News of a Kidnapping (31 page)

He did have paper and pencil ready. He wrote down the address as Maruja gave it to him, but felt that something was not clear and asked to speak to somebody in the family. Borrero’s wife gave him the missing details.

“Thanks very much,” said Villamizar. “It’s not far. I’m leaving now.”

He forgot to hang up: The iron self-control he had maintained during the long months of tension suddenly melted away. He ran down the stairs two at a time and dashed across the lobby, followed by an avalanche of reporters armed to the teeth with their battle gear. Others, moving in the opposite direction, almost trampled him in the doorway.

“Maruja’s free,” he shouted. “Let’s go.”

He got into
the car and slammed the door so hard he startled the dozing driver. “Let’s go pick up the señora,” Villamizar said. He gave him the address: Diagonal 107, No. 27-73. “It’s a white house on the parallel road west of the highway,” he said. But he said it so fast the driver became confused and started off in the wrong direction. Villamizar corrected him with a sharpness that was foreign to his character.

“Watch what you’re doing,” he shouted, “we have to be there in five minutes! If we get lost I’ll cut off your balls!”

The driver, who had suffered the awful dramas of the abduction along with him, did not turn a hair. Villamizar caught his breath and directed him along the shortest, easiest roads, for he had visualized the route as he was given directions on the phone to be certain he would not
get lost. It was the worst time for traffic, but not the worst day.

Andrés had pulled out behind his father, along with his cousin Gabriel, following the caravan of reporters who cut a path through traffic with fake ambulance sirens. Even though he was an expert driver, he became stuck in traffic, and could not move. Villamizar, on the other hand, arrived in the record time of fifteen minutes.
He did not have to look for the house because some of the reporters who had been in his apartment were already arguing with the owner to let them in. Villamizar made his way through the noisy crowd. He did not have time to greet anyone, because the owner’s wife recognized him and pointed to the stairs.

“This way,” she said.

Maruja was in the main bedroom, where they had taken her to
freshen
up while she waited for her husband. When she went in she had come face-to-face with a grotesque stranger: her reflection in the mirror. She looked bloated and flabby from nephritis, her eyelids swollen, her skin pasty and dry after six months of darkness.

Villamizar raced up the stairs, opened the first door he came to, and found himself in the children’s room filled with dolls and bicycles.
Then he opened the door facing him, and saw Maruja sitting on the bed in the checked jacket she had worn when she left the house on the day of her abduction, and freshly made up for him. “He came in like thunder,” Maruja has said. She threw her arms around his neck, and their embrace was intense, long, and silent. The clamor of the reporters, who had overcome the owner’s resistance and stormed into
the house, broke the spell. Maruja gave a start. Villamizar smiled in amusement.

“Your colleagues,” he said.

Maruja felt consternation. “I spent six months without looking in a mirror,” she said. She smiled at her reflection, and it was not her. She stood erect, fluffed the hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, did what she could to make the woman in the mirror resemble the image of herself
she had six months earlier. She failed.

“I look awful,” she said, and showed her husband her swollen, misshapen fingers. “I didn’t realize because they took my ring.”

“You look perfect,” Villamizar said.

He put his arm around her shoulder and walked her to the living room.

The reporters attacked with cameras, lights, and microphones. Maruja was dazzled. “Take it easy, guys,” she said. “It’ll
be easier to talk in the apartment.” Those were her first words.

The seven o’clock news said nothing, but President Gaviria learned minutes later when he checked the radio that Maruja Pachón had been freed. He drove to her house with Mauricio
Vargas, but earlier they had left an official announcement of the release of Francisco Santos, which they expected at any moment. Mauricio Vargas had read
it into the journalists’ tape recorders on the condition they not broadcast it until they received official notification.

At this time Maruja was on her way home. A short while before she arrived, a rumor began to circulate that Pacho Santos had been freed, and the reporters unleashed the dog of the official announcement, which rushed out, barking with jubilation, over every station.

The president
and Mauricio Vargas heard it in the car and celebrated the idea of having prerecorded it. But five minutes later the report was retracted.

