News of a Kidnapping Read online

  "No chains are allowed here," he said. "You have to give that to me."

  Beatriz protested, distraught.

  "You can't take it away," she said. "That would be a really bad omen, something awful will happen to me."

  Her distress was contagious and affected him. He said medals were not allowed because they might have long-distance electronic trackers inside. But he found the solution:

  "Here's what we can do," he proposed. "You keep the chain but give me the medal. I'm sorry, but those are my orders."

  Spots, on the other hand, suffered panic attacks and was obsessed by the idea that he would be killed. He heard imaginary noises, and he pretended to have a huge scar on his face, perhaps to confuse anyone trying to identify him. He cleaned everything he touched with alcohol so he would leave no fingerprints. Marina made fun of him, but he could not control his manias. He would wake with a start in the middle of the night. "Listen!" he whispered in terror. "It's the cops!" One night he put out the candle and Maruja walked into the bathroom door, hitting her head so hard she almost passed out. To make matters worse, Spots shouted at her for not knowing how to walk in the dark.

  "Cut it out," she stood up to him. "This isn't a gangster movie."

  The guards seemed like hostages too. They were not allowed in the rest of the house, and when they were not on duty they slept in another room that was padlocked so they could not escape. They were all from the Antioquian countryside, they did not know Bogota, and one said that when they had time off, every three or four weeks, they were blindfolded or put in the trunk of the car so they would not know where they were. Another was afraid he would be killed when he was no longer needed, a guarantee he would take his secrets to the grave. Bosses in hoods and better clothes would put in irregular appearances to receive reports and give instructions. Their decisions were unpredictable, and both the hostages and the guards were at their mercy.

  The captives' breakfast--coffee and a corncake with sausage on top--would arrive at any hour. For lunch they had beans or lentils in grayish water, bits of meat in puddles of grease, a spoonful of rice, and a soda. They had to eat sitting on the mattress because there was no chair in the room, and they had to use only a spoon because knives and forks were not allowed for reasons of security. At supper they made do with reheated beans and other leftovers from lunch.

  The guards said that the owner of the house, whom they called the majordomo, kept most of their allotment of money. He was a robust man in his forties, of medium height, whose satyr's face could be guessed at from his nasal voice and the tired, bloodshot eyes visible through the holes in his hood. He lived with a short, shrill woman who wore shabby clothes and had rotting teeth. Her name was Damaris, and she sang salsa, vallenatos, and bambucos all day at the top of her lungs and with the ear of an artilleryman but with so much enthusiasm it was impossible not to imagine her dancing alone to her own music in every room of the house.

  The plates, glasses, and sheets were used over and over again without being washed until the hostages protested. The toilet could be flushed only four times a day, and the bathroom was locked on Sundays when the family went out so the neighbors would not hear the sound of running water. The guards urinated in the sink or the shower drain. Damaris attempted to conceal her negligence only when she heard the bosses' helicopter, and then she moved like lightning, using a fireman's technique to wash down floors and walls with a hose. She watched soap operas every morning until one, the hour when she tossed the food for lunch into a pressure cooker--meat, vegetables, potatoes, beans all mixed together--and heated it until the whistle blew.

  Her frequent arguments with her husband displayed a capacity for rage and an originality in creating curses that sometimes reached inspired heights. She had two daughters, aged nine and seven, who attended a nearby school and on occasion invited other children to watch television or play in the courtyard. Their teacher dropped in from time to time on Saturdays, and other noisier friends came by any day of the week and had impromptu parties with music. Then the door of the room was padlocked and those inside had to turn off the radio, watch television without the sound, and not use the bathroom even in an emergency.

  Toward the end of October, Diana Turbay observed that Azucena was distracted and melancholy. She had not spoken the whole day, and was in no frame of mind to talk about anything. This was not unusual: Her powers of concentration were extraordinary, above all when she was reading, in particular if the book was the Bible. But this time her silence coincided with her alarming mood and exceptional pallor. After some urging, she revealed to Diana that for the past two weeks she had been afraid she was pregnant. Her calculations were exact. She had been a hostage for more than fifty days, and had missed two periods in a row. Diana was overjoyed at the good news--a typical reaction for her--but took responsibility for Azucena's distress.

  On one of his early visits, don Pacho had promised them that they would be released on the first Thursday in October. They believed him because major changes occurred: better treatment, better food, greater freedom of movement. And yet there was always some pretext for shifting the date. After the Thursday had passed, they were told they would be freed on December 9 to celebrate the election of the Constituent Assembly. And so it continued--Christmas, New Year's Day, Epiphany, somebody's birthday--in a string of delays that seemed like little spoonfuls of consolation.

  Don Pacho continued to visit them in November. He brought new books, current newspapers, back issues of magazines, and boxes of chocolates. He spoke about the other hostages. When Diana learned she was not the prisoner of Father Perez, she was determined to have an interview with Pablo Escobar, not so much to publish it--if in fact it was true--as for the chance to discuss with him the terms of his surrender. At the end of October, don Pacho said her request had been approved. But the newscasts of November 7 struck the first mortal blow to her illusions: The broadcast of the soccer game between Medellin and El Nacional was interrupted by the announcement that Maruja Pachon and Beatriz Villamizar had been abducted.

