Private Wars
Chapter One
Uzbekistan-Tashkent-14 Uzbekiston
Malikov Family Residence
9 February, 0929 Hours (GMT+5:00)
They gave it an hour after the husband left, just to be certain he hadn't forgotten anything, that he wouldn't be coming back, before they knocked on the door. Four of them went to do it, while another two waited in the second car, the engine idling.
The two who waited were jealous of the four who went. They thought they were missing the fun.
All were men, and all wore business suits of the latest style, acquired for them in Moscow and Paris and Switzerland, then altered by tailors here in Tashkent, men who were paid pennies to adjust clothing worth thousands. All six finished their look with neckties of silk and shoes of Italian leather and cashmere-lined kidskin gloves. A few wore overcoats as stylish as the suits they covered, to ward off the howling chill that blew down out of the mountains in Kazakhstan to the north.
The only thing that marred the line of their clothing, each in turn, was the slight bump at hip or beneath an armpit, where they carried their guns.
Back before Uzbekistan had declared its independence from the creaking and cracking Soviet Unio ... read full excerpt from Private Wars ebook