“Mauricio,” exclaimed Gaviria, “what a disaster!”

All they could do, however, was hope that events would occur as announced. In the meantime, since the overflowing crowd made it impossible for them to stay in Villamizar’s apartment, they went up one floor
to the apartment of Aseneth Velásquez to wait for Pacho’s true release after his three false ones.

Pacho Santos had heard the announcement of Maruja’s release, the premature announcement of his own, and the government’s blunder. At that moment the man who had spoken to him in the morning came into his room, and led him by the arm, without a blindfold, down to the first floor. He saw that the
house was empty, and one of his guards, convulsing with laughter, informed him they had moved out the furniture in a truck to avoid paying the last month’s rent. They all said goodbye with huge hugs, and thanked Pacho for everything he had taught them. Pacho’s reply was sincere:

“I learned a lot from you too.”

In the garage they gave him a book to hold up to his face, as if he were reading,
and intoned the warnings. If they ran into the
police he had to jump out of the car so they could get away. And most important of all: He must not say he had been in Bogotá, but somewhere three hours away along a terrible highway. They had a gruesome reason: His captors knew Pacho was astute enough to have formed an idea of where the house was located, and he could not reveal it because the guards
had lived openly in the neighborhood, taking no precautions at all, during the long days of his captivity.

“If you tell,” the man in charge of his release concluded, “we’ll have to kill all the neighbors to keep them from identifying us later on.”

Across from the police kiosk at the intersection of Avenida Boyacá and Calle 80, the car stalled. They tried to start it again two, three, four times,
but it did not turn over until the fifth attempt. They were all in a cold sweat. They drove two more blocks, took away the book, and let Pacho out on the corner with three 2,000-peso bills for the taxi. He took the first one that passed, and its young, amiable driver refused to charge him, and with blasts of the horn and joyful shouts cut a path through the mob waiting outside Pacho’s house.
The yellow journalists were disappointed: They had been expecting an emaciated, defeated man after 244 days of captivity, and instead they saw a Pancho Santos rejuvenated in spirit and body, and fatter, more reckless, more in love with life than ever. “They returned him exactly the same,” declared his cousin Enrique Santos Calderón. Another cousin, infected by the family’s jubilant mood, said: “He
needed another six months.”

By now Maruja was in her house. She had come home with Alberto, pursued by the mobile units that drove alongside them, preceded them, transmitting directly through all the snarled traffic. The drivers who were following the news on the radio recognized
them as they passed and leaned on their horns in greeting, until the ovation spread all along the route.

Andrés Villamizar
had tried to go back home when he lost sight of his father, but his driving was so merciless that the engine shook loose and a rod broke. He left his automobile in the care of the police at the nearest kiosk, and stopped the first car that passed: a dark-gray BMW driven by a sympathetic executive who had been listening to the news. Andrés told him who he was and why he needed help, and asked
him to get as close to his house as he could.

“Get in,” said the man, “but I warn you, if you’re lying I’ll make things hard for you.”

At the corner of Carrera Séptima and Calle 80, he happened to see a friend driving an old Renault. Andrés continued on with her, but the car ran out of steam on the Circunvalar hill. Andrés squeezed into the last white Jeep from the National Radio Network (RCN).

The hill leading to the house was blocked by cars and a crowd of neighbors who had poured into the street. Maruja and Villamizar decided to leave the car and walk the last hundred meters, and without noticing it they got out at the same spot where she had been abducted. The first face Maruja recognized in the excited crowd was María del Rosario Ortiz, the originator and director of “Colombia Wants
Them Back,” which for the first time since its creation did not broadcast that night for lack of a subject. Then she saw Andrés, who had jumped out of the Jeep and was trying to get to his house just as a tall, determined police officer ordered the street closed. Andrés, in a moment of pure inspiration, looked him in the eye and said in a firm voice:

“I’m Andrés.”

