In between the repeated bangs on my door I could also hear voices directly outside discussing trying to kill someone, and then the sound of guns being reloaded. I was numb with fear, and Dieter looked it too. I really started to think that my time on this earth was severely limited and that my contract with my maker was well and truly nullified. Then there was the unmistakeable rapid-fire staccato sound of an Uzi machine pistol being discharged, quickly followed by rapid footsteps as people ran for cover. Whoever had the Uzi let go three or four clips of ammunition in volleys of bullets that sprayed the wing with lead.
Where the fuck were the police, you’re probably saying. Let me tell you: I was saying exactly the bloody same thing. When was this going to end? When would they intervene? This had already been going on for over an hour. How much longer could it possibly go on for without the authorities getting involved?
By now it had died down a fair bit and we could only hear the voice of one guy, Santiago, nicknamed Monta la Burra. He was an ex-marine imprisoned for the murder of three policemen and extremely dangerous. He was the right-hand man and bodyguard to Caiman. Santiago was now walking up and down the wing discharging a revolver, probably a .38, while shouting insults. We could hear the empty shell casings tinkling on to the floor as he reloaded the gun and then started shooting again. He was screaming and shouting.
‘Fuck you Choneros, this is my wing now. You killed Polilla you motherfuckers but you couldn’t kill me, fuck you. Come out and I’ll kill all of you cocksuckers. I killed your friend Gato. Come out JL, you pussy, and I’ll fucking kill you too and your fat fuck of a brother.’
It was at this point that I worked out what the banging on the door had been. It had been caused by Carlos in the cell opposite hurling pots, pans, plates and anything else he could out of the space above the door in an attempt to hit Santiago in the head. He must have run out of ammunition and was literally throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him.
After more than two hours we finally heard the crackle of police radios from the exterior of the building as they encircled the wing. This was equally bowel-churning, if not more so because there was no way of avoiding what was coming. We knew what sort of treatment we could expect at the hands of the police. At the very least all the inmates were in for a beating; at worst some of us would be tortured or even executed on the spot.
Up until now Dieter and I had both remained uninjured, amazingly enough, apart from a loss of hearing in my right ear from the sound of the first shot that had destroyed Gato’s head in front of my eyes. We knew from the conversations we could hear that at least two people were dead. People were calling over from the wing behind ours, which was where Caiman lived, asking what was happening, and people in our wing were giving them a running commentary and body count. Caiman’s soldiers were shouting over progress reports to the commander of the gang. Basically it was one corpse a side with a lot of injured as well, but the main target of the attack, JL, was unscathed. The attackers were none too pleased about that as he was one they really wanted dead. They also knew that they had stirred up a hornets’ nest that would never again sleep.
We heard the guy in the cell to the right of mine enter his room, lock the door and start breaking up a gun to dispose of it before the police arrived. After he’d broken the pistol down into the smallest possible pieces, we heard him getting rid of it down the drain that ran under the back of all the cells. He was one of the killers who had been brought in to carry out the assassinations. To look at him you would never have guessed he was a cold-blooded killer, but then the most unassuming inmates were quite often the most dangerous. As he was breaking the gun up he was shouting to another guy, who was in the cell to the other side of me, telling him who he had shot and what he planned to say should the police pull him out for questioning.
I set about hiding items such as my knife, iron bars, and other bits and pieces in preparation for the entrance of the police. We were now going to have to open the door to a scene of devastation and carnage, plus I knew that as the police would view everyone as a potential threat and would not hesitate to shoot anyone who flicked an eyelid, they were going to be highly strung. One wrong move could mean death.
The police entered the wing, shouting, ‘Abre las puertas, todo por afuera, al piso, al piso’ – ‘open the doors, everyone out, on the floor.’
I opened the door slowly and Dieter and I emerged into the wing hesitantly. I first looked left towards Gato’s cell. Wall tiles and debris were scattered all over the floor, as well as pots and pans outside my door where Carlos had been trying to pelt Santiago. I could see Gato’s feet sticking out of the door way.
