by Rusty Young
Buitrago arrived an hour later, also blaming himself. ‘I should have assigned Felix some of my own men in addition to yours,’ he said grimly.
He told me he’d called Yolanda Delgado – the left-wing candidate – and offered her around-the-clock protection. It would have been a tough call for Buitrago to make; she was also the human rights attorney who’d pushed for charges against him for neglect of duty.
‘What did she say?’
‘She responded sarcastically, “Gracias, Colonel. Just like you protected the villagers during the Puerto Galán massacre?” Then she hung up.’
Finally, after three hours, the surgeon came out in a blue robe, removing his rubber gloves and smiling. He told us Felix had been lucky. They’d removed the bullets and drained his lung of blood. He would be on a respirator for five days. He’d likely suffer nerve damage in his left hand but could otherwise expect a full recovery.
‘Colonel,’ said the surgeon. ‘You can go in and interview him now. But five minutes only. My patient needs rest.’
Buitrago and I looked at each other; the colonel’s face mirrored my own relief. Of course, on a personal level we were overjoyed Felix had survived, but while his life hung in the balance we’d remained silent on the drastic political ramifications for our region that were also at stake. It was only ten days before the elections. If Felix had died, Fabián would have won easily. However, his survival meant he could now turn this attack to his advantage. Attempted assassinations generate significant political capital.
On entering the intensive care unit, I was shocked to see the normally tanned and smiling Felix lying flat on his back, white as the sheets, with tubes connecting him to various machines.
‘Don Felix,’ I said, ‘I’m so sorry this has happened. I feel responsible.’
‘Don’t! I took on the risk,’ he said. ‘But I now accept that it’s over. After what happened to Mauricio and then that death threat they sent me, I was stupid to think I could run. I’m out. I’ll stick to what I know: buses. It’s a quieter life, but in these troubled times old age is a blessing.’
‘You can’t!’ I said, my relief turning to alarm. ‘If you drop out, Fabián will win.’
Buitrago grimaced. ‘The region needs you, Don Felix. Please, I beg you to reconsider.’
‘Yolanda Delgado would be Fabián’s only remaining opposition,’ I added. ‘And she can’t possibly win.’
‘Maybe she deserves to,’ Felix said. ‘I don’t like her, personally. And I disagree with her politics. But at least she’s honest. And taking on the government and Autodefensas as she did after the limpieza – and even going after you, Colonel – proves she’s brave.’
Buitrago, who’d bristled at the mention of Delgado’s name, said nothing. I wanted to argue but couldn’t keep pushing a man who’d nearly been killed to risk his life again.
The assassination attempt made national headlines. That night, as I sat depressed on the sofa watching TV with Palillo, the news flashed to a shot of the immaculately groomed Fabián Díaz flanked by supporters wearing matching yellow T-shirts with his slogan: Together We Will Triumph. He’d convened a media conference outside the gates of Javier’s luxury hacienda.
‘Today we’re lucky not to be attending yet another funeral,’ he declared, his delivery at once polished and passionate. ‘Make no mistake – the cowardly Guerrilla did this! And they will try to destroy democracy again and again. But I am here to tell you that I will not back down. I will not be intimidated. I will not abandon my home town in its hour of need.’
I turned the television off and hurled the remote across the room.
The assassins’ shout of ‘Death to Fascists’ had been a clever ruse, creating the impression that this was an attack by the Guerrilla. Publicly, even Buitrago was sticking to this official version, although we both knew that was unlikely. Caraquemada’s miliciano network had been destroyed completely. The Guerrilla used bombs and ambushes to kill people, not sicarios on motorbikes. And besides, Caraquemada had little to gain by killing Felix – of the two pro-Autodefensa candidates, Felix was the more moderate. Taken together with Mauricio’s ‘accidental’ death during the limpieza, the pattern was now obvious.
We had no proof, but as people say: when seeking the perpetrators of a carefully orchestrated crime, look no further than its main beneficiaries.