The officer knew nothing about
him but let him pass. Maruja recognized him while he was running toward her and they embraced to the sound of applause. Patrol cars had to open a path for
them. Maruja, Alberto, and Andrés began to climb the hill with full hearts, and were overcome by emotion. For the first time they burst into the tears that all three had wanted to hold back. And who could blame them: As far as the eye could
see, a second crowd of good neighbors had hung flags from the windows of the tallest buildings and, with a springtime of white handkerchiefs and an immense ovation, saluted the jubilant adventure of her return home.

At nine the next morning, as planned, Villamizar landed in Medellín with less than an hour’s sleep. The night had been a boisterous celebration of resurrection. At four in the morning, when they were finally alone in the apartment, Maruja and he were so elated by the day’s events that they stayed in the living room until dawn exchanging belated news. At the La Loma hacienda he was
welcomed with the usual banquet, but this time baptized with the champagne of liberation. It was a brief respite, however, because now the one in a hurry was Pablo Escobar, hiding somewhere in the world without the protection of the hostages. His new emissary was very tall and loquacious, a pure blond with a long golden mustache who was called the Monkey and had full authority to negotiate the surrender.

By order of President César Gaviria, the entire legal debate with Escobar’s lawyers had been carried out through Dr. Carlos Eduardo Mejía, who reported to the justice minister. For the physical surrender, Mejía would represent Rafael Pardo for the government’s side, and the other side would be represented by Jorge Luis Ochoa, the Monkey, and Escobar himself from the shadows.
Villamizar continued
to be an active intermediary with the government, and Father García Herreros, who was a moral guarantor for Escobar, would remain available in the event of a major crisis.

Escobar’s haste in having Villamizar come to Medellín the day after Maruja’s release gave the impression that his surrender would be immediate, but it was soon evident that for him there were still a few diversionary tactics
remaining. Everyone’s greatest concern, Villamizar more than anyone, was that nothing happen to Escobar before he turned himself in. They had reason to worry: Villamizar knew that Escobar, or his survivors, would take it out of his hide if they even suspected him of not keeping his word. Escobar himself broke the ice when he telephoned him at La Loma and said without any preamble:

“Dr. Villa,
are you happy?”

Villamizar had never seen or heard him, and he was struck by the absolute serenity of the voice that had no trace of his mythical aura. “I thank you for coming,” Escobar continued without waiting for a reply, his earthly state revealed by his harsh shantytown diction. “You’re a man of your word and I knew you wouldn’t fail me.” And then he came to the point:

“Let’s start to arrange
how I’ll turn myself in.”

In reality, Escobar already knew how he
was
going to turn himself in, but perhaps he wanted to review it again with a man in whom he had placed all his confidence. His lawyers and the director of Criminal Investigation, at times face-to-face and at times through the regional director, and always in coordination with the justice minister, had discussed every last detail
of the surrender. When the legal questions stemming from each of their distinct interpretations of the presidential decrees had been clarified, the issues had been reduced to three: the prison, the staffing of the prison, and the role of the police and the army.

The prison—in the former Rehabilitation Center for Drug Addicts in Envigado—was almost finished. Villamizar and the Monkey visited it
at Escobar’s request on the day following the release
of Maruja and Pacho Santos. Piles of rubble in the corners and the devastating effects of that year’s heavy rains gave it a somewhat depressing appearance. The technical problems of security had been resolved. There was a double fence, 2.8 meters high, with fifteen rows of five-thousand-volt electrified barbed wire and seven watch towers, in
addition to the two that guarded the entrance. These two installations would be further reinforced, as much to keep Escobar from escaping as to prevent anyone from killing him.

The only point that Villamizar found to criticize was an Italian-tiled bathroom in the room intended for Escobar, and he recommended changing it—and it was changed—to more sober decoration. The conclusion of his report
was even more sober: “It seemed to me a very prisonlike prison.” In fact, the folkloric splendor that would eventually shock the nation and compromise the government’s prestige came later, from the inside, with an inconceivable program of bribery and intimidation.

