by Rusty Young
Ñoño’s eyes now pleaded silently with mine. However, Alfa 1 caught the direction of his gaze. Smiling sarcastically, he raised his eyebrows at me in challenge.
‘Pedro, any objections?’
Of course, he was testing me. Would I make the same mistake I’d made that afternoon? Would I dive once more in front of his rifle to save Ñoño?
‘No, comando,’ I answered. ‘I learned my lesson.’
This time, I wouldn’t interfere. After the obstacle course, Alfa 1 had asked me, ‘Why turn back for Ñoño if he was already dead?’ I was an Autodefensa and Alfa 1 was my commander. And if my commander wanted Ñoño dead, then it was simple – Ñoño had to die.
‘Good!’ said Alfa 1. Keeping his left hand on the barrel and the muzzle tip buried under Ñoño’s collarbone, he lifted his right hand from the butt and signalled for me to stand in his place and hold the Galil. ‘Then perhaps you’d like to demonstrate for everyone exactly what that lesson is?’
Finally, I saw the trap he’d laid. Alfa 1 wasn’t making an example of Ñoño for doubting the Fierce Witch – that was simply a pretext. He was making an example of us both for the obstacle course: I was to shoot Ñoño.
It all made sense now – the perverse logic of Alfa 1’s lecture to me on teamwork and trust, as well as the lightness of his punishment. This was Alfa 1’s true punishment: having to do myself the very thing that I’d prevented him from doing at the obstacle course – eliminate the weak.
Ñoño began begging loudly. ‘Pedro, no. Please! No.’
Alfa 1 spoke louder. ‘That’s an order, Pedro.’
I looked at the rifle and then at Ñoño. I didn’t believe for a second that the Fierce Witch’s magic spell had made him bulletproof. But I knew that if I didn’t shoot him, Alfa 1 would anyway. Besides, wasn’t this what I’d wanted? An opportunity to undo my mistake and prove to myself my own toughness and commitment?
As I gripped my right hand underneath the rifle butt, Ñoño’s eyes grew wide with disbelief.
‘Sorry, Ñoño,’ I said, touching my finger slowly against the trigger. Breathing in deeply, I focused my eyes on the tip of the muzzle and emptied myself of all thought and feeling. And without further hesitation, I squeezed.
43
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT I remember as keenly as my father’s execution. The muzzle flashed, the rifle cracked and Ñoño’s hand went up in belated protest. He flew backwards, his left elbow striking the ground and his body twisting over. He looked up at me, pained and completely bewildered. Alfa 1 took the Galil from me, actioned it, and the ejected casing arced through the air, clinking and spinning against rocks.
‘¡Médico!’ I yelled, cutting my shirt in two with my knife. From that range, the 7.62mm round might have tunnelled through cleanly. I lifted Ñoño’s shirt to locate the entry and exit wounds and staunch the bleeding.
‘No medic,’ Alfa 1 countermanded.
Ignoring him, I rolled Ñoño onto his back. The front of his shirt was singed, but there was no blood.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Of course it fucking hurts! You shot me.’
‘You and you!’ Alfa 1 pointed at Coca-Cola and Silvestre. ‘Chop him and pack him, muchachos.’
Ñoño sprang to his feet and leaped back. ‘But I’m not dead.’
He unbuttoned his shirt. Beneath, I saw severe bruising and seared flesh from the muzzle blast. But still no blood, and no bullet wound.
‘Let me look properly!’ I said.
But Ñoño pushed me in the chest. ‘Get the fuck away from me!’
I was no longer his saviour and he was no longer my loyal servant.
I’d shot Ñoño. The fact he’d survived was no thanks to me. It was now the Big Red Boy he worshipped.
That night, as everyone got drunk on aguardiente to celebrate the end of the course, Ñoño refused to talk to me. He’d drilled a hole through Alfa 1’s spent cartridge and hung it on a leather thong around his neck. Displaying his bruise and burns, he skipped sideways from group to group like a river crab, re-enacting how the bullet had bounced off his skin. But whenever I approached him, Ñoño turned his back and walked away. I wanted to explain what had happened. It was perfectly logical. I’d even found proof.
Alfa 1 had inserted a blank – a training round that simulates ordinary gunfire. Almost everything is the same. The muzzle flashes and the rifle cracks, but the spent casing must be ejected manually and there is no recoil because no bullet leaves the barrel, only a heavy blast of burning-hot air. Ñoño had never been in danger. Afterwards, I had retrieved Alfa 1’s empty ammunition box from the trash as evidence.
‘You going to ruin it for everyone?’ asked MacGyver when he saw me heading back towards the group. ‘They all think they’re bulletproof.’
To join the army you needed a school certificate, but most Autodefensa soldiers could barely read and write. They didn’t know about blanks. They believed what they saw and what the trainers told them. Should I tell them the truth?
As everyone continued celebrating, I slipped off to La Quebrada to be on my own and think.
Staring into the swirling waters, I replayed the shooting in my mind and tried to justify to myself what I’d done. Most people believe they’d never shoot someone, especially not a friend. Even with a gun pointed at their head and given the choice between their life and the other person’s, they believe they’d simply refuse. However, until it comes down to it – until they’re actually in the situation – they don’t truly know.
But Alfa 1 had shown me differently. He was like a doctor displaying to me an X-ray of my own skull. I’d seen myself properly now – not my face in the mirror but the bare bones beneath. Although I had yet to kill anyone, I now knew I was a killer, and I was glad. A killer was what I needed to be. However, Ñoño hated me and I wondered what the others thought. As the Fierce Witch had closed her suitcase – now packed with watches, necklaces and money donated by soldiers to the Big Red Boy in exchange for his protection – I noticed them looking at me differently.
I knew I shouldn’t have been so worried about other people’s opinions, but I was. Over sixteen weeks, although I’d made few friends, I had established a reputation.
So when Palillo found me sitting on my own at La Quebrada, I decided to lie. I would claim that I’d known about the blanks in advance. It was believable that I’d been part of Alfa 1’s act – I’d worked in the armoury and was close to the trainers.
‘Don’t cut yourself to pieces, hermano,’ said Palillo, putting his arm across my shoulder. ‘Something like that was bound to happen to Ñoño. He brought it on himself.’
‘They were blanks,’ I said, holding out the evidence.
Palillo nodded without needing to read the box. ‘I know.’
‘Ñoño was never in any real danger,’ I said. ‘None whatsoever.’
‘I know what blanks are.’
Rather than lying, maybe it was better to avoid the subject altogether.
‘Is Ñoño okay?’
‘One minute he hates you, but the next he’s so busy retelling the story that he forgets. Come back to the party. Try talking to him.’
As we walked towards the mess hall, a group of soldiers stepped out of my way. Although our usual table was full, four boys stood to make space. As I sat, the girls wouldn’t look at me and the volume of conversation increased.
‘Does everyone hate me that much?’ I asked Palillo.
‘No,’ he said. ‘They respect you. Although they’re also a little afraid.’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘That you’ll shoot them next.’ Palillo laughed, which made me laugh too. He had a magical way of cheering me up.
We sat a while longer, watching Ñoño re-enacting his near-execution and proudly displaying Alfa 1’s spent cartridge. I called him over, but he wouldn’t come.
‘And what do you think, Palillo?’
‘Ever since Tango shot Murgas,’ he said, ‘I think all of us have been praying we wouldn
’t be selected to execute someone. But at the same time, every one of us has also been wondering what they’d do in that situation. Whether they’d be capable of pulling the trigger. Unlike us, you now know.’ He took the box from my hand and stood. ‘I’ll tell Ñoño that you knew about these beforehand. Otherwise he’ll never forgive you.’
‘I’ll tell him myself.’
‘No, the trainers want you in the office.’ He winked. ‘Something about a tattoo.’
44
LEANING AGAINST THE inside office wall was a short, bespectacled man holding a leather satchel. I didn’t have time to look at him properly before Beta called me to attention.
‘Eyes front, soldier.’
Alfa 1 sat at the desk. At the river, he’d proven his point – that he could make me obey any order he gave – and he’d proven it publicly. He now seemed back in control and relaxed.
‘Don’t look so worried!’ He signalled for the man with the briefcase to step forward. ‘I’m promoting you, Pedro. You’ll get your own squad of eight soldiers. You can choose four, the other four I’ll decide. And get used to the idea of protecting Ñoño. You wanted him alive, you keep him alive.’
Culebra added his congratulations. ‘I asked this man to wait. I was sure you’d prove your worth.’
The bespectacled man with the briefcase was their tattoo artist – every graduation he was driven in from Puerto Bontón. Immediately following the obstacle course, he’d done six tattoos – one for each new commander. He now opened a book crammed with designs for me to choose from – page after page of variations, but all of them snakes. There were striking taipans, flat-headed cobras, poised rattlesnakes, dangling tree snakes and African mambas, each with the letters AUC beneath.
From the moment I’d seen Culebra overpower Murgas at El Filtro, I’d dreamed of getting my own snake tattoo. The tattoo meant that I’d made it. To the Guerrilla and those civilians who knew what the letters AUC stood for, the snake inspired fear and respect. I was now not only part of a group, but an important member. I was a commander and I had my group’s full backing.
But a tattoo also locked me in. It meant one hundred per cent commitment. Once the ink had stained my skin, there would be no turning back – I’d be a Paramilitary for life. And once people saw it, there would be no denying who I was.
After flipping the pages back and forth, I chose an eyelash viper. I’d seen them south of Llorona – small, yellow and deadly with scales over their eyes that looked like eyelashes. They were an ambush predator, waiting for prey to come within striking distance. Local Indians said they winked after they’d bitten you but before the poison sank in. I liked the idea. I wanted Papá’s killers to know, between when I struck and when they died, that it was me doing it. They’d underestimated me and I’d give them time to regret it.
I requested the viper coiled around my shoulder blade where it would be covered most of the time.
As the tattoo artist prepared the ink, Culebra poured me a shot of aguardiente.
‘Drink up!’ said Culebra.
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I don’t like the taste.’
‘It’s an acquired taste,’ said Beta. He slammed the shot down on the table. ‘Acquire it!’
‘That’s an order, comando,’ said Culebra, laughing.
To those raised in Los Llanos, a man who didn’t drink was not to be trusted.
I downed the shot, grimacing as my lips and throat burned.
Culebra poured another. ‘Drink!’
‘To the Autodefensas!’ Beta said.
Culebra poured shots one on top of the other like he was dealing cards. Alfa 1 and Beta pressured me to keep going while my tonsils burned and my veins coursed with hot lava. After a few minutes, my head was spinning and I couldn’t feel my tongue.
‘Go on,’ urged Culebra. ‘It’ll numb the pain.’
‘No more,’ I said. ‘I want to feel it.’
I wanted the tattoo to feel satisfying.
When it was done, the blood soaked up with gauze and my shoulder bandaged, Alfa 1 slapped my back. ‘You’re one of us now, Pedro. But when you come back from your leave, you need to show more respect. Maybe having other men’s lives in your hands will stop you from thinking so much about yourself. Because whatever self-indulgent shit is going on inside that head of yours, this group is bigger than that and being in this group will save you.’
The following morning, I awoke hung-over, sick and confused. I was still in the office, fully clothed. Beta pressed something cold and metallic against my cheek – a black Smith & Wesson – a present for my promotion, although it would have to remain in the armoury until I’d completed the advanced training course.
‘Happy birthday!’
It was 12 March. I’d been looking forward to turning sixteen. I’d been looking forward to my present. But instead of making love to Camila, I got a tattoo, a pistol and toughness.
‘Alfa 1 must really see something in you,’ said Culebra. ‘In six intakes, we’ve never seen him give anyone a second chance like that.’
‘You should go celebrate,’ said Beta.
I groaned.
‘We’ll see you in two weeks,’ said Culebra, returning the Blazer keys to me and taking back the Smith & Wesson. ‘And I’ll teach you how to shoot this properly.’
‘Sure, see you then.’
But I wasn’t so sure I would. I knew how to shoot. And I already had everything I needed: the Blazer keys, a cell phone with Ratón’s number, a Taurus pistol loaded with bullets and a heart once filled with love for Papá still baying ferociously at his death.
Maybe Palillo was right. Maybe Alfa 1 had done me a favour, after all. If I was capable of killing a twelve-year-old boy, then I was capable of killing anyone. And although I wasn’t sure of much, there was one thing I knew with absolute certainty.
I was going to shoot Ratón.
PART THREE
TRAPPING A RAT
45
THE RULES FOR leave were simple: keep our mouths shut and return in two weeks. Changing back into our civilian clothes felt strange. Those clothes now belonged to previous lives, and in many cases no longer fitted. Coca-Cola’s T-shirt barely stretched over his muscles, and Tortuga’s jeans slid from her hips.
When I got through the gate search, Palillo was waiting on the road, his pack slung over his shoulder. The other recruits were piling into two Ford F350 trucks that would ferry them to Puerto Bontón for their onward journeys.
‘Where are we going?’ Palillo asked, helping me hoist trash bags into the Blazer.
‘We? What about your beach holiday with Piolín?’
I glanced at the F350 where Piolín was talking and laughing with Mahecha and Paisa. Ensconced happily between the two, she’d left no space for Palillo.
‘Piolín can wait,’ Palillo said flippantly, and I wondered whether the trip had ever existed outside his imagination. ‘I’m with my hermano.’
‘I’m not going to La Llorona, if that’s what you mean. I told you already, I’m having the Blazer repaired in Villavicencio.’
‘Come on, brother. We’re on vacation and I’ve got money to burn!’
As much as I’d have liked us to spend our leave together, my plan to go after Ratón was dangerous, and I didn’t want Palillo involved.
When I still refused, Palillo shrugged – surely I could at least drive him as far as Villavicencio, where he’d catch a bus to Llorona?
At the dump, I unloaded the garbage bags quickly, hoping Palillo wouldn’t offer to help. Luckily, he was too busy flicking through radio stations. I jumped into the pit and retrieved my zip-lock bags, tucking the Taurus into the back of my pants.
But by the time we reached the Villavicencio bus terminal, Palillo had changed his mind. He’d decided to stick around for a few days – driving through the city, he’d seen bars, shopping centres and a cinema. At the Residencia Royal, he announced he’d share my room in order to save his money for shopping and girls. This severely compromised
my plans, but it was impossible to say no.
We dropped the Blazer at the mechanic’s and all Monday afternoon I humoured Palillo, eating lunch with him and going to a shopping centre to buy clothes. However, the entire time I was distracted. Although Sandoval hadn’t phoned to confirm that the batteries had arrived, more than three weeks had passed since Ratón had placed his original order. What if he came to the store to check on it in person? In that case, I needed to be at the hotel window, watching, with my Taurus ready.
Finally, I told Palillo I was tired and returned alone to the residencia, stopping to purchase a pair of binoculars together with the rope, blindfold and gag I’d need once I’d forced Ratón into the Blazer. I planned to approach him posing as an unthreatening delivery boy whose hands were occupied by a heavy load, so I also obtained a large box filled with styrofoam, which I stored under the residencia stairs.
The following morning I woke ready to begin my stake-out of the electrical store. I told Palillo I was sick and urged him to go out and have fun. After he left, I placed the fully loaded Taurus wrapped in a T-shirt under my pillow and sat by the window with my binoculars, scanning up and down the street.
The storekeeper, Boris Sandoval, rolled up the shutters at 9 am. No rear access meant customers and deliveries came through the street entrance. Sandoval purchased coffee from the passing tinto girl at 10 am and ate lunch at the counter. Standing in the doorway, he smoked two cigarettes every hour, flicking the butts onto the pavement. His daughter arrived from school at 3 pm and did her homework until her mother came to collect her two hours later. The store closed at 6 pm when Sandoval retired upstairs.
Palillo checked on me twice during the day, bringing me antibiotics and soup. Each time I heard him climbing the creaky wooden stairs, I quickly hid the binoculars and slipped back into bed. I left the room only once, to pick up the repaired Blazer, which I transferred to a public car park around the corner, leaving the rope, blindfold and gag in the glove compartment.