We were filthy, covered with mud and sweating, our clothes torn. The people who saw us thought we were ordinary street people. No photographs of Pablo had been seen by the public in more than a year and he had gotten heavier, so no one recognized him. The rest of us were not known. Pablo decided to go to the farm of Memo Pérez, an old friend who had worked for him in many different important positions.
Memo’s groundskeeper answered the door. After a second of shock he recognized us and quickly had us come in. It was the first time we could relax since the government came to the Cathedral. We were wet and exhausted. But within the hour there was a heavy banging on the door. We grabbed our weapons and got ready for the fight as the butler, Raúl, opened the door. It was some neighbors who had seen us move in, coming with hot food for our breakfast. It was an amazing gesture. Several of these people formed a neighborhood watch for us, standing on the nearby streets to warn us if the army arrived. Someone else took our filthy clothes and washed them as we cleaned ourselves and shaved. By the time we put on our fresh clothes we felt refreshed and ready for whatever happened next.
We learned from the radio what had happened on the top of the mountain. At about 7
A.M.
Gavíria had ordered General Gustavo Pardo Ariza, commander of the Fourth Brigade, to attack. The radio said that as they burst through the main door they screamed that everyone should get on the ground, but when the commander of the prison guards tried to fight back he was shot and killed. Months later we would learn the truth that he had turned to open the door and was shot. The army then stormed through the prison, shooting and setting off explosives looking for us. They discovered the hostages safe in Pablo’s bedroom, but still they continued shooting and tearing up the place. They captured the five of us who had stayed behind, and arrested twenty-seven guards on suspicion of cooperating with us. The radio reported that the purpose of the raid was to move Pablo out of the Cathedral to a more secure prison.
While this was going on we were enjoying fresh coffee. We could hear the helicopters circling above the city. We knew we couldn’t move again until dark. We felt no joy or excitement about our escape. We believed we were forced to flee, that the government had broken its agreement and there was no way of knowing what would be done to us. There was nothing else we could do if we wanted to live.
I called my son Nicholas from the radiophone. I gave him number hints so he would know which frequency to switch to so we could talk safely. When we had contact I told him to call the national network Radio Caracol and tell them Pablo and I were hiding in a secret tunnel beneath the prison and that we were well armed and had enough food to hold out for a month. Nicholas also told the reporter Dario Arizmendi that Pablo was willing to surrender if we were guaranteed that we would be returned safely to the Cathedral and the original terms of surrender respected.
Inside the prison the government forces heard this interview and began searching for this secret tunnel. They started digging with heavy construction equipment and using explosives in the fields to find it. Pablo stood at windows of the farm looking at the mountain. “The only thing they’re going to find is the money in the barrels,” he said, meaning the $10 million we’d buried. Pablo wasn’t concerned about that, his thoughts were about what our next steps should be. He wanted to surrender again, but only with the same guarantees as before.
We waited throughout the day, listening as the reports on the radio became more frantic. Someone told the radio station that Pablo had ordered the killing of the attorney general, defense minister, and other officials if the government continued to pursue us. Other people phoned in bomb threats supposedly from us. It was ridiculous. In the afternoon I called the station and told them that Pablo had made no threats to anyone, that all we wanted was to return to the former situation—with protection. It didn’t matter; the whole city was in a panic. Schools in Bogotá held bomb evacuation drills, people went to the stores to buy groceries afraid that stores would be forced to close. At night the president went on TV and told people to be calm, promising if we surrendered he would protect our lives and defending his policy of giving leniency to drug traffickers who gave up. But he did not promise to restore the situation.
In the United States newspapers wrote that we had shot our way out of prison and that we had escaped in a rain of gunfire. Some senators threatened to send troops to Colombia to kidnap Pablo and bring him to the United States for trial.
During the day we made plans to move again. I called an employee we trusted and told him in coded language to find the friend I would jog with before our surrender and tell him to get three cars and at midnight meet us at the iron door at the entrance to the farm. He knew the place, the gate of a farm where my friend and I would end our daily runs. After dark we left and walked through the woods, staying off the roads. We stopped briefly at another farm owned by one of our friends, and from there called our families to confirm that the cars were going to meet us, and then told them not to worry and not to believe the radio reports. After eating, we kept going. As we walked we could hear the explosives going off at the Cathedral as the search for the tunnels continued. Each step had danger.
When we passed one farm five German shepherds came bursting out after us. El Mugre was bitten on the leg and started bleeding. We fought them off but we couldn’t shoot at them because the noise would bring attention. Fortunately Pablo had candy in his pocket and tossed it to the dogs, who went for it and calmed down. Pablo stayed with the dogs until the rest of us had moved away, and then joined us. We got to the meeting point about 1:30 and the cars were waiting for us.