Escobar asked Villamizar for a clean telephone number in Bogotá on which they could discuss the details of his physical surrender,
and Villamizar gave him the number of his upstairs neighbor, Aseneth Velásquez. He thought no phone could be safer than hers, called at all hours of the day and night by writers and artists lunatic enough to unhinge the strongest-minded. The formula was simple and innocuous: An anonymous voice would call Villamizar’s house and say, “In fifteen minutes, Doctor.” Villamizar would go upstairs to Aseneth’s
apartment and Pablo Escobar himself would call a quarter of an hour later. On one occasion he was delayed in the elevator and Aseneth answered the phone. A raw Medellínese voice asked for Dr. Villamizar.

“He doesn’t live here,” said Aseneth.

“Don’t worry about that,” said the voice with amusement. “He’s on his way up.”

The person speaking was Pablo Escobar, live and direct, but Aseneth will
know that only if she happens to read this book, for
on that day Villamizar tried to tell her out of basic loyalty, and she—who is no fool—covered her ears.

“I don’t want to know anything about anything,” she said. “Do whatever you want in my house but don’t tell me about it.”

By this time Villamizar was traveling to Medellín several times a week. From the Hotel Intercontinental he would call
María Lía, and she would send a car to take him to La Loma. On one of his early trips Maruja had gone with him to thank the Ochoas for their help. At lunch the question of her emerald and diamond ring came up, for it had not been returned to her on the night she was released. Villamizar had also mentioned it to the Ochoas, and they had sent a message to Escobar, but he did not reply. The Monkey,
who was present, suggested giving her a new one, but Villamizar explained that Maruja wanted the ring for sentimental reasons, not for its monetary value. The Monkey promised to take the problem to Escobar.

Escobar’s first call to Aseneth’s house had to do with a “God’s Minute” on which Father García Herreros accused him of being an unrepentant pornographer, and warned him to return to God’s
path. No one could understand his about-face. Escobar thought that if the priest had turned against him it must have been for a very significant reason, and he made his surrender conditional on an immediate public explanation. The worst thing for him was that his men had agreed to turn themselves in because of the faith they had in the father’s word. Villamizar brought him to La Loma, and there the
father made all kinds of explanations to Escobar by telephone. According to these, when the program was recorded an editing error made him say what in fact he had never said. Escobar taped the conversation, played it for his troops, and averted a crisis.

But there was still more. The government insisted on combined army and national guard patrols for the exterior of the prison, on cutting down
the adjoining woods to make a firing range, and on its right to have the guards selected from a list compiled
by a tripartite commission representing the central government, the municipality of Envigado, and the Prosecutor General’s Office, since the prison was both municipal and national. Escobar opposed having guards close by because his enemies could murder him in the prison. He opposed combined
patrols because—his lawyers claimed—no military forces were permitted inside a jail, according to the Law on Prisons. He opposed cutting down the nearby forest because it would permit helicopter landings and because he assumed a firing range was an area where prisoners would be the targets, until he was convinced that in military terms, a firing range is nothing more than a field with good visibility.
And that, in fact, was the great advantage of the Rehabilitation Center—for the government and for the prisoners—because from anywhere in the building one had a clear view of the valley and the mountains, allowing more than enough time to respond to an attack. Then, at the last minute, the national director of Criminal Investigation wanted to build a fortified wall around the prison in
addition to the barbed-wire fence. Escobar was furious.

On Thursday, May 30,
El Espectador
published a report—attributed to very reliable official sources—on the terms for surrender allegedly set by Escobar at a meeting between his lawyers and government spokesmen. The most sensational of these—according to the article—was the exile of General Maza Márquez and the dismissals of General Miguel
Gómez Padilla, commander of the National Police, and General Octavio Vargas Silva, commander of the Police Office of Judicial Investigation (DIJIN).

President Gaviria met with General Maza Márquez in his office to clarify the origin of the report, which persons connected to the government had attributed to him. The interview lasted for half an hour, and knowing both men, it is impossible to imagine
which of the two was more impassive. The general, in his soft, slow baritone, gave a detailed account of his inquiries into the
case. The president listened in absolute silence. Twenty minutes later they said goodbye. The next day, the general sent the president an official six-page letter that repeated in minute detail what he had said, and documented their conversation.

