Chapter Forty-Eight: Crow and the Dead (1)

Click.

The entire Black Sea Seafood Restaurant plunged into darkness.

In an instant, every light in the restaurant went out at once, as if someone had taken an invisible knife and severed the building's optic nerves at the root.

The next second, Lin An was swallowed by the darkness too. A faint click sounded above his head.

A white plastic box in the corner of the ceiling activated, casting a dim yellow light like a setting sun.

Its power was low, perhaps only a few watts. It barely illuminated two-thirds of the hallway, fading quickly at the edges into a blurry, dark orange before giving way to complete darkness.

Lin An was still standing in front of the electrical panel. The emergency light illuminated half of his calm face, while the other half remained in shadow.

The Bullet Screen flowed along the edge of his vision.

[Power cut successful]

[The whole building's gone dark. The four screens in the surveillance room are out too. No cameras in the building.]

[The emergency lights are on: two in the hallway, one in the dining area, one in the stairwell, and one in the basement.]

[Dining area on the first floor. Sergei's group isn't panicking. Weird, why are they so quiet?]

[They're well trained. Everyone stopped moving and went on alert the moment the lights went out.]

[Careful, streamer. Sergei is telling someone to check the electrical panel.]

[Streamer, you need to get out. You have to leave this hallway before they reach the panel.]

[Heads up, someone's heading toward the kitchen to check the back door.]

[The back door isn't locked. They might find it.]

[Streamer, are you leaving or not?]

Lin An didn't answer the Bullet Screen. He was doing something else.

With a flip of his hand, he produced an M67 grenade. He pulled the pin with a click, keeping his fingers pressed against the safety lever. Then he found a suitable spot, positioned the lever toward the panel door, placed the grenade inside, and closed the panel.

The grenade's pin had been removed. As soon as someone opened the panel door, the safety lever would spring loose, starting the countdown to detonation.

The Bullet Screen began noticing what he was doing.

[Streamer, what are you doing?]

[You won't kill anyone that way. The grenade has a four-to-five-second delay. Anyone who opens the panel can get out of the blast radius, unless they're an idiot.]

"I know."

He glanced at the Bullet Screen beside the panel and answered casually.

"Killing someone is just a bonus. The main goal is to blow up the electrical panel."

[All right, streamer, time to get out.]

A comment traced an escape route in green lines across his vision... three steps back, turn right into the alcove, go straight down the passage for four meters, and the sliding door to the storeroom will be on the left.

Lin An turned around.

The soft rubber soles of his black sneakers touched the concrete floor. The emergency light shrank behind him, then disappeared into the darkness.

The Bullet Screen kept updating.

[A gunman's reached the back hallway.]

[He's stopped in front of the electrical panel.]

The panel door was pulled open, followed by the crisp metallic clink of the grenade's safety lever springing loose.

"Suka..."

Four seconds.

"Boom!"

After a classic Russian curse came the grenade's explosion. Standing in front of the storeroom door, Lin An heard it all, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

He pushed the door open and slipped inside sideways.

There wasn't a single light in the storeroom. Not even a sliver of light made it in. The air smelled of cleaning products, bleach, old cardboard boxes, and a faint trace of metal.

[The storeroom is about four by five meters. Straight ahead are several rows of metal shelves, stacked with cleaning supplies and dry goods. There's an aisle between them. At the end, on the right, is a hidden door disguised as part of the shelving.]

[There are several boxes of canned tomatoes and paper napkins stacked in front of the hidden door. Push it to the left. The hinges are on the right.]

[The armory is inside.]

Guided by the faint light and the Bullet Screen, Lin An boldly strode down the aisle between the shelves.

He lightly rested his fingers on the edge of a shelf, feeling the coolness of the metal.

One step, two steps, three steps. The shelf's edge ended beneath his fingertips.

His right hand touched the rough surface of a cardboard box. He stopped, placed his palm flat against its side, and pushed left.

With the faintest creak, the hidden door swung open, revealing a gap about sixty centimeters wide—just enough for someone to slip through sideways.

He slid inside.

The air in the armory was colder. A dim emergency light glowed inside, and the smell of gun oil was much stronger than outside, mingling with the lingering scents of metal, wood, and gunpowder solvent.

A gun rack stood here, reaching up to Lin An's chest.