There was another shape lying in the entrance to the wing by the main gate, which later turned out to be that of a guy nicknamed Tropico. He was one of the most unhinged, psychopathic men I have I ever had the misfortune to meet, and I met a few in my years of prison. He had once spent the weekend in a tomb complete with skeleton, smoking crack, taking mushrooms and communicating with the dead. It later emerged that he had been stationed at the gate where he acted as a lookout for Los Cubanos in order to alert the wing if the police were coming in to do a search. He also held the key to the padlock that secured the chain around the wrought-iron gate in order to delay the entry of the authorities in the event of a raid. Los Choneros had a serious grievance with Tropico after he slashed the cook, who happened to be one of their friends, with a large kitchen knife.
I later found out that upon hearing the shots that had killed Gato, JL had come bursting out of his cell with a 9mm in one hand and a 45mm Colt automatic in the other. The first person he shot was Tropico, as he was the nearest and a very real threat. The bullets had ripped right through his emaciated torso, taking a good part of his colon and spleen with them. Tropico lay bleeding on the floor for the whole two hours of the gunfight. JL had then, with the help of Manuco, another Choneros, between them engaged nine or ten of Los Cubanos in a running battle up and down the wing. They had somehow managed to corner or capture Polilla, the boss of Los Cubanos on our wing, in the entranceway to the exercise yard, which was basically a space the width of a cell but open, with a barred gate leading to the yard. They had shot him twice in the stomach and disarmed him, which is the point at which we heard JL shouting that they had captured him and were going to kill him. They finally did so after 45 minutes of Polilla begging for his life. A further two shots to the head silenced him for ever.
Within seconds of stepping out of my cell the police were on me, screaming and shouting, forcing me to the ground as they were doing to others. They had also begun to kick and punch people while waving their M16 assault rifles around and brandishing handguns. It was a case of lie down on the floor and cover your head as best you could and wait for the inevitable beating, which they had already started meting out to the people on the ground nearer to the mess that used to be Polilla.
People were crying and begging the police not to torture or kill them. The police were screaming at everybody, asking them who had been in the gunfight and who was responsible for the two corpses. I could hear someone being tortured in a cell by some police officers, who were subjecting the man to a submarino as the locals called it. Drowning in a bucket of water, or whatever was available. I could hear the police telling their colleagues to hold the guy under for longer and to ‘kill this motherfucker’.
The beatings were progressing systematically from the far end of the wing, working down in our direction. The police liked to use of a piece of wood, or the metal Stilsons wrenches used to cut locks or chains. These could inflict serious injury and even kill you if you were caught on the head too hard or at the wrong angle. There were police officers marching up and down keeping everyone under control and telling everybody to look down and not to move unless they wanted a kick in the head.
I was surprised to hear one of Los Choneros get up and start pointing out the members of Los Cubanos who had been responsible for the attack. I suppose, when you think about it reas
onably, they had only defended themselves whereas Los Cubanos had proactively tried to kill them, and Los Choneros wanted to get the hell off the wing. One of their good friends had been slain right in front of me. They couldn’t very well stay on the same wing as the people who had just tried to kill them all. It was now open season; war had officially been declared.
When the police got to Santiago, who had killed Gato, they dragged him screaming and crying into a cell, telling him they were sick of his shit and were going to execute him then and there. We heard a couple of heavy-calibre shots come from the cell and assumed that was it, but we then heard him crying again as they dragged him off for questioning at the fiscal’s office. The police had reached where Dieter and I lay on the floor. We were both searched roughly for weapons or phones and then kicked a few times in the ribs. I also caught a boot in the back of the head. It could have been worse.
After more than an hour face down on the cold floor I was starting to shiver and ache from the beating and from lying prone with my arms up around my head. We could hear the crime scene analysts discussing what had happened and recording evidence. They were collecting up the guns and shell casings they could find, and prising bullets from walls and doors.
