Berlin was a city of ghosts. Not the spectral kind, but the ghosts of the future. Jake saw them everywhere. He saw them in the arrogant stride of the young officers in their immaculate gray uniforms, their mustaches waxed to sharp points, their laughter echoing in the crisp air. He saw them in the faces of the women hurrying past, their expressions a mixture of pride and anxiety. On every street corner, Jake's 21st-century mind superimposed the images he knew were coming: the rubble, the firestorms, the endless lines of refugees. The entire city felt like a beautiful, intricate clock, ticking down to an explosion.
Murat had performed his task with chilling efficiency. The meeting was not arranged in a smoky back-alley tavern or a clandestine revolutionary cafe. The summons came via a prim, official-looking courier, and the location was a sterile, anonymous office in a government building near the vast, manicured expanse of the Tiergarten. The sheer professionalism of it was more unnerving than any back-alley threat. This was the quiet, carpeted world of state power, a world Koba and his men had only ever fought from the outside.
Koba went alone. He walked through polished corridors where the only sound was the deferential whisper of his own footsteps on the marble floor. The office he was shown into was a model of Prussian austerity. A large, dark wood desk, two chairs, a single locked filing cabinet. The walls were bare but for a large, detailed map of the Eastern Front. There were no portraits of the Kaiser, no imperial eagles. This was a place of work, not ceremony.
Behind the desk sat a man who seemed to perfectly match the room. He was in his late forties, dressed in a simple but flawlessly tailored civilian suit. His hair was thinning, his mustache was neatly trimmed, and his posture was ramrod straight. He had the calm, analytical eyes of a university professor, but they held a deep, unnerving stillness, the stillness of a predator that has no need to advertise its own power. He was not the thuggish, intimidating "Herr Schmidt" from the Warsaw station. This man was something else entirely.
"Herr Schmidt," the man said, his voice a quiet, educated baritone with no discernible accent. He gestured to the chair opposite the desk. "Please. Have a seat. I am told you have a matter of some urgency to discuss."
Koba sat. The man made no move to introduce himself. He simply waited, his hands folded neatly on the empty expanse of the desk.
Jake's mind, the repository of a century of historical data, was screaming. He recognized this man. Not from a Party dossier, but from grainy photographs in history books. The face was older, but the cold, intelligent eyes were the same. This was not some mid-level bureaucrat. This was Oberst Walter Nicolai, the founding chief of the German General Staff's intelligence service, the legendary Abteilung IIIb. The man who would become the German Empire's spymaster for the entirety of the coming war.
Koba's insane gamble had just propelled him from the back rooms of revolutionary politics onto the grand chessboard of European espionage, face-to-face with a master of the game.
He met the Oberst's gaze, his own expression a mask of cold composure. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," Koba began, his voice calm.
Nicolai gave a slight, dismissive wave of his hand. "Let us dispense with the pleasantries. My time is valuable. I am told you are a Russian radical, and you wish to sell us information for a handful of marks. Your kind are as common as flies in summer here in Berlin. What makes you think your information is worth my time?"
Koba did not flinch at the insult. He did not haggle or protest. He presented himself not as an informant, but as a fellow strategist.
"I am not here to sell you information, Oberst," Koba said, deliberately using the military title, a subtle signal that he knew exactly who he was talking to. "I am here to propose a collaboration based on a shared strategic interest."
He calmly laid out the core facts of the Krupp ledger, explaining its contents and the political crisis it could trigger for Stolypin's government. Nicolai listened without expression, his face an unreadable mask.
When Koba finished, the Oberst simply shrugged. "A domestic political scandal in Russia. Interesting, but hardly a matter of German national security. It might weaken the Tsar's government, which is a mild benefit to us, but it is not worth the risk of direct involvement."
This was the test. Koba knew it. Now came the true gambit. He leaned forward, his voice dropping slightly.
"The ledger is merely a symptom, Oberst. The disease is Russia's profound institutional weakness. A weakness which, if you will permit me to be frank, your own General Staff tragically underestimates in its war planning."