According to his investigations—the
letter said—the source of the report was Martha Nieves Ochoa, who had given it days before as an exclusive to the legal reporters at
El Tiempo
—the only ones who had it—and they could not understand how it had been published first in
El Espectador
. The general stated that he was a fervent supporter of Pablo Escobar’s surrender. He reiterated his loyalty to his principles, obligations, and duties,
and concluded: “For reasons known to you, Mr. President, many persons and entities are intent upon destabilizing my career, perhaps with the aim of placing me in a situation of risk that will allow them to carry out their plans against me.”

Martha Nieves Ochoa denied being the source of the article, and did not speak of the matter again. Three months later, however—when Escobar was already in
prison—Fabio Villegas, the secretary general to the president, asked General Maza to his office on behalf of the president, invited him into the Blue Room and, walking from one end to the other as if he were out for a Sunday stroll, communicated the president’s decision to have him retire. Maza left convinced that this was evidence of an agreement with Escobar that the government had denied. In his
words, “I was negotiated.”

In any case, before this occurred, Escobar had let Maza know that the war between them had ended, that he had forgotten everything and was serious about his surrender: He was stopping the attacks, disbanding his men, and turning in his dynamite. As proof he sent him a list of hiding places for seven hundred kilos of explosives. Later, from prison, he would continue
to disclose to the brigade in Medellín a series of caches totaling two tons. But Maza never trusted him.

Impatient over the delay in his surrender, the government appointed
a man from Boyacá—Luis Jorge Pataquiva Silva—as director of the prison instead of an Antioquian, as well as twenty national guards from various departments, none from Antioquia. “In any event,” said Villamizar, “if they want
to bribe someone it makes no difference if he’s from Antioquia or somewhere else.” Escobar, weary of all the twisting and turning, barely discussed it. In the end it was agreed that the army and not the police would guard the entrance, and that exceptional measures would be taken to ease Escobar’s fear that his food in prison might be poisoned.

The National Board of Prisons, on the other hand,
adopted the same regulations regarding visits that applied to the Ochoa brothers in the maximum security block of Itagüí prison. The time for waking up was seven in the morning; the time for being confined and placed under lock and key in one’s cell was eight in the evening. Escobar and his prison mates could have women visitors every Sunday, from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon;
men could visit on Saturdays, and minors on the first and third Sunday of every month.

In the middle of the night on June 9, troops from the battalion of military police in Medellín relieved the cavalry unit that was guarding the sector, began to assemble an impressive security array, cleared the surrounding mountains of people who did not live in the area, and assumed total control of earth
and heaven. There were no more excuses. Villamizar let Escobar know—with utmost sincerity—that he was grateful to him for Maruja’s release, but was not prepared to take any more risks just so he could keep putting off his surrender. And he sent him a serious message: “From now on I’m not responsible.” Escobar made his decision in two days, with one final condition: that the prosecutor general also
be present at the surrender.

An unexpected problem could have caused a new delay: Escobar did not have an official identification document that would prove he was in fact the man giving himself up. One of his lawyers raised the issue with the government and requested official citizenship
papers for him, not taking into account that Escobar, hunted by every armed force in the country, would have
to go in person to the appropriate office of the Civil Registry. The emergency solution was that he would identify himself with his fingerprints and an old identification card he had once used and had notarized, declaring at the same time that he could not produce the card because it had been lost.

The monkey woke Villamizar when he phoned at midnight on June 18 to tell him to go upstairs to
take an urgent call. It was very late, but Aseneth’s apartment resembled a happy inferno, with the accordion of Egidio Cuadrado and his
vallenatos
combo. Villamizar had to elbow his way through a frenetic jungle of elite cultural gossip. Aseneth, in typical fashion, blocked his path.

“I know now who’s calling you,” she said. “Be careful, because one false step and they’ll have your balls.”

She let him into her bedroom just as the phone rang. In the uproar that filled the house, Villamizar could barely make out what was most essential: