by Raymond Moore (Author)
Fatality enters your room one day while your landlady's away. You come in and find it clothed in flesh and bearing a man's name. Wearing a brown cloth coat and long boots, it asks you whether the outer door is closed. And you don't know enough yet to take it by the throat and fling it downstairs. You simply just don't realize what this crazy twist of fate means. Instead, you welcome it You ask it to have a seat ... and then ... then it's all over. You can't shake it off anymore, and there's nothing, nothing you can do about it Nothing will ever give you back the freedom of your life or the sanity of your thought Yes, one wintry afternoon in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, a university student, Khalid Baktir Razumov, returns to his room after classes, only to find an unannounced visitor waiting for him - the well-known, radical Islamist student, Saifuddin Hussein. To Razumov's utter dismay, Saifuddin takes him into his confidence and shares a deadly, astonishing secret: just that morning, through an act of jihadist terror, Saifuddin had assassinated a prominent Uzbek government official and is now on the run. Furthermore, Saifuddin, whom Razumov only knows as an acquaintance, requests aid from Razumov, to make arrangements with a shady taxi driver to meet up with Saifuddin later that night for the getaway. Though seething inside that Saifuddin should presume so much from him, Razumov agrees, hoping that somehow, by granting this small favor, he will be able to loosen himself from this terrorist association. Little does he realize that through this fatal choice, this crazy twist of fate, Razumov's life will be changed forever.