147
MARCH 12 MARKED my eighteenth birthday and two and a half years’ service in the Autodefensas. The elections were four days away. Voting would be held over two days, on the Saturday and Sunday. It would be my first time casting a ballot, but with Felix recuperating in hospital, it was hard to become enthusiastic. As for my birthday, even though my moon boot had come off and I was now able to walk normally – albeit with a slight limp – I struggled to find anything worth celebrating.
Over the past week, a legion of new Autodefensas had flocked into Garbanzos to join the Black Scorpions under Beta’s direct command. They camped on Javier’s lawn, called Beta patrón and had no idea who I was, or what I’d done. Dozens of experienced soldiers had defected from other bloques, strengthening my suspicion that they’d been lured here by the higher salaries paid by the Díazes. The majority, however, were young soldiers rushed through training, who knew very little about the sacrifices we’d made to wrest back control of the river villages. They simply treated the Autodefensas as a job, following Beta’s instructions to make it known that every adult resident must register and vote. The more Beta’s troop numbers increased, the more convinced I became that he might be planning to break away from Trigeño and form his own bloque.
With Don Felix no longer campaigning, Yolanda Delgado was Fabián’s only remaining competitor. Her electoral slogan was Por La Verdad – For the Truth. At first, however, Beta hadn’t seen her as a threat.
‘She’ll be lucky to get five per cent of the vote,’ he’d told me wryly. ‘But it’s important for Fabián to have competitors, at least on paper.’
Clearly, Beta believed Felix’s supporters would automatically transfer their allegiance to Fabián. But that didn’t happen. The latest telephone polls indicated Delgado’s support had surged to thirty per cent, making her a possible contender. She also had strong backing in the mountains and the river villages – people who didn’t own phones and weren’t represented in the polls.
I’d planned to spend the morning of my birthday at a security meeting with Buitrago. Since the Guerrilla were notorious for intimidating voters and disrupting elections, Buitrago planned to run extra patrols around the outskirts of Llorona and Puerto Galán starting the following day. With my forces and Valderrama’s in the south, the Autodefensas would provide an additional layer of security. However, the colonel had called late the previous evening to cancel; he’d been summoned to Bogotá for an urgent meeting with his generals.
‘It sounds important,’ he’d said. ‘I’m not sure whether they’re going to grant my request for more men, or fire me.’
Instead, I went to the town hall with my birth certificate to register on the electoral roll. Perhaps I’ll vote for Delgado, I thought. Technically, she was the Autodefensas’ political opposition. But anyone would be better than Fabián Díaz and his lapdog, Beta.
Mid-morning I visited Don Felix in the hospital. Thankfully, his condition was now stable. As I was leaving the ward I received a phone call from Old Man Domino. I hadn’t seen him since his drunken checkers tirade, but he now sounded lucid.
‘You promised to visit me two weeks ago,’ he said. ‘But this time you can’t back out. Iván and Gloria have baked you a birthday cake.’
I accepted the invitation.
Turning in at the gap in the white fence, I saw Gloria kneeling by a rose bush, clipping pink blooms. Iván stood nearby, emptying a huge watering can onto the garden bed. They both waved as I dismounted. The smell of baking wafted from the kitchen window.
Eating calmly under the oak tree surrounded by friends reminded me of happy days on our finca when Papá
and I would return from fixing the irrigation pipes, our appetites sharpened by hours of work, to share a delicious lunch served by Mamá.
After they’d sung me ‘Happy Birthday’, Old Man Domino led me behind the house, past his dilapidated wooden barn to a tall, recently constructed aluminium-roofed shed.
‘This probably isn’t the birthday present you had in mind,’ he said, ‘but you’re eighteen now, and that means you could go to prison.’
He rolled open the door. Inside were five massive bright yellow vehicles – a bulldozer, steamroller, grader, dump truck and cement mixer, each with huge, thick pneumatic tyres that came up to my shoulder. Since August I’d witnessed these same vehicles coming and going from Puerto Princesa, though much less frequently in recent weeks.
