News of a Kidnapping

  The operation began at eleven o'clock on the morning of January 25, when Captain Jairo Salcedo Garcia left the Carlos Holguin Academy in Medellin with seven officers, five noncommissioned officers, and forty agents. An hour later, Captain Eduardo Martinez Solanilla was accompanied by two officers, two noncommissioned officers, and seventy-one agents. The report pointed out that in the relevant memorandum no record had been made of the departure of Captain Helmer Ezequiel Torres Vela, who was in charge of the raid on La Bola farm, where Diana and Richard were in fact being held. But in his subsequent statement to the Prosecutor General's Office, the same captain confirmed that he had set out at eleven in the morning with six officers, five noncommissioned officers, and forty agents. Four combat helicopters were assigned to the entire operation.

  The raids on Villa del Rosario and Alto de la Cruz were carried out with no difficulty. At about one o'clock, the raid on La Bola began. Second Lieutenant Ivan Diaz Alvarez stated that he was coming down from the mesa where the helicopter had left him when he heard shooting on the side of the mountain. Racing in that direction, he caught a glimpse of nine or ten men armed with rifles and submachine guns and running for their lives. "We stayed there a few minutes to see where the attack was coming from," the second lieutenant declared, "when much further down the slope we heard someone calling for help." The second lieutenant said he had hurried down and found a man who shouted: "Please help me." The second lieutenant shouted back: "Halt! Who are you?" The man replied that he was Richard, the journalist, and needed help because Diana Turbay had been wounded. The second lieutenant said that then, without knowing why, he asked the question: "Where's Pablo?" Richard answered: "I don't know, but help me, please." Then the soldier approached, taking all precautions, and then other men from his unit appeared. The second lieutenant concluded: "For us it was a surprise to find the journalists there because that wasn't our objective."

  This account agrees almost point by point with the one given by Richard Becerra to the Attorney General's Office. Richard later amplified his statement, saying he had seen the man who shot at him and Diana, and that he had been standing to the left with both hands extended, at a distance of about fifteen meters. "By the time the shooting stopped," Richard concluded, "I had already dropped to the ground."

  With regard to the single bullet that caused Diana's death, tests showed that it had entered the left iliac region and moved upward and to the right. The characteristics of the micrological damage indicated that it was a high-velocity bullet, traveling between two and three thousand feet per second, or some three times faster than the speed of sound. It could not be recovered because it shattered into three parts, which lessened its weight, altered its shape, and reduced it to an irregular fragment that continued its trajectory, causing damage of an essentially fatal nature. It was almost certainly a 5.56-caliber bullet, perhaps fired by a rifle similar, if not identical, to an Austrian AUG that had been found on the scene and was not a standard-issue police weapon. In a marginal note, the autopsy report indicated: "Diana had an estimated life expectancy of fifteen more years."

  The most intriguing fact in the raid was the presence of a handcuffed civilian in the same helicopter that transported the wounded Diana to Medellin. Two police agents agreed he was a man who looked like a campesino, about thirty-five or forty years old, dark skin, short hair, rather robust, about five feet, seven inches tall, and wearing a cloth cap. They said he had been detained during the raid, and that they were trying to find out who he was when the shooting began, so they had to handcuff him and take him along to the helicopters. One of the agents added that they had left him with their second lieutenant, who questioned him in their presence and released him near the place where he had been picked up. "The gentleman had nothing to do with it," they said, "since the shots came from lower down and he was up there with us." These versions denied that the civilian had been on board the helicopter, but the crew of the aircraft contradicted this. Other statements were more specific. Corporal Luis Carlos Rios Ramirez, the helicopter gunner, had no doubt that the man had been on board and was returned that same day to the zone of operations.

