The telegraph machine spat out a strip of paper.
Taranov tore it off. He read it under the flickering bunker light. His face, usually a mask of stone, cracked with confusion.
"Comrade Stalin," Taranov said. "A message from Menzhinsky in Moscow. It is about the Romanovs."
Jake was cleaning his pipe. He didn't look up. "They are dead. Why is Menzhinsky writing about ghosts?"
"Because the Whites claim they are alive," Taranov said.
He handed the paper to Jake.
WHITE RADIO BROADCAST INTERCEPTED. STOP. GENERAL MAMONTOV CLAIMS TSAR NICHOLAS IS IN HIS CAMP. STOP. CLAIMS TO HAVE RESCUED HIM FROM URALS. STOP. MORALE OF WHITE ARMY SURGING. STOP.
Jake stared at the paper.
He had ordered the execution. He had told the courier to leave no bodies. He had spread the rumor himself that the Tsar escaped, just to draw Mamontov out.
But Mamontov claiming he had the Tsar? That was impossible. Unless the courier had failed. Or betrayed him.
"It's a lie," Jake said. "A propaganda trick to rally his men."
"Is it?" Taranov asked. "Or did the courier sell the package instead of burying it?"
Jake felt a cold spike in his chest. If Nicholas was alive... if the Whites had a living symbol... the peasant conscripts might defect. The religious ones still saw the Tsar as God's anointed.
"Get me the radio," Jake ordered. "Tune it to the White frequency."
The White Camp.
The broadcast crackled through the static.
"...and by the Grace of God, the Emperor is safe!" the announcer's voice boomed. "He rides with General Mamontov! He calls upon every loyal Russian to throw off the Bolshevik yoke!"
Jake listened. His grip on the pipe tightened until the wood creaked.
Then, a new voice came on. A softer, hesitant voice.
"My children," the voice said. "This is Nicholas. I am... I am returned to you."
Jake froze.
He knew that voice. He had heard recordings of it in the archives of 2024. The soft, aristocratic lisp. The hesitation.
It was him.
"He's alive," Jake whispered. "The courier didn't kill him."
He stood up. He kicked his chair over.
"How?" Jake roared. "I gave the order! No survivors!"
"Maybe the courier was intercepted?" Taranov suggested, checking his submachine gun as if expecting the Tsar to walk through the door.
"No," Jake said, pacing the small room. "Mamontov was nowhere near the Urals. It's a fake. An impostor."
He stopped pacing.
"But it doesn't matter if it's fake," Jake realized. "If the soldiers believe it, the front collapses."
He looked at the map. Mamontov was dug in five miles south. If his army believed God was riding with them, they would attack at dawn. And fanaticism fueled by faith was stronger than fanaticism fueled by fear.
"We need to kill the ghost," Jake said.
"How?" Taranov asked. "We can't storm their HQ. They have tanks."
Jake looked at the radio.
"We don't need to storm them," Jake said. "We need to expose them."
He grabbed his coat.
"Zhukov!" Jake yelled into the corridor.
The young General ran in. "Comrade Stalin?"
"Prepare a raiding party," Jake said. "Ten men. The best you have. We are going into the White lines tonight."
"To kill Mamontov?"
"No," Jake said. "To kidnap a Tsar."
No Man's Land.
The space between the armies was a frozen hellscape.
Shell craters were filled with black ice. Barbed wire snagged on uniforms like iron thorns.
Jake crawled through the mud. He wore a white camouflage smock over his coat. Taranov was to his left. Zhukov was to his right. Behind them, seven NKVD commandos moved like shadows.
" patrols every ten minutes," Zhukov whispered.
A spotlight swept over them. They froze, pressing their faces into the snow. The light passed.
"Move," Jake hissed.
They reached the White trench line. A sentry stood there, smoking a cigarette. He looked relaxed. Confident. Why wouldn't he be? The Tsar was back. God was winning.
Taranov rose from the snow. He covered the sentry's mouth with a gloved hand. Snap. The neck broke with a sickening crunch. Taranov lowered the body silently.
They slipped into the trench.
"Where is the HQ?" Jake asked.
"The farmhouse on the hill," Zhukov pointed. "That's where the radio antenna is."
They moved through the communication trench. They passed sleeping soldiers. Some were praying. One had an icon of Saint Nicholas pinned to his coat.
It was spreading. The fever of hope.
They reached the farmhouse. Two Cossacks guarded the door.
"Take them," Jake ordered.
Two knives flashed in the dark. The guards slumped.
Jake kicked the door open.
Inside, General Mamontov sat at a table, drinking wine. Across from him sat a man in a simple soldier's tunic. He had a beard. He looked tired.
It was Nicholas II.
Or it looked exactly like him.
Mamontov jumped up, reaching for his pistol.
"Don't," Jake said, aiming his Mauser at the General's chest.
Mamontov froze. He looked at the white-clad ghosts who had just materialized in his room. He looked at Jake's face.
"Stalin," Mamontov breathed.
"Sit down, General," Jake said.
He looked at the man in the beard. The man was trembling. He was drinking tea with shaking hands.
"Stand up," Jake ordered the 'Tsar'.
The man stood up. He was short. He had the same blue eyes.
"Say something," Jake said.
"Please," the man whimpered. "Don't shoot. I am just an actor."
Jake blinked. "An actor?"
