Batumi felt like another planet compared to Tbilisi. The sea wind hit hard, carrying the stink of salt, tar, and smoke from ships that never slept. The streets buzzed with sailors shouting in half a dozen tongues, merchants arguing over crates, and drunk dockhands stumbling home at dawn. It was the kind of place where money and secrets changed hands faster than the tide.
Perfect for a lie big enough to buy survival.
Jake didn't go himself. Those days were over. His job wasn't to run into danger anymore—it was to send others. From his cold basement in Tbilisi, he pulled the strings, the spider at the center of the web. The thought didn't bother him anymore. In fact, it felt natural. Almost too natural.
He sent Kamo.
Before Kamo left, Jake drilled him for hours. Not on fighting—but on pretending.
"You're not Kamo the bandit today," Jake said. "You're Gigo. Arms broker from Rostov. Nervous. Greedy. Always counting coins. You trust no one, not even your own shadow."
Then he handed over a plan as precise as a clock—signals, phrases, escape routes.
Kamo wasn't just a man anymore. He was a weapon loaded and primed.
Kamo reached Batumi with two men dressed as dockworkers. Their contact was Mikheil, a rat of a smuggler who always smelled like fish and fear. Jake had picked him on purpose—useful and expendable.
Kamo, now "Gigo," slid a small crate across the table of a tavern.
"European goods," he said. "High quality. You'll get ten percent if you find me a buyer."
Mikheil's eyes gleamed. "Ten?"
"Ten now," Kamo said. "If I live to spend it, maybe fifteen."
The bait was taken.
The meeting with Stolypin's man came next. A warehouse by the water. Dim light. Wind howling through broken windows. The officer—Sidorov—looked too clean for this place. His questions were polite, but his eyes searched like scalpels.
Kamo kept to the role—sweaty palms, darting glances, too eager for the payout.
Sidorov stayed cool, bureaucratic, the kind of man who could lie while measuring your heartbeat. Every word was a test. Every silence, a trap.
By the time they left, neither trusted the other—but both believed just enough to keep the game alive.
The final link was the buyer: the Armenian Dashnaks.
They met in a cellar that smelled like boiled cabbage and cheap wine. Three men sat waiting. Hard eyes. Harder faces. Their leader, Armen, had a mustache big enough to hide a knife behind.
"You have guns," Armen said. "We have money. But tell me, broker—how do I know you're not Okhrana bait?"
Kamo laughed nervously. "If this was a trap, I'd already be dead, my friend. I just want my cut and a train ticket out."
The Dashnaks didn't laugh. They whispered among themselves, suspicion thick as smoke. Finally, Armen said, "We inspect the goods first."
That broke the script. Jake's plan didn't allow it. The deal was dying fast.
Kamo stepped outside "to consult his partners." In truth, he was thinking—fast. He needed a way to flip fear into trust. A trick so bold it would make even Jake proud.
An hour later, chaos erupted.
Whistles. Shouts. The pounding of boots. Two "police officers" stormed a nearby warehouse, yelling about a raid. The whole district panicked.
Inside the cellar, Kamo burst in, panting, eyes wide.
"Okhrana!" he hissed. "They're raiding the docks! I'm leaving before they find me!"
The Dashnaks froze. Armen's hand went to his gun. "Wait—if they're here—then this is our only chance! We do it now. Fast."
The fake fear had become real greed. Perfect.
Ten frantic minutes later, the deal was done.
A moving cart. A single crate of Brownings. A heavy briefcase full of Tsarist gold.
Everyone just wanted to vanish before the "police" came back.
Kamo and his men left Batumi before sunrise, slipping into the fog like ghosts. Behind them, the port was alive with rumors—raids, gun deals, disappearing Armenians. No one knew the truth. No one ever would.
When Kamo returned to Tbilisi, the cellar filled with noise. Laughter. Relief.
He dropped the briefcase on Jake's desk with a thud that echoed.
"As promised," he said, grinning. "A gift from Stolypin himself."
Jake opened it. Stacks of gold rubles. Enough to fund the revolution for a year.
For a moment, he let himself feel the victory. It tasted like triumph—and danger.
Then Pyotr burst in, out of breath, an envelope in hand.
"Comrade Soso," he said. "A courier just arrived—from London."
Jake stared at the letter. His pulse quickened. Too soon. Too perfect.
He looked down at the gold, then at the seal on the envelope.
One represented everything he had just won. The other, everything that could still destroy him.
He broke the wax and unfolded the paper.
Whatever was written there would decide what came next.