There’s an old saying: “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Javier and I were blessed to find that job, working as DEA special agents.
We’d like to thank the DEA for giving us the resources and the backup in the search for Pablo Escobar. In particular, our boss Joe Toft stands out for his tenacious leadership and courage.
While Javier and I were the “boots on the ground” in Medellín, we recognize the men and women of the DEA who made sacrifices every day during the Escobar operation but never received the recognition they deserve. Fellow agents, analysts, investigators, and support staff were all involved, and each person played a special role directly and indirectly to help us achieve a successful conclusion to this case.
The Colombian National Police deserve special recognition and the lion’s share of the credit in the search for Escobar. Javier and I were honored to be invited to participate in the investigation led by them. Thousands of CNP officers were killed or wounded in the hunt for the world’s first narcoterrorist, but that never shook the CNP’s conviction to fight against evil. Their leadership won the day because they had the courage to take their country back from the brink.
Our families also deserve our heartfelt thanks. My wife, Connie, repeatedly gave up her career as a registered nurse to follow me to new posts and assignments. She spent many, many nights alone while I was out traveling, not knowing if I was safe, injured, or dead. It takes a special kind of person to be able to live with that kind of stress. Connie kept me focused on my mission, and she also kept me grounded.
Being a DEA agent is not just a job, it’s a lifestyle. The demands of this lifestyle forced me and Javier to miss many family functions. In my case, it meant missing important school events and special days with my children. We thank everyone in our families for their patience and understanding during our prolonged absences.
Coming into this book project, we knew nothing about the writing and publishing world, but fortunately we were introduced to a group of professionals who had the knowledge and expertise to make Manhunters a reality, a group that have now become our friends. Our heartfelt thanks to our writer, Isabel Vincent, who took our crazy, fragmented stories and turned them into a work of art; to our literary agent, Luke Janklow, and Claire Dippel of Janklow & Nesbit, who took the time to hold our hands through this entire process, and are still doing so today; to the creator and executive producer of Narcos, Eric Newman, who took interest in our story and introduced us to his longtime friend, Luke Janklow; and to Marc Resnick, Hannah O’Grady, Michelle Cashman, and the entire team at St. Martin’s Press, who took a chance on two old guys to bring the truth to light and set the record straight. Thank you all for your support and wisdom!!!
Finally, we want to thank God for his divine protection and direction. When people ask us how we survived, we come up with a lot of different reasons, but we always give God the praise and glory first for keeping us alive under the most trying circumstances we ever experienced. We believe God has a plan for each one of us, and for us his plan included not being killed during what was often a harrowing and deadly search for the world’s most brutal criminal.