Facatativá, Colombia, late October 1965
The two helicopters appeared with the rising sun.
Each spanking new US Bell UH-1 ‘Huey’ was armed with two M134 miniguns capable of preset firing rates of 2,000 rpm, each linked to four thousand rounds of ammunition. They were also equipped with two M75 40-mm grenade-rocket launchers, both fed from a three-hundred-round magazine.
Aboard each were six newly trained Colombian special forces personnel. Sitting in the front passenger seat of the leading chopper was the man in charge. Pat Witcomb, a tall, powerful-looking Englishman, looked as incongruous as the two aircraft flying low over an otherwise peaceful countryside. They were three thousand metres above sea level, yet only five hundred metres above the ground. Pat could scarcely believe he was leading this mission. Before he joined De La Rue, a respectable banknote printer and security company established in London in the nineteenth century, he had barely set foot in a helicopter. Since then, the operations with which he had been tasked had grown increasingly dangerous. Almost of all of his training had been on the job itself.
He had swiftly discovered that Colombia was a violent country. Recently, one of his armoured cars had been blown up, killing two security guards and injuring others. This was one of the worst incidents to affect De La Rue, which had been tasked with securely printing Colombia’s currency and transporting it safely around the country. The vehicle had been destroyed in the course of making a delivery and the incident had major ramifications for the firm. It wasn’t just a question of the money that was stolen – although it wasn’t an insignificant sum, running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars – but the message it sent out. The various gangs jockeying for power and influence would believe they could attack De La Rue with impunity and, by extension, they were hitting the heart of Colombia’s economy itself. There had to be a firm response and once the firm received intelligence about the gang’s whereabouts they were determined to strike back.
The pilot, sitting beside Pat, pointed to a cluster of dwellings on the hillside ahead. Pat compared the sight before him with the aerial photographs provided. He nodded. They were here. He glanced at the soldiers manning the machine gun and rocket launchers in the doorway and back to the other gunners in the second helicopter. He turned to the men behind, whose excited chatter had been constant since they left the country’s capital city, Bogotá, and gave a thumbs-up. They clocked Pat’s signal and, as one, fell silent, clutching their weapons in anticipation. Before they had set off Pat had thought the set-up he was commanding would be a sledgehammer cracking a nut and, as he looked again at the sleepy village ahead, his view was only confirmed. His targets wouldn’t know what hit them.
‘Hawk Two, this is Hawk One, over,’ Pat said in clipped tones over the radio.
‘Hawk One, Hawk Two, over,’ came the accented response from his counterpart in the aircraft behind, a stocky man with a heavily pockmarked face. This was Manuel Noriega, then just an officer with the Panamanian military, but even at that point extremely ambitious. Seconded to the intelligence efforts in Colombia, he had been a useful ally to Pat in the shadowy meeting place where state business and private enterprise shared a common interest. Now Noriega seemed to be relishing joining in on the action.
‘Hawk Two, we have visual on the target. Prepare to attack.’
‘Roger Hawk One. Out.’
They dropped to a hundred and fifty feet and Pat gestured towards a small clearing ahead of the first house, radioing his intention to Noriega, who he always referred to by his codename ‘JB’, a reference to his favourite whisky brand, Justerini & Brooks. His eyes fixed on a rundown house with a single, small door to the street. Movement in the house next door caught his eye. Two shabbily dressed men appeared. He could see the terror on their faces as they scurried back inside.
The blast from the rotors kicked up a cloud of dust. As the choppers touched down, the soldiers jumped from the side and headed straight for the house. They only got a few yards when the two men reappeared in the doorway, this time with assault rifles. But before they had even cocked their weapons, a round of gunfire from the advancing troops floored them. More gunfire followed, as a face at a window was greeted with an avalanche of bullets.
‘So much for minimal casualties,’ Pat shouted to JB above the roar of the blades, as they took in the action, standing to the rear and flanked by two, blue-uniformed, close protection officers, or bodyguards.
JB shrugged. ‘I told you, if they want a war, they’ll get one.’
The soldiers split up into groups, some heading to the rear of the target property, others charging through the front door, while other units tackled neighbouring buildings. Gunfire resounded.
Pat respected his enemy as he looked around. They had chosen an unlikely hideout. Yet the response from the gang told him without a doubt that their intelligence had been perfect. It might look like a backwater – unremarkable farmer country – but this was one harvest worth fighting for.
