‘Do me a favour,’ Harper said. ‘The Incas checked out about 500 years ago.’
‘I’m deadly serious,’ Lupa said. ‘Human sacrifices are illegal of course … but there are still stories about well-dressed men being spotted searching the worst parts of La Paz for potential victims, who they invite to a party from which they never return. They are rumoured to be plied with drugs, alcohol and hookers until they pass out, at which point they are taken to a building site and entombed in concrete at its base as an offering to Pachamama. Obviously some people believe it’s just folklore but, trust me, it does happen, and like in any big city, there are thousands of homeless people, drug addicts and alcoholics across La Paz whose absence would barely be noticed by anyone, let alone reported.’
They moved on, but as they passed the copper sign above the entrance to the Museo de la Coca Harper again had to shake his head in disbelief. ‘Only in Bolivia - and possibly Colombia - would they have a museum dedicated to cocaine.’
‘It’s dedicated to the coca plant, not just to cocaine,’ Lupa said. ‘Indigenous people here had been chewing coca leaves to suppress hunger, thirst, pain and fatigue for at least eight thousand years before anyone thought to turn them into cocaine. And it was not just South Americans who used it; when CocaCola was first made, the recipe actually included coca leaf extract, hence the name.’
They walked for another half mile, passing a sea of dust and rubble which a hoarding proclaimed to be the site of La Paz’s newest and finest five star hotel and conference centre, though all that could now be seen were a couple of bulldozers. Eventually they came to a tree-lined square, in the heart of downtown, with manicured flowerbeds dominated by a towering statue of Bolivia’s first president, Simón Bolívar. On the far side of the square was a building that stretched the full width of it. The only breaks in its walls were the arched entrance and a double row of similarly shaped windows to either side, thickly barred with iron. Flanking them, the rendered stone walls were featureless but for small rectangular windows like firing slits, set high up in the walls.
‘There you are,’ Ricardo said. ‘La Paz’s premier tourist attraction: El Peñal de San Pedro - the San Pedro prison.’
As they walked towards it, Harper could see that the arched entrance opened onto a passage that was perhaps five metres long. It was guarded at the street end by massive arched wooden doors that now stood open. At the other end of the passage, iron gates that exactly filled the arch barred the way to the interior of the prison. Beyond them, a crowd of prisoners stood staring out, either hoping to catch sight of a visitor or just because they had nothing better to do.
Harper paused to watch the crowd of would-be visitors trying to negotiate with the guards in olive drab uniforms who were lounging, half-hidden, in the gloom of the entrance. Then he followed Ricardo and Lupa along the street and right around the perimeter of the prison. Brick guard towers rose above each of the two front corners of the sprawling building, manned by guards with what looked to be well-used .30 carbines slung over their shoulders. They were facing inwards across the patchwork of rusting, corrugated iron roofs where a couple of prisoners could be seen spreading out bedding to dry in the sun and the cold wind. The roofs were punctuated by open spaces - the courtyards that divided the prison into separate sections.
San Pedro’s other walls were much less well maintained than the facade facing the square. Rising sheer, three storeys above the street, they were crudely rough-cast with lime mortar or adobe that had peeled away in places, revealing the stone underneath. A series of small holes, a few centimetres in diameter and about four metres above the pavement, had been knocked into the walls here and there, but whether they went right through to the interior and what purpose they served wasn’t clear. ‘Ventilation?’ Harper said, but Ricardo merely shrugged his shoulders. The pavement at the foot of the walls also seemed to serve as a dumping ground for builders’ rubble and other fly-tipped rubbish, and the three of them had to step into the road a few times to get round them. ‘The walls look climbable with the right kit,’ Harper said, ‘but the fifteen metre drop to the ground means you’d need ropes to escape that way; if you jumped, you’d shatter your legs when you hit the pavement.’
A telegraph pole at the first street corner was festooned with a forest of wires and cables, some so slack or crudely attached that they must have been put up without the knowledge of the electricity company. On the next corner, where the pavement widened for a short way, a row of low, wood and corrugated iron stalls had been erected against the wall. Only one was in use when they passed, where a toothless old woman sat cross-legged on the ground next to it, selling cigarettes, sweets, fruit and the inevitable coca leaves to passers-by.
At the back of the prison, they reached a part where the walls had collapsed. Until repairs could be completed - and the vegetation sprouting from the mound suggested it was not a high priority for the authorities - the gap had been temporarily sealed by a head-high wall topped by a barbed wire fence with a triple strand canted in towards the interior of the prison. ‘This happened while I was here,’ Ricardo said. ‘As you can see, the walls are not well-maintained anyway, but they’re very thick - a bit like the gang who tried to free some of their members by blowing a hole in the wall. They weren’t the smartest gang ever because they didn’t pack the explosives they used with anything to shield them, so when they detonated the bomb, it killed two of the gang members on the outside. Part of the wall did collapse, but the weight of stone, mortar and render falling from the floors above it, left this mound of rubble. It was so big that the gang members waiting on the inside couldn’t climb over it before the guards came running down the street and fired a few warning shots to persuade them to stay where they were.’ He shrugged. ‘It would have been much simpler and probably cheaper just to have bribed the guards to let them out.’
