But she also saw a man with a rifle standing guard outside the enclosure. 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. to have definite knowledge of who was holding Maruja Pachón and Beatriz Villamizar were Hernando Santos and former president Julio César Turbay, because forty-eight hours after their abduction, Escobar himself informed them in writing through one of his lawyers: "You can tell them that the group is holding Pachón." "How could I see patients when I was in worse shape than they were," he has said. Any mistake, no matter how innocent it might seem, could cost a life. The most cheerful of this team, and of all the guards who had worked there, was called Top, and that, in effect, was what he resembled.

She began by saying that she was not writing to the fighter capable of doing anything to achieve his ends, but to Pablo the man, "a feeling man who loves his mother and would give his life for her, who has a wife and young, innocent, defenseless children whom he wishes to protect." And it ended with stunning arrogance: "This way we’ll have them where we want them."

Diana and Richard took as long as they could because this was the right time for a police assault: The four guards on duty were not the toughest ones, and seemed too panicked to defend themselves.

Finally, Vázquez Muñoz’s wife identified his body and said in a sworn statement that on January 25, 1991, at eight in the morning, her husband had left the house to find a taxi when he was seized by two men on motorcycles wearing police uniforms, and two men in civilian clothes, and put into a car. The "Doctor" was hoping for something more concrete regarding the terms of the surrender, but Maruja convinced him that the effect would be the same without going into details that might seem impertinent or be misinterpreted. "Remember what we talked about," he said. The man had returned, still dressed all in black, and with frightening attention had watched her for a long time, not caring that she was looking at him too. And she added with an emphasis that was even more caustic: "Or else we’ll just have to make a decision when the time comes. It was a technical solution to a labyrinthine narrative that in its original form would have been confused and interminable. Theirs was an authentic shadow power with a brand name—the Extraditables—and a slogan typical of Escobar: "We prefer a grave in Colombia to a cell in the United States." This is what happened: Fortunate Gaviria Botero, his first cousin and dearest friend since childhood, had been taken at his country house in Pereira by four hooded men armed with rifles. "Disposable," as the guards said. She took a large dose of sleeping pills and did not wake until the following day, Monday, with the frightening impression that she did not know who she was, or where. She called to her supervisor, Dr. Pedro Morales, who was performing another autopsy two tables away, and he helped her find other unequivocal signs of the dead woman’s social position. His argument, in brief, was that the decrees could not be judged in terms of the abductions but with a view to the public interest, since Escobar was not taking hostages to put pressure on the capitulation policy but to force non-extradition and obtain an amnesty. Waiting for them in the prison cell, in addition to the younger Fabio, was the father, don Fabio Ochoa, a patriarch weighing 330 pounds with the face of a boy, who at the age of seventy bred fine-gaited Colombian horses and was the spiritual head of a vast family of intrepid men and powerful women.

The guards, tired of waiting, would ransack the kitchen and come back to the room with stale crackers and some raw sausage for Maruja. "Now we’re not fighting for Maruja but to save Cartagena," he said, to provide the president with an argument. He made identical comments to Beatriz.

And he was not alone in his response. She asked for aguardiente—she never knew why— and drank it in one swallow. It was another man’s destiny: Angel María Roa had been Maruja’s driver for only three days, and for the first time he was displaying his new dignity with the dark suit, starched shirt, and black tie worn by the chauffeurs who drove government ministers. Maruja said it was all the same to her. "Tell Alberto not to worry, that I love him and the children very much," she said. Activity was centered—according to the phone calls—in the region of Sabaneta, in particular on the farm properties of Villa del Rosario, La Bola, and Alto de la Cruz.

Only then did she remember that they had not kept their promise to return the television and the radio so she would know how the night ended.

After four years Andrés was born, the only child they had together.

What do you think it is?" A short while later Escobar was in the Chamber of Deputies as a representative of a marginal wing of the official Liberal Party, but he had not forgotten the insult and unleashed an all-out war against the state, in particular against the New Liberalism. There was a bullet hole and a trickle of dried blood on her forehead.

