The journey back to St. Petersburg was the inverse of the one that had brought him to Siberia. On his eastward trip, each stop had revealed a deeper level of chaos. Now, traveling west, he witnessed the first signs of his new order rippling backward down the line. At the Chita depot, he saw his color-coded priority system being implemented. In Krasnoyarsk, he saw newly organized maintenance crews servicing locomotives with an efficiency that would have been unthinkable three months prior. He had inserted a gear of 21st-century logic into the heart of the imperial machine, and the entire apparatus was slowly, grudgingly beginning to turn in time with it.
He arrived in the capital not with the anxiety of a man summoned for judgment, but with the cold patience of a victor waiting for the official surrender. His telegram, a simple, unadorned statement of fact, had landed in the Special Commission with the force of an artillery shell.
The commission reconvened in the same cavernous chamber, but the atmosphere was entirely different. The skepticism was gone, replaced by a mixture of awe, resentment, and fear. When Mikhail entered, the conversations stopped. The generals and ministers nodded to him, their greetings now holding a wary respect. He was no longer the boy-baron witness; he was the man who had done the impossible.
At the head of the table, General Kuropatkin looked like a man who had been handed a miracle. The Siberian bottleneck had been his greatest failure, a source of constant criticism from the Tsar and the press. Mikhail had single-handedly saved him from humiliation.
"Baron Volkov," Kuropatkin began, his voice booming with a newfound enthusiasm. "The commission has reviewed the telegraphic reports from the Irkutsk-Chita line. The results are not just impressive; they are, frankly, astonishing. You were tasked with doubling the supply throughput. You have exceeded that goal by a considerable margin. You have the gratitude of this commission, and more importantly, the gratitude of the army."
This was Mikhail's first prize: the public, unequivocal backing of the Minister of War.
Volgin, Plehve's agent, sat silently against the wall, his face pale. His weapon of incompetence had been shattered. He had nothing left to attack with.
"As per our agreement," Kuropatkin continued, "this commission wholeheartedly endorses the full implementation of Baron Volkov's logistical plan across the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. A new post, Deputy Commissioner for Trans-Siberian Military Logistics, will be created to oversee this task. The post will answer directly to me." He looked directly at Mikhail. "The post is yours, if you will accept it."
This was the second prize: official, undisputed authority over the logistical lifeline of the entire war. But Mikhail knew it was not enough to simply win. He had to annihilate the opposition.
"I am honored, General," Mikhail said, bowing his head slightly. "And I accept. In light of my new responsibilities, I have prepared the 'full report' mentioned in my telegram. It contains not only the details of the methods used, but also an analysis of the obstacles that had to be overcome."
He produced a new dossier, thicker than his first, and had an aide distribute copies to the commission members. He had pressed his advantage.
The room fell silent as the members began to read. The first section was a dry, technical marvel detailing the new system. But the second section was a political explosive. It was a meticulously documented account of the sabotage attempts on the Baikal crossing, the "misdirected" shipment of steel pins, and the web of deliberate obstruction he had faced. And it included the results of the audit of the deposed railway chief, Bazanov—an audit that showed a clear trail of laundered money leading from railway supply contracts back to a holding company owned by Nikolai Katorov.
Mikhail had laid a landmine in the middle of the room and calmly invited his enemies to step on it. He had used the authority they had given him to investigate them.
Volgin shot to his feet. "This is an outrage! These are baseless accusations against a respected industrialist and patriot!"
"The bank records and sworn statements from the auditors are in Appendix C," Mikhail replied without looking at him. "The evidence suggests that Mr. Katorov and his associates were not only enriching themselves at the army's expense, but were actively sabotaging the war effort to protect their corrupt enterprise. An enterprise, I might add, that has been a consistent source of labor unrest, unlike my own."
The attack was brilliant in its execution. He had publicly tied his industrial rival, Katorov, directly to the corruption and failure that the commission was formed to fix. He had weaponized their own mandate against them.
General Kuropatkin's face was like thunder. He cared little for Katorov, but he cared immensely about traitors and profiteers making his army look weak. "These are the most serious charges imaginable," he roared. "They must be investigated immediately!"
The commission was no longer a trial of Mikhail Volkov. It had become a trial of his enemies.
That evening, Mikhail met with Sergei Witte and Princess Sofia in a private dining room. Witte, a man not given to easy praise, was practically beaming.
"You did not just win, my boy," Witte rumbled, raising a glass of vodka. "You salted the earth behind you. Plehve cannot protect Katorov now, not with the military demanding an investigation. You have crippled them."
"You have also made an enemy who will never stop until one of you is destroyed," Sofia cautioned, though her eyes shone with admiration. "Plehve is not a man who forgives humiliation."
"He was already such an enemy," Mikhail replied coolly. "The difference is that now, I am no longer just a provincial baron. I am the Deputy Commissioner of the most important artery in the Empire."
His power had grown exponentially. He now controlled the flow of men and material for the entire war. It was a position of immense, unprecedented influence for a man so young, a man who had been a penniless, obscure noble only a few years before.
But as he looked out at the lights of St. Petersburg, he felt no sense of finality. This new power was simply another, greater tool. Controlling the logistics of the war was a means to an end. The next step was to influence the conduct of the war itself. And after that, the government that waged it. His ambition, once a distant star, now felt like a sun, burning brighter and hotter, its gravity beginning to pull the entire Russian state into its orbit.