The gold epaulets glittered like insults under the electric lights.
General Alexei Brusilov stood at the head of the Politburo table. He wore his Imperial uniform. It was moth-eaten and smelled of damp wool, but the double-headed eagles on his shoulders were polished to a shine.
Around the table, the Old Bolsheviks were vibrating with rage.
Bukharin slammed his fist on the wood.
"This is madness!" Bukharin shouted. "That man ordered the hanging of workers in 1916! He is a butcher!"
"He is a general," Jake said calmly. He didn't look up from his file. "And we are running out of butchers."
"He belongs in front of a firing squad!" Zinoviev spat from the other end of the table. "Not in the Kremlin! You are spitting on Lenin's grave, Koba!"
Jake slowly raised his eyes. The room went silent.
"Lenin is dead," Jake said. The words were heavy, final. "And if we do not learn how to fight a modern war within six months, we will join him."
He gestured to Brusilov.
"Speak, General."
Brusilov didn't flinch. He looked at the communist leaders with the disdain of a man who had commanded millions while they were printing pamphlets in Swiss cafes.
"Your Red Army is a mob," Brusilov rasped. His voice was like grinding stones. "You have spirit. You have ideology. But you have no logistics."
He pointed a bony finger at the map on the wall.
"You are moving troops to the Polish border by horse. The Germans are moving by rail. By the time your cavalry arrives, they will be shredded meat."
"We defeated the Whites!" Voroshilov argued, his face red.
"You defeated a corpse," Brusilov corrected. "The Empire was already dead. The Germans are alive. And they are hungry."
The General turned to Jake.
"If you want to hold the line, you need to nationalize the rail schedules. Total mobilization. Civil traffic stops. Only soldiers and steel move."
"That will starve the cities," Bukharin gasped. "The grain shipments..."
"Let them be hungry," Brusilov said. "Better hungry than German."
The room erupted. Shouts of "Traitor!" and "Counter-revolutionary!" filled the air.
Jake sat still. He watched the chaos.
He was breaking the party. He was welding the corpse of the Empire to the engine of the Revolution. It was ugly. It was heresy.
But it was the only way.
"Silence!" Jake roared.
He didn't need a gavel. His voice was enough.
"Brusilov is appointed Chief of Logistics," Jake announced. "Anyone who disobeys his orders answers to the Cheka."
He looked at Zinoviev.
"And anyone who calls him a traitor answers to me."
The hallway outside the meeting room was cold.
Menzhinsky was waiting. He leaned against a marble pillar, cleaning his fingernails with a small knife.
"That went well," Menzhinsky murmured as Jake walked out.
"They hate me," Jake said. "Zinoviev is already planning a vote of no confidence. I can smell it."
"Let them vote," Menzhinsky said. He fell into step beside Jake. "Votes are for democracies, Koba. You are building something else."
They walked past a window. The courtyard below was filled with trucks. The new recruits—the Tsar's officers—were drilling. They moved with a precision the Red Guard never had.
"You know," Menzhinsky said softly, "history is usually written by the victors. But you seem to be writing it before the battle starts."
Jake stopped. He looked at the spy chief.
"The book is burning, Vyacheslav. The pages are turning to ash."
"Good," Menzhinsky smiled. "A blank page is better. You can write whatever you want."
He pulled a folded paper from his pocket.
"Speaking of writing... Zinoviev sent a telegram to Leningrad an hour ago. To his supporters."
Jake took the paper.
The Georgian has gone mad. He restores the Whites. Prepare the Garrison. We must save the Revolution.
It was treason. Clear and simple.
In real history, Jake knew Zinoviev would eventually turn against him. But not this early. Not this openly.
The timeline had accelerated. The "United Opposition" wasn't forming in secret debates. It was forming armed battalions.
"He is calling for a coup," Jake whispered.
"He is reacting to the stimulus," Menzhinsky said. "You brought back the Generals. He thinks you are the counter-revolution."
Menzhinsky stepped closer. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"If you follow the old laws, you have to arrest him. Put him on trial. It will take months. The Party will fracture."
"What is the alternative?"
"Use the new laws," Menzhinsky said. "The laws of the Prophet."
Jake frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You predicted the famine," Menzhinsky said. "You predicted the rockets. Why not predict a plot?"
Menzhinsky tapped the telegram.
"Say you knew this was coming. Say Zinoviev has been working with the British Intelligence for years. Say the restored Generals are actually a trap you set to catch him."
Jake stared at the man.
It was a lie. A monstrous, multi-layered lie.
It would frame a Founding Father of the Revolution as a foreign spy. It would turn reality inside out.
"That is... absurd," Jake said.
"It is effective," Menzhinsky countered. "If he is a spy, no one listens to him. The Party rallies around you. And Brusilov gets his trains."
