I’d replayed Papá’s execution in my mind a million times, torturing myself with the thought that his horror-struck glances towards me were blame. However, in his final moments of life, Papá had accepted the consequences of his own decision and was showing his love by shielding me.
Knowing this changed everything. It made me feel calm. The relief was so great that I no longer wanted to kill anyone. I’d allowed one obsession to consume my every waking moment. I wondered how much of my anger came from self-hatred that I’d turned outward against others. Shedding my guilt allowed me to complete my acceptance of Papá’s passing.
I no longer thought of what I’d been doing as justice, instead I called it by its proper name: revenge. And upon renouncing my revenge, I felt immediately lighter, as though what had been driving me was not a powerful engine, but rather a loathsome burden.
There was a time I’d have given my life to avenge Papá’s death, but that was no longer the case. Instead, I wanted to spend my life building and producing rather than waging war and visiting destruction upon others.
Like Caraquemada, who followed the tenets of an outdated, inflexible doctrine unquestioningly, I’d followed rules and orders, believing myself courageous because I would kill for them and die for them too. Rather than forging my own true path, I had done the bidding of my superiors. Rather than doing my own thinking, I had let others do the thinking for me. And in doing so, I had made my life a lie, blindly doing the work of other men.
The resolution to give up killing for revenge was the first decision I’d made for myself as a man, but as I approached Buitrago’s Blackhawk, I could not have guessed how soon my resolve would be tested.
158
‘WHERE’S CARAQUEMADA?’ DEMANDED Buitrago when I’d crossed the runway and reached him.
‘That way.’ I pointed towards the river. The canoe was gone and Caraquemada’s rescue party had slipped back into the shadows.
Buitrago signalled frantically for his men to give chase and then frowned at me. ‘I thought you shot him?’
‘I did. His reinforcements came. I couldn’t hold them off.’
Any disappointment Buitrago felt at losing Caraquemada vanished when he looked around and realised what he’d seized. A thorough search would later reveal the laboratory’s capacity to house a hundred and twenty men and produce nine metric tonnes of cocaine hydrochloride per week, dwarfing the largest impounded lab to date, Pablo Escobar’s infamous Tranquilandia.
‘Look at the size of this place!’ he exclaimed.
Within minutes, Buitrago’s men also captured the prostitute Tita, alive and already singing like a loro. A second group of soldiers returned with Javier and Fabián Díaz, who were covered in scratches from their attempted ‘getaway’ through the jungle. Apparently, they’d become lost after a kilometre and had begun arguing. When they heard a jaguar roar, they became fearful and turned back with their hands in the air, calling for help. Palillo had been hot on their trail and guided Buitrago’s men via radio to the capture point.
As Palillo and the soldiers marched the handcuffed brothers towards us, I felt the hairs on my neck bristling.
‘Pedro, my friend!’ wailed Fabián as the soldiers jerked him to a halt. ‘Colonel! Thank God you’re both here! Tell these men there’s been a big mistake. Tell them who we are.’
Javier added his own demands. ‘You will release us. We have nothing to do with whatever this is!’
I struggled against my first instinct, which was to make the brothers suffer ten times more than they’d made me suffer. Javier and Fabián had caused Papá’s death, yet, knowing this, they had looked me in the eyes each time we met, called me their friend, begged for my help that Christmas Eve, suckered in Camila by inviting us to their fiesta and also pretended to shield Mamá. All with the aim of meeting Trigeño, who was the only man who could save them from the Guerrilla’s expanding power.
My anger against them was physical, but I quickly regained control.
‘Colonel,’ I said coldly, ‘these men have everything to do with this. That helicopter is theirs. They were trying to escape.’
‘Of course it’s our helicopter!’ scoffed Javier. ‘We got shot down and were forced to land. You can see the bullet holes. We ran because people were shooting at us.’
‘This laboratory is also theirs.’ I leaned in close to Javier’s face. ‘You own and run it. The Guerrilla protect it.’
