The war of guns was over. The war of bread had begun.
Jake stood in the Map Room. The markers representing White armies were gone. In their place were new markers. Black pins for coal. Yellow pins for grain. Red pins for steel.
The map looked like a body bleeding out.
"The cities are starving, Comrade Stalin," Bukharin said. He was pacing, wringing his hands. " The peasants refuse to sell. The price of industrial goods is too high, and the price of grain is too low. It is the 'Scissors Crisis.' They are feeding wheat to their pigs rather than selling it to us."
Jake stared at the yellow pins in the Ukraine. The breadbasket of Europe.
"They are holding the Revolution hostage," Jake said.
"They are reacting to the market!" Bukharin argued. "We must lower the price of steel. We must encourage them to trade."
Jake picked up a pair of scissors from the desk. He opened them. The blades glinted in the electric light.
"We don't have time for markets, Nikolai," Jake said. "Markets are slow. Markets are for peacetime."
He slammed the scissors down. Clack.
"We are still at war," Jake said. "But the enemy isn't wearing a uniform. He is wearing a peasant blouse and sitting on a pile of grain."
He looked at Taranov.
"Issue the decree," Jake ordered. "Article 107. Hoarding grain is now a counter-revolutionary crime. Punishment is confiscation of property and ten years in the Gulag."
Bukharin turned pale. "You are declaring war on the countryside. There are twenty million peasant households. You cannot arrest them all."
"I don't need to arrest them all," Jake said. "I just need to arrest the rich ones. The Kulaks."
"Who defines a Kulak?"
Jake smiled. It was a cold, humorless stretching of lips.
"We do," Jake said. "Anyone with two cows. Anyone with a tin roof. Anyone who looks at a Chekist the wrong way."
He walked to the window.
"Send the Twenty-Five Thousanders," Jake ordered. "Send the factory workers into the villages. Give them guns. Tell them their hunger is the peasant's fault. Let the class war do the work for us."
Bukharin grabbed his briefcase. He looked terrified.
"You are breaking the alliance between the worker and the peasant," Bukharin whispered. "Lenin built that alliance."
"Lenin is dying," Jake said, turning his back. "Get out, Nikolai. Go write an editorial. I have a country to feed."
The Factory.
The Hammer and Sickle Steelworks smelled of rust and defeat.
Jake walked down the main floor. The furnaces were cold. Men sat in groups, smoking rough tobacco, playing cards on overturned crates.
They didn't stand when he approached. They didn't know who he was. To them, he was just another bureaucrat in a grey coat.
"Where is the Director?" Jake asked a worker.
The man spit on the floor. "In his office. Drinking tea."
Jake walked up the metal stairs to the catwalk office. He kicked the door open.
Director Volkov was indeed drinking tea. He was reading a French novel. He jumped up, spilling hot liquid on his trousers.
"Who are you?" Volkov shouted. "This is a restricted area!"
Jake didn't answer. He walked to the window overlooking the silent factory floor.
"Why are the furnaces cold?" Jake asked.
"No coal," Volkov scoffed. "The trains are delayed. And the workers... they are lazy. They want higher wages before they work."
Jake turned.
"Laziness is treason," Jake said.
He signaled to the door. Taranov stepped in, followed by two NKVD officers.
"Arrest him," Jake said.
"What?" Volkov stammered. "I am a Party member! You can't—"
Taranov pistol-whipped him. Volkov crumbled. The guards dragged him out, his heels scraping on the metal grate.
Jake walked out onto the balcony.
"Listen to me!" Jake roared. His voice echoed off the silent machinery.
The workers looked up.
"Director Volkov has been arrested for sabotage!" Jake shouted. "He failed to provide coal. He failed you."
He pointed to a young man in the front row. The one who had spit on the floor.
"You," Jake said. "What is your name?"
"Stakhanov," the man grunted.
"Come up here," Jake ordered.
The man climbed the stairs, looking wary. He stood next to Jake, wiping grease from his hands.
"You are the new Director," Jake announced.
The factory floor went silent. Stakhanov's jaw dropped. "Comrade... I don't know how to run a mill. I just shovel slag."
"Do you want to produce steel?" Jake asked him.
"Yes. We need steel to build tractors."
"Then you are qualified," Jake said.
He turned back to the crowd.
"From today, we work differently!" Jake shouted. "We don't work for wages. We work for survival. The West is coming to kill us. They have tanks. We have cards and tea."
He leaned over the railing.
"I am setting a quota. Double production by next month. If you meet it, you get triple rations. You get new apartments. You get medals."
He paused.
"If you fail... the new Director goes to the wall. And I pick another one."
He looked at Stakhanov. The young man was sweating. He looked terrified. He looked motivated.
"Get the coal," Jake whispered to him. "Steal it from the railyard if you have to. But light those fires."
Jake walked down the stairs.
