Александр Конторович - Predator - Escape from Tarkov

“Bring your bowls over!”

This gets an immediate reaction from the men sitting and lying around the yard. They jump up and start moving towards the fire.

There it is! On receiving his bowl of stew, one of them doesn’t tuck into it, but instead turns around and heads towards the small building. It would seem the boss doesn’t take his meals with everyone else, but gets his own special serving.

I leave my observation post and go back outside. My destination is now clear, so I make a small loop to avoid the diners in the courtyard. Creeping along the wall of the building, I hear a quiet conversation. I stop and glance around. Aha, there’s a window ajar, and the voices are emanating from behind it.

“Alright, don’t sweat it! We’ll just rest up a while, find ourselves a few more lads, and then we head back out into the neighbourhood.”

“The way you tell it, everything’s just hunky-dory. What are we going to say to Syomka now? His boys trusted us, followed us, and where are they now? He’s staying quiet for now, but we’ll have to answer to him sooner or later. Are you planning on paying him a visit?”

“Well…”

“See! You need to think more. Get the boys to go back to the shopkeeper’s and shake someone down.”

“Fucking brilliant! What happened last time we shook someone down?”

In reply there’s only coughing. Apparently, the other guy has nothing better to offer.

Glancing round, I find some sort of box nearby, and carefully drag it over to the wall, trying not to make any noise. Balancing my hand on the window ledge, I climb onto the box and cautiously peak through the window. One of the men I can see straight away. He’s standing by the doorway holding an empty tray. You’d assume that’s the guy who brought the meal in. So where’s the boss, then? He’s not in my field of vision. I’d have to guess that he’s lying under the window, and from my position he’s out of sight due to the windowsill. What if I can climb a little higher? The voice in my head asks snarkily what the fuck I’m trying to prove with all these acrobatics. So, I get up a little higher and see him – then what? In all honesty, I don’t have an answer to that question. Obviously, when I was on my way over to the bandits’ hideout I had a basic action plan of sorts. Right now, however, all those theoretical proposals have gone clean out of my head. Once again, I think how easy it was for all those action heroes. They were never beset with doubt, and they were never bothered by any qualms, moral or otherwise. Even common colds avoided them somehow. If one of those homegrown terminators was in my place now, they’d have long ago gunned down all the diners, then busted into the building and hanged the boss with his own guts. I, however, have no idea what’s going to happen. My imagination just refuses to take me any further than the first shot. Maybe I have already shot people, and killed them even, but that was all in situations where there really was no other choice. Now I have to aim in cold blood at a man eating his lunch, then pull the trigger. Sure, deep down inside I realize that if that man was in my situation he probably wouldn’t stop for a minute before shooting me. But that’s him, and I’m a completely different person. I’m not a killer, or a thief, or a bandit. When it comes to pulling the trigger without any emotion whatsoever, I just don’t think I can do it.

I climb quietly down from the box and move along the wall. Where am I going and why? I’ve no idea. After taking a few steps, I stop under an open window. Lying on the ground right in front of me is a bureau that’s been thrown out of the window. Or some piece of furniture anyway. Maybe bureau isn’t the right word for it, and I’ve no idea why that word came to mind.

A few seconds later, I find to my surprise that I’m sitting on the windowsill. In other words, I’m already inside the room. Hang about! How on earth did that happen. Once I’ve come to terms with where I am, I slip carefully down to the floor. In the room, everything’s been turned upside down. It looks as if some crazy fight took place here, during which both sides made free use of the furniture. The open door is blocked by a wardrobe that’s been turned over, which makes it almost impossible to get out into the corridor. The only way is to crawl under it. But if I try, I won’t be able to do it with my shotgun in my hands. I need to keep it on my back. However, moving round here without a drawn gun would the height of stupidity. I pull out my looted Sig Sauer and, holding it in my right hand, I try to squeeze under the wardrobe. I don’t manage it the first time. I have to shuffle backwards and fold up the stock of my shotgun. Only after doing that can I manage to fit through the gap.

Getting back up on my feet, I move carefully along the wall. The floor here in the corridor is covered with linoleum, so I don’t have to worry about creaking boards. Which is good, because I still have no idea how to act in this situation.

Suddenly the voices become much louder and I smell cigarette smoke coming from under the door. So the boss is right here, in this room.

Without fully understanding what I’m doing, I cautiously pull on the door handle. Through the crack this produces, I can now see the part of the room that was hidden from me before. The boss really is reclining on a narrow couch beneath the window. He’s injured, his left shoulder wrapped in a bloody bandage. He’s a big strong man with thick black stubble growing up to his eyes. A powerful guy. Were you to meet him on the street on a dark night, you’d be handing him your wallet and anything else you had before he even asked.

“Well, then?” whines the voice in my head. “Now you’ve seen the boss. Did you get a good look at him? Are you happy now? Shall we get the hell out of here?”

We probably should.

But at that exact moment the man lying on the couch turns his head towards me. His eyes widen, and his right hand immediately fumbles under a cushion. He almost certainly has a pistol under there, or something similar. He’s going to pull it out right now, and then I won’t be able to run anywhere anymore. One shot, and the whole crowd outside round the fire will be piling in here. Desperately, I jerk up my pistol, and with a shaking finger I pull the trigger.

I guess I was expecting my gun to fire completely noiselessly. However, instead of spitting out the bullet in total silence, it makes a strange cracking sound. The bolt shoots back loudly, and the empty case flies back into my face. Not into my eyes, thank heaven. Believe it or not, the bullet ends up quite close to the boss. He jerks back and tries to stand up, but I fire a few times more. From this distance it really would be hard to miss. The bandit’s body slowly slides down the wall. He never did get his gun out. Everything probably happened too quickly. I find myself standing in the doorway, having flung the door wide open at some point. Standing with his back to me is the same bandit that brought the tray with the food in. He’s still holding it in his hands.

“Don’t move an inch!” My voice comes out surprisingly hoarse. I barely recognize it as my own.

“I’m not moving!” the temporary waiter assures me in a frightened voice.

“One step and you’re fucked! Did you see everything?”

“Yes.”

“Then make a note of it. I told your boys before that they needed to get rid of the boss! Now I’ve had to do all the work for you.”

“Alright, alright! I understand. I’ll explain it.”

“Who are you going to explain it to?”

“I’ll explain it to the lads, that you came and you finished off Kiryukha!”

I nod, though of course he can’t see my movements.

“That’s my boy. You’ve got the idea. Do you know why I killed him, or do I need to draw a diagram?”