Four long guns rested on it: a Saiga-12 semi-automatic shotgun, two AKMs, and an AKS-74U compact assault rifle.

Then, following the Bullet Screen's guidance, Lin An found two Stechkin APS pistols, one Makarov PM, several magazines, a folded tactical vest, a box containing about two hundred loose rounds of 7.62×39mm ammunition, four boxes of fifty 5.45×39mm rounds, two and a half boxes of 12-gauge buckshot, and one hundred rounds of 9×18mm Makarov ammunition on the third shelf of the cabinet on the right.

The workbench on the left didn't yield much: just a few bottles of gun oil, several cleaning rods, some cleaning cloths, and a box of loose 9×18mm rounds.

With all that loot, Lin An was happy—and even the Bullet Screen regulars were cheering at how satisfying it was.

[233, I've never had a loot run this good, even in extraction shooters.]

[The streamer just hit the jackpot.]

[Streamer, stop celebrating. The gunman from the electrical panel is heading this way.]

[Sergei's in the dining area. He heard the explosion too and is asking the gunman what happened over the radio.]

[Don't be so rude. "That gunman," "this gunman"—listen to what Sergei calls him. Vladi. You should use the guy's name.]

[Vladi's shining his flashlight toward the storeroom.]

He's coming?

Perfect.

Having already stowed everything away, Lin An turned and headed back. As he walked, he produced a Beretta pistol and racked the slide with a click.

Behind the storeroom door, Lin An saw a faint flashlight beam shining through the gap beneath it, casting a long, narrow line across the floor.

The Bullet Screen started scrolling wildly. Someone outlined Vladi's position with a red rectangle. The latter had turned sideways and was peeking half his body around Lin An's left. From his movements, Lin An guessed he was trying to open the storeroom door.

Lin An raised the Beretta and aimed at the upper half of the box. Before pulling the trigger, though, he glanced at the Bullet Screen and suddenly had an idea.

"Vladi!"

Lin An called softly in Russian. The slowly moving box stopped at once.

Good. A perfect opportunity. Lin An immediately pulled the trigger.

The first shot cracked through the thin steel of the hidden door and struck Vladi square in the chest.

The box jerked violently.

Before his enemy could retreat, Lin An fired a second shot.

The bullet pierced the door again, and this time the box fell.

[Dead.]

[The first shot hit his chest. The bastard had a bulletproof vest. The second hit his face. Dead on the spot.]

[Streamer, you just killed a veteran with two shots through a door.]

[Wallhacks and aimbot. How are you supposed to fight that?]

[Wait, I have a question. "Vladi" just now—that was Russian, right? You speak Russian?]

Lin An put the Beretta back in the storeroom and took out a pair of black tactical gloves. As he pulled them on, he answered casually.

"A little."

[How much is "a little"?]

[No, seriously. You're Chinese, twenty years old, and in New York. Your English is Chinglish, but you speak Russian?]

[How does that make sense?]

Lin An pushed open the hidden door.

The hallway's emergency light fell on the corpse of a Russian man in a suit, lying on his back at the entrance to the aisle between the shelves. His left hand still gripped a Stechkin APS, and his tactical flashlight lay beside him.

"Now that's a nice piece."

[It really is. The Stechkin APS is a Soviet-made, fully automatic military pistol. It has semi-automatic, three-round burst, and fully automatic firing modes, with a twenty-round magazine. It's a little big and a little heavy, but you can't argue with its firepower.]

[Isn't this thing basically a submachine gun?]

[You can use it like one. You can also attach a stock and fire it braced against your shoulder.]

Lin An saw the comments, crouched down, pried Vladi's fingers open, and took the APS.

He checked the magazine. Full. Good. He took it.

Then he also took the two spare twenty-round APS magazines at Vladi's waist, the Makarov PM on his tactical vest, the radio hanging on his chest, and the AKM bayonet issued to Soviet paratroopers at his waist.

Woohoo, looting a corpse felt great! This was way better than fighting those broke mercenaries in the abandoned factory. All they ever dropped were civilian weapons, and even the ammo was scarce.

[Streamer, time to go. Sergei's group is moving too.]

[Quick, quick, quick, boys. Let the crows start cawing!]

[Caw-caw-caw!]

A little over ten seconds earlier, in the restaurant's dining area.