  The mystery carried over to January 26 with the discovery of the body of one Jose Humberto Vazquez Munoz, in the municipality of Girardota, near Medellin. He had been killed by three 9mm bullets in the thorax, and two in the head. In the files of the intelligence services, he was described as having a long criminal record as a member of the Medellin cartel. The investigators marked his photograph with the number 5, mixed it in with photographs of other known criminals, and showed them to those who had been held hostage with Diana Turbay. Hero Buss said: "I don't recognize any of them, but I think the person in number five looks a little like one of the thugs I saw a few days after the kidnapping." Azucena Lievano stated that the man in photograph number five, but without a mustache, resembled one of the guards on night duty at the house where she and Diana were held during the first few days of their captivity. Richard Becerra recognized number five as the handcuffed man in the helicopter, but he qualified this: "I think so, because of the shape of his face, but I'm not sure." Orlando Acevedo also recognized him.

  Finally, Vazquez Munoz's wife identified his body and said in a sworn statement that on January 25, 1991, at eight in the morning, her husband had left the house to find a taxi when he was seized by two men on motorcycles wearing police uniforms, and two men in civilian clothes, and put into a car. He managed to shout her name: "Ana Lucia." But they had already driven away. This statement, however, could not be admitted because there were no other witnesses to the abduction.

  "In conclusion," said the report, "and on the basis of the evidence brought forward, it is reasonable to affirm that prior to the raid on the La Bola farm, certain members of the National Police in charge of the operation had learned from Mr. Vazquez Munoz, a civilian in their custody, that some journalists were being held captive in the area, and that, subsequent to these events, he most surely was killed by their hand." Two other unexplained deaths at the site were also confirmed.

  The Office of Special Investigations went on to conclude that there were no reasons to assume that General Gomez Padilla or any other high-ranking director of the National Police had been informed; that the weapon that caused Diana's wounds was not fired by any of the members of the special corps of the National Police in Medellin; that members of the unit that raided La Bola should be held accountable for the deaths of three persons whose bodies were found there; that a formal disciplinary investigation would be made into irregularities of a substantive and procedural nature on the part of magistrate 93 for Military Penal Investigation, Dr. Diego Rafael de Jesus Coley Nieto, and his secretary, as well as responsible parties of the DAS in Bogota.

  With the publication of this report, Villamizar felt he was on firmer ground for writing a second letter to Escobar. He sent it, as always, through the Ochoas, along with a letter to Maruja, and asked him to see that she got it. He took the opportunity to give Escobar a textbook explanation of the division of governmental powers into executive, legislative, and judicial, and to make him understand how difficult it was for the president, within these constitutional and legal mechanisms, to control entities as large and complex as the Armed Forces. However, he did acknowledge that Escobar was correct to denounce human rights violations by law enforcement agencies, and to insist on guarantees for himself, his family, and his people when they surrendered. "I share your opinion," he said, "that you and I are engaged in essentially the same struggle: to protect our families' lives and our own, and to achieve peace." On the basis of these two objectives, he proposed that they adopt a joint strategy.

  Escobar, his pride wounded by the civics lesson, replied a few days later. "I know that the country is divided into President, Congress, Police, Army," he wrote. "But I also know that the president is in charge." The rest of the letter consisted of four pages that reiterated the actions of the police, adding new facts but no new arguments to what had been said earl
ier. He denied that the Extraditables had executed Diana Turbay or had any intention to do so, because if that were the case they would not have taken her out of the house where she was being held or dressed her in black so that she would look like a campesina from the helicopters. "A dead hostage has no value," he wrote. Then, without transitions or formulaic courtesies, he closed with these unexpected words: "Don't worry about [having made] statements to the press demanding my extradition. I know everything will work out, and that you will bear me no grudge, because your battle to defend your family has the same objectives as the one I am waging to defend mine." Villamizar related this statement to an earlier one of Escobar's in which he claimed to feel some embarrassment at holding Maruja prisoner when his quarrel was not with her but with her husband. Villamizar had said the same thing in a different way: "Why is it that if you and I are the ones doing battle, my wife is the one held prisoner?" and he proposed that Escobar take him in exchange for Maruja so they could negotiate in person. Escobar did not accept his offer.

