St. George Cathedral at midnight was a cavern of stone and silence. The air hung thick with beeswax and the stale perfume of old incense. Candlelight flickered against the faces of saints, their gold halos catching in the dark. Shadows gathered in the corners like watchful ghosts.
From the choir loft, Jake adjusted the hood of the acolyte's robe and tried to slow his heartbeat. The wool scratched against his skin. He smelled dust, wax, mothballs. Below, the nave stretched out like a chessboard waiting for its first move. Kamo and his men were outside, stationed in the graveyard, invisible and useless if things went wrong. Jake was alone.
Hours earlier, he'd rehearsed with Danilov until the man's voice broke. He had coached him not to act brave but to be afraid. "Let them see it," Jake had said. "A liar acts confident. A man telling the truth under fear trembles." Together they built a careful balance of fact and fiction—small truths nested inside a larger lie.
The cathedral clock struck twelve, each bell a deep shudder through the stone.
The side door creaked open. Danilov stepped in, hunched and shaking. He crossed the marble floor toward the altar, every footstep echoing like a confession. He stood beneath the towering icons, head bowed, hands twisting together—a servant awaiting judgment.
Nothing moved for a full minute. Then a man detached himself from the darkness of a confessional. He moved with the soft precision of a cat. No uniform. No swagger. A dark suit, perfectly tailored. A beard trimmed close. He looked like a bureaucrat until you saw the eyes—sharp, cold, alive with control.
"You were told to come alone," he said. His voice was quiet, cultured, precise. That calmness was worse than any threat.
"I am alone, sir," Danilov stammered.
"You seem agitated," the man went on. "The week has been… eventful."
Jake held his breath in the loft. The test had begun.
"The Georgian—this Soso," the man said. "Tell me about him."
"He's a butcher," Danilov whispered, keeping to the script. "He shot Orlov in front of everyone. No trial. We're all terrified. He has his circle—Kamo and the rest—and we obey because we must."
The man circled slowly, measuring every word. "And now? What does he plan?"
"He speaks of control," Danilov said. "Security. He trusts no one. He fights with Shaumian's faction—they say he's destroying the party."
The questions kept coming—smooth, relentless, designed to trip him. The man named comrades, real and fake, to see what flickered across Danilov's eyes. He mentioned meetings that never happened, watched how Danilov reacted. Each line was a trap, and somehow the trembling, broken man danced through them, guided by fear and Jake's earlier drilling.
Finally, the interrogator stopped circling. "Your reports have been… acceptable," he said at last, his tone cool, dismissive. "But your mission has changed."
He stepped closer. "This 'Soso,' this Jughashvili. He appeared from nowhere. No record worth mentioning. And now he controls Tbilisi. My superiors are intrigued—and wary. You will get close to him. You are no longer Orlov's man. You are his. Earn his trust. Learn everything. His habits, his fears, his private alliances. You will be our eyes inside his camp."
In the loft, Jake went still. The realization hit like ice water. He had sent out a puppet to be tested, and the enemy had adopted it. They had turned his double agent into their operative—assigned to spy on Jake himself.
The man from St. Petersburg gave Danilov a new code phrase, a new drop system, and then stepped back into the shadows, vanishing as silently as he'd come.
Danilov stood alone for a long moment, trembling before the altar. Then he turned and fled, his footsteps echoing through the empty cathedral.
Jake didn't move. He stayed crouched among the rafters, heart hammering. He'd done it—outsmarted the Okhrana, inserted his own mole into their network—but victory felt like vertigo.
As the man from St. Petersburg passed below, a flicker of candlelight revealed his face. Jake's breath caught. The beard. The high forehead. The sharp, calculating eyes.
He knew him. Not from this century, but from history. Pyotr Stolypin—the Tsar's Prime Minister. Ruthless reformer. Architect of state terror.
Jake leaned back into the shadows, pulse roaring in his ears. The game had changed again. He wasn't dealing with local enforcers anymore.
He had just stepped onto the empire's grand chessboard—and the man across from him was the Tsar's most dangerous piece.