Sergei stood beside a dining table, the radio pressed to his left ear. In his right hand, he held a Makarov PM with the muzzle pointed at the floor.

The emergency light's yellow glow slanted over from the bar, dividing his face sharply into light and shadow... one half waxen yellow, the other lost in the shade of his eye socket.

Vladi's breathing and footsteps came through the radio. Sergei rested his thumb on the talk button and listened to the sounds on the other end.

Sergei knew Vladi well. He was a former Soviet paratrooper with a sharp instinct for combat. Since he'd turned on his radio but hadn't spoken, it meant he'd found something and was hunting down an enemy.

The footsteps stopped.

The faintest rustle of clothing came through the radio, and then...

"Vladi."

A man was saying the name in a hoarse Russian voice with a strange accent. He called Vladi with an easy warmth, almost tenderly, as if speaking to someone he'd known for years.

Sergei's pupils contracted.

He pressed the talk button.

"Bang!"

A gunshot.

The radio's speaker compressed the shot into a short burst of noise, but Sergei still recognized the sound of a Beretta firing a 9mm Parabellum round.

After the shot came the dull thud of a bullet hitting flesh, and the briefest groan of pain from Vladi's throat.

Then came a second, sharper report, followed immediately by the sound of a body hitting the ground.

Sergei knew that last sound all too well. He also understood, with chilling clarity, that Vladi was dead. The veteran who had fought in the war in Afghanistan was gone just like that.

He'd died without a sound.

Sergei pulled the radio away from his ear and gripped it tightly, wanting to throw it away. But reason held him back and made him think about something else.

How had Vladi died?

And how had the person who killed him known Vladi's name—and been so sure of himself that he called out to him before firing?

What had that been for?

Sergei put the radio back in the pouch on his chest and swept his gaze across every face in the dining area... Marco, the two Ukrainians, the man by the front door, the one by the stairs.

Everyone there was watching him. They'd all heard the gunshots crackle through the radio and understood the same thing.

"Marco, take two men and circle around through the hallway on the left."

His voice was unnaturally steady.

"Igor, take two men on the right and block off the kitchen."

Marco nodded and jerked his chin toward the two Ukrainians behind him.

The three of them hugged the wall and moved toward the hallway on the left. The emergency light stretched their shadows into three long, thin black bands, slowly writhing across the floor.

Igor came back from the rear alley. The white beam of his tactical flashlight flashed at the dining area entrance, then he led two men around the right side, toward the kitchen.

The two groups silently dispersed through the dim yellow light, like ink spreading in water.

Sergei remained where he was, pistol in hand, watching them disappear around the corners of the hallways.

"Caw-caw-caw..."

A hoarse, rough sound with a metallic edge suddenly rang out from a dark corner beyond the emergency light's reach.

Then the cries came from deep in the stairwell, inside the kitchen exhaust duct, through the basement ventilation shaft, outside the front door, down the back hallway, and even from directly above Sergei.

Seven or eight crows started calling all at once. Their cries surged in from every direction, bouncing back and forth between the walls of the hallways and dining area, echoes layered upon echoes.

For a moment, it was as if the building itself had let out a scream.

Marco's footsteps faltered.

The two Ukrainians beside him slowed too... the man on the left shifted his muzzle from straight ahead to the ceiling, while the man on the right instinctively hunched his shoulders.

Crows?

Where had those crows come from? The restaurant was sealed. How had they gotten inside?

Everyone, Russian and Ukrainian alike, looked up and glanced around.

Sergei, left alone in the dining area, nearly fired by accident.

It wasn't because he was afraid of birds. He'd seen things far more frightening than crows. It was because the timing was all wrong.

Vladi had just died. The gunshots were still ringing in his ears, and the voice over the radio that had called out Vladi's name was still replaying in his mind. Then, at that very moment, crows began to call.

All over the world, no matter the culture, there were legends about crows, and those legends were often inseparably linked to death and ill fortune.

"Suka!"

Sergei was a little afraid, but he couldn't let his men see it. So he forced himself to get angry, cursed, then raised his weapon and fired at the ceiling.

"Bang, bang, bang..."

Three gunshots rang out in quick succession, drowning out Crow's grating voice for a moment.

Then a louder commotion came from up ahead.

"Thud, thud, thud..."

Sergei froze, instantly recognizing the sound.

"AKM!!!"