They dragged Gato’s body, and then Polilla’s, out of the wing by their legs, right past our heads, along the length of the wing. I will never forget the sound of the bodies slick with blood sliding past, disturbing the debris on the ground as they went. I looked up briefly as Gato’s body was dragged past, the guy who had a couple of hours earlier asked me for a plate of spaghetti. His eyes were at funny angles in his frozen face and his arms dragged along the floor behind him, leaving a trail of dark blood. One of the policemen commented on how big and fat a guy he was, as if they were moving the carcass of a cow.
‘Levantate! levantate! Get up! Get up! Everybody move it.’ After two hours the police were moving us. We didn’t know what was going to happen next or where we were going. They pushed, shoved and herded us towards the exit to the exercise yard and I thought we were being taken right out into the yard, as had happened so many times before during searches. I was wrong on this occasion. I reached the exit, where there was a congealing pool of Polilla’s blood some two centimetres deep, dark red, with the light reflecting off the surface. The police were forcing us all to stand in this tiny space meant to accommodate two people. Everyone already in there was trying to avoid standing in Polilla’s cooling pond of blood but it was starting to get full. At this time, there were some 130 people on the wing and the police wanted us all in this space. I walked into the gore, standing there while my friend’s blood slowly soaked into my trainers and through to my feet. The rest of the people coming in followed suit – they had no choice. They crammed all 130 or so of us into this blood-drenched space. The metallic sweet smell filled everyone’s lungs.
I thought, this is it, we are going to be slaughtered in this small space on this warm Ecuadorian night, that now felt so very cold. The police began shouting at us again. I expected bullets to start ripping through us but instead people started filing out and breaking into a jog while the police stood there with a cat-o’-nine-tails whipping as many of us as they could hit, as we darted out like frightened cattle. We went into the area of the wing that was used as the chapel and kitchen. As I entered this area I could see men’s faces in shock, wild-eyed, looking at me. I actually smiled and laughed in – slightly deranged – relief that the nightmare was over. I felt bad for smiling but I couldn’t help it. But what I hadn’t realised was that it wasn’t over yet.
The head of the guards came into the chapel and told us all to sit down. What had happened had happened, he said, and it was over now and he didn’t want any repeats. So did anyone want to leave the wing who maybe had ‘a problem’ with Los Cubanos? At this point the remaining Choneros stood up and left, about ten of them. He then asked if anyone felt unsafe; if so they could leave as well. I thought about it for a minute as I had been very good friends with Los Choneros and wasn’t sure how Los Cubanos would now view me, but in the end I thought, fuck it, I’m going to stay. I sat tight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THREE BLIND MICE
LOS CHONEROS WERE gone. They had all been moved to the largest wing in the prison, called San Maritano. We were all put in our cells and told to close the doors and stay there. Dieter, my German friend who had sat through the drama with me, returned to his room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. The only people permitted to be outside their cells on the wing were those members of Los Cubanos who remained, the rest having been taken either to the police station for questioning or to hospital with bullet wounds.
The bell rang at around 8am as usual and everyone emerged from their cells somewhat cautiously, half-expecting people to start trading lead for breakfast. The wing was a scene of devastation. Fridge and freezer units still lay where they had been used as cover, and broken wall tiles and smashed plates littered the floor and crunched underfoot as we walked down the wing. There were bullet holes all over the place in the doors and walls.
With the count completed, the gang members called everyone around them. They explained that they had ‘bravely risked their lives fending off Los Choneros who were bad people, hell-bent on killing us all.’ I held my tongue but was seething underneath. They were talking about my friends, who I knew very well were much better people than any of this lot. Now Los Choneros were gone the wing was going to revert to one of extortion and bullying by the gang members. They instructed everyone to go back to their cells and stay in them until told to do otherwise. Whenever this had happened before it usually meant something bad was about to take place and they didn’t want anyone to witness it. I knew there was going to be a backlash from the gang members and that they would use this as an excuse to even scores and target people they didn’t like. I returned to my cell and bolted the door shut from the inside and waited.
