by Rusty Young
‘Get down!’ I yelled to Yucca, who I could see standing in the open. Struck in the stomach, he was in shock, turning in circles. ‘Get down, idiota!’
The fighting stopped suddenly and there was silence. I never expected this – silence at the peak of battle. I could hear Yucca’s excruciating groans and wanted him to stop, but when I started crawling towards him, a volley of bullets whizzed around me. Yucca wouldn’t stop groaning. When I failed to reach Yucca a second time, I aimed my rifle at him and had to stop myself from pulling the trigger. ‘I said, get down!’
He sat down, looking at his forearm. Giraldo couldn’t reach him either; he crawled to another injured boy – the bed wetter – and strapped a tourniquet around his arm.
I could only save Yucca by leaving the safety of my tree trunk. I signalled my intention to Palillo, edged out on my stomach and fired blindly across the river. No sooner had I fired than I’d given my position away and had to roll sideways a few metres to avoid being hit by the retaliatory fire that bounded back at me like an echo.
At least Yucca was now lying flat. I finally clasped my hand around his ankle and dragged him towards my log, but I realised it was all for nothing. His eye was shot out and the rear of his head was missing. I was angry with him. I cursed him for dying like that, so stupidly, and for making me try to rescue him when he was already dead. I stayed a moment looking at him until I heard something heavy and metallic drop behind me. I rolled over Yucca, raised him on his side and pressed into him tightly, closing my eyes while opening my mouth wide. His body shuddered as it absorbed the blast from the mortar. My ears were ringing now, but there was no longer time to be angry at Yucca because bullets were raining hard and I had to roll back over him to return to my log.
Alfa 1 was still ordering the troops to move north; soon, most had moved past us, drawing fire away. The bullets stopped. Palillo and I were now free to concentrate on the hatch. Looking through my scope, I thought I saw it lift. I was about to ask Palillo whether he saw anything when Alfa 1 gave a new order over the radio.
‘¡Devuélvanse!’ he said. ‘Retreat!’
‘I think I saw movement at the hatch,’ I protested. ‘Permission to remain in position?’
‘Pedro, I said retreat.’
I pointed at Ñoño and said to Palillo, who was now standing, ‘Take the platoon and get him to the first-aid station.’
Palillo’s hands went to his hips. ‘And what about you?’
‘You’re now in charge. I’ll follow you shortly.’
I knew it was dangerous to remain alone. But I wanted to stay until the last possible moment. If it were only the two of us, Palillo would probably stay and argue. But Ñoño was groaning and losing blood, and since MacGyver was dead, Palillo was the highest ranking commander below me. He shot me a dirty look, slung four rifles over his left shoulder, scooped Ñoño into his arms and stumbled south-east to join the retreating mass of Autodefensas.
As for me, I lay back down flat under our fallen tree trunk and put my eye to my scope just in time to see five men dragging three canoes to the water’s edge. They boarded the first canoe and paddled off. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Were these Santiago’s bodyguards initiating the first phase of his escape? It made no sense for him to flee or expose himself now – not when they had us on the run – but I had little time to think. I scanned back fifty metres to the zorro solo’s tree and, sure enough, the hatch flipped open and two soldiers emerged, one of them a young girl carrying a flat object the size of a laptop. They sprinted towards the canoes and launched the second canoe, which was smaller than the first, onto the water while I kept my scope hovering over the hatch. It opened again and five more men emerged. One of them had to be Santiago. In the darkness, however, they were difficult to distinguish. All of them were wearing camouflage and I couldn’t see a moustache. Which was Santiago? They moved swiftly and my view was obscured briefly by a tree.
Five minutes earlier I would have allowed them to reach the water where the light was brighter and two other sniper teams would be covering their canoe crossing and downriver landing point. But I was now on my own and had to make a split-second decision as the group dashed in a tight huddle towards the last canoe.