And so began a second captivity for Maruja and a different kind of battle for Villamizar. One Sunday at lunch, when the mists of memory had already begun to rarefy the past, someone knocked at the door. "You’ll learn something now," he said. "If these articles are published tomorrow, by the day after tomorrow Francisco will be free." In spite of their efforts, the hostages had no reliable clues as to where they were. Everything has happened to us." But two bosses who visited them the next day gave no precise details about who would be released, or if in fact either one would go free. "I’ve been left alone lots of times, and if I didn’t run away it’s because I didn’t want to." In other words, he could do as he wished in his own way, using all his imagination, but he had to do it with his hands tied. December 31 was their big night. They played cards and dominoes and helped each other solve crosswords and puzzles in old magazines. In his final years the priest lost his hearing in his right ear, became irritable, and lost patience with the gaps in his memory. He was profoundly grateful, he said, to María Victoria, with whom he had grown as a man, as a citizen, and as a father, and his only regret was having given greater importance to his work as a journalist than to his life at home. They had, no doubt, been instructed to overcome her resistance and raise her morale with a different kind of treatment, for they tried to persuade her to follow the doctor’s orders and walk in the courtyard, to think of her husband and children and not disappoint them when they were hoping to see her soon, and in good condition. But this time she did not even complain. In the meantime, he continued to insist on sanctions for the police and to repeat his accusations that General Maza Márquez had allied himself with the paramilitary forces and the Cali cartel to kill his people. They drove to the entrance and then continued on foot, walking about a kilometer to the house along a path lined with leafy, well-tended trees. Alfonso López Michelsen backed him up by threatening to withdraw from the Notables. At last, on February 7, the men arrived earlier than usual and laid their cards on the table: Beatriz was going. Gabriel had just put down the receiver when the doorbell rang. He came in like a ghost and huddled in a corner.

My only frustration is knowing that none of them will find on paper more than a faded reflection of the horror they endured in their real lives—above all, the families of Marina Montoya and Diana Turbay, the two hostages who were killed, and in particular Diana Turbay’s mother, dona Nydia Quintero de Balcázar, whose interviews were a heartrending, unforgettable human experience for me. Judges and magistrates, whose low salaries were barely enough to live on, but not enough to pay for the education of their children, faced an insoluble dilemma: Either they sold themselves to the drug traffickers, or they were killed. Aldo Buenaventura, a public notary and solicitor, a fervent aficionado of the bullfights since his student days at the Liceo Nacional in Zipaquirá, and an old and trusted friend of Hernando Santos’s, agreed to carry the letter. A fourth option—the monastery—did not seem applicable in his case.

"But don’t worry, we just want you to take back a message. The confirmation that she would soon be freed through his efforts made her feel happier.

And, having regained her composure, she asked: "How are things?"

But it did not help. The guard whose job it was to bring them in had a visceral hatred for journalists. The drama had not ended. "Move it!" Then he makes an attempt on my life, and it’s a miracle I escape. On Friday, April 12, 1991, he visited Dr. Manuel Elkin Patarroyo—the inspired inventor of the malaria vaccine—to ask him to set up a clinic, in the area of the "God’s Minute" charity, for the early detection of AIDS.

"They killed her." "You can’t ask a thing like that!"

At that moment the "Doctor" appeared in the doorway and tried to calm Maruja with the news that Beatriz was safe at home, but she would not believe him until she saw it with her own eyes on television or heard it on the radio.

The helicopter flew the remaining distance almost grazing the trees, and came down on the prison soccer field—rock-strewn, its goalposts broken—next to the first helicopter, which had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier.

The father drank a whiskey that helped to calm him, while Escobar sipped at fruit juice as if he had all the time in the world. At midnight, when the fire engine sirens wailed and the church bells rang, they were all crowded into the room, sitting on the bed, on the mattress, sweating in the infernal heat.

Beatriz, Maruja’s sister-in-law and personal assistant, had been a physical therapist for many years but had decided on a change of pace for a while. But she obliged them to pray the rosary, and they all did. The proposed decree was discussed with an intensity and secrecy that are in no way usual in Colombia, and was approved on September 5, 1990.

They’re leaving now." Since the former rehabilitation center had no telephone lines, the prison’s initial communications would be by radio. Villamizar received the news through Rafael Pardo. The idea that the cartel would exact the life of a hostage as payment for their deaths, as it had with Marina Montoya, moved through the room like an ominous shadow. "It’s better for you to know from the very beginning, Father," he said. His heart and vision problems grew worse, and he made no effort to hold back his tears. The guards followed suit, and they all said what they had to say in their God-given voices, except the majordomo, who even on the high seas of intoxication still spoke in whispers. Even hiding in sewers, it was said. "What if your daughter had been in this situation. Maruja gave a start.

She had often felt a half-serious embarrassment at the thought that one day she would be released and look awful, but she never dreamed the reality would be so bad. Alberto Villamizar was no less desperate.

Worse yet: It was evident that Escobar was using Villamizar as a means of sending messages to the government and not giving anything in return.

His successor, Virgilio Barco, intensified it.