Jake looked at the telegram.
He needed those trains. He needed the T-34s. He needed the graphite pile.
If Zinoviev started a civil war now, the Soviet Union would collapse before Hitler even finished his breakfast.
"Do it," Jake said. His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.
"Draft the statement," Jake ordered. "Zinoviev is a British agent. He has been sabotaging the supply lines since 1918."
Menzhinsky bowed his head.
"The narrative is corrected."
The Kremlin apartment. Night.
Nadya was in the kitchen. She was boiling water on a small spirit stove. The gas was still off.
Jake sat at the table. He watched the blue flame.
"You look like a ghost," Nadya said. She didn't turn around.
"It was a long day," Jake said.
"I saw the trucks," she said. "The men in the old uniforms. My father... he spat on the floor when he saw them."
"Your father is an idealist," Jake said. "Idealists don't stop tanks."
Nadya turned off the stove. She poured the tea. It was weak, pale water.
"Are we the Whites now, Koba?" she asked.
She sat down opposite him. Her eyes were red. She had been crying.
"We are Russians," Jake said. "Red, White... it is just paint. The iron underneath is the same."
"It's not just paint," she whispered. "It's what we believe in. If we bring back the Generals... if we rule by fear... then why did we kill the Tsar?"
Jake gripped his teacup. The heat burned his fingers.
He wanted to tell her. We killed the Tsar because he was incompetent. I am not incompetent. I am trying to save you from the gas chambers.
But the words stuck in his throat.
"We did it to survive," Jake said.
"Survival isn't enough," Nadya said.
She reached across the table. She placed a piece of paper in front of him.
It was a poem. Handwritten.
The mountains grow steep,
The air grows thin,
The shepherd has wolves
Beneath his skin.
"Where did you get this?" Jake asked sharply.
"It is circulating in the universities," Nadya said. "The students are reading it."
"It is counter-revolutionary trash," Jake snarled. "Who wrote it?"
"Mandelstam," she said. "Osip Mandelstam."
Jake stared at the poem.
In real history, Mandelstam wrote the famous "Stalin Epigram" in the 1930s. It got him killed.
He was writing it early.
Everything was happening early. The rockets. The opposition. The poetry.
The pressure cooker was whistling.
"Ignore it," Jake said. He crumpled the paper. "It's just words."
"Words have power, Koba," Nadya said softly. "You of all people should know that."
She stood up.
"I am going to bed. Don't stay up late writing lists."
She walked away.
Jake looked at the crumpled ball of paper.
She was right. He was writing lists. Lists of trains. Lists of isotopes. Lists of traitors.
He smoothed out the paper. He looked at the line again.
The shepherd has wolves beneath his skin.
He took out his lighter. He set the corner of the paper on fire.
He watched it burn until it stung his fingertips.
The next morning.
The front page of Pravda.
SHOCKING REVELATION: ZINOVIEV EXPOSED AS BRITISH SPY!
HEROIC GENERAL BRUSILOV TO LEAD DEFENSE COMMITTEE.
STALIN: "WE WILL PURGE THE FOREIGN AGENTS."
Jake stood by the window of his office. He watched the newsboys running below.
The people were reading the lie. And they were believing it. Because they were scared of the dark, and he was the only one offering a torch.
The door opened.
General Brusilov walked in. He was holding a clipboard.
"The trains are moving, General Secretary," Brusilov said. "The first shipment of graphite arrives in the Urals tomorrow."
"Good," Jake said.
"And the Zinoviev matter?" Brusilov asked. He didn't sound surprised. He sounded like a man who knew how power worked.
"The Cheka is handling it," Jake said.
"You are a strange Bolshevik," Brusilov muttered. He stroked his white beard. "You don't care about the book. You only care about the map."
"The map is the only thing that matters," Jake said.
He turned back to the window.
He had neutralized the Left Opposition. He had militarized the economy. He had restarted the atomic project with brute force.
He had saved the revolution by killing its soul.
Down in the square, a truck backfired. It sounded like a gunshot.
Jake didn't flinch.
He was already thinking about the next problem. The tanks needed engines. The engines needed aluminum.
"Menzhinsky," Jake called out to the empty room.
The spy chief stepped out from behind a curtain. He had been there the whole time.
"Yes, Koba?"
"Get me the American," Jake said. "The capitalist. Henry Ford."
Menzhinsky raised an eyebrow.
"Ford hates communists."
"He loves money," Jake said. "And I have a lot of gold left. Invite him to Moscow. Tell him we want to build a city of cars."
Menzhinsky smiled. He made another mark in his notebook.
"The Red Tsar invites the Capitalist King," Menzhinsky mused. "The script gets more interesting by the hour."
Jake looked at the grey sky.
"I'm not writing a script anymore," Jake whispered. "I'm building a fortress."