The silence in the Zurich apartment pressed in like weight.
Lenin stood motionless, his gaze fixed on Koba. His face was a mask of fierce thought, unreadable and sharp. He no longer looked like a teacher examining a pupil — he looked like a grandmaster watching an opponent place a new, terrifying piece on the board.
Then, suddenly, a sharp crack broke the stillness. Lenin dropped Koba's manuscript onto the table with a slap that made the air jump.
"Your theory is bold," he said. The words were clipped, precise — as close to praise as Lenin ever came. "It's undialectical in places. Too flirtatious with the bourgeois idea of the 'great man.' Parts of it read like a military intelligence report."
He paused. His eyes narrowed. "But the materialist foundation is… sound. Extremely sound."
He began to pace. Short, quick steps. Not restless — focused. A machine of thought in motion.
"We've assumed the coming war will be short. A repeat of the Franco-Prussian model — sharp, decisive, a collapse of weak regimes and an opening for revolution."
He gestured toward the manuscript. "But this? A multi-year war of attrition? A slaughter that devours entire economies? That changes everything."
Lenin's voice grew sharper as the ideas took shape. "We cannot just oppose the war. We must use it. Turn the imperialist war into a civil war. Prepare the Party not only for the fall of the Tsar — but for the collapse of all Europe."
He stopped pacing and turned to Koba, his eyes like drills.
"Yagoda calls you a practical man," Lenin said. "An organizer. A fighter. The Party has too many dreamers and not enough doers. Too many men who write essays in cafés but can't move a crate of rifles without losing half the shipment. You, however…" He smiled faintly, thin and sharp. "You seem to understand that history is written with iron, not ink."
Koba saw the opening. Small. Dangerous. But real.
"My analysis is useless unless I have the means to act," he said, his tone steady. "And I have a matter that demands those means. A comrade — Ekaterina Svanidze — has been captured by the Okhrana in Kiev. She is my wife. I need her extracted."
He placed the demand on the table like a knife.
Lenin's response was instant and merciless. "A liability." He waved a hand dismissively. "Attachments are weaknesses. Stolypin will not kill her. He will use her — to bait you. Her capture has already compromised your position."
Koba's jaw tightened. Fury boiled under the surface, but he said nothing.
Lenin kept talking, his tone cool and precise. "However," he said, "a captured comrade can still be valuable. Kiev's Okhrana office is a key node in their network. A strike there would serve our interests."
He nodded once, decision made. "I'll authorize Party resources. But not for a rescue. This will be an intelligence operation. Our agents will evaluate her condition, her usefulness, and the security of the station. Extraction will be considered only if it's strategically sound. Her value will be weighed against the risk to the network."
It was a partial victory — cold and cruel. Koba had won the Party's attention, but Kato had ceased to be a person. She was now a variable in Lenin's equation.
Koba gave a curt nod. It was more than he'd had before. It would have to do.
Lenin turned away, already moving to the next problem. "In the meantime, you have more pressing work," he said. "Your thesis means nothing unless it's right. You need data. The Krupp connection is only one thread. We must find others."
He began pacing again, words coming faster. "You will not return to Russia. That would waste your… unique perspective. You'll form a new technical group here in Central Europe. Its purpose: intelligence and disruption. You'll gather information and sabotage the industrial foundations of the Triple Entente — Russia, France, Britain."
He stopped before the map pinned to the wall. Europe spread before him, a tangle of borders and futures.
"You'll build a network," he said. "Dock workers in Marseille. Factory hands in Birmingham. Clerks in the Ministry of War. Find the weak links in their supply chains. Uncover their secret dependencies. Every corrupted contract, every stolen shipment — we'll use it. You'll be my expert in the material decay of the capitalist world."
His finger tapped the map. A city.
"Your first assignment."
Koba followed his gaze. Vienna.
"Vienna," Lenin said, his tone darkening. "The heart of the dying empire. A nest of spies and revolutionaries, arms dealers and aristocrats. Perfect cover for a man of talent."
He looked back at Koba, eyes glittering. "And it happens to be the home of our greatest rival — a man drowning in vanity and empty rhetoric. He calls his fantasy permanent revolution. I call it poison."
He tapped the map again. "Go to Vienna. Establish your cover. Build your network. And get me a complete dossier on the man they call Trotsky."
The order hit like a shockwave.
Koba was being sent into another labyrinth — the capital of a dying empire, crawling with spies and revolutionaries. His mission was not to fight the Tsar, but to watch Lenin's most brilliant enemy.
He was no longer just a revolutionary.
He was now an agent in Lenin's secret war for the soul of the revolution.