‘Has anyone ever broken out?’ Harper said.
‘A group of sixteen prisoners did once dig a tunnel from a cell near the outside wall. They got out, but the authorities then filled the tunnel and the whole cell with concrete, so no one else would ever get out that way. That’s the only escape I’ve heard of.’
‘So that completes that part of the tour,’ Harper said as they came back round into the square in front of the prison. ‘Now, how do we get to see the inside?’
‘We could join one of the semi-official tours,’ Ricardo said. ‘I’ve heard that if you look like a tourist, you just have to wait around in San Pedro Square and within a few minutes, someone will approach you and ask you if you want to see the prison.’
‘Then let’s put that theory to the test shall we?’
They sat on a bench but after a few minutes, despite the sunlight, the chill of the Altiplano was enough to make Harper get to his feet and pace around. ‘You sure this is going to…’ he started to say but then broke off as he saw a Latino with slicked down hair and an ingratiating smile approaching him. ‘Buenos dias, señor,’ the man said. ‘Hello, how are you? My name is Pedro - like the square.’ He gave another insincere smile. ‘You want to make the tour, yes?’
‘Of the prison? Yes.’
‘Normally it is 400 Bolivianos each, but I can give you a special price of 200. We go to the police station and pay them 100 and they give us a permit to enter San Pedro.’
‘And the other 100?’
‘My fee.’
Harper shrugged. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
‘Bueno. Give me the money for the police and I’ll arrange it at once.’
‘Of course,’ Harper said, pulling three 100 Boliviano bills out of his wallet, but keeping hold of them. ‘But we’ll come with you.’
Pedro’s shit-eating smile faded away. ‘As you please, señor.’
He led them to the nearby police station, paused on the steps and held out his hand for the money. ‘You see - no tricks. I’ll just go and pay the desk sergeant.’ He pointed to a burly, mustachioed figure they could see presiding over the front desk just inside
the doors.
‘Fine,’ Harper said, handing him the money. He watched closely as Pedro went up to the desk and exchanged a few words with the sergeant, who then nodded to the two uniformed policemen standing just inside the doors. They immediately stood in the entrance, blocking the way, but over their shoulders Harper caught a glimpse of Pedro disappearing from sight along a corridor. ‘Wait here,’ he said to the others, ‘and grab him if he comes back this way.’
He ran down the steps, sprinted round the corner and along the side to the rear of the building, then stood flat against the wall next to the rear entrance. He had not been there for more than forty or fifty seconds when the rear door flew open and Pedro burst out, still clutching two of the three 100 Boliviano notes in his hand.
In case any of Pedro’s mates in the police station were watching, Harper didn’t waste time on preliminaries. He stuck out a leg, tripping up Pedro as he ran down the steps. As he hit the ground with a thud, Harper booted him in the mouth to stifle any shouts for help, grabbed his wrist and rammed it up between his shoulder blades and then marched him round the corner.
‘Nice try, Pedro, but I’ll be taking care of those now,’ he said, taking the notes that, despite his injuries, Pedro was still holding. Harper then patted him down, took Pedro’s wallet from his pocket and emptied it of cash. ‘Four hundred and twenty Bolivianos,’ he said, with a grin. ‘What do you know? We’ve even made a profit. Now, although you deserve it, because I’ll bet you and your mate at the front desk have conned hundred of tourists this way, I’m not going to break your legs. So you can walk away from here now, but if you shout out or try to go back in the police station to get your friends to help you, then I promise you that I’ll track you down and make sure that you’ll never walk again. Look in my eyes and you’ll see that I mean every word. Entiendes?’
‘Sí, I understand,’ he said, mumbling the words through a mouthful of blood and broken teeth.
‘Good. Vamos!’
Harper kept watching as Pedro hobbled away, and waited until he had disappeared up one of the side-streets before returning to Lupa and Ricardo. ‘Well, I got our money back and a good bit on top,’ he said, as they walked back to the square, ‘but we’re no closer to getting into the prison.’
‘Why don’t I talk to the guards and see how big a bribe we’d have to pay to go around on our own?’ Ricardo said. ‘I spent two years in here so I already know everything about the place.’
Harper nodded. ‘I like that option. You’re probably as good a guide as any, and if we’re not with a group, we’ll have more freedom about where we go.’ He paused. ‘What about Lupa, though? Is it safe for her?’
Lupa answered for him. ‘I’m not some frightened young girl who needs to be protected, Lex. If it’s safe for you and Ricardo, then it’s safe for me too.’
‘But women have been raped here, haven’t they?’
‘So have men, Lex, is that going to scare you off?’ She smiled. ‘Besides, I’ve heard so much about it from Ricardo that I’m not going to miss the chance to see it myself for anything.’
