He lived in monastic austerity in the vicarage of San Juan Eudes Church, in a room riddled with leaks that he refused to repair. He slept on wooden planks without a mattress or pillow, and with a coverlet made of colored scraps of cloth cut in the shape of little houses that some charitable nuns had sewn for him. He refused a down pillow that someone once offered him because it seemed contrary to the will of God. He wore the same shoes until someone gave him a new pair, and did not replace his clothing and his eternal white poncho until someone provided him with new ones. He ate little, though he liked good food and appreciated fine wines, but would not accept invitations to expensive restaurants for fear people would think he was paying. In one restaurant he saw an elegant woman with a diamond the size of an almond on her finger.
"With a ring like that," he walked up to her and said, "I could build 120 houses for the poor."
She was too stunned to answer, but the next day she sent him the ring with a cordial note. It did not pay for 120 houses, of course, but the father built them anyway.
Paulina Garzon was a native of Chipata, Santander del Sur, and had come to Bogota with her mother in 1961, at the age of fifteen, with a letter of recommendation stating she was an expert typist. She was, in fact, though she did not know how to speak on the phone, and her shopping lists were indecipherable because of her calamitous spelling, but she learned both things well so that the priest would hire her. At twenty-five she married and had a son--Alfonso--and a daughter--Maria Constanza--who today are both systems engineers. Paulina arranged her life so that she could continue to work for Father Garcia Herreros, who gave her more and more duties and responsibilities until she became so indispensable that she traveled with him in Colombia and abroad, but always accompanied by another priest. "To avoid gossip," Paulina explains. In the end she accompanied him everywhere, if only to put in and take out his contact lenses, something he never could do by himself.
In his final years the priest lost his hearing in his right ear, became irritable, and lost patience with the gaps in his memory. Little by little he had discarded classical prayers and improvised his own, which he said aloud and with a visionary's inspiration. His reputation as a lunatic grew along with the popular belief that he had a supernatural ability to talk with the waters and control their direction and movement. The understanding he showed toward Pablo Escobar recalled something he had said about the return of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, in August 1957, to be tried by Congress: "When a man turns himself over to the law, even if he is guilty, he deserves profound respect." Almost at the end of his life, at a Banquet for a Million that had been very difficult to organize, a friend asked what he would do now and he gave the answer of a nineteen-year-old: "I want to lie down in a meadow and look at the stars."
The day following his television message, Father Garcia Herreros came to the Itagui prison--unannounced and with no prior arrangements--to ask the Ochoa brothers how he could be useful in arranging Escobar's surrender. The Ochoas thought he was a saint, with only one problem that had to be taken into account: For more than forty years he had communicated with his audience through his daily sermon, and he could not conceive of any action that did not begin by telling the public about it. The decisive factor for the Ochoas, however, was that don Fabio thought he was a providential mediator--first, because with him Escobar would not feel the reluctance that kept him from seeing Villamizar, and second, because his image as a holy man could convince the entire Escobar crew to turn themselves in.
Two days later, at a press conference, Father Garcia Herreros revealed that he was in contact with those responsible for the abduction of the journalists, and expressed his optimism that they would soon be free. Villamizar did not hesitate for a moment, and went to see him at "God's Minute." He accompanied him on his second visit to the Itagui prison, and on the same day the costly, confidential process began that would culminate in the surrender. It began with a letter dictated by the priest in the Ochoas' cell and copied by Maria Lia on the typewriter. He improvised it as he stood in front of her, using the same manner, the same apostolic tone, the same Santanderean accent as in his one-minute homilies. He invited Escobar to join him in a search for the road that would bring peace to Colombia. He announced his hope that the government would name him as guarantor "that your rights, and those of your family and friends, will be respected." But he warned him not to ask for things the government could not grant. Before concluding with "affectionate greetings," he stated what was in reality the practical purpose of the letter: "If you believe we can meet in a place that is safe for both of us, let me know."
Escobar answered three days later, in his own hand. He agreed to surrender as a sacrifice for peace. He made it clear that he did not expect a pardon, was not asking for criminal prosecution but disciplinary action against the police wreaking havoc in the slums, and did not renounce his determination to respond with drastic reprisals. He was prepared to confess to any crime, though he knew with certainty that no judge, Colombian or foreign, had enough evidence to convict him, and he trusted that his adversaries would be subjected to the same strict procedures. However, despite the father's most fervent hope, he made no reference to his proposal to meet with him.
Father Garcia Herreros had promised Villamizar that he would control his informative impulses, and at first he kept his word, but his almost boyish spirit of adventure was greater than his power to control them. The expectations created were so great, and there was so much coverage in the press, that from then on he could not make a move without a train of reporters and mobile television and radio crews following him right up to his front door.
After five months of working in absolute secret, under the almost sacramental silence imposed by Rafael Pardo, Villamizar thought that the easy talk of Father Garcia Herreros put the entire operation at perpetual risk. This was when he requested and received help from the people closest to the father--beginning with Paulin--and was able to go forward with preparations for certain actions without having to inform the priest ahead of time.