The silhouette in the centre of the group was taller than the others. Santiago was six foot two; it had to be him. But his guards prevented me from getting a clear shot. I fired anyway and one fell immediately. In the seconds it took the others to realise he hadn’t simply tripped, I shot a second guard. Santiago dropped flat to the ground and his remaining two protectors piled on top of him. But they were out in the open – halfway between the hatch and the canoe – and they seemed undecided about whether to continue on or return.
I kept firing, striking Santiago in the leg. He tried to stand but stumbled. His men gripped his upper arms and dragged him back towards the hatch. Three figures limping awkwardly made a simple target. I shot both guards easily but missed Santiago – he continued on his own, crawling in a zigzag, and dragged himself to safety behind a tree, where I could no longer see him.
I was certain it was Santiago. He was alive but injured. He was also without protection or the ability to move far, or even call for help. And I had another small advantage – he knew a sniper was targeting him so probably wouldn’t risk changing positions. I fired two more shots either side of the tree to make him believe his escapes were blocked. And then I stripped off my ghillie suit, dived into the raging water and began swimming diagonally against the current, harder than I’d ever swum in my life.
The man who’d ordered Papá’s death was only a hundred metres away, bleeding and unable to move. I had to finish the job.
102
I WAS HALFWAY across the river when several flares streaked high into the air, lighting up the sky above the Guerrilla base. It was strange that they’d been fired from our side of the river, but I had little time to wonder why. I was now a brightly lit target struggling across a waist-deep river. I ducked underwater, still gripping my Galil, and dug my free hand into the rocky riverbed, holding my breath for as long as I could. I had to come up for air several times before the flares died out.
When I reached the far bank, another set of flares went up and I heard the sound of low-flying aircraft, their engines growling. Bombers.
Later, I learned that once General Itagüí had heard the base contained no hostages, he’d changed his mind about crossing the border.
‘¡Que se jodan los socialists!’ he exclaimed, slamming his fist on a table. Fuck the socialists! Then he’d instructed army bombers to take off while Trigeño directed Alfa 1 to keep the Guerrilla contained inside their base to maximise their casualties. The pilots already knew the base’s coordinates, but the flares gave them a visual lock on their target and ensured they wouldn’t accidentally bomb the retreating Autodefensas.
The arrival of bombers also explained why Santiago had risked exiting his hatch. His aircraft scanners probably gave him five minutes’ warning, and he must have decided to take his chances in a canoe. Of course, I knew none of this at the time. I only knew that I was at the edge of an enemy base, scrambling across an open riverbank with bombs about to drop.
I sprinted towards Santiago’s tree. Suddenly, I saw a girl running, slightly ahead of me, in the same direction. I glanced back to my left along the riverbank and saw the second, smaller canoe was drawn up on the bank once more. Santiago’s girlfriend, the one with the laptop, had returned for him. She reached the tree first and then turned, yelling and signalling for me to get down.
I didn’t hear the bomb that hit me, or feel its blast. I only remember being slammed forward, smashing face-first into the ground and wondering why I hadn’t had time to put my hands out to break the fall. I must have been knocked out, because when I came to the girl was crouched over me. Even in the eerie half-light of the flares, I could see she was extremely beautiful. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and I remember thinking it surreal that she was wearing earrings an
d make-up in the middle of a war zone.
‘Can you walk?’ Her voice sounded as though it were coming from the end of a tunnel. She pointed to the sky where the bombers were circling around for a second run.
I nodded. However, when I made no attempt to move, she took my wrist and began dragging me towards the hatch, leaning backwards, digging her heels in and pulling with all her might. Through my hazy thoughts, I remembered she was the enemy and looked around for my rifle, which I must have dropped during the fall. Instead, I drew my pistol and pointed it at her, staggering to my feet.
She let go of my wrist and leaped back with fear in her eyes. She glanced from my boots to my belt and finally to my face, perhaps noticing too late that my uniform was wet and didn’t bear the Guerrilla insignia. She raised her hands and, at my order, turned and walked towards Santiago’s tree.