Harper and Lupa waited at the edge of the square as Ricardo pushed his way through the crowd around the prison entrance and began talking to one of the guards. Harper saw him gesture towards them and nod his head in response to whatever the guard said. He carried on negotiating with the guard for a few more minutes, even shaking his head and walking away towards Harper and Lupa at one point, before the guard called him back and made another counter-offer. At last they reached agreement and after shaking hands with the guard, Ricardo beckoned to them. ‘We’re in luck,’ he said. ‘On Mondays and Thursdays only women visitors are allowed and on Wednesdays it’s men only, but since today is Friday, we can all go in. We’ve just got to pay fifty US dollars to the guards for el ingreso - the entrance fee - and another fifty to the chief warden - the Colonel-in-Chief. I could probably have got us in for less, but once they knew you were a gringo, the price went up.’
‘It’s still a bargain,’ Harper said. ‘So when can we go in?’
‘As soon as we pay the money.’
Harper pulled out a wad of notes and peeled off a few. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘No time like the present.’
They filed through the crowd outside the gates, earning themselves a few hostile looks and muttered comments from those still waiting for the guards to let them in. Among them were a group of prostitutes who eyed Harper and Ricardo with calculated interest and stared at Lupa with ill-concealed hatred. They stepped aside to let them through, and then resumed negotiations with the prisoners pressing against the inside gates. They had already been shouting themselves hoarse, calling to relatives, would-be visitors and the waiting prostitutes, or just begging for money, and they now redoubled their shouts as they saw tourists approaching.
Harper slipped fifty dollars to the guard Ricardo had done the deal with. He held them back while he checked the notes to make sure they weren’t counterfeit, as many were throughout South America, and then opened the inner steel gates and ushered them through. Harper heard them clang shut again behind them. For better or worse, they were now inside the most notorious prison in South America. The watch towers at the corners of the jail were high above them and Harper could see the faces of the guards with their rifles slung over their shoulders as they leaned over to stare down into the courtyard. As he glanced around he saw big CocaCola signs fixed to the walls on either side of the entrance. ‘What the hell?’ he said. ‘They’re advertising to the inmates?’
‘Of course,’ Ricardo said. ‘Embol, the main brewery here, has the rights to bottle and sell CocaCola in Bolivia and they made a deal with the prisoners. Rival brands are banned, so no one else is allowed to supply beer or soft drinks to the prison, and in return Embol paid some money to the prison bosses, but also donated stacks of chairs, tables and sun umbrellas to be used by the prisoners. Every section has its own bars and restaurants, so Embol is doing very well out of the deal. So are the guards, because, like everything else, deliveries have to come through the main gates, and they don’t let anything pass without a bribe.’
Harper grinned. ‘From what I’ve seen of the country, everything in Bolivia is absolutely shambolic, with the exception of the corruption which seems to be remarkably efficient!’
The paved yard in front of them was packed with prisoners, just standing and staring, or sitting on stone benches around the brick planters out of which trees and shrubs were growing. Some of them were holding the handles of empty wheelbarrows.
‘What do they use those for?’ Harper said.
‘Those are the porters,’ Ricardo said. ‘Anything you want to bring into the prison, you just bribe the guards and then pay a porter to deliver it to your cell.’
There did not appear to be any prison uniform, because all the inmates Harper could see were wearing their own clothes, mostly jeans and sweatshirts or hoodies in varying states of repair. Some prisoners ignored the new visitors, or gave them hostile stares, but others crowded around Harper, begging for money or offering to sell him souvenirs of the jail or cocaine - ‘the purest and finest in Bolivia, señor.’
The guard waved his nightstick to open a way through the crowd and led them through a doorway and up a rickety flight of steps to a room lit by one of the arched windows they had seen from outside. He had a muttered word with the chief warden, Carlos Fernandez, a morbidly obese man in a uniform stained with sweat patches, with his body bulging out of every seam. He prised himself out of his sagging chair to greet them and trousered the fifty dollars Harper proffered without even glancing at it. ‘My assistant here will complete the formalities,’ he said, pointing to the guard who had brought them in, as he lowered himself back into his chair and went back to watching a Spanish football match on the TV that was fixed to the wall facing his desk.
The guard asked for Harper’s passport and the ID cards of the other two, then laboriously copied the details into a ledger and wrote a number alongside each entry. He then put t
he passport and the ID cards in a desk drawer and picked up a black marker pen. He mimed pulling up their sleeves and wrote the corresponding numbers on their left forearms. He gave a gap-toothed smile and said something in Spanish to Ricardo. ‘No number, no way out of the prison,’ Lupa said, translating.
‘Yeah, I guessed as much,’ Harper said.
The guard searched each of them in turn, patting them down, getting them to turn out their pockets and even open their mouths so he could check they had nothing concealed in their cheeks. The guard then recited the rules: no film, photography or sound recording and all visitors had to be out of the prison before the 6pm curfew. He took them back down the stairs and left them in the courtyard as he strolled back to the entrance.
‘Are we good to go?’ Harper said.
Ricardo nodded. ‘Just one thing. Being a gringo in here is bad enough but this is definitely not a good place to be mistaken for an American, because they’re all assumed to be spies or narcs from the DEA. So if any of the prisoners say Yanqui? to you, say “No, Inglés!” at once. If they think you might be a cop, an informer or a narcotics agent, someone will try to stab you, so keep alert.’
Breakout: A Heart-Pounding Lex Harper Thriller Page 8