Александр Конторович - Predator - Escape from Tarkov

My watch vibrates soundlessly on my wrist – time to move! I press the light button and see the sentries will swap over in five minutes. The bandits aren’t the most punctual lot, and the replacement may arrive a little late, but the sentry will already be hanging round the corner of the building.

I climb up the ladder and push at the hatch with my shoulder. It rises with a quiet scraping sound. I take a quick look left and right. Nobody’s around. I raise the cover higher. The path is empty. I open the hatch and roll on my side, keeping a hold of the cover. It’s still quiet. I lower the heavy metal back in place, and crouch on my haunches. No, I can’t see anyone. Now to get to the building fast.

I run over to the wall, put my foot on the base, jump up, and grab the window ledge with both hands. I push with my feet, and here I am inside already. I press myself against the wall and look both ways. I’m in a kitchen. The kitchen of a normal flat. Broken glass. From the look of it, the owners forgot to close the window on their way out, and the wind did the rest. Crouching down, I move into the hallway and check the front door straight away. Which means the bandits have almost certainly not been in here yet. Returning to the room, I rip open the cupboards and tip the contents onto the floor. That way, everyone will think the flat’s been searched and there’s nothing to look for in here. I also open the window in the room. Not wide open, I just unfasten the catch. I won’t close the door to the flat, and the wind will quickly do the rest. I need to get this place into as inhospitable a condition as possible to make sure nobody gets it into their head to move in here.

I can just imagine what it would be like if I tumbled over the window ledge to find a bandit lying on the sofa, staring at me in amazement. That’s the sort of encounter I don’t fucking need. In one cupboard, I found a bottle of vodka, which went straight into my backpack. I now always keep enough food for a couple of meals, shells for the shotgun, and couple of packs of bullets for my pistol in there. It turned out that the stores the captain’s group had taken over contained a fair quantity of the right calibre ammo, so Ivan gave me several packs of bullets. When I showed the guy in charge of the stores my bullets with the blue tips, he just shrugged his shoulders.

“Obviously they’re some kind of special round, but we don’t have any of those here. You’d have to try the foreigners for those. We have no need of them.”

“Is there anyone who might know what they are?”

“You’d have to ask the Quartermaster.”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s just a guy… Believe it or not, he really was a quartermaster. He’s always been in the arms business. Rumour has it that he’s now got a store somewhere, where he trades guns and ammo. Obviously, that’s not all he sells, but that’s his speciality. He’s the guy you’d need to ask!”

Thinking on this, I put the pack of ammo deep in my rucksack. Who knows, perhaps they’re not meant for this pistol. I’ve only got the one magazine for it, so if anything goes wrong I won’t even be able to reload it.

When I leave the flat, I go as usual to the top floor. That’s where you get the best view from. Down in the yard, the scene is the same as before. It’s still the bandits’ outdoor kitchen. True, there have been some changes – someone’s made a wall out of boxes, seemingly as a windbreak, and stretched a sheet of tarp over part of the yard. Well, that’s a sign of stability. Clearly the group is getting settled in and not planning to leave here any time soon. Further proof of this is provided by a woodpile stacked in one corner, next to which two guys are sawing at a log. In other words, they’ve laid in supplies of fuel. Obviously they’ve found themselves someone with a domestic bent, who’s decided to get the place organized. It’s not like they had sentries before, either, for that matter.

I take a look at the surrounding buildings. Just as I thought. Makeshift stove chimneys are sticking out of the windows of the building opposite. You’d imagine the bandits are quartered pretty close together, so the chances of bumping into anyone in the building I’m in now are relatively small. I can’t discount the possibility that someone might come over here closer to evening, but for now there’s nobody around.

Meanwhile, down in the yard there’s a little movement. A few men emerge from the building where the bandits are quartered. Two more come out of the two-storey building where the gang leader used to live – the big man who came to meet me and another, shorter guy. From the look of it, the leadership have decided not to move their headquarters. Very well, let’s see what happens next.

My plan was to watch what they were up to a little longer, work out where their leader was sleeping, and then pay him a visit closer to evening. Not to gun him down with my pistol, as I’d done with the last one, but to do my impression of the messenger from the mysterious authority. I needed to make sure I was well prepared, which is why I’d planned to spend a day or two getting ready.

I could of course head straight to see the shopkeeper, but who the hell knows what arrangement the bandits and Sledgehammer might have come up with in my absence. They could well have decided to cut out the middleman, and instead of a friendly smile I could be met with a pistol bullet. It made sense to establish the way things now stood with the bandits’ leader first.

The bandits in the yard line up in an uneven rank. The leader walks past them, explaining something and making energetic gestures with his hands. It appears he’s giving orders to his henchman for their latest excursion. I try to assess the gang’s armaments. They’ve got the same old shotguns, double-barrel and pump-action. I see one of them has an assault rifle. Two of them appear to have no visible guns at all, but they’re also no longer carrying baseball bats. I guess it’s finally got through to them that a piece of wood isn’t much use against a rifle. Presumably, those two have pistols, which also have their uses.

The briefing’s over, and the bandits head for the exit in a disorderly crowd. Aha, so that’s where it is. The leader’s companion also heads into the building, while the leader himself, after pacing on the spot, turns and heads to the far corner of the courtyard. There, behind a low fence, stand a handful of wooden cabins of unmistakable function. You have to give the bandits’ housekeeper his due – he’s thought of everything.

So, what if… Almost tumbling out of the window, I take a good look round. The courtyard is empty. Sure, there are sentries keeping watch on the outer perimeter. But it’s daytime, the gang appears to be out on business, and there shouldn’t be anyone loitering round here. And, as the old saying goes, the privy is the place a king visits on foot. On his own, too.

I dash down the stairs and take another glance around the courtyard – still empty. There’s just the two lumberjacks still busy over by the woodpile. I shove my hands in my pockets and walk unhurriedly over to the little fence. While I was still upstairs, I marked the cabin being used by the leader. He wasn’t carrying any visible weapon, but I can’t rule out the possibility that he’s got a pistol, so this is how we’ll play it.

Have you ever tried to get off the bog in a hurry? If not, then give it a go. It’s an unforgettable experience, I can assure you. Somehow you’ve got to pull up your pants, and not fall over. A pistol will be the last thing you’re thinking about. From what I remember from my army days, a soldier on duty would hang his bayonet belt on a hook. I imagine the bandit boss is no dumber than the average soldier, so there should be a similar hook in each of the cabins.