The man who lay before me, with his back propped up against the trunk, was no warrior. He was slim, pale and scholarly like a kindly philosophy professor, with gold-rimmed glasses and a neat moustache. He was clutching a beret with a red tassel.
‘I surrender,’ he said, dropping the beret and holding up his open palms. The words sounded distorted; my ears were ringing from the bomb blast. I patted him for weapons but found none.
He and the girl exchanged a glance. My bullet had indeed hit his left leg – his camouflage pants were soaked with blood. The girl crouched, removed her belt and began binding it as a tourniquet around his thigh.
‘Get back!’ I ordered. She stood and stepped aside, leaving Santiago to fasten it himself.
When he’d done so, he raised his head and looked me in the eye. ‘My name is—’
‘Simón Santiago,’ I cut in. ‘A man who hijacks planes, explodes car bombs, kidnaps innocent people and imports thousands of rifles to prolong this war.’
‘I’m a man of peace. I’ve never killed a single person. As you can see, I don’t even carry a gun.’
I smiled grimly. ‘A pure pacifist whose words inspire others’ bullets.’
I wanted to get this over with quickly. I could hear the bombers drawing closer. The girl, standing behind him, glanced anxiously upwards as yet another set of flares lit the sky. But Santiago seemed inclined to debate. Even with death staring him in the face, he was willing to defend his beliefs to his last breath.
‘We had no choice but to take up arms,’ he said earnestly. ‘If only wars could be fought with words. But what are the words of poor men against the bullets and bombs of the oppressors?’
‘My father oppressed no one. He was a humble farmer who rose before dawn, who sweated in the sun six days a week, and who paid his workers a fair wage. With so many deaths on your hands, I don’t suppose you even remember the name Mario Jesus Gutiérrez Molina.’
Santiago thought for a moment. ‘I do. From Llorona, a year and a half ago.’ He adjusted his glasses on his nose in order to study me properly. ‘You must be Pedro. But you’re mistaken. I didn’t order your father’s death. I simply authorised it. The request to execute him was made by Caraquemada. I know nothing of his day-to-day field operations.’
‘So you authorised the death of a man you’d never met, a man who did nothing to you, for a reason you don’t even know?’
‘Caraquemada is devoted to our cause. He must have had good grounds.’
The bombers were closing in quickly, but the fear I felt was distant compared with my frustration. Nothing was going to plan and there was no time to properly conduct my interrogation.
I believed Santiago; he’d simply rubber-stamped Caraquemada’s request. But that almost made it worse. He seemed incapable of making the connection between his highbrow philosophies, his blind, long-distance radio commands and the consequences they had in the real world for real people.
Santiago lived in a bubble of ideas floating in the sky, whereas I now realised Papá had been killed by men standing on solid ground. They were the ones I should be going after, not this pitiful philosophy professor clutching a beret.
‘Perhaps you didn’t pull the trigger, but I will have justice for my father.’
I aimed my pistol at his chest, now thinking it might be better to leave him alive for the moment. Santiago wasn’t directly responsible for Papa’s death, but if I took him prisoner he could lead me to those who were.
Santiago stared me in the eyes.
‘You might extinguish a man’s existence,’ he stated serenely, ‘but never his ideals.’
‘Please,’ begged the girl, pointing desperately to the hatch. ‘We need to get underground right now!’
‘Stand!’ I said to Santiago. ‘You’re coming with me.’
But then the girl looked skyward and threw herself over Santiago, before the world around me exploded in a blinding flash of light.
Slowly, I blinked back to consciousness. I’d been thrown forward by the blast, but somehow I was lying on my back. My arms and shoulders were numb; when I tried to move, I couldn’t. The two of them were standing over me. Santiago was leaning on the girl’s shoulder, his left leg slack. She was wincing in pain and blood streamed down her forehead. The tip of her rifle was digging into my chest; her finger was shaking on the trigger. ‘Yes or no?’ she asked Santiago.
Santiago shook his head. He crouched with difficulty and spoke softly into my ear. ‘Pedro, this is the second time I’ve spared your life. I am sorry for your father. But if you’re truly seeking justice, don’t get it confused with revenge.’