"Ivanov," Mamontov spat, disgusted. "He is a provincial actor from Saratov. We found him in a POW camp."
Jake started to laugh. It was a low, dark sound.
"A fake," Jake said. "You rallied an army with a fake."
"The people need a symbol!" Mamontov shouted. "They need something to believe in besides your starvation and your firing squads!"
Jake walked up to the actor. He grabbed the man's beard. It was real.
"You played the role well," Jake said. "The voice on the radio... it was perfect."
"I studied the recordings," the actor stammered. "The General promised me extra rations. And a passport to France."
Jake turned to Mamontov.
"You are a smart man, General," Jake said. "Lying to your own troops. What happens when they find out?"
"They won't," Mamontov said defiantly. "Because you won't leave this room alive."
Mamontov kicked the table over. He lunged for a bell pull on the wall—the alarm.
Taranov fired.
Brrt.
Three bullets hit Mamontov in the chest. The General fell back, knocking over the samovar. Boiling water hissed on the floorboards.
"Alarm!" a voice shouted outside.
Boots thundered on the porch.
"We have to go!" Zhukov yelled. "Grab the General!"
"He's dead," Jake said.
He looked at the actor. The fake Tsar was cowering in the corner.
"Bring him," Jake ordered. "He is worth more than a General."
Taranov grabbed the actor. "Move!"
They burst out the back door as the front door splintered under rifle butts.
"Stop them!" a White officer screamed.
Bullets whined past them. One of the commandos fell, clutching his throat.
"Cover fire!" Jake roared.
Zhukov and Taranov sprayed the farmhouse with their submachine guns. Wood shattered. The White soldiers dived for cover.
They ran. They ran through the snow, dragging the weeping Emperor of Saratov.
Flares popped overhead, bathing the night in harsh red light.
"Mortars!" Zhukov warned.
Explosions walked toward them. Crump. Crump. Crump. Mud and ice rained down.
"Keep moving!" Jake shouted. "To the wire!"
They hit the barbed wire. Taranov threw himself onto it, using his armored vest as a bridge.
"Cross!" Taranov grunted.
Jake pushed the actor over Taranov's back. He scrambled over after him. Zhukov followed.
They tumbled into the cratered no-man's land.
Behind them, the White camp was buzzing like an kicked hive. But they were clear.
Tula. The Next Morning.
The town square was packed.
Soldiers, workers, peasants. They had been summoned by loudspeakers.
On a wooden platform, a microphone stood waiting.
Jake walked onto the stage. He looked tired, his white smock stained with mud. But he stood tall.
Behind him, Taranov dragged the actor, Ivanov. The man was bound, stripped of his Tsar costume, wearing only his underclothes.
"Comrades!" Jake's voice boomed over the speakers. "The Whites claim they fight for God! They claim the Tsar is with them!"
He grabbed Ivanov by the hair and forced him to the microphone.
"Tell them!" Jake ordered. "Tell them who you are!"
Ivanov looked at the crowd. He looked at the sea of angry faces. He saw the gun in Taranov's hand.
"I am... I am Sergei Ivanov," the actor sobbed. "I am from Saratov. I am a carpenter."
A gasp went through the crowd.
"The General paid me," Ivanov wept. "He gave me wine. He told me to read the script."
Jake pushed him away.
"You see?" Jake shouted. "There is no Tsar! There is no miracle! There are only lies told by desperate Generals to make you die for their estates!"
He pointed South.
"Mamontov is dead! I killed him myself last night! Their leader is gone! Their god is a fake!"
The crowd roared. It wasn't fear this time. It was rage. They had been afraid of the Tsar's ghost. Now they felt foolish for believing it.
"Zhukov!" Jake yelled.
The young General stepped forward.
"The White Army is leaderless and demoralized," Jake said. "They are waking up to find their Emperor is a clown."
He drew his sword—a Cossack saber he had taken from the battlefield.
"Attack!" Jake ordered. "Don't stop until you reach the sea! Push them into the water!"
"Uraaaaa!" the soldiers screamed.
The wave of sound shook the windows. The Red Army, paralyzed by fear yesterday, was now fueled by the fury of betrayal.
They surged out of the square. They ran toward the front.
Jake watched them go.
He looked at the weeping actor on the stage.
"What about me?" Ivanov whispered. "You promised... you said if I confessed..."
Jake looked at him. He saw a pathetic little man who had played a dangerous game.
"I promised you the truth would set you free," Jake said.
He nodded to Taranov.
Taranov stepped forward. He put the pistol to the back of the actor's head.
"The truth is," Jake said. "We don't need any more actors."
Bang.
The body slumped.
Jake turned and walked off the stage.
He felt the hole in his chest again. It was getting bigger.
He had won. He had broken the White Army's spirit.
But as he walked back to the bunker, he realized something terrifying.
He hadn't felt a single thing when Taranov pulled the trigger. Not satisfaction. Not regret.
Just the cold efficiency of a problem solved.
He was becoming less than human. Or perhaps, exactly what history needed him to be.
"Get the car," Jake told Taranov. "We go back to Moscow. I have a country to rebuild."
"And the war?" Taranov asked, wiping his gun.
Jake listened to the distant thunder of artillery. The Red Army was advancing. The Whites were breaking.
"The war is over," Jake said. "Now the terror begins."