Bodyguard (30 page)

And yet, since our previous visit, the story had barely been covered. I started up on the email again with Ian and drip feeding the Ten,
whetting
their appetites so they couldn't ignore me. There was no specific reason to return now, such as an election for which this would be a key issue, but Ciudad Juárez was clearly in meltdown. Our motivation to go was that if we didn't, somebody else would have our story. It was time to get back out there. Suddenly, Juárez was back on the agenda.

Money was again an issue: it was hard to justify funding a great story that on paper prompted minimal interest in Britain. The window to make the story was so short and things were so tight in stumping the cash that I had to fly Economy to New York. Not even Craig Summers wanted a news story that bad! Life had been pretty normal this year. I'd done a job on fraudulent call centres in Delhi, been out to check out South Africa for next year's World Cup and was just back from the Afghan elections with John. Oh yeah, I'd bought some armoured cars in Salt Lake City too. Nothing too interesting, then! I did the decent thing. As a Gold Card member, it was time to cash in some air miles and get an upgrade! Why break the habit of a lifetime?

When we landed, we were straight back out there. With body armour in tow and the med-pack on board, we hit the streets 
immediately with the army. Ricardo wasn't with us – his mother-
in-law
was in hospital. We went directly to overt filming. Darkness fell at 6 p.m. – that meant the curtain came up on trouble. As soon as the lights went out, the killings would start. We met our escorts at the police station. My adrenalin was in overdrive. I couldn't get out into Ciudad Juárez quick enough, organising the cops myself and urging them to let me drive! Matthew and Chuck took the front vehicle so if they came across anything they would be first there; Ian and I brought up the rear. Two cops were standing in the back, blues and twos on the vehicle, and their weapons pointing out. I loved it.

‘Do you want to go inside the vehicle?' they intimated for safety.

I couldn't help my reply. ‘No way, José.' I found myself delivering the punchline of the century.

We pegged it out of the station, hurtling down the road with grit flying everywhere. I took stills for the website as we flew through the streets. We pulled up at a checkpoint – Chuck jumped out to see what was happening and take some general shots. All of a sudden, there was a big commotion. The police sergeant was shouting into the walkie-talkie.

‘Back in the vehicles, back in the vehicles,' he screamed.

The lights were flashing and we were off again. It felt like Formula One. I was hanging on in the back, like being on a ride at theme park. It was fun but scary, real life. I tried to lean round the side to see what was going on.

‘Cuerpo … cuerpo!' was all I heard.

‘It's a body, it's a body!' I shouted to Ian.

We screamed round the bend, down a side street and screeched to a halt. There was a car in front of us. The locals were surrounding the black saloon – the driver's door was open and the police had masks on their faces. I shouted to Chuck to get in there and film. I rushed forward with Ian, taking pictures of the scorch marks on the side of his cheek.

‘They are not bullet holes, mate,' I said to Ian. 

‘They are saying that's where he's been shot in the face,' he replied.

To the side of the car, a woman was screaming. It was her husband. We were standing in a crime scene, in a pool of blood with cartridges all around us, but none of the local police were bothered. It was a mess. We were contaminating evidence and they didn't care. I'm sure this was the same night after night.

‘He's only a mechanic … why have they done this to him?' the wife was screaming.

I knew there was more to this. As I took pictures, it was obvious that they weren't the gun shots. Then a copper pulled the victim's jacket aside. There were four large bullet holes just above the heart. They had shot him there just to make sure. They had done it up close with 9mm bullets, and they had rebounded and hit him on the face.

While I was taking pictures and Matthew was trying to get the wife to talk on camera, one of the police came running over to order us into the car. Something serious had come over the radio. We hadn't had this much luck on our last visit. Matthew and Chuck grabbed their stuff and jumped in, as we floored it out of one crime scene to another, with no idea where we were heading. As we approached a roundabout downtown, we saw a white Suzuki Jeep ahead, lights flashing. They were beginning to cordon it off. There was a body on the floor, covered with a jacket.

‘Two people have been killed,' one policeman said. ‘The other is inside the car.'

You could see that there were four bullet holes in the side and one at the rear; all around, cartridges lay on the floor. The gold of the bullet glistened in the night sky. I was stopped from taking pictures despite having taken loads already. Local TV had also turned up, and only those who knew the police officers were allowed to film. As I walked round the vehicle, the police telling me to move back even though I was with them, I spotted a priest coming across the roundabout and thought I had to get this. I was on a job and this was going to be the last rites shot. I kept telling the cops I was 
travelling with them but still they tried to move me. The priest lifted the body off the jacket.

The victim was seven years old. That hit home.

As you would expect, the clergy made the sign of the cross. The priest escorted the grandfather towards the body. As he saw the face of the young boy, he held his face and began screaming. He had already identified his own son in the car – a 28-year-old called Raúl. I knew we had a great story, whatever the human cost.

I needed to know what had happened. All along the passenger side of the brand spanking new white Jeep, it was just covered in blood. As I stood there taking the pictures, I was filled in on the details.

‘The young boy tried to get out after his dad was shot. Because the kid could identify the gunman, he shot the lad. And as he tried to get out and crawl away from the vehicle, he shot him again. About five metres in front of the vehicle, he collapsed. The gunman shot him again,' the eye-witness told me in Spanish.

Chuck filmed the lot.

‘What has he done to deserve this?' the wife bellowed. Another girl screamed his name.

This was a street on which many had been killed before. Fifteen had been slain on this stretch alone. Just for drugs. All the relatives and friends started turning up. It was hysteria. When they spoke, they covered their faces and didn't reveal their names, anxious not to join the ever-growing list of ‘killed by association'. The jeep said money and, round here, that meant drugs. It was obvious to me that the victim had been followed. The previous victim was mowed down by his house – that told you he had been targeted. We hung around as long as we could. We had our story. Unlike our previous visit, we had struck gold within hours of arriving.

