Colombiano

‘Against our orders, your father buried Humberto Díaz, who was an enemy of the revolution and had been cheating the people of taxes by lying to us about how much cocaine he was producing. Díaz was a rat. Your father should have left him to the vultures. For his disobedience, we had no choice but to kill him.’

  A shaft of light punched through my dark clouds of guilt. For two and a half years I’d believed it should have been me they executed. I’d believed myself responsible for my father’s death. It’s not your fault, Mamá had said, despite me almost driving her to the grave with worry and shame. But hearing it from Caraquemada, I finally felt sure. Waves of relief flooded my body.

  ‘Why banish us from our land?’

  ‘That was Zorrillo. He always had a temper. But what could I do? He was my junior commander. I had to back him up.’

  ‘And then use our finca as a lookout point.’

  He shrugged. ‘It was vacant.’

  ‘Why should I believe you? You knew someone buried Humberto Diáz, but how did you know it was us?’

  This threw him slightly. ‘You? We didn’t … Our witnesses saw your father’s Mazda driving at midnight with two men inside. Many of the villagers assumed it was the priest who helped him. For opposing the true and just will of the people’s revolution, both had to be made examples of.’

  ‘Examples?’ I screamed, blood rushing to my head again. ‘My father was the one setting the example. You left a human being to rot in the sun, and then you killed the only man who dared to do what was right.’ My disgust was complete. ‘Kneel!’

  Caraquemada eyed my lighter and levered himself up onto his good knee.

  I began circling. ‘Son of Alvaro Alvarez, you have been accused, and found guilty, of the crime of murdering an innocent and good man on the trivial pretext of providing water to the government army, when, in fact, it was for defying your corrupt, cocaine-funded revolution—’

  ‘Pedro, wait!’ Caraquemada’s gaze slid again towards the river. He obviously still expected his men to attempt a rescue and needed to stall for time. ‘There’s a way out of this for both of us. I can lift the ban on your property. We’ll never come near you or your family again.’

  It was a bankrupt offer; we ran every village up to Puerto Princesa.

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘What do you want then?’

  ‘From you? Nothing. There is no way you can take back our suffering.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know who fingered your father?’

  I hesitated and then shook my head. What did it matter which of the Guerrilla’s numerous spies had informed on Papá? I resumed my circling.

  ‘You have furthermore been accused and found guilty of using a good man’s death to strike fear into the population, to terrorise innocent people and subjugate them to your will—’

  ‘The sapos are the men you work for.’ He paused, gloating. ‘Fabián and Javier Díaz. They phoned Zorrillo to inform on your father.’

  This stopped me dead in my tracks. Everything he’d said until then seemed credible, but this?

  ‘Impossible!’ I exclaimed. ‘They detest you. Why would they do that?’

  Surely the Díazes would be the last people on earth to report us, even if they had seen our Mazda that night. We’d done their family a brave service, which also prevented them from looking like cowards.

  ‘Because at first we assumed they were the ones who’d buried their father. Zorrillo declared them military targets and they fled. But once they were safe in Bogotá, Javier phoned Zorrillo to name your father because he needed our permission to come back and take over his father’s businesses.’

  I struggled to absorb this new information. In my memory, I had recorded my own version of events surrounding Papá’s death, and this new scenario forced me to confront my mistaken assumptions. Caraquemada’s claims seemed incredible; however, they were also consistent with certain facts.

  The four tonnes in the bunker established that Humberto was a cocaine trafficker. Javier had indeed phoned Zorrillo repeatedly after his father’s death and, shortly afterwards, the brothers had returned to Garbanzos, clearly having struck a peace deal with the Guerrilla. The mountains of cash in Javier’s safe and the cocaine in the earth-moving equipment indicated they’d since become large-scale distributors. Therefore, it was possible. And yet my mind rebelled. We’d known their family for years. Both our fathers had been killed by the Guerrilla. The sons had begged for my help. Why would they …?

  ‘Simply for a pile of cocaine?’ I asked.

  ‘No. For a river of cocaine.’ Caraquemada gestured towards the compound. ‘Who do you think owns this laboratory?’