Behind him, he heard Stakhanov shouting orders. He heard the clang of shovels.
Fear and greed. The two pistons of the human engine. Jake had just poured gasoline on both.
The Reception Room.
That evening, the Kremlin felt like a tomb.
Jake sat in the reception room. He was drinking water. He missed the burn of vodka, but he couldn't afford to be dull.
The door opened. Taranov entered.
Behind him walked a young woman.
She was barely twenty. She had dark, curly hair and eyes that shone with a dangerous innocence. She wore a simple dress, not the silk of the bourgeoisie, but clean and well-cut.
"Comrade Stalin," Taranov said. "This is Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Daughter of Sergei Alliluyev."
Jake stood up. He knew the name. An old Bolshevik family. Pure pedigree.
Nadezhda looked at him. She didn't look at the floor. She looked at his face. She saw the scars. She saw the yellow eyes.
And she smiled.
"They call you Koba," she said softly. "My father told me stories about you. About the bank robberies in Tiflis. He said you were a wild mountain goat."
Jake felt a strange sensation in his chest. A flicker of something warm. He crushed it instantly.
"That was a long time ago," Jake said. "I am a filing clerk now."
"You are the General Secretary," she corrected. "You are saving the Revolution."
She walked closer. She smelled of soap and rain. She didn't smell like blood or chlorine gas.
"I work in the secretariat," she said. "I type the codes. I see the messages from the front. You work eighteen hours a day."
"The machine needs tending," Jake said.
"The machine needs a human hand," she said.
Jake looked at Taranov. The bodyguard nodded slightly. She was perfect. Young. Loyal. A true believer.
She would be his shield. A pretty face to put next to the monster on the posters. It would make him look stable. Fatherly.
"I need a secretary," Jake lied. "Someone I can trust with my private correspondence."
"I can type very fast," Nadezhda said eagerly.
"It is not about speed," Jake said. He stepped closer. He towered over her. "It is about silence. Can you keep secrets, Nadya?"
"I am a Bolshevik," she said proudly. "My life belongs to the Party."
Jake reached out. He touched her cheek. It was warm.
She leaned into his touch. She had a crush on the legend. She didn't know the man.
"Good," Jake said. "We will have dinner tomorrow. Taranov will drive you."
"Dinner?" she asked, blushing.
"To discuss work," Jake said.
She smiled again. A blinding, hopeful smile. "Yes, Comrade Stalin."
She turned and left the room, her footsteps light and bouncing.
Jake watched the door close.
He wiped his hand on his tunic. He felt dirty. He was going to use her. He was going to consume her light to hide his darkness.
"She is too young," Taranov muttered.
"She is necessary," Jake said. "The people need a wedding. They need to see that life goes on."
Lenin's Quarters. Midnight.
The sound of labored breathing filled the room.
Jake sat by the bed.
Lenin was dying. The third stroke had hit him an hour ago. The doctors were in the hallway, arguing in whispers.
Jake held Lenin's hand. It was cold.
"It's happening," Jake whispered. "The transition."
Lenin's eyes were open, but they were glassy. He was looking at something far away.
"I went to the factory today," Jake said calmly. "I terrified them into working. It was the only way. The British have a new tank design. The Vickers Medium. It is fast."
Jake sighed.
"You wanted a world revolution, Vladimir. You wanted the workers of Germany and England to rise up."
He leaned in close.
"They aren't coming. We are alone. A fortress of socialism in a sea of capitalism."
Lenin's breath hitched. A rattle deep in his throat.
"I have to make Russia into a weapon," Jake said. "I have to fuse the bone and the steel. It will hurt. It will kill millions. But it will survive."
He looked at the dying man's face.
"I am going to keep you," Jake said. "I spoke to the architect, Shchusev. He is designing a cube. Red granite. We will pump your veins full of formaldehyde."
Lenin's eye twitched one last time. A spark of horror? Or acceptance?
"You will be the saint," Jake whispered. "And I will be the Pope."
Lenin exhaled. A long, shuddering sigh.
Then... silence.
The chest didn't rise again. The eyes lost their focus.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was dead.
Jake sat there for a long minute. He felt the weight of the absolute power settling onto his shoulders. It was heavier than he expected.
He stood up. He didn't close Lenin's eyes.
He walked to the door and opened it. The doctors looked up, terrified.
"The Chairman is dead," Jake announced flatly.
He looked at Taranov.
"Seal the room," Jake ordered. "Call the embalmers. And send a telegram to Trotsky in Kazakhstan."
"What should it say?"
Jake thought for a moment.
"Tell him the funeral is on Saturday," Jake lied. "Tell him... he won't make it in time. Tell him not to come."
He walked down the hallway.
Trotsky would miss the funeral. It would look like an insult to the Party. It would be the final nail in his political coffin.
Jake Vance walked into the night.
Stalin was now the only sun in the sky. And it was going to be a scorching summer.