I must have blacked out again because the next thing I remember it was daylight. I was slipping in and out of consciousness. Now that the shock was wearing off, it felt as though I’d been slapped hard from behind with a brick wall. I felt pressure on my chest and opened my eyes to see a large, heavy boot belonging to a soldier who was staring down at me with his rifle wedged into my neck.
‘Don’t move, you hijo de puta.’
Falling into enemy hands was everyone’s greatest nightmare; it was better to shoot yourself. I felt for my pistol, but I now saw that it was tucked into the soldier’s pants.
I struggled beneath him, but he only pressed down harder with his boot and called out to his superior, ‘We’ve got a live one here, mi sargento. Shall I finish him?’
His commander’s voice called back, ‘He might know something. Bring him for interrogation.’
I passed out again, and the next time I awoke I was facedown with my hands bound behind my back. My wounds must have reopened when they’d moved me, because I was lying on a swaying metal floor in a slowly expanding pool of my own blood. The loud wop-wop-wop of rotor blades told me I was in a helicopter.
I wasn’t sure who’d captured me, although I was at least glad it wasn’t the Guerrilla – they didn’t own aircraft. However, it might be the Venezuelan army, in which case I was in serious peril.
‘I’m thirsty,’ I croaked, feeling dizzy from the pain rocketing up my back.
‘You need water?’ asked the soldier kindly, unclipping a canteen from his belt. I smiled and nodded, relieved to hear his accent was Colombian. The patch on his right sleeve read: BRIGADA FUERZAS ESPECIALES. However, since I didn’t know about General Itagüí’s change of heart, I wasn’t sure how much to say to him after Beta’s dire warnings about the perils of being captured by the government.
The soldier twisted open his canteen and extended it towards my mouth. But at the last moment he tipped it upside down and I watched precious, life-saving drops fly from the helicopter.
‘That’s for all my friends you’ve killed, you Guerrilla hijo de puta.’
Since I’d been captured on the Guerrilla side of the river, he believed I was one of them. And I couldn’t contradict him without giving away details about my group.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘For interrogation. And then to prison.’ He laughed and looked down at my pool of blood. ‘That is, if you live.’
Unlike the Autodefensas, the army’s official policy was to render medical attention to injured enemy
combatants. In the field, however, individual soldiers’ hatred for the enemy sometimes got the better of them. An overly lenient judicial system meant guerrilleros often walked free, strolling back into the jungle to rejoin the war. It would be convenient if a captured guerrillero happened to die on the journey to hospital.
Immediately, I decided that interrogation and prison were preferable to death.
‘I’m an Autodefensa.’
The soldier laughed in my face. ‘And I’m Father Christmas.’
‘Check my tattoo. Please!’ I wiggled my shoulder. The soldier cut away my shirt with his knife. The viper tattoo changed everything.
‘¡Mierda!’ He signalled frantically to his cursos in the helicopter and they sprang into action. One attached a saline drip to my wrist, another clipped an oxygen mask over my face, and a third cleaned and patched my wounds. ‘Why didn’t you say so earlier?’
He grabbed his microphone headset, but it was too late. The pilot had radioed ahead with news of a captured guerrillero. A prosecutor from the Fiscalía was already on his way to meet the helicopter.
The Fiscalía was the Colombian Public Prosecutor’s office – an agency separate from the army that was renowned for being incorruptible and for investigating and charging Autodefensas. It was they who’d initiated the capture warrant against Alfa 1 during the peace process.
‘We can’t stop them from taking you into custody,’ the soldier told me.
But when we touched down in Villavicencio, one of his colleagues ran out with a bag of civilian clothes and changed me out of my torn and bloodied uniform. They also returned my cédula and gave me a cover story: I was a field worker looking for work who’d been accidentally caught in the crossfire of a battle.
I doubted this story and my fake cédula would stand up for long, but I only had to follow Beta’s instructions: ‘If you’re captured just sit tight and don’t say anything. We’ll find you.’