‘At first I was happy to let Javier’s subcontractors store their valuable machinery on my land,’ Old Man Domino said. ‘After all, it was to help the highway get built, and they promised to pay me rent. But apart from what they spent on this shed, I haven’t seen a peso. And I don’t see any highway either.’
I nodded, waiting for Old Man Domino to get to his point. So far, this was nothing new; everyone knew the Díaz brothers had pocketed the funds and probably had no intention of building the road.
‘You have to open your eyes, muchacho, and see what sort of men you’re involved with before it’s too late,’ he said.
‘But what did you mean by prison? I have nothing to do with the Díazes stealing government money.’
‘This goes way deeper than fraud.’
Old Man Domino explained that for the first few months the heavy machinery had driven out every morning and returned at dusk to his shed. Once a month the vehicles were loaded onto semi-trailers and sent to Bogotá for maintenance.
‘Then two months ago, the routine changed,’ he said. ‘The machines still drive down to Puerto Princesa, but only on Tuesdays. So if they’re not being used to construct the highway, why are they now being transported north for service once a week?’
I looked at Old Man Domino, realising what he was trying to tell me without saying it directly: the machinery was being used to transport cocaine.
‘Whatever decision you make, Pedro, please keep me out of it. This is occurring on my land, but I’m old and I’m not moving again. I intend to die in my own house, in my own bed and of natural causes.’
‘Gracias,’ I said. ‘Leave this with me.’
After dark I pulled back into Old Man Domino’s driveway, this time armed with a torch and toolkit. If there was contraband hidden in the machinery, I was determined to find it. But it wouldn’t be easy. It might be anywhere – deep within the engine or in a compartment behind a false panel. However, all the components were welded or bolted into place, and it would require specialised tools to remove them.
First I pried open the grader’s fuel cap, shone my torch inside and peered into the tank but saw only gasoline. Next I lay flat on my back beneath the bulldozer – its belly plating was impenetrable steel.
Positioning a nail between the treads of the steamroller’s rear tyre, I hammered it in. The nail penetrated only three centimetres before striking metal and bending. I was no mechanic but it didn’t take a genius to know pneumatic tyres don’t contain steel inserts. I tried the same tyre again, only this time from the inside rim with a Stanley knife. The rubber was dense and after several minutes of twisting and gouging, the blade bent and then snapped. I’d almost given up when I saw a cordless drill on a workbench. I inserted the long spinning drill bit slowly into the tyre, watching as it spat out thin curls of shredded rubber and then plastic. When I pulled the drill bit out, its tip emerged flecked with white powder.
I stood there, astounded. If every tyre on the five vehicles was stuffed with narcotics, it might amount to tonnes. And who knew what other components might be filled?
Ever since my conversation with Rafael, I’d been wondering how the Guerrilla transported their cocaine. Now I knew; they were packing it into these vehicles in Puerto Princesa.
Later, I discovered exactly how their system worked. The cocaine, compressed into blocks and vacuum-wrapped in layers of industrial plastic, was collected from the processing laboratories south of Santo Paraíso. It was transferred across river to Puerto Princesa and camouflaged within the machinery then driven to Old Man Domino’s finca. The semi-trailers then collected the vehicles for transport to coastal ports for international shipping and to private runways for flights to Central America.
The scheme was simple yet ingenious. At inland checkpoints, anti-narcotics police would have little reason to suspect machinery owned by the subcontractors of a legitimate construction company that had been awarded the tender for an important government highway. In the event that the semi-trailers were waved into a weighing station, the additional cargo would be negligible among tonnes of heavy equipment. A thorough inspection would take forever, requiring customised tools to remove the tyres, belly plates and fuel tanks.
Of course, right then, I didn’t realise the full extent of the operation. I only knew that Caraquemada could not be doing this alone. At a minimum it would require the complicity of the drivers, supervisors and management of the construction company. And how could Javier and Fabián not be involved? Javier’s protestations of innocence and performance of dismay at not knowing how to get rid of the four tonnes in the bunker had been masterful, but I would never again be fooled.
I pressed the chips of rubber back into the hole, hoping it wouldn’t be noticeable during the next ‘maintenance check’, and I dialled Buitrago.
