The meeting dissolved slowly, men drifting out in pairs and small groups, their murmurs charged with Jake's prophecy. The war theory—that was what they were calling it already. He had upended their strategy in one night.
As the last of them left, Lenin motioned for him to stay with a flick of his fingers—quiet, sharp, absolute.
The room felt smaller now, heavier. The smoke hung low like a second ceiling. Lenin lit a new cigarette, watching Jake through the haze with the cold focus of a craftsman studying a strange new tool.
"Your analysis of Europe is… unorthodox," he said.
Then the interrogation began.
For the next hour, Lenin dissected Jake's theory piece by piece. He wasn't arguing—he was pressure-testing it, slamming it against every angle of dialectic and probability, looking for a single weak joint.
"This inevitability you speak of," Lenin asked, eyes narrowed. "It's rooted in economic determinism? In the struggle for colonial markets?"
"Partially, Comrade Ulyanov," Jake answered carefully. "But it's more than economics. It's the instability of the old empires. Austria-Hungary is a prison of nations held together by rust. The Ottomans are dying. And in the Balkans, the fuse is already lit. Serbia, Bosnia, the Slavs—each is a spark in a powder room watched by giants."
He translated modern knowledge into Marxist logic—railway expansion, naval tonnage, imperial rivalries, and alliances that were really nooses. He painted 1914 not as prediction but as inevitability, and Lenin listened like a man watching the gears of history grind in real time.
When Jake finished, Lenin leaned back, silent for a long moment. His eyes gleamed with something that looked like grim admiration.
Then he changed course. "Tell me of your 'iron broom,'" he said. "Tell me how you dealt with the traitor."
Jake recounted the story of Orlov. Not theatrically—just the facts. The discovery, the danger, the execution. He described it as procedure, not vengeance. No emotion. No apology.
"The party was weak," he said. "Too sentimental. They protected traitors in the name of camaraderie. I removed one to save the rest."
Lenin smoked quietly as he listened. Then he nodded once, slow and approving.
"The party is full of talkers," Lenin said, voice low, hard. "Men who write about revolution but faint at the smell of blood. You are not one of them, Comrade Stalin. The revolution needs men who understand that mercy is counter-revolution."
The words hit like a seal pressed in wax. A quiet anointing.
He gave Jake his new mission for the coming Party Congress. "You will not speak on agrarian theory," he said. "You will enforce discipline. The Bolsheviks must vote as one. Manage the delegates. Persuade, cajole, intimidate—use the same skills you used in Tbilisi. Zinoviev and Kamenev are theorists. You are not. You are a man who does."
Jake nodded. "Understood."
He had done it. He had earned Lenin's trust. He was no longer a provincial operative; he was Lenin's enforcer.
He turned to leave, his mind spinning. He had survived the test—and won a place in the inner circle of history.
But as he stepped outside into the fog-drenched London night, someone was waiting.
Trotsky.
He looked different now. The smugness was gone, replaced by curiosity—the wary respect one predator has for another.
"A fascinating theory, comrade," Trotsky said quietly. "Catastrophic, but fascinating. You see the world in… final terms."
Jake's voice was flat. "The world is a final place."
Trotsky gave a thin, humorless smile. "Perhaps. But your vision leaves no room for poetry, for the human spirit. A revolution built your way—what kind of world would it create?"
Jake met his eyes. "One that survives."
For a moment, neither spoke. The fog curled between them, thick and cold. In that silence, something formed—an understanding deeper than hatred. Two men who would never truly coexist.
Jake knew exactly how this rivalry would end. Mexico City. An ice pick. The final page of a book not yet written.
He walked past Trotsky without looking back, the fog swallowing him whole.
London's streets stretched endlessly ahead, slick with rain and coal smoke. He kept walking, head down, thoughts burning. He had won Lenin's trust, earned Trotsky's enmity, and placed himself at the core of the revolution's future.
Then, out of habit, he stopped by a newsstand.
A headline caught his eye. Black letters. English words.
He could make out enough.
PRIME MINISTER STOLYPIN ANNOUNCES NEW ANTI-TERROR MEASURES.
CREATION OF CENTRAL POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE.
Jake bought the paper, scanning the lines under the dim gaslight.
All branches of the Okhrana consolidated under a single command… new international reach… coordination across Europe… suppression of revolutionary organizations abroad…
The words blurred. His hand trembled.
While he'd been in London building power, Stolypin had been doing the same—quietly, efficiently, ruthlessly.
The chessboard had just changed again.
The revolution had found its prophet.
The state had found its god of fear.
And their war was only beginning.