‘Laboratory?’ said Javier, looking perplexed and offended. ‘Pedro, why are you saying this? You know we’re good people. We protected your mother. We were on our way to a business meeting.’
‘Exactly. A meeting here with Caraquemada. Probably to discuss new trafficking routes since Yolanda Delgado exposed the last one before you had Beta murder her. Just as you had Beta murder anyone who tried to stand against you.’
‘Those are calumnious untruths,’ said Javier, glaring at me viciously.
‘You’re crazy, Pedro,’ added Fabián. ‘As an elected congressman, I won’t answer to you.’
‘You’ll answer to the courts and to God. And for far worse crimes,’ I said. ‘You allowed the Guerrilla to murder your own father so you could take over his cocaine business. And then you caused them to kill mine.’
All this while, Buitrago had quietly watched us trading insults, swivelling his head from one side to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. This time, however, he gasped and stared at the brothers in disbelief.
‘That’s preposterous!’ cried Javier, puffing out his chest.
‘I know everything,’ I said and then repeated snippets from the brothers’ final phone calls with their father and Zorrillo, the ones I’d read in Buitrago’s transcript. ‘7812B. I can’t find it, Papá. It’s not here. There’s no white book … You’ll have to kill him!’ I paused, looking from Javier to Fabián, and then reached into Javier’s breast pocket and removed his silver cigar case. ‘While all along you held it in your hand.’
It was a wild gamble, but Javier’s look of alarm confirmed I’d guessed correctly. My fingers fumbled at the case’s edges until eventually it split apart. Inside was a tiny booklet with a faded cream cover.
The brothers were too smart to say anything, but their guilt-ridden faces confirmed everything. They glared at each other, perhaps reliving the day of their father’s execution and the horrendous decision they’d made together: to let him die. In their eyes I could see their old resentment rekindling.
Fabián spat in his brother’s face.
Javier spat back.
‘Sons of bitches,’ said Buitrago. Taking the booklet and opening it, he saw lists of names and international phone numbers, which removed any remaining doubts. ‘I’ve seen some twisted, inhumane mierda over my career. But that! There is only one word for that: evil. Pure fucking evil.’
Buitrago was a proud and controlled man who had played most of his life by the rules. I’d never seen him lose his temper or self-control. As he spoke, however, his face flushed with rage and the veins in this forehead bulged like worms beneath his skin. Suddenly, he punched Javier hard in the stomach, and then Fabián. They doubled over in pain and fell to their knees, winded.
Buitrago cocked his pistol and offered it to me. ‘Certain animals don’t deserve to inhabit the same planet as humans.’
Here was my chance for revenge, but I’d made that mistake before – playing judge, jury and executioner – and look where it got me. Of course I wanted justice to be done, but by the proper authorities, not me. I’d seen the alternative, where every individual wields his own brand of justice, and it was far worse. Instead of bypassing a weak legal system, my job was to believe in it and improve it.
Nevertheless, on the chance they did go free, I wanted to give the brothers something to think about in the meantime.
I kneeled down between them, speaking softly. ‘I know you don’t care about anyone else. So in whatever days are left to you, I want you to continue thinking only about yourselves. But be warned: Tri
geño is aware of your and Beta’s plotting against him.’ The brothers looked truly horrified. ‘And know this: none of this would have happened without what you did. Your father would not have been killed. My father and I would not have buried him. The Guerrilla would not have killed my father. I would not have joined the Autodefensas. You would never have met Trigeño or Beta or owned this laboratory. I wouldn’t be here right now. And you wouldn’t either. Anything you want to say to that?’
They bowed their heads. There was nothing they could say, but stunned silence can only last so long. Perhaps in prison they’d have time to come up with an answer. That is, if they lived.
159
PALILLO AND I touched down in the Blackhawk at first light and were immediately transported from Garbanzos airstrip to the XVIII Battalion. Although we were dead tired, a lieutenant escorted us through the gates and into an upstairs administration block, where she seated us in a drab debriefing room with grey concrete walls, a wooden table and three chairs.