At 3:30 in the morning we arrived at a farm owned by a friend. First thing, Pablo cut the phone lines. Instead we used a clean cell phone to call our families—although now we didn’t call our mother because clearly the government would be listening for that. Instead Pablo and I agreed that I should go see her.
My face was still not easily recognized by the government. One of our drivers took me there before dawn. “It’s me, Mom,” I said to her. “I came to tell you that we are all right.” She came out of her room and we embraced. I held her tightly and for that one moment I could almost forget our situation. The important thing was to tell her that the tunnel story was not true, that we had just made it up to occupy the army while we escaped. I could only stay a short time. She insisted that I wait while she prepared food for us, just like the way she would make lunch for her boys Roberto and Pablo when we rode our bicycles to school. It was my mother, I had to wait. I kept nervously watching through the window, afraid the police would show up at any second. In the life of the city another day was starting. She packed a meal of chicken and rice in pots and gave them to me. She also gave me a note for Pablo and urged me to continue praying. Then she kissed me twice, “One for you and one for Pablo.”
By the time I got back to the farm some of the others had left us. Pablo had decided we should move separately to be harder to find. We rested there a few days, believing we were safe. We kept track of the TV and radio coverage and listened to the many untrue rumors. Supposedly we were being seen everywhere. After a few days Pablo made a tape for the radio, again offering to surrender if our safety was guaranteed and we were allowed to return to the Cathedral, giving his word he would not start a new campaign of violence. Then he closed with: “From the jungles of Colombia.” Of course we were not there, but the government believed that and sent troops and helicopters.
The search for us was intense. The army rushed troops into the region. The president was on the TV almost every day trying to explain what had happened. Everyone seemed afraid that the violent days were going to start again. But while all this was happening we were watching it on TV. Mostly those first few days we stayed quiet, just waiting for the situation to calm down so we could move again. Our lawyers continued to try to make a new arrangement. But this time the government did not want Pablo to be in prison. This time government officials wanted to kill him.
Nine
I
HAVE OWNED HORSES FOR MANY YEARS.
For a time the man who took care of my horses was called Doll. He was called that because he had a very attractive face and long hair. Doll was a very nice person, but like so many others he wanted to make more money, he wanted to be in our business. I told him, “Don’t get involved. You know what you’re doing with the horses. Do that.”
No, he insisted, I need to make more money. No. We had that discussion many times and he would get angry when I refused him. Finally one afternoon I had to go into the jungle with Pablo. But before I left I bought Doll a motorcycle.
After twenty days Doll showed up at the farm where we were hiding, riding his motorcycle. Once again he asked to make more money. He wanted to be my bodyguard and do everything for me. Finally I said okay. “If you want to stay, stay here.” The next day about five thousand soldiers surrounded our farm. Helicopters were flying overhead, it was chaos. We had to run to get away. We spent twelve days in the jungle sleeping on hammocks while every day the army flew by dropping bombs everywhere. When we were safe in the jungle I asked him again, “You still want to be in the business?”
“No,” he said.
Doll returned to the horses, and I took care of him like my own son. We had learned how hard it was to be on the run. It’s not life. Pablo knew that and wanted it to end; he wanted to negotiate a second surrender. The U.S. had offered several million dollars as a reward for the capture of Pablo and myself. As time passed he accepted that we could not return to the Cathedral and told the government he was prepared for “the most humble and modest jail” in Antioquia, as long as he was given firm guarantees he would not be extradited or moved again. He telephoned a reporter and told him he would even accept going to a military base, anywhere but a police station. This was a discussion he and I never had, but I think he knew it was his only chance to enjoy a real life with his family again. For us, the safest place was in jail. But Gavíria did not want Pablo in chains again.
This time the world was chasing us. Probably never had so many different organizations been trying to kill one criminal. Some people call it the biggest manhunt in history. And while they were after that one man, many others died. We found out later that Gavíria had told the U.S. government that there no longer were any restrictions; he invited them to be an army in Colombia. The U.S. Army sent people from the elite group Delta Force to work with our army and police, the American covert operations group Centra Spike and the Search Bloc, while agents from the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency inspected the Cathedral to find clues. On the other side of the law was Cali; some of the Galeano and Moncada people went to them to offer some help. They knew all the places that Pablo favored and all the people who worked with him. And they were pleased to give that information to Cali. Also there was a new group supported by Cali, the people that became our worst enemy, Los Pepes.
