Parveen Aziza Escapes

"You are the only man I will ever love, Jack!"

I could not stop sobbing.

"Very touching." Maksim's voice was derisive. "I'm getting a bit tired of this game now. And the police may arrive, that would be inconvenient."

"Give me one between the eyes, Maksim," said Jack, his voice gaining strength and clarity. "Goodbye, Parveen Aziza. You're a good girl. You have your whole life in front of you."

With his last reserves of strength, he pushed me off him, leaving himself open. A second later, I felt the bullet whizzing past my ear. When I looked at Jack again, there was a bloody round hole between his eyes.

"Oh, Jack, Jack!" I sobbed, closing his beautiful, beautiful eyes with my hand. "How can I live without you?"

* * * *

I called Farah and she told me to go to the nearest coffee shop and wait.

"I don't want to leave him," I said brokenly.

"Very well. I'll be there as soon as I can. About half an hour."

Farah came about forty minutes later. Amy brought her and left her car in the street with the flashers on. Farah's face was tear-streaked, Amy's was wooden. But both were all business.

"We need to get him out of here," said Amy.

"Why? We must get the police, tell them that Maksim did this ..."

"Nothing will happen, Parveen Aziza," said Farah. "St. James's money will make sure this case is buried. If they get Jack's body, they will make it disappear.'

"How can you both be so ... so cold-bloodedly logical?"

"We knew he was already dead," said Amy. "He was dead as soon as Gretchen signed the statement accusing him."

"It's a miracle he survived this long," said Farah. "The Russians were using all the latest tracking technology to find him."

We managed to get Jack's body into the trunk of Amy's car. She drove us back to her beach house.

As soon as we crossed into New Jersey, Amy asked for my phone. I gave it to her, and she threw it out of the car window. I watched it bounce on the roadside before disappearing into a ditch.

* * * *

Amy rented a big cargo van and bought another casket from the funeral home for Jack. That evening three of us drove back up the Thruway with the two caskets. It was late at night by the time we got off the Thruway and almost midnight by the time we got to the end of the paved secondary road.

Amber was waiting for us with a four-wheel drive with high clearance. There was another very attractive young woman with her.

"Hello," she said to me. "You must be Parveen Aziza. You're as beautiful as Farah described you. I'm Ryder Fox."

We transferred the caskets to Amber's vehicle and all of us crowded in. She drove several more miles up a winding mountain dirt road. Then she bumped across another half-mile of open mountainside with the vehicle often at a perilous angle. Finally, she pulled up by a stand of evergreens.

"The ground in this lee should be soft enough," said Amber.

She got out with a long-handled spade, threw another one to Ryder, and they began digging. It took them till early morning to finish two graves. We lowered the caskets in and each one of us threw in a handful of dirt.

"Goodbye, Jack," said Farah. "You're with the only woman you couldn't save. I will always love you."

"So will I," said Amy. "You'll be in my heart as long as I live."

"I pray our son grows up to be worthy of you, Jack," said Amber.

"Jack, Jack," faltered Ryder. She was choked up and had to clear her throat several times before she could go on. "Our baby will never know you! How could they do this to you? What sort of world is this that evil wins over good?"

I couldn't speak, for I couldn't stop crying.

We sat in the cold till the sun rose. Amber had chosen a beautiful spot, exactly what Jack would have wanted. A vista opened at our feet, a mountain lake and hillsides covered with evergreens.

"Just like our school days in Switzerland, Zainab Habiba," I whispered. "And you have Jack to keep you company. Forever."

* * * *

This is the end of Jack Grierson, and it breaks my heart. Life without him will be cold and gray.

Goodbye, Jack. Like all your women, I will always love you. XOXO