‘The colonel wants a full account of your actions,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘He’ll join you in exactly one hour.’
During the helicopter flight, Palillo had twitched with unusual excitement, as though bursting to tell me a secret. As soon as the door closed, he blurted it out. ‘Guess what I found while doing perimeter protection for you?’ he said. ‘This!’ It was a small laminated piece of paper containing GPS coordinates, two compass bearings and distances marked in metres that led to a precise spot marked with an ‘X’ and named El Abrazo, meaning The Hug.
‘It’s a map leading to a guaca! I’m sure of it. I found it on one of Caraquemada’s bodyguards I’d shot outside the camp. He was creeping along slowly, and I thought he was circling around to ambush you, but he had this in his hand, and a compass.’ Palillo claimed he would have dug it up immediately except boarding the army Blackhawk carrying millions of dollars might have raised eyebrows. ‘But we need to go back there right away.’
I laughed. ‘Hugs and crosses don’t make a map.’
‘But distances, bearings and a landmark with a codename do.’
‘Even if it is a map it might lead to cocaine or dead bodies.’
‘Cocaine would be shipped out immediately. And why would they kill their own workers then draw a map to their graves? It’s definitely money.’
‘Then the army will find it, or the Guerrilla might return.’
‘These distances and bearings lead to a location at least a kilometre from the lab. You think the army will dig that far out? Or that Caraquemada will limp back and find it without these precise directions?’
I disparaged his claims, but Palillo was adamant. ‘You owe me, hermano. Besides, what exactly were you doing while I was busy protecting your culo and making us rich?’
I recounted my tussle with Caraquemada and how I’d deliberately let him go.
When he heard this, Palillo slammed his fist on the conference table. ‘Are you completely loco? I spent two nights in the sweaty jungle ducking helicopters and dodging bullets to help you kill that fry-faced, glass-eyed bastardo. Why?’
‘Because I’m not angry anymore. I thought you’d be happy. No more revenge. It’s over, exactly as you wanted.’
Palillo’s expression changed from anger to sympathy.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’ He leaned across and hugged me. ‘Truly, I’m glad.’ Then he stood, punched both fists in the air and wiggled his hips. ‘And that means we’re one hundred per cent the fuck out of here.’
‘Not one hundred per cent,’ I cautioned. ‘Asking Trigeño for a discharge will be delicate.’
When Trigeño heard about the laboratory raid he’d be furious at losing so much money, and also worried the Díaz might talk. He might put La 50 into lockdown again. And since he already had problems with Beta, he’d want every available commander and soldier on duty protecting him. At the same time, I was determined to keep my promise to Camila to leave the Autodefensas.
Camila had seen things about me that I couldn’t see myself. Things I’d refused to see at the time, but now did. And in the meantime, I’d hurt her and I’d made her live in fear. I realised how hard it must have been for her to stay in love with me when she didn’t know where I was or what I was doing and, knowing every time I left her, that I might never come home. And how it must have felt to be caressed by hands she knew had taken human life. It must have been difficult for her to be proud of being my girlfriend when everyone around judged her. She had defied her father’s warnings, ignored her friends’ advice and stayed with me through it all, until I finally proved myself to be just as bad as the men I was hunting.
After all I had done and all that she had suffered, I felt I owed her everything. Unfortunately, until I heard it from Trigeño’s mouth, I would not be properly out of the Autodefensas. And until I was safely out, I could not make us truly safe.
‘Then how will we leave safely?’ asked Palillo.
‘This might help.’ I held up the memory stick.
Before Buitrago arrived, we requested a laptop from his lieutenant, purportedly to begin typing our statements. Even after all I’d seen and learned, the three photos and single video file it contained startled me.
