The silence in Oberst Nicolai's office was not an absence of sound. It was a presence. It was a cold, heavy substance that filled the space between the two men, pressing in on Jake, demanding an answer. The offer lay on the polished mahogany desk, invisible but immense: hand over the Bolshevik leader Malinovsky to the German Empire. Betray the revolution to save one woman.
Jake's mind, the 21st-century consciousness trapped behind Koba's eyes, recoiled in visceral horror. No. Absolutely not. It was a primal, instinctive rejection of an act so fundamentally treacherous it felt like a violation of physics. This was the final line, the one that separated the ruthless pragmatist from the unforgivable traitor. To hand a high-ranking socialist, even a duplicitous one, over to the intelligence service of an imperialist monarchy on the brink of war… it was a monstrous betrayal of everything the cause, and Jake himself, was supposed to stand for. It was the one compromise he could not make.
But as Jake's soul screamed "NO," the cold, detached mind of Koba began to calmly analyze the equation. He felt his own moral panic receding, replaced by a chilling, frictionless logic. Koba stripped the situation of its emotional and ideological baggage, viewing it not as a moral crisis, but as a tactical problem with a set of variables and potential outcomes.
First, the asset: Roman Malinovsky. Koba's assessment was brutal. Malinovsky was not a comrade. He was a compromised piece on the chessboard, a cancer already eating away at the Party from within. He was Stolypin's agent. His fundamental nature was that of a traitor. Handing him from one enemy master, the Okhrana, to another, German Intelligence, did not alter his essence. It merely changed the flag under which his treachery served. Morally, the man was already lost. Strategically, he was a variable that could be manipulated.
Second, the leverage. This was the core of Koba's terrifying calculus. By agreeing to Nicolai's terms, he was not merely surrendering an asset. He was inserting himself into the very center of a new web of secrets. If he facilitated this transfer, he would become the only person in the world who knew that the Bolsheviks' star deputy in the Duma was not just a Tsarist spy, but was now a German spy. This knowledge was a new, permanent form of power. It gave him a future, unbreakable lever over Malinovsky himself. It gave him a lever over Oberst Nicolai and the Abteilung IIIb, who would be forced to protect him to protect their new, prized agent. And most chillingly, it gave him a secret lever over his own Party, over Lenin and Trotsky, who would continue to operate in blissful ignorance, their most public face in the Duma secretly reporting to a foreign military power.
Third, and finally, the outcome. All the other variables—morality, ideology, long-term consequences—were secondary. The primary, immediate result of this transaction was the only one that mattered in Koba's stark equation: Kato's freedom. All other costs were acceptable losses.
This was the ultimate expression of the Gospel of the Wolf. The world was a machine of meat and power. To change its function, you had to be willing to break its parts without sentiment. Koba had just concluded that Roman Malinovsky was a part that needed to be broken.
The internal war lasted only a few seconds, but in that silent span, something inside Jake Vance finally died. The last flicker of resistance, the final veto of his modern conscience, was extinguished by the cold, overwhelming force of Koba's will to win.
He raised his eyes and met Nicolai's steady, analytical gaze. The silence had stretched, becoming a taut wire of anticipation. Koba's face was a placid mask.
"I accept your terms."
The words came out, quiet and steady. They felt like swallowing ash. To Nicolai, it was the sound of a successful negotiation. To Jake, it was the sound of his own soul breaking. His internal monologue was not a scream, but a quiet, horrified eulogy. And there it was. The final line. The one I swore I would never cross. I hadn't just stepped over it. I had erased it, dug a trench where it used to be, and paved a six-lane highway over it. In the 21st century, they had a simple word for this: treason. In Koba's world, it was just another transaction. The skill [Pragmatism] has been reforged into [Treason]. The cost was everything I used to be.