Unfortunately, since the machinery belonged to their subcontractor, this wasn’t the absolute proof we needed to bring down the Díazes. And of course, Buitrago couldn’t impound the vehicles immediately without implicating Old Man Domino. However, he could at least search the semi-trailers when they next moved north through his checkpoint and discover the cocaine ‘by accident’. Having the vehicles impounded with multiple arrests and national media coverage mentioning the Díazes might provide the scandal we needed just in time to prevent Fabián from winning the election.
When Buitrago’s phone went straight to voicemail, I kicked the ground in frustration and racked my brain, wondering who else I could turn to. Only then did Don Felix’s words come back to me about someone who was brave. Someone who was honest. Someone who, maybe, deserved to win.
148
YOLANDA DELGADO’S CAMPAIGN ‘headquarters’ was a tiny, cramped office off the main plaza in Llorona. At 7.30 pm I rode past it, parked the bike three blocks away, put on a cap and walked back briskly, wary of being seen.
I didn’t know Delgado. I’d never met her. She’d been born in Puerto Galán but left for Bogotá to practise law. Following the limpieza she’d returned and set up office in Llorona, gathering witness statements for her class action, and then decided to run for office.
I wasn’t even sure she’d talk to me. By contacting her, I knew the risk I was taking – Delgado was our political rival. But by then I didn’t care. My cause was the Autodefensas, not Fabián Díaz and Beta. Besides, the Díazes weren’t true Autodefensas. We were against cocaine trafficking. And even if Beta were just turning a blind eye, that meant he was no true Autodefensa either. Nevertheless, if news of my visit got back to Trigeño the consequences would be dire.
The door was open but at first I thought I’d come to the wrong place. There were no glossy posters in the windows. Inside, there were no festive streamers, no banners, no bustling team wearing brightly coloured T-shirts. Delgado had no electoral security team, only a single staff member – a young man in jeans and a collared shirt photocopying pamphlets.
A plump, earnest-looking woman in her mid-forties sat behind a desk dressed in a faded blue business suit. She wore thick spectacles but no make-up or jewellery. Her black curly hair was tied back tightly in a bun. Three towers of manila folders on her desk were stacked higher than her head.
Based on appearances and resources, she was no matc
h for the well-heeled, photogenic Fabián Díaz. But I realised quickly what she may have lacked in beauty, armed bodyguards and campaign funding, she made up for in intelligence, courage and efficiency, as well as fearless supporters.
She was pounding the keys on a laptop so furiously that at first I believed she hadn’t noticed me enter.
‘Señora Delgado?’ I inquired politely, standing in front of her. When she didn’t look up, I continued. ‘My name is Pedro Juan—’
‘I know exactly who you are,’ she said, tapping a small monitor beside her laptop then pointing to two CCTV cameras mounted on the walls before resuming her typing. ‘And if you’re here to kill me then you should know you’re being recorded remotely and the witness statements in these folders are already with the Fiscalía.’
‘I’m also filming,’ said the young man, and I turned to see that he was aiming a mini video camera at me. ‘So you’ll have to shoot me too.’
‘You’ve got it wrong!’ I said defensively. ‘I’m here to help you. I believe we’re fighting for the same thing.’
‘Are we?’ she said acidly, finally looking up. ‘I highly doubt that. But since your mother and I attended primary school together …’ She tapped her watch. ‘I’ll give you sixty seconds of my time. Speak.’
I glanced at her assistant. He lowered the camera but it was clear he wouldn’t leave his boss on her own, so I was forced to speak in front of him.
‘Señora, I have something that may be of interest to you. I’d like you to come up with me now, and please bring that camera. The evidence is located near my family’s finca.’
‘Which is right next to your illegal paramilitary base on the Díaz property.’ She laughed ironically and glanced at my Smith & Wesson. ‘Will I also be meeting with your boss, Beta?’
‘Beta’s not my boss. Neither are the Díazes. In fact, the evidence I have is against them.’
‘Gracias,’ she said, ‘but I have all the proof I need linking them to the massacre.’