  ‘You do,’ I retorted. ‘To fund your corrupt cause through other people’s misery.’

  He shook his head. ‘If rich gringos want to fund the liberation of our poor by snorting drugs, that’s their choice. But you are wrong about the lab. The Díazes own and finance it. We’re only minor partners, as we were with their thieving father …’

  Across the narrow river I saw shadows darting between the trees. Soldiers, judging by the silhouettes of their rifles. They could only be guerrilleros, returning for their fallen commander. But I couldn’t leave now.

  ‘Humberto was cheating us so we kidnapped him to make his sons pay his debt. We also wanted him banished from the business forever, but we needed his routes and contacts. Humberto couldn’t remember them all; everything was in a book he kept in his safe. We would have kept our word and released him in exchange for the book. Bankrupt and unable to traffic, but alive. However, Javier refused to hand it over, leaving us no choice but to kill Humberto.’

  Caraquemada now had my full, shocked attention. What he was saying beggared belief: Javier could have saved his father but chose not to.

  ‘You’re lying! No son would do that. Especially not for a book.’

  ‘Even if that book is worth tens of millions of dollars? Even if it contains the entire payroll for personnel along their trafficking routes? Transport companies and truck drivers. Highway police, army colonels, cargo boat captains and customs officials from Panama to Mexico. And friendly prosecutors and judges in case a load is impounded.’

  I was stunned. That both sons might have deliberately let their own father be killed in order to take over his business was so despicable that I could barely contemplate it.

  ‘You’re wrong! I read the transcripts of Humberto’s last phone call. His sons searched the safe twice for that book.’

  Caraquemada shook his head sadly. ‘They had it in their hands all along. They kept it to guarantee their role in our partnership. These are cold, cold men. They allowed their own father to be killed. When your father got in the way, they caused his death also so they could work with us. And then they used you to bring in Trigeño to protect themselves when they broke their promise to repay what their father owed.’

  ‘I simply don’t believe you,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Why would you work with men you knew set up the ambush of Zorrillo?’

  ‘Business,’ he stated matter-of-factly. ‘We couldn’t work without their export routes. They couldn’t work without our production. And because we are not animals. We are capable of forgiveness. Just as the Díazes were able to surmount the loss of their father.’

  ‘I need proof. Where’s the white book now?’

  ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here bleeding with you.’

  ‘You must have a hunch?’

  ‘Somewhere very close to Javier – it contains too much information to memorise. He needs regular access to it and doesn’t trust Fabián not to steal it and turn on him.’

  ‘That’s not proof.’

  ‘Then go ask him yourself.’ He pointed to the runway. ‘You don’t recognise their helicopter?’

  In that instant, I knew it was true. Even without hard evidence, all of it was true. I lowered the Smith & Wesson.

  ‘Well?’ said Caraquemada in a soft, conciliatory voice. ‘Now you know everything. Are you going to ki
ll me, or is it the Díazes you want? I’ll have them captured, bound and brought to you.’

  I hesitated, then raised the pistol again. True, the Díaz brothers were abominations of humanity, but the Guerrilla were no better – killing innocent men and teaming up with their own enemies to trade cocaine, all the while proclaiming they were angel-winged communists striving for the good of the peasantry.

  ‘You killed my father. Nothing the Díazes did changes that.’

  ‘I’m sorry you lost your father. But this is war, muchacho. Don’t take it personally.’

  ‘Then you’re not sorry at all!’

  ‘I cannot apologise for what I know to be right. Our cause is just. There must be equality. The poor will rise and the people will triumph.’

  Caraquemada was stuck like a scratched record, spouting communist platitudes about the proletariat fighting the bourgeois for the good of humanity. Capitalist landowners must be evicted for the greater good. Innocent men must die for the greater good. But what kind of good could he speak of if he had no regard for human life? It was like reasoning with a snake.

  Realising I’d wasted my time, I resumed my circling. ‘You have furthermore been accused of conspiring with men you despise to traffic cocaine, of funding your so-called revolution by destroying countless lives—’

  ‘Go ahead and kill me!’ yelled Caraquemada. ‘Three men will proudly take my place. ¡Viva la revolución!’