  Juan Vitta and Hero Buss heard the announcement in their prison and thought it the worst news possible. They too had reached the conclusion that they were no more than extras in a horror film. "Just filler," as Juan Vitta said. "Disposable," as the guards said. One of them, during a heated argument, had shouted at Hero Buss:

  "You shut up! Nobody invited you here!"

  Juan Vitta sank into a depression, stopped eating, slept badly, felt lost, and opted for the merciful solution of dying just once instead of a thousand times a day. He looked pale, one arm was numb, he found it difficult to breathe, his dreams were terrifying. His only conversations were with his dead relatives whom he saw standing around his bed. An alarmed Hero Buss created a Germanic uproar. "If Juan dies here, you're responsible," he told the guards. They heeded the warning.

  The physician they brought in was Dr. Conrado Prisco Lopera, the brother of David Ricardo and Armando Alberto Prisco Lopera--of the famous Prisco gang--who had worked with Pablo Escobar since his early days as a trafficker, and were known as the creators of the crew of adolescent killers from the northeastern slums of Medellin. They were said to be the leaders of a gang of teenage assassins who took on the dirtiest jobs, among them guarding hostages. On the other hand, Conrado was deemed an honorable professional by the medical community, and the only mark against him was being, or having been, Pablo Escobar's principal physician. He wore no mask when he came in and surprised Hero Buss by greeting him in fluent German:

  "Hallo Hero, wie geht's uns."

  It was a providential visit for Juan Vitta, not because of the diagnosis--severe stress--but for the good it did him as a passionate reader. The only treatment the doctor prescribed was a dose of decent reading--just the opposite of the political news Dr. Prisco Lopera was in the habit of bringing, which for the captives was like a potion capable of killing the healthiest man.

  Diana's malaise grew worse in November--severe headaches, attacks of colitis,
intense depression--but there are no indications in her diary that the doctor visited her. She thought the depression might have been caused by the paralysis in her situation, which grew more uncertain as the year drew to a close. "Time passes here in a way we're not used to dealing with," she wrote. "There's no enthusiasm about anything." A note from this period spoke of the pessimism that was crushing her: "I've reexamined my life up to this point: so many love affairs, so much immaturity in making important decisions, so much time wasted on worthless things!" Her profession occupied a special place in this drastic stocktaking: "Though my convictions grow stronger about what the practice of journalism is and what it should be, I don't see it with any clarity or breadth." Her doubts did not spare even her own magazine, "which I see as so poor, not only financially but editorially." And she judged without flinching: "It lacks profundity and analysis."

  The days of all the hostages, despite their separation, were spent waiting for don Pacho; his visits were always announced, rarely took place, and were their measure of time. They heard small planes and helicopters flying over the house and had the impression they were routine surveillance flights. But each one mobilized the guards, who assumed combat positions, weapons at the ready. The hostages knew, because it had been repeated so often, that in the event of an armed attack, the guards would begin by killing them.

  In spite of everything, November ended with a certain amount of hope. Azucena Lievano's doubts melted away: Her symptoms were a false pregnancy, perhaps brought on by nervous tension. But she did not celebrate. On the contrary: After her initial fear, the idea of having a baby had become a desire, and she promised herself she would satisfy it as soon as she was released. Diana also saw signs of hope in statements by the Notables regarding the possibility of an agreement.

  The rest of November had been a time of accommodation for Maruja and Beatriz. Each in her own way devised a survival strategy. Beatriz, who is brave and strong willed, took refuge in the consolation of minimizing reality. She dealt very well with the first ten days, but soon realized that the situation was more complex and hazardous than she had thought, and she faced adversity by looking away from it. Maruja, who is a coldly analytic woman despite her almost irrational optimism, had known from the start that she was facing an alien reality, and that her captivity would be long and difficult. She hid inside herself like a snail in its shell, hoarded her energy, and reflected deeply until she grew used to the inescapable idea that she might die. "We're not getting out of here alive," she thought, and was astonished that this fatalistic revelation had a contrary effect. From then on she felt in control of herself, able to endure everything and everybody, and, through persuasion, to make the discipline less rigid. By the third week of captivity, television had become unbearable; they had used up the crossword puzzles and the few readable articles in the entertainment magazines they had found in the room, the remains, perhaps, of some previous abduction. But even at her worst times, and as she always did in her real life, Maruja set aside two hours each day for absolute solitude.

  In spite of everything, the news early in December indicated that there were reasons for them to be hopeful. As soon as Marina made her terrible predictions, Maruja began to invent optimistic games. Marina caught on right away: One of the guards had raised his thumb in a gesture of approval, and that meant things were going well. Once Damaris did not go to market, and this was interpreted as a sign she did not have to because they would be released soon. They played at visualizing how they would be freed, and they set the date and the method that would be used. Since they lived in gloom, they imagined they would be released on a sunny day and have a party on the terrace of Maruja's apartment. "What do you want to eat?" Beatriz asked. Marina, who was a skilled cook, recited a menu fit for a queen. They began it as a game, and it ended as a truth: They dressed to go out, they made each other up. On December 9, one of the dates that had been mentioned for their release because of the elections to the Constituent Assembly, they were ready, even for the press conference: They had prepared every answer. The day passed in nervous anticipation but ended without bitterness, because Maruja was certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that sooner or later her husband would free them.