The photos, taken during the day at some distance, showed uniformed Autodefensas I recognised from Beta’s intelligence-gathering team playing football with a severed head. Another shot showed two soldiers dragging a corpse with no legs along behind them. The last and most damning photo proved Yolanda Delgado’s allegation. It showed Beta standing in the middle of the plaza, pointing towards the river as he gave an order. Trigeño could no longer deny he was behind the Puerto Galán limpieza.
I was disgusted although not surprised. I’d always known the various tortures sounded similar to the work of Beta and El Psycho. However, I hadn’t expected the level of open depravity they’d reached, not even attempting to hide their despicable crimes.
The brief video was from months earlier and must have been edited from a much longer recording, secretly filmed by the mistrustful Caraquemada during a meeting. It showed Javier and Fabián Díaz walking beside Beta as they inspected the partially constructed cocaine laboratory.
As they reached the yellow chemical barrels, Javier pointed and Beta made a radio call. ‘Patrón, I’m here with the partners. They require more yellow.’
‘I’ll send them more yellow,’ came the clear reply, ‘but we need the white in those earth-moving vehicles by next Friday.’
The recording stopped there.
‘Holy Mother of God,’ said Palillo slowly, turning wide-eyed to look at me.
We both knew that voice well: Trigeño’s.
I’d known instinctively that Caraquemada was telling the truth, but seeing the evidence of Trigeño’s duplicity for myself sent shivers down my spine. Caraquemada was right about it being an insurance policy. This video would bring down the Díazes and Beta. But Trigeño would be brought down too.
‘Colonel,’ I said as Buitrago entered the room. ‘There’s something you need to see.’
160
A GREAT DEAL HAPPENED over the next week, with one event knocking onto another like a series of closely stacked dominos. For several days we remained confined to the army barracks on Colonel Buitrago’s orders, along with Mamá, Old Man Domino and Gloria.
Buitrago had been excited after seeing the video and photos. ‘Providing they’re authentic and Trigeño’s voice can be matched by experts, these are the missing links we need. The photos establish the perpetrators of the massacre. The video connects the laboratory to the earth-moving equipment that I impounded and establishes the Díaz brothers as the owners.’
By then, the Díazes were back in Garbanzos, albeit in a holding cell. Legally, they could be isolated for thirty days, but they must have bribed a guard to make a phone call. A horde of attorneys showed up, demanding their release.
Since the Díazes had not admitted anything, their attorneys embellished their fanciful defence wit
h sworn depositions from reputable businessmen who were supposedly waiting to meet the brothers that night in Cali. Javier launched a counter-attack, demanding damages for his ruined helicopter and for being manhandled by the army and falsely accused of cocaine trafficking. Surrounded by suits and ties, he’d regained his arrogance.
‘Release us or I’ll instruct my counsel to sue for false imprisonment and defamation.’
‘Do it,’ said Buitrago. ‘I’ve got you for thirty days.’
‘Watch your step, Colonel!’ said Fabián. ‘I’m an elected congressman.’
‘Elected,’ responded Buitrago, ‘but not inaugurated.’
Buitrago had the USB stick, of course, but didn’t want to reveal his ace unless absolutely necessary. Over the next three days, the colonel’s men meticulously combed the Díaz mansion, finding almost seventeen million dollars in cash that couldn’t be explained. He now had enough to officially charge them. With their wealth and connections, they probably thought they could beat the charges. But there was one thing they feared far more than the law.
‘Every person named here will be investigated,’ said Buitrago, tapping the little white book. ‘When I tell them you’ve informed on them, you’ll need to be on my good side.’
Panicked, the Díazes began to talk. They blamed Beta for everything, claiming he’d extorted them, threatened their lives, installed his men on their finca and demanded use of their earth-moving vehicles. They also knew people who would testify that Beta was behind the attempt on Felix Velasquez’s life and the murder of Yolanda Delgado.
Buitrago took down their statements. Their claim that Beta was responsible wouldn’t do them much good. With the video on the USB showing them touring their own laboratory, along with the white booklet, Buitrago had enough evidence to put them away for a very long time.