It didn’t take long before I heard the first door being banged on and then raised voices, followed very quickly by the noise of someone being hit. The gang members were shouting in Spanish, ‘Get him out of here, off the wing, off the wing.’ Oh God. That didn’t sound good. I sat there waiting for them to reach my cell. I knew I would be seen as a target by Los Cubanos, firstly because of how friendly I was with Los Choneros and secondly because I was a foreigner. A couple of people told me to watch my back as well so I was really on edge. There was a knock on the door but not the hard one I had been anticipating. I hesitated a moment, wondering whether I should just ignore it and pretend to be asleep and hope they left. But then I took a deep breath and shouted, ‘Quien es?’ – who is it?
‘Soy Margarita,’ came the reply.
My heart leapt for joy. I opened the door tentatively and there stood Margarita, as if someone really was looking down on me and had sent this angel to protect and watch over me. I welcomed her into the cell and quickly explained what had happened the previous night in the gunfight. She had seen the aftermath on the news – Gato’s wife and family arriving at the prison to collect his body, absolutely distraught. As we were sitting talking, there was a very loud knock on the door and I could hear voices. Sure enough, there stood the skinny, nasty-looking member of Los Cubanos that we had nicknamed ‘the Worm’. This guy was pure evil – just horrible. I stared him hard in the eye and asked what he wanted, letting him see that Margarita was in the cell. He paused and peered round my shoulder. I told him I was busy with a visit as he could clearly see. He thought twice about pushing his way in, then turned and looked at the rest of the group he had with him, who all reluctantly shook their heads. They walked off towards the next cell they intended to target.
The inmates respected the visitors highly and would generally not harm them, although there had been a couple of instances of people having been caught in crossfire and killed. Margarita was well aware of the politics of the gangs and had pretty much been guaranteed by Caiman and Coyote that she would never be harmed. I was ever so grateful that she h
ad come to see me that day. She is very religious and would say that it was divine intervention, and it certainly felt like it. Thanks Margarita.
The Cubanos men went on their way, going round all the cells where people lived who had anything whatsoever to do with Los Choneros or came from that area on the coast, Manabí. They were kicking them out of the wing, stealing all their possessions and reselling their cells. They were like a pack of wild dogs descending on a half-dead animal. I’m certain that had Margarita not been there that day then I would have lost my cell and all my belongings. They were looking for the smallest excuse to rob people. I was so angry.
Margarita was well used to the bloodbaths that occurred with alarming frequency in the Peni. And the city of Guayaquil as a whole has a very high murder rate, and violence and gunfights are a daily occurrence. But she was still very brave to have come straight in the day after the shoot-out.
After Margarita left I came out of my cell to survey the scene and find out what was going on. I walked around, looking into the cells of my friends who had left or been thrown out of the wing. Everything of value had been stripped; doors stood wide open to now silent cells. I walked past the spot where Gato had been slain and also the exit to the exercise yard where Polilla had come to a bloody end. I recalled the gruesome images of the night before and it made me shudder. I was so lucky to be alive.
Later that day Santiago, aka Monta la Burra, arrived back on the wing, his arm bandaged and in a sling where he had been shot in both the shoulder and the hand. He was now in charge of the wing with the Worm, Pedro the ‘priest’ – who wasn’t real priest but called himself one – and Cholo, his acting deputies or lieutenants, all of whom were thoroughly horrible people. Added to these key figures on the wing were many others helping them out running errands, delivering drugs and guns, providing security for the wing and filling many more roles. Tropico was not in fact dead, but in hospital in intensive care hovering between life and death. All those others injured were walking wounded, having been shot in the arms, legs, fingers and shoulders.
El Infierno Page 16