Bhutto's Last Day, in Keeping With Her Driven Life

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She then prayed.

Around 3:45 p.m., Bhutto and her entourage of top party officials left in two cars for Rawalpindi.

After suicide bombers attacked her homecoming reception in Karachi on Oct. 18, killing more than 140 people, Bhutto had considered abandoning public rallies. Instead she would tape her messages and deliver them on radio or television.

That plan soon fizzled, however. Mass rallies are central to Pakistan's political culture. For her party to have a chance, she believed, she could not forgo them.

When the time came for Bhutto to address the Rawalpindi crowd, she set her notes aside and spoke spontaneously. People who had been following her career for years said it was the most passionate they had ever seen her.

"Her speech was beautiful," said Kamran Nazir, 19, a student and PPP activist. "It was about saving Pakistan. It was about having hope, no matter what."

Just before dusk, Nazir followed Bhutto out to the park gates. As the crowd surged around her vehicle, he saw her head rise from the sunroof, and he saw her hand begin to wave.

Advisers had warned Bhutto not to come out of her bulletproof sport-utility vehicle on the way in and out of rallies. But she insisted.

"She said, 'The people come with a lot of expectations and love. I can't resist that. I need to reply,' " said Farzana Raja, a top PPP official who was with her that day.

The crowd -- chanting "Long live Bhutto!" -- was making her happy. But it was worrying Mohammad Qayyam, a local police constable who was trying to clear a path for Bhutto's SUV while scanning the crowd for threats.

Like nearly everyone else there that day, he didn't see the man in the sunglasses walk up to Bhutto's vehicle and fire three shots from a handgun at close range. Nor did he see a second man, his head wrapped in a scarf, who blew himself up moments later.

All he remembers is seeing the bodies, dozens of them, suddenly scattered along the ground.