From the very beginning, stalker Andrey Lunev understood: something here isn’t clean… Officers of the International Inspection rushed to the center of Pripyat just one day before the next deadly emission, and Andrey, under contract, had to cover their backs—and after the inspectors carried out their mysterious assignment, to eliminate all outsiders who had touched the secret of the Call. But what if these “outsiders” have already twice saved his life during clashes with “wild” stalkers and countless mutants? Who are they—the short Smoker inseparable from a flamethrower, and the black man with a Japanese sword who skillfully beheads his opponents? The path to safety for Lunev’s charges was blocked by deadly dangerous anomalies, but worse than that was something else: over the whole group hung the shadow of betrayal…