On May 13 he received a message from Escobar in which he asked him to bring the father to La Loma and keep him there for as long as necessary. He said it might be three days or three months, because he had to review in person and in detail every stage of the operation. The possibility even existed that it could be canceled at the last minute if there were any doubts at all about security. Fortunately, the father was always available in a matter that had cost him so much sleep. At five o'clock on the morning of May 14, Villamizar knocked at his front door and found him working in his study as if it were the middle of the day.
"Come, Father," he said, "we're going to Medellin."
At La Loma the Ochoa sisters were prepared to entertain the father for as long as necessary. Don Fabio was not there, but the women in the house would take care of everything. It was not easy to distract him because the father knew that a trip as sudden and unplanned as this one could only be for something very serious.
The long breakfast was delicious, and the father ate well. At about ten, making an effort not to be too melodramatic, Martha Nieves told him that Escobar would be seeing him sometime soon. He gave a start, became very happy, but did not know what to do until Villamizar made the reality clear to him.
"It's better for you to know from the very beginning, Father," he said. "You may have to go alone with the driver, and nobody knows where he'll take you, or for how long."
The father turned pale. He could barely hold the rosary between his fingers as he paced back and forth, reciting his invented prayers aloud. Each time he passed the windows he looked toward the road, torn between terror that the car coming for him would appear, and fear that it would not come at all. He wanted to make a phone call but then realized the danger on his own. "Fortunately, there's no need for telephones when you talk to God," he said. He did not want to sit at the table during lunch, which was late and even more appetizing than breakfast. In the room that had been prepared for him, there was a
bed with a passementerie canopy worthy of a bishop. The women tried to convince him to lie down for a while, and he seemed to agree. But he did not sleep. He was restive as he read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, a popular book that attempted to demonstrate with mathematical calculations that God does not exist. At about four he came to the room where Villamizar was dozing.
"Alberto," he said, "we'd better go back to Bogota."
It was difficult to dissuade him, but the women succeeded with their charm and tact. At dusk he had another relapse, but by this time there was no escape. He knew the grave risks involved in traveling at night. When it was time to go to bed he asked for help in removing his contact lenses, since Paulina was the one who took them out and put them in for him, and he did not know how to do it alone. Villamizar did not sleep, because he accepted the possibility that Escobar might consider the dark of night as the safest time for their meeting.
The priest did not sleep at all. Breakfast at eight the next morning was more tempting than the day before, but he did not even sit at the table. He was in despair over his contact lenses, and no one had been able to help him until, after many tries, the woman who ran the farm managed to put them in. In contrast to the first day, he did not seem nervous or driven to pace back and forth, but sat with his eyes fixed on the road where the car would appear. He stayed there until impatience got the better of him and he jumped up from his chair.
"I'm leaving," he said, "this whole thing is as phony as a rooster laying eggs."
They persuaded him to wait until after lunch. The promise restored his good humor. He ate well, chatted, was as amusing as he had been in his best times, and at last said he would take a siesta.
"But I'm warning you," he said, his index finger wagging. "As soon as I wake up, I'm leaving."
Martha Nieves made a few phone calls, hoping to obtain some additional information that would help them to keep the priest there after his nap. It was impossible. A little before three they were all dozing in the living room when they were awakened by the sound of an engine. There was the car. Villamizar jumped up, gave a polite little knock, and pushed open the priest's door.
"Father," he said, "they've come for you."
The father was half-awake and struggled out of bed. Villamizar felt deeply moved, for he looked like a little bird without its feathers, his skin hanging from his bones and trembling with terror. But he recovered immediately, crossed himself, grew until he was resolute and enormous. "Kneel down, my boy," he ordered. "We'll pray together." When he stood he was a new man.
"Let's see what's going on with Pablo," he said.
Villamizar wanted to go with him but did not even try, since it had already been agreed that he would not, but he did speak in private to the driver.
"I'm holding you accountable for the father," he said. "He's too important a person. Be careful what you people do with him. Be aware of the responsibility you have."
The driver looked at Villamizar as if he were an idiot, and said:
"Do you think that if I get in a car with a saint anything can happen to us?"
He took out a baseball cap and told the priest to put it on so nobody would recognize his white hair. He did. Villamizar could not stop thinking about the fact that Medellin was a militarized zone. He was troubled by the idea that they might stop the father, that he would be hurt, or be caught in the cross fire between the killers and the police.
The father sat in front next to the driver. While everyone watched as the car drove away, he took off the cap and threw it out the window. "Don't worry about me, my boy," he shouted to Villamizar, "I control the waters." A clap of thunder rumbled across the vast countryside, and the skies opened in a biblical downpour.
