The name, spoken with such casual finality, was a key turning a lock on a door Koba never intended to open. Lenin. It echoed in the vast, frozen silence, a word of immense, almost gravitational power. For a moment, Koba felt the terrifying vertigo of a man standing at the edge of a precipice, the small, desperate world of his own making about to be swallowed by the yawning chasm of global history.
Jake's mind was a screaming vortex of panic and historical awe.
[Jake]: Lenin? We're being ordered to go see Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov? This is a joke. This is a nightmare. This isn't the back-alley revolutionary I woke up as. This is the big leagues. This is the man who will actually succeed. We are out of our depth, a guppy swimming into a shark tank. We have to refuse. Kiev is the only thing that matters! Kato is the mission!
[Koba]: Emotional response is counter-productive. Assess the new strategic reality. Refusal is suicide. Yagoda is merely the messenger; the request, framed as an order, comes from the undisputed center of Bolshevik operational power. To refuse is to declare ourselves enemies of both the state and the revolution. We would be crushed between the two. However… Koba's mind, cold and sharp as a shard of ice, found the fulcrum point. An order can be re-contextualized as a negotiation. This is not a summons we are obeying; it is a meeting of equals we are agreeing to attend. The man with the asset dictates the terms of the meeting.
He met Yagoda's smug, triumphant gaze with an unnerving calm. The fear and awe were locked away, deep in the dungeon where Jake was screaming. All that remained was the cold, calculating machine.
"A meeting with the Chairman in Zurich," Koba said, his voice a quiet, neutral statement of fact, as if considering a mildly interesting business proposal. "It is an intriguing proposition."
He paused, letting the silence stretch, forcing Yagoda out of his position of power and into one of anticipation. "But I have conditions," Koba continued, his tone hardening from consideration to command. "I do not travel empty-handed, and I do not travel without my own people. My team—Pavel, Murat, and Ivan—they are not disposable assets. They are my command staff. They come with me, all the way to Zurich."
Yagoda's smile tightened slightly. This was not the response of a chastened subordinate. "That may be difficult to arrange—"
"It will be arranged," Koba cut him off, his voice flat and absolute. "Furthermore, a direct trip to Switzerland for four wanted men, one of whom is now the most hunted man in the Empire, is impractical. We require a secure, established route. We require new documents of the highest quality—Austrian or German, not the usual forgeries. And we require substantial funds for the journey. Your 'Technical Group' is so named for its technical expertise. They will provide these things."
He took a step closer, invading Yagoda's personal space, forcing the other man to hold his gaze. "We have been running for weeks. My men are exhausted. The assets are exposed. We will require a secure safe house, somewhere remote, to lay low for at least a week while you make these arrangements. This is not negotiable."
He was no longer the subordinate receiving orders. He was a valuable asset, a strategic partner, dictating his logistical requirements for the successful delivery of a priceless commodity. Yagoda, for the first time, looked impressed, his smirk replaced by a look of wary respect. He had come to collect a rogue agent and had found a fellow power broker. "Your terms are… audacious," Yagoda said slowly. "But I will relay them. The Chairman values audacity. A dacha near Tver has been prepared. It will suffice."
With the new terms established, a fragile and dangerous truce in place, Koba turned and walked back to the flatcar. His men watched him approach, their faces a mixture of confusion and fear. He swung himself up onto the edge of the car, the lantern light casting his face in harsh shadows.
"There has been a change of plan," he announced, his voice carrying the weight of an irrevocable decision. "Our business in Vologda is concluded. Our new destination is Zurich, Switzerland."
Murat and Ivan just stared, the name of the foreign city a meaningless sound. But Pavel… Pavel's face, which had been a stoic mask of weary resolve, crumpled. The name was not what mattered; it was the direction. It was west. Not south.
"Zurich?" Pavel repeated, the word a low, dangerous rumble. "What about Kiev?"
"Kiev is no longer the primary objective," Koba stated, his voice devoid of emotion. "We have been summoned to a meeting with the party leadership. It is a matter of the highest importance."
It was as if he had struck the big man with a physical blow. Pavel took a heavy step forward, his massive frame radiating a sense of profound, wounded betrayal. "No longer the primary objective?" he roared, his voice cracking with a raw, desperate fury that silenced everyone. "Kiev! You promised! We followed you through the fires of hell! We maimed men, we killed, we watched you… we did what you did at that farm… all of it! For her! For Kato! That was the reason! And now you throw it all away for some… meeting? For politics? You are abandoning her!"
This was it. The ultimate crisis of faith. Pavel, the one man who had followed him not for money or fear but out of a pure, simple loyalty, was accusing him of the ultimate sin: of sacrificing his love, the only "good" and human motivation left in their dark world, for the sake of cold, inhuman ambition.
Koba met his enraged, heartbroken gaze without flinching.
"You think this is a choice?" he shot back, his own voice rising to cut through Pavel's rage, sharp and brittle as breaking glass. "You think I am abandoning her? Open your eyes, Pavel! Look around you!" He swept his arm out, gesturing to the stolen rifles, the damning ledger, the vast, hostile darkness of the Russian Empire that surrounded them. "This isn't about us anymore! It was never just about us! This is about the war that is coming. A war so vast and so terrible it will burn all of Europe to the ground."
He stepped closer to Pavel, Jake's historical knowledge flooding his words with a grim, prophetic certainty. "This ledger isn't just about battleships; it's a symptom of the sickness. Every nation is sharpening its knives. Britain, Germany, France, Austria… and us. In a few years—five, maybe six—millions of men just like you, honest men who want nothing more than to work their land and raise their families, will be handed a rifle, put on a train, and sent to die in the mud over border disputes in Serbia or Alsace-Lorraine, places you have never heard of and do not care about. This world, our world, is about to end!"
He had Pavel's stunned attention now. He pressed his advantage, his logic a relentless, brutal assault.
"Going to Kiev now is a fool's errand," he said, his voice dropping but losing none of its intensity. "It is a romantic fantasy. What would we do? Arrive in the city, the four most wanted men in the Empire, and start asking for a single, fugitive woman? We would be caught within a week. And she would be caught with us. We would lead Stolypin's hounds directly to her door."
He looked directly into Pavel's single, anguished eye. "But if we go to Zurich, if we deliver this weapon to Lenin, we gain something we have never had. We gain the full protection and resources of the international Bolshevik party. We will no longer be fugitives; we will be agents. Valued agents. They will give us flawless papers, unlimited funds, a network of spies and safe houses that stretches across the continent. I can return to Russia in a year, not as a hunted criminal, but as a man with power, a man with an organization at his back. That is how I will save Kato. Not by running blindly into a trap, but by returning later as a king, not a pawn."
The sheer scale of his argument, its cold and brutal logic, stunned Pavel into silence. He saw the terrible, inescapable truth in it. To rescue Kato now was to act on emotion, a path to certain death. Koba's plan was a monstrous, inhuman, long-term strategy… but it was the only one that had a chance of succeeding.
Koba saw the fight go out of his loyal, heartbroken soldier. He stepped forward and placed a hand on Pavel's shoulder. "I made you a promise, Pavel," he said, his voice softening for the first time. "I will not break it. But the price of a queen, in a game this large, is the world. First, we secure our place in the world. Then, we go back, and we take the queen."
He turned away, leaving Pavel to grapple with the ashes of their old mission. He faced Yagoda, who had been watching the entire, raw exchange with a predatory stillness, like a naturalist observing the dominance rituals of a strange and violent species.
Koba was in command once more. "Take us to your safe house," he ordered, his voice once again the cold, hard instrument of his will. "We have arrangements to make."