lips. His hand shook, spilling a few drops on the Chairman's chin.
"He has cut the lines," Trotsky said, his voice low and urgent. "The phones in my office are dead. My car was confiscated this morning. 'Maintenance issues,' they said."
Lenin swallowed the water. He focused his will. He forced the left side of his face to work.
"He... is... closing... the... net," Lenin rasped.
"He is isolating us," Trotsky said. "Zinoviev and Kamenev are terrified. They think Stalin is protecting them from a counter-revolution. They don't see that he is the counter-revolution."
Lenin pointed to the writing slate on his lap. He picked up the chalk with his good hand.
WE MUST ACT, he wrote. The letters were jagged, angry.
"How?" Trotsky asked, pacing the room. "The army is eating his bread. The Cheka is drinking his vodka. If I order a regiment to march on the Kremlin, he will bribe them before they cross the river."
Lenin tapped the slate. NOT OUTSIDE. INSIDE.
Trotsky stopped pacing. He looked at the old man.
"Inside?"
THE GUARDS, Lenin wrote. THE LATVIANS.
Trotsky's eyes widened.
The Latvian Riflemen. They were the elite. The Praetorian Guard. They guarded the gates, the armory, and the private quarters. They answered only to the Central Committee.
"Peters," Trotsky whispered. "Captain Peters commands them. He is an old Bolshevik. A true believer."
Lenin nodded. His eyes burned with a fierce, desperate light.
TONIGHT, Lenin wrote. BEFORE HE KILLS ME.
Trotsky grabbed Lenin's good hand. It was cold.
"I will go to the barracks," Trotsky promised. "I will remind them who led the October Revolution. We will cut the cancer out before dawn."
Lenin watched him go.
He looked at the slate. He erased the words.
He looked at his useless legs.
Koba thought he was a vegetable. Koba thought the brain of the revolution was dead.
Lenin gripped the chalk until it snapped.
He wasn't dead yet. And he still had one trick left to play.
The Closet.
Jake peeled an apple with his pocket knife.
The peel came off in one long, red ribbon. It curled onto the desk like a snake.
"It is quiet," Jake said.
Taranov was oiling his pistol in the corner. "Quiet is good, Comrade."
"No," Jake said. He sliced a piece of apple and ate it. "Noise is good. Noise means they are complaining. Noise means they are fighting the bureaucracy."
He looked at the ceiling. Above him were the apartments of the elite.
"Silence means they are planning," Jake said.
He picked up the daily surveillance log.
Subject: Trotsky, Leon. Status: In quarters. No outgoing calls.
Subject: Lenin, Vladimir. Status: Medical rest. No visitors.
Jake frowned. The log was too clean.
"Where is the nurse?" Jake asked. "The night nurse for Lenin."
Taranov checked his notes. "Nurse Petrova. She clocked in at 18:00."
"Check her file," Jake ordered. "Does she have a family?"
Taranov flipped through a binder. "Husband. Two sons. The husband was a printer for the Mensheviks in 1917."
Jake stopped chewing.
"A Menshevik," Jake whispered. "Old loyalties."
He stood up. He threw the apple core into the wastebasket.
"Trotsky isn't in his room," Jake said. "He is visiting the old man. They are conspiring."
"Shall I arrest them?" Taranov asked, holstering his gun.
"On what grounds?" Jake asked. "Visiting a sick friend? No. We need them to make a move. We need them to commit a crime."
Jake walked to the map of the Kremlin complex. He traced the hallways with his finger.
If they couldn't use the phones, and they couldn't use the army, what was left?
His finger stopped on the barracks block.
"The Latvians," Jake whispered.
He felt a chill. The Riflemen were the only armed force inside the walls he didn't directly pay. They were fanatics. They didn't care about food rations. They cared about the Cause.
If Trotsky turned them, Jake was dead. Taranov was dead. The closet would become their tomb.
"Go to the armory," Jake ordered Taranov. "Take four men. Stay in the shadows. Do not engage."
"What are my orders?"
"Watch Captain Peters," Jake said. "If he shakes Trotsky's hand... you kill them both."
Taranov nodded. "And initiate a civil war in the Kremlin?"
"Better a war tonight than a firing squad tomorrow," Jake said.
The Barracks.
The air smelled of gun oil and unwashed wool.
Trotsky walked down the rows of bunks. Soldiers were sleeping, playing cards, or cleaning their rifles.
They stopped when they saw him.
Trotsky stood tall. He summoned the charisma that had rallied millions in 1917. He wasn't the tired bureaucrat anymore. He was the Lion of the Revolution.
"Comrades," Trotsky said. His voice carried to the back of the room.
Captain Peters stepped out of his office. He was a giant of a man with a thick beard and eyes like flint.
"Commissar Trotsky," Peters said slowly. "You are not authorized to be in the barracks after curfew."
"I am the Creator of the Red Army," Trotsky said. "I do not need authorization to speak to my soldiers."
He walked up to Peters. He stopped inches from the Captain's chest.