  ‘And by the power vested in me by the United Self-Defence Organisations of Colombia—’

  Suddenly, I stopped. The words of my speech sounded as broken and worn as his communist platitudes.

  Caraquemada was right, I realised. After I shot him, his junior commanders would be promoted. To replace them, more children would be recruited from among poor, hungry and uneducated campesinos. And the cycle would continue. They kill ours, we kill theirs. It would go on forever. I could hardly look at Caraquemada – he filled me with such disgust – but my disgust with him was also disgust with myself. I too was part of an unthinking killing machine.

  ‘Lost your nerve, muchacho?’ he taunted, a smirk of victory curling at the edges of his mouth. ‘Can’t kill a man?’

  I didn’t bother answering. Can’t kill a man is different to won’t kill a man. Caraquemada was a man of war. Whether it was today or a year from now, he would eventually die at war. To a dead man with a thousand enemies, it makes no difference which one killed him. But to the man doing the killing, it means everything.

  ‘You know what?’ I lowered the pistol. ‘You and your supposed cause disgust me. You’re not worth it.’

  His martyr’s smirk collapsed in confusion. I tossed him the first-aid kit, stole a look to ensure his rescue party was not within firing distance and then cupped my hand upward against my ear at the thrumming of rotors.

  ‘Paddle quickly. The army’s about to land.’

  As I walked away, Caraquemada’s abuse flailed across my back: I was a fascist coward, an enemy of the people, the revolution would live on and the people would triumph – words that bounced off me like faint echoes.

  What would happen to Caraquemada? I truly didn’t care. Let him stay there for Buitrago to capture or let him escape in his canoe. Let him return to his decaying cause or let him seek retribution against me. For the first time since picking up a gun, I felt true power. Rather than killing the man I hated most in the world, I’d spared his life. Condemning him to continue his pathetic existence – that was my revenge.

  156

  BY THEN BUITRAGO’S three helicopters were landing. His soldiers spilled out onto the grass, lying flat and exchanging fire with Caraquemada’s men across the river. In the dark and confusion, a blind battle ensued with me and Caraquemada in the middle. Bullets whizzed past me and I dropped flat.

  ‘Buitrago!’ I yelled into the headset. ‘I’m near the river. Tell your men to stop firing.’

  The shooting ceased within seconds, so the colonel must have heard me. But so had Caraquemada. Clearly, the army’s arrival changed something for him.

  ‘Pedro, wait!’ I turned and saw he’d crawled behind a tree with his dog, whose neck he was hugging. ‘You weren’t lying, were you?’ He began to laugh, at first in small chuckling fits and then uproariously. ‘The Díazes and Trigeño have no idea you’re here, do they?’

  ‘So what?’

  Caraquemada had already dealt me several startling blows. But his next revelation was to be the biggest; it would flip my world upside down. With the fighting stopped and his rescue party nearby, he clearly felt safe enough to take his time. He even seemed to be enjoying himself.

  ‘You say I’m pathetic, but it is you who is a naïve, pathetic pawn who believes his master’s lies. You say my cause is corrupted, but at least I have a cause. One I was born to. One whose oxygen I have breathed for three decades. And one I would die for. But the man you work for – your precious Trigeño, who you think is so clean – has no cause other than himself and his cocaine profits. That’s right! Trigeño.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean he is the biggest traficante of all! Long before he rebranded himself a counter-insurgent and pretended to become political, he was a capo in the Medellín cartel.’ Seeing my utter disbelief, he pointed to the yellow barrels stacked inside the far tent. ‘Who sells us those chemicals via your agricultural co-operative man, Lulo Martínez? Who buys our final product and has us hide it in his earth-moving machinery for international export? Trigeño is our true partner in this. The Díazes are simply his intermediaries. After that infernal attorney exposed Trigeño’s route, he sent them here tonight to negotiate new routes.’

