The first sound was a splintering crack from below—the unmistakable crash of a boot breaking down a door.
Jake froze, the decoded message still in his hand. They are coming for you.
Kamo was already moving. No hesitation, no thought—just instinct. He crossed the room in two strides, the heavy click of his Nagant revolver echoing through the silence. "The roof," he hissed, eyes sweeping the exits.
But the sound on the stairs wasn't a small search team. It was a flood.
Then—their own door exploded inward.
The world erupted. Smoke. Shouting. Gunfire. Okhrana agents in black coats stormed the room—fast, professional, efficient. Not the bumbling local police of Tbilisi. Stolypin's elite. They moved like a single organism, rifles and pistols gleaming in the lamplight.
For one heartbeat, Jake was paralyzed. The strategist was gone; the man remained. The chessboard had turned into chaos.
Kamo didn't freeze. This was his element. He shoved Jake behind him and opened fire.
The Nagant roared. The first agent fell. The second ducked back through the smoke. Bullets tore through wood and plaster, the air thick with gunsmoke and screams.
Jake's body finally caught up with his mind. He drew the small Browning pistol at his belt—the one he'd practiced with, never used. His hands shook. His heart hammered. He saw an agent raise a rifle at Kamo. Jake took aim. Front sight. Rear sight. Squeeze.
The pistol cracked.
He missed. Completely.
The agent turned—eyes wide, more surprised than angry—and fired. White-hot pain ripped through Jake's arm. The impact spun him around. He hit the wall, gasping. The Browning slipped from his grip. He was bleeding, useless, his brilliant mind reduced to a haze of panic and pain.
Kamo saw him fall. A sound ripped from his throat—not a word, just rage.
"Go!" he roared, shoving Jake toward the back window. "Now!"
He upended the table, sent it crashing into two advancing agents, then kicked the burning stove, scattering coals. With his revolver empty, he charged—headlong, unstoppable.
Jake stumbled into the back room, clutching his arm, the warmth of his blood slick on his fingers. He threw open the window and climbed out onto the fire escape. The cold night air hit him like a slap.
A heartbeat later, Kamo followed, a gash across his forehead, blood mixing with soot. "Up!" he barked. "Roof!"
They climbed. Below them, the street erupted with noise—carriages, boots, shouts. Colonel Sazonov stepped into the street, looking up. He spotted them instantly, two dark shapes outlined against the faint glow of the sky.
"There!" he shouted. "Fourth and fifth companies—seal the block! Snipers on the roofs! They are not to escape!" He paused, voice hardening. "And I want them alive. The Prime Minister was clear—he wants the ghost alive!"
Jake and Kamo pulled themselves onto the roof. The city stretched before them, wet slate and chimneys glistening under the dim light. Far away, the spires of the Winter Palace gleamed like mockery.
Jake's arm throbbed. The pain was dull now, distant, buried under the weight of realization. His arrogance had destroyed them. They were trapped—two fugitives on a rooftop in the heart of the empire, hunted by its best soldiers. The game of ideas, of strategy and control, was over. This was survival now. And the cage was closing.
The rooftops became a jagged maze of slate and shadow. The first rush of adrenaline faded, replaced by pain and panic. Jake stumbled, his left arm a dead weight. The slick tiles shifted beneath his boots. He was no fighter, no climber—his world had always been built of words, not rooftops. Each leap felt like a calculated suicide.
Kamo moved like he'd been born to it—fast, fluid, fearless. He leapt gaps that made Jake's stomach twist, boots landing sure on narrow ledges. His hand clamped around Jake's good arm, dragging him along, half hauling him over every obstacle. Kamo's silence spoke volumes: Soso's mind had built empires, but now it was his body that would get them both killed.
Below, the streets were a storm of noise. Whistles cut the night air. Shouts echoed through alleys. Okhrana agents were everywhere, dark figures appearing on nearby rooftops, disciplined and relentless.
"This way!" Kamo barked, pulling him toward a rusted ladder leading into a pitch-black air shaft.
They descended into the stink and gloom, feet scraping rusted iron. When they emerged, they found themselves in a narrow alley—a hidden artery of the city's underbelly.
Jake leaned against a wall, gasping. "The emergency safe house," he wheezed. "Ligovsky Prospekt. It should be clean."
Kamo shook his head. "If they found the main one, they've found them all. Stolypin doesn't do things halfway. It's over. We're on our own."
The words hit harder than the bullet. Jake felt the truth settle in his gut: every contact, every cell, gone or compromised. His network wasn't wounded—it was dead.
They slipped into an abandoned warehouse, down into a half-collapsed cellar that smelled of mold and stagnant water. Jake collapsed against cold brick, his strength finally gone. The pain in his arm throbbed with every heartbeat.
Kamo struck a match. In the flickering light, he tore a strip from his shirt and examined the wound. The bullet had torn through—ugly but clean. Blood still oozed. "You're lucky," he muttered, binding it tight. "An inch either way and you'd be dead."
Jake stared at the blood soaking the linen. Shame washed over him—heavy, suffocating. His intellect, his foresight, his cleverness—useless. Out here, in the real world, he was a burden. The man of thought had become dead weight, carried by the man of action.
"We can't stay," Kamo said. "We'll freeze or they'll find us by dawn."
Jake's voice was small. "Then what?"
Kamo hesitated. "There are places. Not Party safe houses. Brotherhoods. Artels. Dock gangs, factory crews. They hate the Okhrana. They might shelter us—for a price."
It was desperate. But it was their only move.
They slipped through the city's veins—narrow alleys, empty courtyards, puddles shining under gaslight. Kamo led them north, toward the Vyborg district, where the air smelled of smoke and iron.
At last they reached a narrow door behind a row of crumbling tenements. The smell of cheap vodka drifted from within. Kamo knocked three times in a slow, rhythmic pattern.
The door cracked open. A hard, suspicious face appeared. After a quiet exchange, they were allowed inside.
The traktir was low and smoky, filled with hard men drinking harder liquor. Conversations stopped as they entered. Dozens of eyes—cold, suspicious, unwelcoming—fixed on them.
Kamo kept his hands visible. "We're looking for Pavel."
A giant stepped from the bar—a man with a steel-wire beard and one blind, milky eye. "Who's asking?"
"My name is Grigori," Kamo lied. "We've had a… disagreement with the Okhrana. We need a place to rest. We can pay."
Pavel barked a humorless laugh. "Talkers. We're workers. No time for your kind."
Tension rippled. One wrong word and they were dead.
Then Pavel noticed Jake's torn coat, the blood on his sleeve. His expression shifted.
"Okhrana?" he asked quietly.
Kamo met his gaze and nodded.
Something dark passed across Pavel's face. "My brother was a printer. They took him for helping your people. We never saw him again."
Silence pressed in. Then Pavel spat on the floor.
"Get them in the back," he said. "And get them a drink." He looked at Kamo, his good eye burning. "Anyone the Okhrana wants this badly… is a friend of mine."