by Rusty Young
I stood, excused myself and left the colonel there with his whisky, his bravery and his stubborn principles that soon might cost many lives and the government’s already-fragile control over the region.
I entered the house but it was deserted, except for a maid who scurried past me with lowered eyes. The kitchen, with its polished granite benches, was empty. A maze of corridors led to multiple doors. I switched on the lights in two or three rooms – guest bedrooms and bathrooms with double showers and gilded taps – but there was no sign of Camila.
In the upstairs corridor, I heard the low murmur of a television. All doors were closed except one, from which light streamed. I entered and found myself in a study with a white woollen carpet, a black leather sofa and a glass coffee table bearing a crystal decanter of whisky. When I saw the large mahogany desk I realised this must be Humberto Díaz’s office – the one mentioned by him in his second-last phone call to his sons.
The walls were hung with elegantly-framed photos of Humberto. There he was, aged in his early thirties, wearing a leather riding hat and mounted on a purebred paso fino that must have been nineteen hands high. There he was, several years older, behind the controls of a helicopter. In his forties, now balding, he posed with his wife and two young sons at Disneyland.
In a more recent shot, an ageing, pot-bellied Díaz stood on the deck of a yacht with men wearing ties who looked like politicians or businessmen. A newspaper article about a former vice-president was framed with the final photo, showing Díaz shaking the same man’s hand.
During his lifetime, Humberto Díaz had cultivated the persona of a struggling, respectable cattle farmer. But meanwhile he and his family had lived an entirely different life outside Llorona – a life of wealth, travel and unbridled opulence.
Had Papá known the full extent of his other life? My curiosity was fully aroused now, and neither considerations of propriety nor the risk of getting caught could have deterred me from what I did next.
After checking that the staircase was empty, I switched off the corridor light – it would flash on if someone approached. I knelt beneath the mahogany desk and ran my fingertips through the carpet until they detected a ridge. The carpet peeled back to reveal a large concealed floor safe. Knowing what I was doing was wrong, I felt my senses on full alert.
Keeping one eye on the door, I punched in the combination I remembered from the phone transcripts: 7812B. Each beep sounded in my ears as shrilly as a fire alarm. After the fifth beep, a dull metal thud announced that the bolts had released. I hesitated, listening intently for approaching footsteps. Then I yanked the heavy metal lid upwards and stifled a gasp.
The safe was jam-packed with US bills: twenties, fifties and hundreds. It was the kind of money you only ever see on TV, too much for me to count. I lifted several stacks to see if the white book Zorrillo had demanded lay beneath, but it was pure cash.
My original suspicions resurfaced, this time as near certainties. The brothers had obviously continued their father’s illicit activities. Legal businesses keep their money in banks. It also made the depth of their involvement clearer: no one makes that much money from owning a coca field or transporting barrels of ether.
Suddenly, the corridor light came on and I quickly closed the safe. When Javier pushed open the door, a crystal tumbler of whisky in his hand, I was standing once more, innocently admiring the row of photos.
‘Pedro! I was wondering where you’d escaped to.’
‘I was looking for Camila. I think she’s with your brother somewhere.’
‘I apologise. When Fabián’s drunk, he can be a painful pendejo. But they’ll turn up.’ He extracted a beautifully engraved silver cigar case from his pocket, flipped it open and held it out to me. ‘Cigar?’
‘I don’t smoke.’
From Papá and Trigeño, I’d inherited a natural mistrust of anyone involved in narcotráfico. Under normal circumstances, I’d have left the party immediately and taken Camila with me, never to speak to the brothers again. But Mamá still needed the Díaz family’s protection. And their being criminals didn’t change the fact that I needed their help to get Zorrillo. In fact, it made it more likely that Zorrillo’s death would be in their business interests, especially if he was squeezing them hard, as he had their father.
I touched my finger against the photo of Javier and his father posing with Mickey Mouse. ‘You must miss him.’
