There was a certain peace in decisiveness, even when the decision was brutal. And Lenin, having made his move, felt at peace.
Trotsky was still in his office, pacing the floor like a caged panther. He was livid. Not because of the impending arrest, but because his own, more "elegant" plan had been unceremoniously cast aside.
The space between the two men crackled with a tension thicker than the smoke from Lenin's cigarettes. They stood on opposite sides of the massive oak desk, the polished wood a chasm between two irreconcilable visions of power.
"This is crude, Vladimir Ilyich! A blunt instrument!" Trotsky's voice was sharp with indignation. "My plan would have discredited him, made him a laughingstock in the eyes of the Party. This… this makes him a victim! It could make him a martyr!"
Lenin did not look at him. He stared at the papers on his desk, his expression cold and distant. "Your plan was failing, Leon. It was creating chaos we cannot afford. I have ended the game. Koba will be forced to respond politically, in the Council, where I control the board. This is the logical, unavoidable conclusion."
He dismissed Trotsky's theatrical fury with an icy finality. In that moment, he saw the Commissar of War not as a partner, but as a brilliant but emotional liability, a man too in love with the sound of his own voice to see the practical, brutal necessities of holding power. Their alliance held, but it was now fractured by Lenin's quiet, absolute contempt.
The special telephone on Lenin's desk buzzed, a harsh, insistent sound. It was the direct line to the Lubyanka. He picked up the receiver, his movements calm and precise. He was a general monitoring the opening shots of a battle he was certain he had already won.
Menzhinsky's voice came through the line, tinny and devoid of emotion. "My team is in position, Comrade Lenin. We have the apartment building surrounded. Front and back exits are covered. The subject, the nurse, is confirmed to be inside."
"Proceed," Lenin said, his voice flat.
Trotsky stopped his pacing, drawn into the quiet drama of the moment.
"My men are moving in now," Menzhinsky continued, his voice a low monotone. "They are on the third floor. Approaching the apartment door…"
A sudden, sharp crackle erupted from the phone line. It was not static. It was shouting, a man's scream of surprise and pain, followed instantly by a sound Lenin knew all too well. Gunfire. Not a single pistol shot, but the rolling, thunderous roar of a full-throated firefight.
Menzhinsky's voice came back, no longer calm, but tight with shock and disbelief. "Ambush! We're under heavy fire from inside the apartment! Heavy resistance! They're not Cheka, they're… my God, they're sailors!"
Lenin gripped the phone, his knuckles turning white. Trotsky froze, his jaw slack with astonishment.
Sailors? Kronstadt sailors? How? It was impossible. He had cut Koba off from his command. The Supreme Revolutionary Military Committee, under Trotsky's command, controlled all military units in the city. An order for Kronstadt to mobilize would have had to cross Trotsky's desk.
He listened to the chaotic sounds of a battle he had not authorized and could not comprehend. The clean, surgical arrest had turned into a bloody street war in the heart of his capital.
The cold peace he had felt just moments before shattered into a million pieces. This wasn't a political problem anymore. It was a mutiny. An open insurrection.
His assessment of Koba's power had been fundamentally, catastrophically wrong. He had thought he was cutting the leash on a dog, but he had just learned the horrifying truth: the dog had never been on a leash at all. Its loyalty was not to the Party, not to the state, but to a man.
And that was a thousand times more dangerous.
The line was quiet for a long, agonizing moment, the sound of distant sirens now audible through the receiver. Then Menzhinsky's voice came back, grim and laced with the metallic taste of failure.
"The firefight is over. The assailants have withdrawn, through the roof and across to the next building. The primary target, the nurse, is gone." He paused. "We have suffered heavy casualties, Comrade Lenin. Three of my best men are dead. But we have a prisoner. One of the sailors. Wounded, but alive."
Lenin slowly placed the receiver back in its cradle. The silence in his office was absolute. Trotsky stared at him, his face pale, the full, terrifying implications of the night's events finally dawning on him. Koba hadn't just defied them. He had beaten them.
An hour later, the call Lenin was dreading came. It was Dzerzhinsky, his voice heavy. Iron Felix had personally overseen the initial interrogation of the captured sailor at the Lubyanka.
"Did he talk?" Lenin asked, his voice a strained whisper. "Who sent them? Was it Koba? I need his confession, Felix."
There was a pause on the line, pregnant with a new, chilling gravity. "He gave us nothing, Vladimir Ilyich," Dzerzhinsky said. "No tactical details. No names of his comrades. He just lies there on the cot, bleeding and smiling. He keeps repeating one thing, over and over."
"What is it, Felix?" Lenin pressed, a cold dread coiling in his stomach. "What does he say?"
Dzerzhinsky's voice was a dead, cold whisper that would haunt Lenin's dreams for nights to come.
"'We don't follow the Party,' he said. 'We don't follow the Council. We follow the Demon.'"