A flicker of interest appeared in Nicolai's eyes. Koba pressed his advantage, drawing on the vast well of Jake's future knowledge.
"Your Schlieffen Plan is a masterpiece of logistical poetry," he said, the words precise and clinical. "But it is based on a fatal assumption: that Russia's mobilization will take six weeks. It will not. It will be chaotic, inefficient, and disastrous, but it will be faster than you predict. They will put millions of men in the field with inadequate rifles and no food, but they will put them in the field. They will disrupt your timetable on the Eastern Front just enough to allow the French to hold at the Marne. Your plan for a short war will fail. You will be caught in a two-front war of attrition. A war you are industrially prepared to win, but one your strategists are not psychologically prepared to fight."
He continued, the words flowing with the cold certainty of prophecy. He spoke of the tactical dominance of the machine gun over the infantry charge, the strategic insanity of maintaining cavalry divisions in an age of high-explosive artillery, the coming stalemate of trench warfare. He was not speaking like a revolutionary; he was speaking like a military historian from the year 2025, dissecting their most secret plans and most cherished doctrines.
Nicolai sat in absolute, stunned silence. The mask of professional boredom had vanished, replaced by an expression of intense, almost fearful concentration. This strange Georgian was not just selling a stolen document. He was articulating the most secret, deeply buried anxieties of the German High Command. He was speaking their private language. He was holding up a mirror to their own future failures.
"Your analysis is…" Nicolai began, then stopped, searching for the right word. "…extraordinary. Who are you?"
"I am a man who believes in a materialist interpretation of history," Koba replied, the answer both truthful and perfectly evasive. "And the material reality is that your empire and my organization have a common enemy: the reactionary and unstable government of Prime Minister Stolypin."
Nicolai was convinced. This was no common informant. This was an asset of unprecedented value. An oracle. He made a decision.
"Very well," the Oberst conceded, his professional demeanor returning, but with a new undercurrent of respect. "Your argument has merit. A rival's house in chaos is always in Germany's interest. We will assist you in your… domestic dispute. We can provide the logistical support—a safe house, transport, surveillance assets—and create a sufficient diplomatic distraction to allow your team to abduct this traitor, Malinovsky."
A surge of cold, electric triumph shot through Jake. The plan, the insane, impossible gamble, had paid off. He had secured the backing of a Great Power. He had the resources he needed. He could save Kato.
But Nicolai raised a single, cautionary finger.
"However," the Oberst continued, his eyes turning from analytical to hard as stone, "our assistance is not a gift. It comes with a price. A demonstration of loyalty. We do not want the ledger. A document can be forged or denied. We want the source. The asset."
He leaned forward across the vast, empty desk, his voice dropping to a quiet, menacing whisper that was more threatening than any shout.
"You will deliver Roman Malinovsky not to one of your revolutionary tribunals or back-alley safe houses. You will deliver him to us. He is the Tsar's most valuable spy. He will become the Kaiser's. We will interrogate him, turn him, and send him back to the Duma as our agent. We will handle the logistics of the prisoner exchange for your 'nightingale.' The Tsar will get his traitor back, but he will be our traitor. A fair trade, I think."
The room seemed to shrink, the air growing thick and heavy. The choice was laid bare on the polished surface of the desk, as stark and brutal as a loaded gun.
"The choice is yours, Herr Schmidt," Nicolai finished, his voice a silken trap. "Save your friend, but deliver one of your own revolutionary leaders—public hero, secret traitor, it makes no difference—into the hands of a foreign, imperial power. Into the hands of the very enemy your cause exists to fight."
The triumph curdled in Jake's stomach, replaced by a nauseating chill. This was the true price of his deal with the devil. To get Kato back, he had to commit an act of unambiguous, high treason, not just against the Tsar, but against the very revolution he was supposed to be fighting for. He would be handing the German Empire a weapon to use against his own comrades, against Lenin, against Trotsky, against all of them. He had wanted to become a player on the world stage. Now, he was being forced to make a move that would stain him forever.