A strange tourist arrives in the Zone—a wealthy old man with a retinue and bodyguards, whom sharp-tongued stalkers immediately call the Sheikh.
His team is just as strange: the eternal loser Hromoy, the cruel Fash, Norris, who was expelled from the “Finder” group for amateur initiative, and, for that matter, a dark Desertir who appeared out of nowhere—the owner of the worst reputation among stalkers. They have to go to the Chernobyl NPP. But the farther they go, the stranger things begin to happen with the expedition. A mysterious ring of anomalies—suspiciously resembling a defensive perimeter—is only the first of what awaits those who had the foolishness to accept the Sheikh’s offer.