Ian and I discussed our plan. It was now half nine at night. We had some cracking stuff; all we needed was a piece to camera from Matthew to add to the one he had done in the back of the truck on the way to the first murder, and we had more than enough for 
the night. We would need to get back over the border to package it. Unless another murder came in sharpish, we would call it a day. Ten minutes later, the blues and twos were on again.

‘This is crazy,' I said to Ian. We were bombing it down to a corner of a road on the side of a hill – all the street lights were out. It looked like we were walking into a trap. There was a gunman on the roof.

‘Put your vests on,' I shouted to Chuck and Matthew. We took refuge in the drainage ditches beside the road. All of a sudden, we were off, running with the cops and chasing them, chasing proper villains. All the police had their pistols drawn. I loved it. The
policeman
motioned to the roof. ‘Over on the roof, over on the roof,' I shouted to Chuck.

Two of the police were scrambling across it. Chuck desperately tried to get up there but couldn't make it. Nor could he see his footing because of the pitch black. Instead he followed the police into the house. This was proper brave camerawork, following them in, clearing each room. There was nothing. No gunman, no bodies.

I was gutted. I was all up for a bit of Miami Vice. What it showed was how bad things now were, and that the army-controlled police had more than their work cut out, racing from one incident to another on a nightly basis. Sometimes they would arrive in time; at others they would be left cleaning up the mess. Equally, there would be nights when the cartels or their hired hit men would flee and live to fight another day. Inevitably, both parties would run into each other again soon.

Driving back through downtown Ciudad Juárez, we were on a high. I pegged it back to the border. We all bantered about what we had seen – life was cheap and if you play these games you get burned. The child was unfortunate and the only one I felt something for but the dad was knee deep in shit. It was a proper cartel assassination. He had thrust this his family's way and deserved his fate. We had got what we'd come for.

The next day we had been invited to meet Ramos in the city prison. He had been a schoolteacher for three or four years, earning no more 
than $500 a month. He also had a second career. Ramos used to drive across the border as a drug mule. For that, he would get $500 per day! What a waste of a life for an educated man, capable of influencing the next generation. He was in the slammer for a decade. He had gone undetected for two years and had no regrets – he was feeding his family on a handsome income. Now, he had a lot of time to think and a lot to be remorseful about. He had been caught with drugs in his spare tyre. In that moment, his heart sank and he knew the game was up.

The prison was massively overcrowded. Ramos was one of four people in his cell. It was like an army barracks in there – the various cartels had their own blocks on each of the three floors. Previously, in March, there had been a massacre in the prison when some twenty people were killed. I wasn't surprised. If the police had lost control of the streets to the gangs, the justice system had also caved in on the inside. The gangs did their own security in their own cell blocks – some of them huge big Mexicans, tattooed all over with a fearsome look in their eyes. Being inside meant nothing to them – their power still reigned – and we were just wandering in among them with no warden accompanying us! I approached one of them to see if they minded if we film. It was no problem at all, though they asked for their faces not to be shown.

I wasn't scared, but I didn't want to hang around. There were some very nasty people in there, and it looked like a place where guards knew best to turn a blind eye. They were all in balaclavas – again, for fear of repercussions on the outside. It had taken 250 police and army to quash the two-hour riot last time. There was no doubt where the balance of power lay here.

That said, I liked Ramos. Predictably, I think he had found God inside. He knew he had fucked up. He was a genuinely nice guy and was now paying the price. Though, as was the way, the drug cartels were still looking after his family. Ramos alluded to this when Matthew asked him how his family were surviving now, given those vast riches before, and that meant one thing. When he came out, the cycle 
would repeat itself. He was a crook with a record; often the only work they could find when they came out was more of the same, plus he was now indebted to the mob for maintaining his status quo while he took one for them. His life was technically over – he was on a retainer. He would either end up shot, or back inside. An intellectual among thugs, he would quickly conclude that the smart thing to do was to avoid splitting ranks and dobbing anyone in.

He told us he had loved being a schoolteacher, but with two kids and his own mum and dad living in the same house, he needed the money. He actively went looking for the work, and in this part of the world, it was easy to find. Everyone knew the score about the unofficial industry of Ciudad Juárez. You were never going to be part of the familia's inner circle but you could be a very well-rewarded nephew or cousin.

He was better educated than me, and in truth society needed him out there. Now he was doing a decade inside because he wanted to feed his family. I didn't feel for him, but I did for the system. Despite his obvious crime, there was nothing dishonest or criminal about him. There was a demand for the drugs business; he was the supplier who didn't ask any questions. He was caught up in it. Ramos knew what he was getting into, he was not an innocent victim, but I found myself having some sympathy where my sentiment over the baby in the tsunami or Stuart's foot had been nothing but a functional
reaction
. I respected what he did for his family. If I'm being objective, there were still 1.5 million people in Ciudad Juárez earning $200 a month who hadn't turned to crime, and this guy was organised by the prison service to talk to us. He wanted to put his story out there so he would look good and society would look favourably on him. It was the age-old problem for us, a bit like like being embedded. If you want access, you will take whoever gets put up for interview. We weren't going to get a cartel member on camera.

Ramos was the most interesting person we met, even though there were both players and pawns in there. It was generally a housing 
estate for the low life, and your manor was your manor. A turf war could kick off again at any point. A cursory glance could cost you your life. He told me as well that he'd never thought he would get caught, and I could well imagine that after the first run, and then a week of scurrying across the border, followed by a month that turned into a year, you would start to feel invincible. Of course, as soon as you had entered the game just once, you were trapped in the system. Whether you were caught or not, you were trapped. And Ramos still had time to do. Lots of it.