Javier lifted the frame from its hook and stared down at it for a moment. ‘I loved him very much,’ he said. ‘But to tell you the truth, I never knew him well. We were sent away to school very young. And even during our vacations, he was rarely home. Of course, we never lacked for anything. All this,’ he indicated the luxurious surroundings, ‘comes from his hard work. But he wanted us educated so we could have better lives than he did. That was his thing – his life’s goal. He’d grown up poor so we had to be better than he was. Not just better educated, but better.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She drinks too much. We were raised by our maids.’ He looked down at the picture again. ‘When Father died I hardly had time to grieve. I had to take over his affairs immediately or we’d have lost everything. A week before the Guerrilla took my father, he made me promise that if anything happened to him, I’d keep my brother in line. I’ve tried to do as he asked, although Fabián hates me for it.’
I thought of my last promise to Papá – not joining the Autodefensas. At least Javier was keeping his.
‘You must hate Zorrillo and Caraquemada.’
‘We do,’ he said simply. ‘But life goes on.’
I thought his remark callous. My father had been killed shortly after his. But my life hadn’t simply gone on. It had been slammed sideways then dropped off a cliff.
‘Javier, why did you invite me here?’
He seemed surprised. ‘We used to be neighbours. We’ve known you since you were a little sardine.’
‘But why look after my mother?’
‘She was good to our family. After our father was killed, the entire community turned their backs on us, as though we were somehow to blame for what the Guerrilla did. Your mother defied them and placed flowers on Father’s grave.’
Since hedging and subtlety were getting me nowhere, I said, ‘Why not tell me what you really want?’
Javier smiled ironically and calmly flicked his polished fingernail against the tumbler. ‘Why not be open yourself, Pedro? What did Felix Velasquez say about me when you visited him?’
‘Who says I did?’
‘Come now!’ Javier chuckled. ‘My bodyguards talk to Felix’s bodyguards.’ He sipped his whisky. ‘What you’re proposing is dangerous, Pedro. I’m not saying no, but afterwards, there would be consequences. If you and I can’t trust each other, this conversation should end now.’
I was stunned. All that week, I’d been sneaking around Garbanzos asking questions and searching for information. That night, I’d snooped around Javier’s house, hunting for clues. I even had secret government files on his father and the combination to his office safe. But Javier had been several steps ahead of me. Since he’d pre-empted me, I followed his lead.
‘It would only take one man. Me. And you to set up a meeting at a remote location.’
Javier threw back his head and laughed.
‘Zorrillo didn’t kill my father, he merely pulled the trigger. The men who killed my father – and yours – sit atop an organisation numbering twenty thousand. So killing Zorrillo won’t make a difference; he’s a medium-sized branch on a gigantic tree. To fell that tree, you’d need to sever its trunk and then chop away every root so it doesn’t grow back again. Ever. And to do that, you’d need an entire army. A tougher one than Buitrago’s. An army that fights the Guerrilla using their own tactics.’ When he looked back at me, Javier’s face had become sinister and I saw a flash of his brother’s arrogance. He glanced down at my belt where the Smith & Wesson was concealed, raising his eyebrows. ‘Do you know such an army?’
>
I never got to answer.
From a nearby room, I heard Camila’s laughter. It was too shrill, unnaturally so.
‘It’s my hair!’ came her muffled squeal. ‘My stupid hair!’
I covered the distance to the door in three long strides.
‘Wait!’ Javier called, following me. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’
Behind a closed door on the opposite side of the corridor, I heard voices. I tried the door, but it was locked, so I barged my shoulder against it. The flimsy lock gave way instantly and I burst into a palatial bedroom with a king-size bed.
Inside were three good-looking men in their mid-twenties together with Fabián, the blonde newsreader called Andrea and Camila. Fabián was seated on a waist-high bureau, legs apart with his hand extended towards Camila, who was standing in front of him, her head bent forward and her mouth centimetres from his extended hand, as though she were about to lick it. Andrea stood behind Camila, holding her hair bunched above her head. A pornographic movie was playing on an enormous flat-screen television embedded in the far wall.