A flicker of profound, professional respect appeared in Nicolai's cold eyes. He had been testing the Russian, probing for weakness or sentimentality. He had found none. He had found a fellow professional, a man who understood that in the great game, there were no allies, only interests. He gave a single, sharp nod of assent. The devil's handshake was complete.
"Excellent," Nicolai said, his tone shifting from that of a negotiator to that of a commanding officer. "I am glad we have come to an understanding, Herr Schmidt. Our collaboration begins now."
He reached into a drawer in his vast desk, his movements economical and precise. He pulled out a thin manila file and slid it across the polished wood. It stopped directly in front of Koba.
"This is your advance," the Oberst said. "The first tools for the operation."
Koba opened the file. Inside, there were no documents, no money. There was a single, high-quality photograph. It showed a bland, middle-aged man in a rumpled suit, with a weak chin and spectacles, nervously smoking a cigarette. Beneath it, a typed page detailed the man's identity: Viktor Artamonov, a mid-level cultural attaché at the Russian Embassy. It was his official cover. His real title was Colonel, Okhrana Section IV, and he was Roman Malinovsky's primary handler and contact in Berlin. The document detailed Artamonov's daily schedule, his habits, his known associates, and the location of his next clandestine meeting with his prize asset.
"Malinovsky meets with his handler every three days," Nicolai explained, his voice a cool, informational drone. "Their next meeting is in two days' time, at four in the afternoon. At the Café Adler in the Charlottenburg district. It is a quiet, respectable establishment, favored by university professors. Very little foot traffic at that hour." He tapped a location on a small map included in the file. "This is your window of opportunity. At precisely four-oh-five p.m., my men will stage a political brawl a block away. Two groups of 'anarchists' and 'nationalists.' It will draw the police, create chaos. You will have five minutes, no more, to secure your target inside the cafe."
Koba absorbed the information, his mind already visualizing the operation, running through a dozen different scenarios and contingencies. The sheer efficiency of the German intelligence machine was terrifying and exhilarating.
He closed the file. "And my target?" he asked, testing the parameters. "Just Malinovsky?"
Nicolai gave a thin, predatory smile. "Malinovsky is the prize. But his handler, Artamonov, would be a… valuable bonus. A source of much useful information about the Okhrana's network here in Germany. I will leave the tactical decision of whether to secure one or both to your professional discretion."
Koba stood. The meeting was over. "You will be contacted when the package is secure," he said.
He turned and left the office, walking back through the silent, polished corridors of the ministry. He felt nothing. Not guilt, not fear, not triumph. Just a profound and hollow emptiness. He was a machine now, set to perform a task.
He stepped out of the grand ministry building and into the cold, gray afternoon of Berlin. The air felt thin, unreal. Across the street, in the formal gardens of the Tiergarten, Murat was waiting for him, pacing nervously by a statue of some forgotten Prussian general. He saw Koba and hurried over, his face a mask of anxiety.
"What happened?" Murat asked, his voice a low, urgent whisper. "What did they want? Did you get what we need?"
Koba looked at his loyal subordinate, at the honest, revolutionary fervor that still burned in the young man's eyes. He felt a distant pang of something that might have been regret. He was about to drag this man, and the others, into his own personal hell of treason. He reached into his coat and handed Murat the photograph of Viktor Artamonov.
"We have a new target," Koba said, his voice flat and dead. "We are not just taking Malinovsky. We are taking his Okhrana handler, too. The abduction is on."
Murat stared at the photo of the bland-faced man, his brow furrowed in confusion. He then looked back up at Koba, a dawning horror spreading across his features as the implications of the new target began to sink in. This was an escalation beyond anything he had imagined. "And after we take them?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Where do we go? The rendezvous point? The Party safe house?"
Koba met his gaze, his eyes as empty and cold as a winter sky. His answer was the final confirmation of his terrible choice, a truth that would now poison his own loyal team.
"Not to a revolutionary safe house," Koba said. "There is no Party safe house. We take them to the German Ministry of War."