I'm John Batson with Josh Ireland, who's very much helping me through the chronology of the NKVD,

who won Trotsky dead, but are not quite sure how they're going to do it. And one night in May

of 1940, they send gunmen, most of whom appear to have never touched a gun before. And they blast

their way through the walls of the house where Trotsky is staying, but miss him,

miss his wife, miss everybody in the building.

I think there's a wound on the foot of Trotsky's grandchild.

That's the worst that can happen.

It's bad, but it's not what they hoped.

They run away.

Some of them get arrested by the Mexican police.

The NKVD might interrupt the prosecution of them.

Remember, Mexico is a benign country at this point. There's no death penalty. You just put people

in jail forever if they are lawbreakers. Trotsky is now in a fortress aware that the

NKVD has tried and failed to kill him.

However, we're following the story of the Marquodars, the family mother, Karadad Marqadar,

and her son Ramon are in the circle around Trotsky.

The way they've done that is Ramon is a deceiver.

And that's important to establish to me, Josh.

Ramon is false to everybody he meets.

He's got so many names.

I got lost.

We're calling him Ramon because that was his real name.

...