The only known version of Father Garcia Herreros's visit to Pablo Escobar was the one he recounted when he returned to La Loma. He said the house where he was received was large and luxurious, with an Olympic-size pool and various kinds of sports facilities. On the way they had to change cars three times for reasons of security, but they were not stopped at the many police checkpoints because of the heavy, pounding rain. Other checkpoints, the driver told him, were part of the Extraditables' security service. They drove for more than three hours, though the probability is that he was taken to one of Pablo Escobar's residences in Medellin, and the driver made a good number of detours so the father would think they were far from La Loma.
He said he was met in the garden by some twenty men carrying weapons, and that he chastised them for their sinful lives and their reluctance to surrender. Pablo Escobar was waiting for him on the terrace. He was dressed in a casual white cotton outfit and had a long black beard. The fear confessed to by the father from the time of his arrival at La Loma, and then during the uncertainty of the drive, vanished when he saw him.
"Pablo," he said, "I've come so we can straighten this out."
Escobar responded with similar cordiality and with great respect. They sat in two of the armchairs covered in flowered cretonne in the living room, facing each other, their spirits ready for the kind of long talk old friends have. The father drank a whiskey that helped to calm him, while Escobar sipped at fruit juice as if he had all the time in the world. But the expected duration of the visit shrank to forty-five minutes because of the father's natural impatience and Escobar's speaking style, as concise and to the point as in his letters.
Concerned about the priest's lapses in memory, Villamizar had told him to take notes on their conversation. He did, but went even further, it seems. Citing his poor memory as the reason, he asked Escobar to write down his essential conditions, and when they were written he had him modify or cross them out, saying they were impossible to meet. This was how Escobar minimized the obsessive subject of removing the police he had accused of atrocities, and concentrated instead on security in the prison where he would be confined.
The priest recounted that he had asked Escobar if he was responsible for the assassinations of four presidential candidates. His oblique response was that he had not committed all the crimes attributed to him. He assured the father he had not been able to stop the killing of Professor Low Mutra on April 30 on a street in Bogota, because the order had been given a long time before and there was no way to change it. As for the release of Maruja and Pacho, he avoided saying anything that might implicate him as the responsible party, but did say that the Extraditables kept them in normal conditions and in good health, and that they would be released as soon as terms for the surrender had been arranged. Regarding Pacho in particular, he said with utmost seriousness: "He's happy with his captivity." Finally, he acknowledged President Gaviria's good faith, and expressed his willingness to reach an agreement. That paper, written on at times by the father, and for the most part corrected and clarified in Escobar's own hand, was the first formal proposal for his surrender.
The father had stood to take his leave when one of his contact lenses fell out. He tried to put it back in, Escobar helped him, they asked for assistance from his staff, all to no avail. The father was desperate. "It's no use," he said. "The only one who can do it is Paulina." To his surprise, Escobar knew who she was and where she was at that moment.
"Don't worry, Father," he said. "If you like we can bring her here."
But the father had an unbearable desire to go home, and he preferred to leave not wearing his lenses. Before they said goodbye, Escobar asked him to bless a little gold medal he wore around his neck. The priest did so in the garden, besieged by the bodyguards.
"Father," they said, "you can't leave without giving us your blessing."
They kneeled. Don Fabio Ochoa had said that the mediation of Father Garcia Herrero would be decisive for the surrender of Escobar's men. Escobar must have agreed, and perhaps that was why he kneeled with them, to set a good example. The priest blessed them all and also admonished them to return to a lawful life and help to establish peace.
It took just six hours. He returned to La Loma at about eight-thirty, under brilliant stars, and
leaped from the car like a fifteen-year-old schoolboy.
"Take it easy, my boy," he said to Villamizar, "no problems here, I had them all on their knees."
It was not easy to calm him down. He was in an alarming state of excitation, and no palliative, and none of the Ochoa sisters' tranquilizing infusions, had any effect. It was still raining, but he wanted to fly back to Bogota right away, announce the news, talk to the president, conclude the agreement without further delay, and proclaim peace. They managed to get him to sleep for a few hours, but in the middle of the night he was walking around the darkened house, talking to himself, reciting his inspired prayers, until sleep got the better of him at dawn.
When they reached Bogota at eleven o'clock on the morning of May 16, the news was thundering across the radio. Villamizar met his son Andres at the airport and embraced him with emotion. "Don't worry, son," he said. "Your mother will be out in three days." Rafael Pardo was less easy to convince when Villamizar called.
"I'm truly happy, Alberto," he said. "But don't hope for too much."
For the first time since the abduction, Villamizar went to a party given by friends, and no one could understand why he was so elated over something that was, after all, no more than a vague promise, like so many others made by Pablo Escobar. By this time Father Garcia Herreros had been interviewed by all the news media--audio, visual, and print--in the country. He asked people to be tolerant with Escobar. "If we don't defraud him, he will become the great architect of peace," he said. And added, without citing Rousseau: "Deep down all men are good, although some circumstances can make them evil." And surrounded by a tangled mass of microphones, he said with no reservation: