Lenin was waiting for him.
His fury was a cold, dense mass in the center of the gilded ballroom. He sat behind the duke's desk, a small, still figure who seemed to suck all the warmth and air from the magnificent room.
"Explain yourself," he demanded, the words like chips of ice. Jake had been summoned the moment the news broke. "My order was to erase a problem. You gave it to our enemies as a gift."
It was a trial. Again.
Trotsky stood near the fireplace, a prosecuting attorney ready to pounce. Shliapnikov stood by the door, his heavy face a mask of grim confusion.
"It is blatant insubordination, Vladimir," Trotsky began, his voice ringing with intellectual outrage. "An act of bourgeois sentimentality! Or worse."
He turned his sharp, accusatory gaze on Jake. "Perhaps your German masters have given you new orders, Koba? Perhaps they are betting on both sides of this war?"
The accusation of being a double agent hung in the air, thick and poisonous.
Jake remained calm. He let the accusations wash over him, a wave of useless noise. He had expected this. He had planned for it.
He looked past Trotsky, his eyes locking directly onto Lenin's. He was speaking to the master of the house, not the barking dog in the yard.
"Protopopov was not a gift," Jake said, his voice quiet, forcing them to lean in to hear. "He was a Trojan Horse."
He saw a flicker of interest in Lenin's cold eyes. He had his attention.
"Before I handed him over," Jake continued, "we had a brief, private conversation in his cell. A confession, of a sort."
He painted a picture for them. "I told him the Tsarists wanted him dead to silence him. I told him the Bolsheviks wanted him dead for justice. I showed him the two doors to his own personal hell."
Jake took a step closer to the desk. "And then I told him that I was the only man in Petrograd who could offer him a third door."
He paused, letting the silence stretch. "Survival."
Shliapnikov scoffed from the doorway. "He is a snake. He will betray you at the first opportunity for a pardon."
"He has no hope of a pardon," Jake countered. "The Provisional Government needs a scapegoat for the Tsar's crimes just as much as we do. They will put him on trial to prove their own revolutionary credentials."
He laid out the simple, brutal terms of his deal. "I spared his life. In exchange, he will tell me everything. Every secret meeting. Every private debate. Every request for aid from the British and the French."
Jake smiled, a cold, thin expression. "He is now a 'guest' of the Provisional Government, living in the Tauride Palace. He is surrounded by their highest levels of strategic planning. He is the perfect mole."
Trotsky laughed, a sharp, disbelieving sound. "You expect us to believe that? That a minister of the Tsar would spy for us out of gratitude? It is absurd!"
"He is not spying out of gratitude," Jake said. "He is spying out of fear. I am the only man who has offered him a chance to live. If he is useful, I will protect him. If he is not..." He let the threat hang, unspoken but perfectly clear.
"These are just words," Trotsky insisted, gesturing dismissively. "You have no proof."
"Don't I?" Jake asked.
He reached into the inner pocket of his coat. He pulled out a single, small, folded piece of high-quality paper and slid it across the polished surface of Lenin's desk.
The paper was a heavy, expensive bond, the kind of personal stationery a minister would use. It had been discreetly torn from a larger sheet.
"That is a transcript of the Provisional Government's secret cabinet meeting from this morning," Jake said, his voice flat. "It includes their plans to send a delegation to the British embassy to beg for military aid to 'restore order' in the city. It also includes the names of the three army regiments on the Northern Front they believe are still loyal enough to be recalled to Petrograd."
He looked at Lenin. "Protopopov passed it to one of my runners, a bakery girl, less than an hour ago. He hid it in a loaf of bread."
A stunned silence fell over the room.
Lenin, Trotsky, and Shliapnikov stared at the piece of paper as if it were a venomous snake. The implications were staggering.
Jake hadn't just removed a target. He had turned him into a priceless, ongoing intelligence asset. He was fighting a war of espionage and infiltration they hadn't even conceived of. While they were debating ideology and printing pamphlets, he had placed a spy in the enemy's heart.
Lenin picked up the report. His expression was unreadable, a mask of stone. He had been outmaneuvered, his simple, brutal order twisted into a sophisticated intelligence coup by his insubordinate, unpredictable demon.
He saw both an invaluable weapon and an uncontrollable rival.
He slowly folded the paper and slipped it into his own pocket. He looked at Jake, his mind racing, recalculating the entire board.
"What else," Lenin asked, his voice a quiet, dangerous whisper, "did you offer him, Koba?"