  By now Villamizar had been in the Ochoas' prison more than twenty times. He enjoyed the gems of local cuisine that the women from La Loma brought in, taking every possible security precaution. It was a reciprocal process of learning about one another and establishing mutual trust, and they devoted most of their time to dissecting every one of Escobar's sentences and actions to discover his hidden intentions. Villamizar would almost always take the last plane back to Bogota. His son Andres would meet him at the airport, and often had to drink mineral water while his father relieved his tension with slow, solitary whiskeys. He had kept his promise not to attend any public function, not to see friends: nothing. When the pressure grew intense, he would go out to the terrace and spend hours staring in the direction where he supposed Maruja was, sending her mental messages until he was overcome by exhaustion. At six in the morning he was on his feet, ready to start all over again. When they had an answer to a letter, or anything else of interest, Martha Nieves or Maria Lia would call and only have to say a single sentence:

  "Doctor, tomorrow at ten."

  When there were no calls, he spent his time and efforts on "Colombia Wants Them Back," the television campaign based on the information Beatriz had given them regarding conditions in captivity. The idea had originated with Nora Sanin, the head of the National Association of Media (ASOMEDIOS), and was produced by Maria del Rosario Ortiz--a close friend of Maruja's, and Hernando Santos's niece--in collaboration with her husband, who was a publicist, and with Gloria Pachon de Galan and other members of the family: Monica, Alexandra, Juana, and their brothers.

  The idea was for a daily succession of well-known personalities in film, the theater, television, soccer, science, or politics to deliver the same message, calling for the release of the hostages and respect for human rights. From the first it had provoked an overwhelming public response. Alexandra traveled from one end of the country to the other with a cameraman, chasing down celebrities. The campaign lasted three months, and some fifty people participated. But Escobar did not budge. When the harpsichordist Rafael Puyana said he was ready to get down on his knees to beg for the release of the hostages, Escobar responded: "Thirty million Colombians can come to me on their knees, and I still won't let them go." But in a letter to Villamizar he praised the program because it demanded not only freedom for the hostages but respect for human rights.

  The ease with which Maruja's daughters and their guests trooped across television screens was disturbing to Maria Victoria, Pacho Santos's wife, because of her unconquerable stage fright. The unexpected microphones put in front of her, the indecency of the lights, the inquisitorial eye of the cameras, the same questions asked with the expectation of hearing the same answers, made her gorge rise with panic, and it was all she could do to swallow her nausea. Her birthday was observed on television; Hernando Santos spoke with professional ease, and then took her arm: "Say a few words." She often managed to escape, but sometimes she had to face it and not only thought she would the in the attempt, but felt awkward and stupid when she saw and heard herself on screen.

  Then she reacted against this public servitude. She took a course in small business and another in journalism. By her own decision she became free, accepting invitations she had once despised, attending lectures and concerts, wearing cheerful clothing, staying out late, and at last destroying her image as a pitiful widow. Hernando and his closest friends understood and supported her, helped her to do as she chose. But before long she experienced social disapproval. She knew that many of those who praised her to her face were criticizing her behind her back. She began to receive bouquets of roses with no card, boxes of chocolates with no name, declarations of love with no signature. She enjoyed the illusion that they were from her husband, that perhaps he had managed to find a secret route to her from his prison. But the sender soon identified himself by phone: a madman. A woman also used the phone to tell her straight out: "I'm in love with you."

  During those months of creative freedom, Mariave happened to meet a clairvoyant she knew who had foretold Diana Turbay's tragic end. She was terrified by the mere thought that she too would hear some sinister prediction, but the psychic reassured her. Early in February Mariave saw her again, and the clairvoyant murmured in her ear, without having been asked a question, and without waiting for a response: "Pacho's alive." She spoke with so much conviction that Mariave believed it as if she had seen him with her own eyes.

  The truth in February seemed to be that Escobar had no faith in decrees even when he said he did. Distrust was a vital state for him, and he often said he was still alive because of it. He delegated nothing essential. He was his own military commander, his own head of security, intelligence, and counterintelligence, an unpredictable strategist, and an unparalleled purveyor of disinformation. In extreme circumstances he changed his eight-man team of personal bodyguards every day. He was familiar with the latest technology in communications, wiretapping, and tracking devices. He had employees who spent the day engaging in lunatic conversations on his telephones so that the people monitoring his lines would become entangled in mangrove forests of non sequiturs and not be able to distinguish them from the real messages. When the police gave out two phone numbers for receiving information regarding his whereabouts, he hired whole schools of children to anticipate any callers and keep the lines busy twenty-four hours a day. His cunning in never leaving any clues was boundless. He consulted with no one, and provided strategies for his attorneys, whose only work was to outwit the judicial system.

  His refusal to see Villamizar was based on his fear that he might be carrying an electronic tracking device implanted under his skin. This was a tiny radio transmitter powered by a microscopic battery, whose signal could be picked up at great distances by a special receiver--a radiogonometer--that allows the approximate location of the signal to be established. Escobar had so much regard for the sophistication of this device that the idea of someone carrying a subcutaneous receiver did not seem fantastic to him. The gonometer can also be used to determine the coordinates of a radio transmission or a mobile or line telephone. This was why Escobar used phones as little as possible, and if he did, he preferred to be in moving vehicles. He employed couriers to deliver written notes. If he had to see someone, he went to the other person, they did not come to him. And when the meeting was over, he left in the most unpredictable ways. Or he went to the other extreme of technology and traveled in a public minibus that had false plates and markings and drove along established routes but made no stops because it always carried a full complement of passengers, who were his bodyguards. One of Escobar's diversions, in fact, was to act as driver from time to time.

  In February, the possibility that the Constituent Assembly would decide in favor of non-extradition and an amnesty was becoming a probability. Escobar knew it and concentrated more energies in that direction than on the government. Gaviria must have turned out to be tougher than he had supposed. Everything relating to the capitulation decrees
was kept current in the Office of Criminal Investigation, and the justice minister was prepared to deal with any judicial emergency. For his part, Villamizar acted not only on his own but at his own risk, though his close collaboration with Rafael Pardo kept open a direct channel to the government, which did not compromise him, and in fact allowed him to move forward without making concessions. At this time Escobar must have realized that Gaviria would never appoint an official representative to hold talks with him--which was his golden dream--and he clung to the hope that the Constituent Assembly would issue him a pardon, either as a repentant trafficker, or under the aegis of some armed group. It was not a foolish calculation. Before the swearing-in of the Constituent Assembly, the political parties had agreed on an agenda of closed subjects, and the government, using legal arguments, had succeeded in keeping extradition off the list because they needed it as a bargaining chip for their capitulation policy. But when the Supreme Court reached the spectacular decision that the Constituent Assembly could deal with any subject, without any restrictions whatsoever, the question of extradition reemerged from the ruins. Amnesty was not mentioned, but it was also possible: There was room for everything in the infinite.

  President Gaviria was not one of those men who could leave a subject hanging and go on to another. In six months he had imposed on his colleagues a personal system of communicating by means of notes written on scraps of paper in cryptic sentences that summarized everything. Sometimes only the name of the individual he was writing to was on the note, which was handed to the closest person, and the addressee knew what he had to do. For his advisers, this method also had the terrifying virtue of making no distinction between work and leisure. Gaviria could not conceive of the difference, since he rested with the same discipline he applied to work, and continued sending his scraps of paper when he was at a cocktail party or as soon as he came up from diving. "A tennis game with him was like a meeting of the Council of Ministers," said one of his advisers. He could fall into a deep sleep for five or ten minutes, even sitting at his desk, and wake refreshed, while his colleagues collapsed with exhaustion. This method, however random it might appear, could trigger action with more urgency and energy than formal memos.