Los Pepes, meaning the people persecuted by Pablo Escobar, was headed by the Castaño brothers, Carlos, Fidel, and Vicente, in addition to Diego Murillo Bejarano, known as Don Berna, a trafficker himself. Many of these people were former associates of Pablo’s, people that he had defended from extradition. What happened was that when their father got kidnapped by the guerrillas they got so tired of all the kidnappings for ransom that they formed an army to fight back, just as Pablo had done so many years earlier. They made their own force, five thousand people, ten thousand people, all over Colombia. Carlos Castaño believed that Pablo had a plan to kill him because he thought this army was trying to take over the jungle laboratories. Carlos responded by joining the armies searching for Pablo.
Most of these organized groups started sharing their information. Also coming to Colombia to hunt Pablo were individual bounty hunters from all parts of the world, from the United States and Israel and England and supposedly Russia, hoping to become rich by collecting the reward money, which was many millions of dollars.
All of these people against Pablo, with all this technology and information, with all the money they could need—but they couldn’t catch him. Or me.
While they thought we went into the jungle, Pablo decided we should go to the place safest for us, the center of Medellín. Our city. I was staying in an apartment on the fourteenth floor I had bought quietly a few years before. The apartment was comfortable with a good location. With me was one bodyguard and living in the apartment was a woman and her five-year-old son. I traveled under the name Alberto Ramírez. After four days there I needed to go outside. I put on my disguise, a wig and beard and glasses, and dressed in a black suit, so mostly I looked like a rabbi. On my feet I had special shoes I had made, a black coating over sneakers, so they matched my suit but if I needed to run I could. My bodyguard was also in full disguise. I was with the woman of the apartment and her boy, who provided even more cover for us.
The elevator doors opened on the fourteenth floor and looking back at me was a man I had known well—he also was a person the government wanted badly. In my disguise he seemed not to know me. We greeted each other politely as strangers. I got off, he got on. The doors closed.
That afternoon I walked through the city feeling total joy. The people, the noise, the free life, it had been more than a year since I’d felt any of it. Even in disguise, even as a fugitive, for a time I could feel free. I knew that no one would suspect that one of the men most wanted in the world was walking easily through the city, eating an ice cream cone.
We couldn’t go back to the apartment. I was much more wanted than the fugitive I had seen. I was concerned that he had recognized me and would give me up to make a good deal with the government. We couldn’t go to any family homes because they would be watched. So instead the bodyguard and I went to a flophouse, an any name check-in hotel to hide with the woman and her son. This boy was really rambunctious and one day he was playing around and he hurt his head and his mother had to bring him to the hospital. In the next few days my friends bought and rented five apartments in different parts of the city so we might move easily if necessary. I found out later Pablo had done the same thing. He was always with Otto and Popeye.
My decision was to write an anonymous letter to this fugitive warning him that the police knew where he was living and were ready to pounce. I wanted to worry him into leaving right away. Then we went with the lady of the apartment and her son into the beautiful mountains and camped next to a stream. Unless you have lived in prison it’s not possible to know the feelings of those few days. There are few places lovelier than the mountains of Colombia. It was a place to rest.
The fugitive had left the building fast when he got the letter, so it was safe to return. But truthfully, I felt more comfortable moving around every few days. We had good people living in all the apartments so they were always prepared for us to stay there. Eventually I met with Pablo. He had allowed his beard to grow, shaved off the mustache he’d had in prison, and wore glasses and a wig. Together all of us went to a private home where the owners were expecting us. While all around the country men waited for Pablo’s orders, only the five of us knew what was really going on. Our plan was to stay away until a new compromise could be found, and then surrender again.
Pablo gave us the rules we would live by. Each trip outside from the house had to have an exact time. If that person did not return in that time, in difficult situations we would wait an additional ten minutes, then we would leave. Pablo worried that one of us would be captured and tortured to give up our hideout. At the end of each trip it was necessary to circle the house three times before coming inside, while the people inside watched for the police.
Pablo knew that it was no longer safe to contact our families by phone. Instead he would write long letters to his family, demanding that they burn these letters after they had read them. He created a special system of delivery. He would hire three or four young boys on bicycles to make a chain, but insisting they always ride against traffic. That way no car could follow them. The letter would be delivered to his employee, either Alvaro or Limón. He also made many recordings for his children, giving them advice, telling stories, singing and reminding them of his deep love for them. One story I remember he told for Manuela was about a special horse he rode to escape from one of the farms.
It was dangerous for us to go outside, but sometimes it was too tempting to resist. One night as we walked by the governor’s office Pablo wanted to show us a demonstration. Borrowing a cigarette from Otto he approached the uniformed guard and requested a light. The guard politely lit the cigarette. Pablo thanked him and asked him for the time. Again the guard responded nicely as we walked on. “See what I’m telling you,” Pablo said to us. “They will only find us if we are betrayed or careless.” He told us stories of smart guys who had died only because someone had given them up. If we walk with confidence, he continued with confidence, no one will ever suspect our true identities. No one.
When we were outside we moved about the city in a fleet of taxis owned by Pablo. Each of these taxis was equipped with a big antenna that made it possible to make mobile phone calls. Most of the calls Pablo made were from these moving cars, which would make it impossible for anyone to find the place from where the call was made.
After spending three weeks together Pablo believed it had become too dangerous, so we went our separate ways. We would get together late at night about every three days, spending the time playing cards, talking, and barbecuing in the backyard. It was during this period that Pablo had the closest escape of his many close encounters. He told me that his bodyguard Godoy would take a plain car every few days to meet the boys carrying the mail. This meeting was always at seven o’clock when the streets were most crowded. That day Godoy returned to the house in the car as usual. When Pablo heard the horn signal he ran downstairs and swung open the twin doors of the garage. Godoy drove in quick—and two men on a motorcycle came racing in behind him before Pablo could close the doors. One of these young men—almost kids—pulled a gun and pointed it directly at Godoy’s head and screamed, “Get out of the car, motherfucker.”
Pablo was frozen. He couldn’t know if these men recognized him or if this was just an ordinary Medellín crime. “Give them the car,” he told Godoy. “Don’t worry about the package. Just get out.”
The young man turned the gun on him. “Don’t move, motherfucker,” he said. “I got a bullet for you too.” These two street robbers had done what the police and soldiers of Colombia and the United States could not do, what the Cali cartel and the paramilitaries and the bounty hunters and Los Pepes could not do—they had put a gun two feet away from Pablo Escobar.
But they didn’t know it.
They stole the car and the letters and drove away. Pablo left that house right away and never returned or paid attention to it. He went into the forest with his family for a few days of complete safety. He knew he could last forever in those woods, but for him that wasn’t living.
More dangerous than any of the enemies we had fought before was Los Pepes. Their members had been part of us, so they knew much more information than anyone else. It has never been proved, but it has been strongly suggested that Los Pepes was really working with the government. According to the Colombian
Caracol News
, published December 22, 2007, ex-paramilitary Salvatore Mancuso, before he was extradited to the U.S., had officially accused former Colombian president Cesár Gavíria of joining forces with them to assassinate Pablo Escobar, and kill all our organization’s members.
One reason to believe that is true is that the government never tried to stop anything they did. Even more, because the vigilante killers of Los Pepes moved in secret it is pretty much known that after the sun went down members of the other government organizations put on their masks and became part of Los Pepes. In fact, information between all the forces, the government as well as the death squads, flowed easily. When only the government knew the secret place where members of our family were staying, for example, that place was attacked by Los Pepes. A clear example was that only the former attorney general, Dr. Gustavo de Greiff, had known where Pablo’s wife and two children were secretly secluded, and protected. Nonetheless somehow the killers from Los Pepes found out that location and his family was attacked with a grenade launcher fired from the ground to the fourth floor. Fortunately nobody was injured. Pablo was devastated by that news, which ended any possibility that he might safely turn himself in.
Pablo fought back. The fear of the people had been realized. The violence that rocked the country had started again. And also the kidnappings of important people. It had all gotten completely out of control again. The country had become one battlefield. Colombia was under siege. People were afraid to go out of their homes even to the shops or the movies. All in search of one man. There was nothing that the government would do to stop it.
Los Pepes couldn’t catch Pablo, nor could they find me, so instead they began killing anyone who was part of our organization. They didn’t go just after the sicarios; instead they went after people working for Pablo who couldn’t defend themselves. They killed many of my accountants. Pablo’s main lawyer who was negotiating with the government, Guido Parra, who had also worked with the government, and his fifteen-year-old son were assassinated by Los Pepes and a note was left around their necks for Pablo: “What do you think of this exchange for your bombs now, Pablo?” Los Pepes killed lawyers who had worked for Pablo, preventing them from trying to work a compromise with the government. They killed the sicarios. They killed people who did business, people who had worked at Napoles, anyone who had an association with Pablo or with me. My closest friends were Guayabita, El Negro, Chocolo, my trainer from my bicycle life Ricardo, and my friend since I was fifteen years old, Halaix Buitrago. None of these had connections to the drug business. They were friends who would visit me at the Cathedral to play cards, kick a ball, and help me fill the days. Los Pepes kept track of them. After our escape Halaix went to live safely in Europe. This was not the same El Negro who worked for Pablo, and he and his wife, Marbel, moved to Argentina with members of their family and my own for safety. But Ricardo and Guayabita were kidnapped and tortured to try to get information about finding Pablo and their bodies were found dropped on the street next to the Medellín River. Chocolo was a psychologist and he was on vacation with his wife and six-year-old daughter in Cartagena; he stopped at a traffic light, and in the usual way two motorcycles came alongside and started shooting with machine guns. Chocolo died right there, but miraculously his family was saved.