As the door crashed back against the wall, everyone stopped and turned to me.
‘What’s happening here?’ I demanded. ‘What are you doing to her?’
In the awkward near-silence that followed, the only sound was the groaning of the naked woman on the television.
‘She’s fine,’ Fabián said. ‘We’re just having a little fun.’
One of the men tried clumsily to nudge a silver tray under the sofa with his toe. On it was a solid white brick – the size of a toaster – wrapped in plastic. A scalpel lay beside it and a triangular corner of the block was chipped away, broken into powder.
Fabián lowered his hand and I saw the same white powder in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. They were giving Camila cocaine.
The woman on the television groaned louder.
‘Turn that off!’ commanded Javier angrily. Andrea fumbled around for the remote but was too drunk to find the STOP button.
‘Camila?’ I asked. ‘Are you okay?’
‘¡Perfecta!’ She stood to full height and faced me, smiling radiantly, her hair dishevelled and her cheeks flushed with alcohol. She seemed completely unashamed, as though it were perfectly normal to be bending over between the knees of a man she barely knew in a bedroom with a block of cocaine while watching pornography.
‘Everyone, this is Pedro. Pedro, these are my friends – Fabián and … sorry … what were your names again?’
The others mumbled their greetings. Fabián slapped the powder from his hand.
‘Join us, Pedro! Have a drink.’ He picked up a whisky bottle and raised his eyebrows. His pupils were dilated and his teeth grinding together.
My eyes returned to Camila. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘Ay, come on, Pedro!’ she said. ‘Let’s have some fun. These people are fun.’
Perhaps to her they were. Perhaps she thought them decadent yet sophisticated. But I could see them for what they were and I wasn’t standing for it. Camila might have thought I was embarrassing her in front of her new best friends; however, she’d given no thought to the danger of getting drunk and taking drugs with strangers. Her parents were right downstairs. What would they have thought?
‘I said we’re leaving.’ Camila could see how angry I was but made no move to leave. ‘Now!’ I snatched her wrist and yanked her away from Fabián.
Fabián leaped furiously from his bureau. ‘This is our house and our party. Who are you to break through a locked door and start giving orders? And Camila can do what she wants. She’s not a child.’
‘She’s fifteen!’ I dragged Camila towards the door.
Behind me, I heard Javier reprimanding his younger brother. ‘You idiot!’
And Fabián’s indiscreet response: ‘You said we didn’t need him anymore. You said he probably didn’t even know Trigeño.’
So Palillo had been right all along.
I led Camila around the edge of the sparkling pool, stopping briefly at Colonel Buitrago’s table. I was now angry at him. He shunned me for being an Autodefensa when he, an upstanding officer in the national army, was at a party hosted by men he surely knew were narcotraficantes.
‘If it’s money you need,’ I said, ‘there’s about a million dollars upstairs in the safe. I believe you have the combination.’
I no longer cared if he knew we had the files. It might be another wake-up call for him and a spur to action. Because as long as he refused to get the job done, other men would have to do it for him.
I dragged Camila past the crowd of stylish guests, thankful not to see her parents or my mother, down the gravel driveway and through the gates. Even though I’d rescued her, Camila wanted to go back. She was high on cocaine and drunk, and that made her sarcastic and insulting. She’d never mocked me before. But she began mocking me now.
‘Yes, Pedro, I’m fifteen. But you’re sixteen and so mature! Where do you think you’re taking me?’
‘Home.’
‘¡Fantástico! On your bicycle? I’ll sit on the handlebars.’
‘We’ll take a taxi from the plaza.’
‘And drive past the Guerrilla roadblock? Very clever. I hope you have your gun?’
I released her wrist.
‘You want to go back? Fine. Go!’
I escorted her safely inside the security gates before stomping downhill towards the town, booting pebbles and swearing and cursing.
I tossed and turned all night seething and thinking about Camila. I knew her parents would ensure she reached home safely, but in the meantime she was still at the party.
After the scene I’d caused and Javier’s reprimand, I doubted Fabián would try anything more with Camila. But she’d keep talking to his handsome, drug-dealing friends in that beautiful green dress that showed her cleavage. They might ask for her phone number. After I’d left Garbanzos, they might invite her to the big city, picking her up in one of their helicopters. And the next party she attended, I wouldn’t be there. If Camila decided to try cocaine again, I wouldn’t be there to stop her.
PART SIX
THE BATTLE OF JAGUAR RIVER
87
AFTER A SLEEPLESS night, I phoned Camila’s house at 9 am, hoping to make peace. Even though Camila had behaved irresponsibly, I’d overreacted with jealousy. But there was no answer. I tried her cell phone and left a message, but signal coverage in Llorona was weak and I doubted she’d get it. Determined to make amends, I decided to visit her.
I was unlocking my bicycle when my phone rang – a blocked number. I expected it to be Camila returning my calls from a Telecom cabin. Instead, to my surprise, Culebra’s voice came on.
‘You need to get back here now.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Our cousins found your boat and its owner.’
Culebra was being deliberately cryptic – probably because of Trigeño’s paranoia about telephone intercepts. But I realised immediately that by ‘cousins’ he meant the army. They’d captured the boat driver who had helped the Guerrilla escape after our skirmish.
‘The boat has a recent repair to the bow, but our cousins need one hundred per cent certainty that the owner is the man you saw.’
Since the suspect was a civilian, the army was playing strictly by law; they needed me to identify him.
‘There’s a bus departing this afternoon.’
‘No, this is urgent. I’m sending Jerónimo. Be in the plaza in twenty minutes.’
I hurled my clothes into my bag, hid the Galil and binoculars behind a pile of old timber in Uncle’s yard and called Camila, again without success. This time there truly was a work emergency, but she’d never believe me.
Don Jerónimo pulled up in the same dark-windowed SUV with the same statuette of Jesus hanging from his rear-view mirror.
‘Look at you!’ he exclaimed. ‘All grown up! You must be important to deserve a pre-paid pick-up.’
As we sped along the highway
towards Villavicencio airport to collect Palillo, who’d also been recalled as a witness, Jerónimo was friendly and talkative, but I was in no mood for socialising. Eventually, when I remained unresponsive, he switched on the radio.
It was 1 am when Jerónimo, Palillo and I finally arrived at the metal gates of the Puerto Bontón army garrison. A serious-looking greeting party awaited us next to the floodlit guard’s booth.
Beta stood in the glare of the car’s headlights with his arms folded. Alfa 1 was pacing and smoking. A dark figure stepped briskly out of the shadow of a tree. It was General Itagüí.
The last time I’d seen him he’d considered me a muchacho barely worthy of eye contact. Now he shook my hand as he slid into the seat beside me.
‘Pedro, thanks for cutting short your leave.’
I exchanged uneasy glances with Palillo. Until then, I’d assumed identifying the boat driver would be a mere formality. But it must have been something far more serious if it had kept a three-star general waiting until after midnight and persuaded him to allow the Autodefensas onto his base at a time of politically sensitive peace talks.
Judging by the orderliness of his base, the general was a strict man who ran a tight ship. The garrison was peaceful. Rotating sprinklers sprayed fine mist onto the lawn and two soldiers patrolled with a German shepherd. Jerónimo drove us slowly along a narrow asphalt drive bordered by white-painted rocks and neatly arranged flowerbeds.
We stopped beside a brick building with a sloping tin roof. Two guards saluted the general. A grave-faced Lieutenant Alejandro appeared and dismissed Jerónimo. Then he gave us a short briefing.
‘Yesterday, one of our boat patrolmen noticed a green vessel matching your description pulled up on the riverbank near Puerto Pescador. A hole in the bow had been recently sealed with resin. We identified the boat’s owner and raided his house before dawn, taking him captive. But we need you to confirm that he’s the man you saw.’
‘Is this necessary?’ interrupted Beta impatiently. ‘The prisoner has admitted to owning the boat and repairing the bullet hole. End of story.’