"The Revolution is dying, Captain," Trotsky said.
The room went silent. A pin drop would have sounded like a gunshot.
"We fought to free the workers," Trotsky continued, looking around at the soldiers. "We fought to break the chains of the Tsar. But look around you. Are the chains gone? Or have they just changed color?"
He pointed toward the main building. Toward the closet beneath the stairs.
"There is a man sitting in the dark," Trotsky hissed. "He isn't a soldier. He never led a charge. He never bled in the snow. He sits at a desk and steals your bread. He sits at a desk and poisons your Chairman."
Peters stiffened. "Poisons? That is a serious accusation."
"Lenin is paralyzed," Trotsky lied smoothly. "Not by nature, but by stress. By the blockade of his own government. The Secretary has cut the phone lines. He has isolated the leader of our Party."
Trotsky placed a hand on Peters' shoulder.
"Tomorrow morning, the Central Committee meets," Trotsky said. "I will present the evidence of Stalin's treason. I will move for his arrest."
He looked Peters in the eye.
"When I give the order... whose side will you be on? The side of the filing cabinet? Or the side of the Revolution?"
Peters looked at his men. They were nodding. They hated the bureaucrats. They hated the shortages. They wanted a fight.
Peters looked back at Trotsky.
"We swore an oath to Comrade Lenin," Peters said.
"Then save him," Trotsky whispered.
Peters took a deep breath. He looked at his holster.
"At the plenum tomorrow," Peters said quietly. "If you give the signal... we will secure the room."
Trotsky exhaled. He felt a rush of pure, intoxicating victory.
"Prepare your men," Trotsky said. "Tomorrow, we clean the house."
He turned to leave.
High above, in the ventilation grate, a shadow moved. Taranov lowered his head, listening.
He didn't shoot. He had his orders.
He slipped away into the ducts, moving silently back toward the spider in the closet.
Lenin's Quarters.
Lenin sat alone.
He had finished writing. The slate was covered in white chalk marks.
TESTAMENT TO THE CONGRESS.
Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.
He paused. His hand trembled.
He needed to be stronger. Caution was too weak a word.
He erased the last line.
Stalin is too rude. This defect becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. Therefore, I propose to the comrades that they find a way to remove Stalin from that position.
It was a death warrant. If this letter was read at the plenum, Koba was finished. The Party revered Lenin's word as gospel.
Lenin placed the slate on the table. He covered it with a newspaper.
He closed his eyes.
He remembered the young Koba in exile. The eager thug who robbed banks for the cause. He had been a useful tool. A hammer to break the state.
But you don't keep a hammer on the dinner table.
"Goodbye, Koba," Lenin whispered into the dark.
The Closet.
Taranov dropped from the vent in the ceiling. He landed softly, like a cat.
Jake was waiting.
"Well?" Jake asked.
"They have a deal," Taranov said. "Tomorrow morning. At the plenum. When Trotsky gives the signal, Peters arrests you."
Jake nodded. He didn't look surprised.
"And Lenin?"
"Trotsky claimed you poisoned him," Taranov said. "The Latvians believe it. They are ready to execute you."
Jake stood up. He walked to the mirror. He adjusted his collar.
"So," Jake said. "A coup."
He felt a strange calmness. This was it. The final hurdle.
Lenin and Trotsky had made their move. They had chosen violence. Which meant the rules of politics no longer applied.
"Do we flee?" Taranov asked. "We can make it to the train station. We can go south to the Army."
"No," Jake said. "If we run, we look guilty."
He opened his drawer. He took out two files.
One was the roster of the Kremlin kitchen staff.
The other was the duty schedule for the ventilation maintenance crew.
"Peters thinks he has the guns," Jake said. "Trotsky thinks he has the voice."
Jake picked up his red pencil.
"But they forgot where they are," Jake whispered. "They are in my building."
He circled a name on the maintenance list.
"Taranov," Jake said. "Go to the chemical storage locker. Get the fumigation canisters. The ones for the rats."
Taranov frowned. "For the rats, Comrade?"
"Yes," Jake said. "The ventilation system for the plenum hall connects directly to the basement."
He looked at Taranov. His yellow eyes were flat and deadly.
"Tomorrow morning, before the meeting starts," Jake said. "We are going to fumigate the hall."
"But... the Central Committee will be inside," Taranov said.
"Not poison," Jake said. "Just... discomfort. Chlorine. Tear gas. Whatever creates chaos."
He sat back down.
"Trotsky wants a grand speech," Jake said. "He wants a dramatic arrest."
Jake smiled.
"It is very hard to make a speech when you are coughing your lungs out."
He tapped the desk.
"And while they are choking... while the confusion is total... that is when Peters will have an accident."
"An accident?"
"A tragic misfire," Jake said. "In the smoke."
He looked at the clock. Six hours until dawn.
"Get some sleep, Taranov," Jake said. "Tomorrow, we bury the past."
He picked up his apple. He took a bite.
It was crisp. Sweet.
The game was over. Now, it was just the slaughter.