  4

  The abduction of the journalists was, in effect, a response to the idea that had preoccupied President Cesar Gaviria since the time he was a minister in Virgilio Barco's government: how to create a judicial alternative to the war against terrorism. It had been a central theme in his campaign for the presidency. He had emphasized it in his acceptance speech, making the important distinction that terrorism by the drug traffickers was a national problem and might have a national solution, while the drug traffic was international and could only have international solutions. His first priority was narcoterrorism, for after the first bombs, public opinion demanded prison for the terrorists, after the next few bombings the demand was for extradition, but as the bombs continued to explode public opinion began to demand amnesty. For this reason, extradition had to be considered an emergency measure that would pressure the criminals into surrendering, and Gaviria was prepared to apply that pressure without hesitation.

  In the first days after he took office, Gaviria barely had time to talk to anyone; he was exhausted by the job of organizing his government and convening a Constituent Assembly that would undertake the first major reform of the state in over a hundred years. Rafael Pardo had shared his concern with terrorism ever since the assassination of Luis Carlos Galan. But he too was caught up in endless organizational duties. He was in a peculiar position. His appointment as adviser on security and public order had been one of the first in a government palace shaken by the renovative drive of one of this century's youngest presidents, a Beatles fan and an avid reader of poetry, who had given his ideas for drastic changes a modest name: "The Shake-up," the Revolcon. Pardo walked through this windstorm carrying the briefcase he always had with him, working wherever he could find space. His daughter Laura thought he had lost his job because he did not leave for work or come home at regular hours. The truth is that the informality imposed by circumstances was well suited to Rafael Pardo, whose nature was more that of a lyric poet than a governmental bureaucrat. He was thirty-eight years old, with a solid academic background: a diploma from the Gimnasio Moderno in Bogota, a degree in economics from the University of the Andes, where for nine years he had been a teacher and researcher in that same field, and a graduate degree in planning from the Institute for Social Sciences in The Hague. He was also a voracious reader of every book he could lay his hands on, in particular those dealing with two dissimilar subjects: poetry and security. He owned four ties, which he had received for Christmas over the past four years; he never chose to put them on but carried one in his pocket for emergencies. He never noticed if his trousers and jackets matched, was so absent-minded that his socks were often different colors, and whenever possible he was in shirtsleeves because he made no distinction between heat and cold. His greatest excesses were poker games with his daughter Laura until two in the morning, played in absolute silence and using beans instead of money. Claudia, his beautiful and patient wife, would become irritated because he wandered the house like a sleepwalker, not knowing where the water glasses were kept or how to close a door or take ice cubes from the freezer, and he had an almost magical faculty for ignoring the things he despised. And yet his most uncommon traits were a statue's impassivity that did not give the slightest clue as to what he was thinking, and a merciless talent for ending a conversation with two or three words, or a heated discussion with a single polished monosyllable.

  His office and university colleagues, however, could not understand his lack of standing at home, for they knew him as an intelligent, organized worker who possessed an almost terrifying serenity, and whose befuddled air was no doubt intended to befuddle others. He became irritated with simple problems, displayed great patience with lost causes, and had a strong will tempered by an imperturbable, sardonic sense of humor. President
Virgilio Barco must have recognized how useful his hermeticism and fondness for mysteries could be, for he put him in charge of negotiations with the guerrillas, and the rehabilitation programs in war zones, and in that capacity he achieved the peace accords with the M-19. President Gaviria, who was his equal in secretiveness and unfathomable silences, appointed him head of security and public order in one of the least secure and most disordered countries in the world. Pardo assumed the post carrying his entire office in his briefcase, and for two weeks had to ask permission to use the bathroom or the telephone in other people's offices. But the president often consulted with him on a variety of subjects, and listened with premonitory attention when he spoke at difficult meetings. One afternoon, when they were alone in the president's office, Gaviria asked him a question:

  "Tell me something, Rafael, aren't you worried that one of these guys will suddenly turn himself in and we won't have any charge to arrest him with?"

  It was the essence of the problem: The terrorists hunted by the police would not surrender because they had no guarantees for their own safety or the safety of their families. And the state had no evidence that would convict them if they were captured. The idea was to find a judicial formula by which they would confess their crimes in exchange for the state's guarantee of protection for them and their families. Rafael Pardo had worked on the problem for the previous government, and when Gaviria asked the question, he still had his notes among all the other papers in his briefcase. They were, in effect, the beginning of a solution: Whoever surrendered would have his sentence reduced if he confessed to a crime that would allow the government to prosecute, and a further sentence reduction if he turned goods and money over to the state. That was all, but the president could envision the entire plan because it was consonant with his own idea of a strategy focused not on war or peace but on law, one that would be responsive to the terrorists' arguments but not renounce the compelling threat of extradition.