TRIGEÑO’S EYES WERE red-rimmed and his face looked haggard. On seeing the assembled junior commanders waiting outside the office, he frowned.
‘This had better be good!’ he said to Alfa 1, who beckoned him into the office.
‘It is, comando.’
Five minutes later, Trigeño opened the door smiling and invited us inside.
We crammed into the office, perching on chairs and desks, leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor. Trigeño stood against the far wall next to a large whiteboard. Alfa 1, Beta and Culebra were ranged alongside him.
‘I have exciting news,’ he began. ‘We’ve received new intelligence about the existence of a large Guerrilla base. With your help, I’ve decided to restructure La Empresa. Our aim is to expand operations, locate this base and launch an attack.’
The junior commanders murmured amongst themselves – this was indeed big news. For the past month we’d been bunkered down. Now Trigeño was ordering us to go on the offensive.
He asked us to call out suggestions and assigned a scribe to write them on the whiteboard. Then Trigeño catapulted into action – talking, pacing, questioning and spinning on his heel. It was hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm. We hadn’t even located the base yet, but his certainty made everything seem possible.
To attack the base, we’d need more soldiers. Recruiters were to double their efforts – he’d pay fifty per cent more per boy delivered. Additional trainers would be recalled from patrolling remote villages since Trigeño required three more intakes to be trained by the end of the year.
‘Impossible, comando,’ protested Alfa 1. ‘It’s already June and each course takes four months.’
‘Then shorten the courses or double the intake sizes. Just get me more soldiers!’
‘Even fully trained soldiers will be useless without weapons.’
To the list of suggestions were added rifles and munitions, more pistols for commanders and two additional shipping containers.
‘We’ll also need four new dormitories, piping and showers, hammocks, chairs and tables, uniforms, boots, two more SUVs …’
Once Trigeño had started, he didn’t pause for breath and the scribe struggled to keep up. He leaped from one idea to the next like a monkey swinging through the high canopy, launching himself clear of one branch without knowing where his next handhold was, but with the supreme confidence that he would never fall.
‘And someone call my accountant! I need these expenditures approved.’
Two minutes later, Silvestre relayed a message for Trigeño: his accountant wanted to know where the money for all this was coming from.
Trigeño snatched the phone from his grasp. ‘Find it!’ he yelled into the handset. ‘I don’t care how! Call around for donations.’
I’d never heard anyone talk like that. And I’d never heard of money just being ‘found’; Papá always said plata didn’t grow on trees. But for Trigeño, the word ‘no’ didn’t exist and the phrase ‘I can’t’ might be a man’s last. Within thirty minutes, he’d filled three whiteboards.
From now on Alfa 1 would dedicate his energies to military strategy: analysing the army’s data, supervising reconnaissance to find the Guerrilla base and planning an operation against it. Culebra was appointed head trainer at La 50. Beta would become head of ‘intelligence gathering’.
‘What are my new responsibilities?’ Beta asked Trigeño.
‘You can start by telling me where you’re holding this guerrillero son of a bitch.’
‘In the container.’
Trigeño opened the office door, signalling for his three senior commanders to follow. I raised my eyebrows questioningly at Culebra and he nodded that I could come.
It was mid-afternoon and baking hot outside. As the soldiers stationed at the door unlatched the bolts and opened the container, I wrinkled my nose at the sour smell that poured out on a wave of stagnant air.
Inside, two sweat-drenched soldiers were guarding the prisoner, who was tied to a chair with his hands and ankles bound. Perspiration glistened on his forehead, and his neck was already ringed by a purple bruise from the rope Beta had stomped on. His eyes were closed, but he licked his cracked lips.
Trigeño unholstered his Colt .45, pressed the front sight into the man’s throat and used it to lift his chin.
‘I need you to open your eyes and look at me.’ He spoke softly and gently, like a nurse ministering to a disoriented patient.
The man blinked his eyes open. When he saw the gun at his throat, his knee began trembling.
‘There are two ways we can do this,’ Trigeño said. ‘One: you give us full, truthful answers that we can crosscheck. That way, you earn a quick death. Or, two: you play tough or tell us a story that doesn’t check out. In that case, you’ll die slowly, like a snail in salt.’ He bent down so he and the prisoner were eye to eye. ‘So … whose camp were you supplying?’
The prisoner spat in his face. A gob of saliva stuck to Trigeño’s nose and began to ooze downwards.
Perhaps he’d hoped to provoke Trigeño into shooting him immediately. But Trigeño simply stared at the man and shook his head.
‘Wrong answer, comrade.’ He removed a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and raised it, as though to wipe his nose, but instead he swung his fist swiftly and powerfully, striking the guerrillero across the face.
The blow knocked the man sideways, capsizing the chair and slamming his head against the metal floor. He lay there unmoving.
Trigeño doubled over in pain, cradling his fist in his left palm. He stamped on the container floor. ‘¡Hijo de puta! I think he broke my fingers,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I’m getting too old for this. Fetch that strange boy you told me about – El Psycho. And prepare a truck for the Palace of Truth.’
‘Already done, comando,’ replied Beta, proud to have pre-empted Trigeño’s wishes. ‘I’ve radioed his squad. He’ll be here by tonight.’
Trigeño crouched beside the fallen guerrillero, who was lying on his side with the chair still attached, groaning. His cheek was cut and blood trickled from his mouth. With his white handkerchief, Trigeño dabbed at the blood.
‘I do apologise,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I lose my temper.’
Trigeño wedged his boot against the chair leg and hauled the guerrillero upright.
To my amazement, the prisoner looked defiant. ‘It’s easy to hit a man with his hands tied,’ he said, slurring and forming the words with difficulty.
‘You’re absolutely right.’ Trigeño bent down and began untying the man’s bindings. Alfa 1 shot him a look that said, Are you sure that’s a good idea? But Trigeño hoisted the prisoner to his feet.
‘Hit me!’ he said. ‘Go on! I deserve it.’
The prisoner looked around the container – sizing up the guards, measuring the distance to the door and even taking in Trigeño’s two pistols.
Trigeño stepped closer. ‘¡Vamos! This might be your last chance to punch an Autodefensa.’
Finally, the prisoner clenched his hand into a fist and drew back, readying himself to strike. But then both arms dropped by his sides, limp and defeated. Trigeño smiled, and I saw the sinister genius behind what he’d done. By giving the man the freedom to strike, he’d forced him to accept the futility of any type of resistance.
‘Okay. I’ll talk.’
‘No, you’ll sing,’ said Trigeño viciously, shoving him back down into the chair. ‘If you think you’re suffering now, wait until you get to the Palace of Truth.’
He turned to leave.
‘Wait!’ the guerrillero called after him. ‘I’ll tell you everything right now. Why take me elsewhere?’
Trigeño paused at the door. ‘Because I’m a very busy man. And because everything can take a very, very long time.’