  I would later confirm Caraquemada’s claims about Trigeño, but right then the certainty etched on his face and in his voice were proof enough. It made sense, as did Caraquemada calling Trigeño ‘a two-timing hijueputa’. And yet, after everything Trigeño had said and done – writing a book decrying traficantes and executing the three brothers in front of me – part of me still refused to accept it was possible.

  ‘Why should I believe you?’

  ‘Look closely!’ Caraquemada pointed to the soldiers I’d slain. ‘Some of those men are mine, but most are Beta’s, stationed here to protect the operation. You want more proof?’ He reached into the dog’s collar and withdrew a small memory stick, which he held out to me, beckoning. ‘This video was to be my insurance policy, but now that everything has gone to mierda you can use it to bring down the Díazes.’

  I was still struggling to take it all in. If Caraquemada’s claims were true, it meant that Trigeño had agreed to invade Llorona, not out of patriotic duty, but to expand his cocaine empire. Three years earlier he’d almost struck an alliance with Humberto Díaz. In his sons, he must have seen the opportunity reborn. That second handshake I’d witnessed between Javier and Trigeño on Javier’s finca was most likely a secret deal they’d struck behind my back – Trigeño had their three million dollars, but he also wanted a share of their drug business.

  ‘But why would you help me?’ I demanded. ‘And why would you harm your partners?’

  ‘Partners in what?’ He snarled ironically at the compound that was now crawling with government soldiers. ‘Trigeño and the Díazes are once more my enemies. Use this and you’ll bring down both.’

  He tossed me the memory stick and then signalled to his soldiers, who recommenced their shooting. ‘Now run, capitalist pawn! Run!’

  157

  AS I CROSSED the makeshift runway, hands high in the air so Buitrago’s soldiers wouldn’t shoot, a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions spiralled within me. I felt like I’d been knocked off a precipice and was falling through a vast chasm.

  Of course, I’d never liked nor trusted either Javier or Fabián Díaz. But not liking people based on intuition is far different to how I felt now, knowing that they had deliberately caused Papá’s death. After such a betrayal, there was no patch in hell hot enough for their souls.

  As for Trigeño, his
betrayal was different, although far more agonising because I’d admired him, followed him and believed in him, almost like a father. He’d made me feel special and worthy, and seemed to recognise in me talents and strengths that no one else had.

  I should have listened to Palillo; Trigeño had deceived me all along. Our entire relationship was a lie, and it rocked me deeply that anyone could be so callous, pretending I meant so much to them when I clearly meant so little. In truth, Trigeño had saved me at La Quebrada only because of the Díaz money I offered and because I had Colonel Buitrago’s ear. I couldn’t believe how wrong I’d been about someone I’d felt incredibly close to.

  At the same time, I was truly proud of my decision not to kill Caraquemada. Trigeño had convinced me our war was between good and evil. But I saw now that it was just one big cycle of interconnected violence in a struggle for power, financed by cocaine trafficking. My quest for justice had been futile from the very beginning – what sort of justice can exist in such a corrupt, hypocritical system?

  Killing Caraquemada would only have perpetuated the cycle of violence, entrenching me deeper within an unjust organisation that had no exit other than death. I’d mistakenly attributed Papá’s death to five individuals: a radio operator, two low-level commanders, the triggerman and their high commander, when it was the entire basis of the war that was to blame.

  I now understood why Papá had been so stressed on the night we buried Humberto Díaz. At the time, I failed to fully appreciate the danger. Papá had done his religious and moral duty at great risk to himself. He’d recognised that risk, considered it worthwhile and, when the Guerrilla came for him, Papá probably knew why. That’s the reason he refused to run. His only thought was for my safety, sending me inside and telling me to ‘shut up’ in case I revealed my own involvement.

  The Guerrilla had not killed Papá because I’d publicly associated with the Autodefensa recruiters. Owing to my immaturity and youth, I’d gotten it wrong. In the intervening years, learning that the Guerrilla didn’t usually kill for such trivial offences, I should have revised my interpretation, but guilt is not always rational or logical. Sometimes, an idea sticks so hard in your mind that almost nothing you see or hear afterwards can dislodge it.