JB and Pat advanced up the dirt track towards the building behind the security officers, their light, small-calibre submachine guns raised. There was movement from the back of one of the buildings. Another burst of rapid-fire gunshot. Two soldiers emerged with a large black bag. Pat nodded. He recognised one of the missing De La Rue-issue containers, exactly what they had come for. The thieves hadn’t even bothered to switch the cash from the firm’s own bags. He motioned to the soldiers to put it in the chopper and instinctively ducked for cover as shots rang out from somewhere behind him. He turned in time to see a group of around six men attacking from another building further up the track. No sooner had he spotted the threat than the gangsters were obliterated by fire from one of the helicopters. Pat paused to make sure no more reinforcements were on their way and dusted himself down before continuing his team’s advance. This was turning into a bloodbath.
They stopped by the doorway into the house. From inside he could hear screams that chilled his blood. A protection officer stepped inside before returning to give him the all-clear. Pat and the others entered to see a man – or what was left of him – sprawled on the ground in a pool of his own blood. Astride him sat one of the Colombian soldiers with the butt of his gun rammed into a bullet hole in the fallen man’s shoulder, screaming in his ear.
Pat could see it was obviously far too late for interrogation. He gestured to the soldier to step back. ‘Muerto,’ he said – ‘dead’ – drawing a hand across his own throat to underline his words. The soldier composed himself and stood up. Pat needed to know if they had found any more of the stolen money. ‘El dinero?’ he asked. The soldier shrugged but one of his colleagues had better news. Pat learned that more bags had been recovered, all filled with banknotes. They’d found a live target to question and he had given up the location of the rest of the loot and had identified his comrades. Mission accomplished, it seemed. This ragtag bunch of robbers and thugs might think twice before blowing up another of De La Rue’s armoured cars.
A rattle of firing sounded from outside but then the guns fell silent and there was an eerie stillness. Only the hum of the rotor blades and the odd shout of ‘claro’ – for ‘clear’ – came from outside. Pat wondered, Was anyone left alive?
JB seemed to read his mind for he shrugged and motioned to the security men to begin their investigation of the property. Pat paused to look once more at the corpse at his feet. Although bloodied almost beyond recognition the man looked young. Possibly still a teenager. He shook his head. Just kids. What were they doing getting involved in a man’s business?
The blast of a single shot from another room gave him a jolt. Another fatal strike, probably. Their soldiers would have to be careful. So far, it seemed as if they’d managed to avoid any casualties. The last thing he wanted was some punk making a heroic last stand after pretending to be dead. He hoped they were taking nothing for granted.
A film of dust seemed to cloak the air. The day was not yet warm but he could feel his collar sticking to his neck and the moisture had dried from his mouth. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow.
JB and one of his security team took a room to the right while Pat moved through the rear of the house, where two steps led down to a back room. Gun still raised, the officer checked inside, gasped and took aim. Pat stepped from behind him and, on seeing his target, instinctively stuck out an arm to lower the weapon. ‘No!’
There on the floor by a window was a woman, eyes wide, panting heavily. She was wearing what he thought at first was a red dress but, as he drew closer, he could see the crimson was not dye. He motioned the officer back and, ducking his 6-ft 4-in frame to enter the doorway, Pat approached her slowly, holding out his hands. As he did so, movement drew his eye to the corner of the room and to what he now saw was a cot. Sitting inside was a boy, all chubby cheeks and a shock of dark hair, staring back at him.
‘Good God,’ he said, kneeling by the woman. Her eyes were full of fear which at first he thought was probably directed at him and the harm she felt he might do her. He surveyed her injuries and began to suspect her terror was at the end she knew was coming.
‘Lo siento,’ he said softly – ‘so sorry’.
‘Mi hijo,’ she said, her eyes watery, pleading: ‘My son.’
‘Ssh, don’t speak . . . tranquila,’ Pat said, suddenly finding himself having to search for the Spanish words that for the last six years had been commonplace.
He removed his flak jacket and tried to apply it to the source of the bleeding, a puncture wound in her side. She cried out as he gently eased her forward and it was then he realised that what he’d seen before was merely an exit wound. Shot in the back. Christ. He could only imagine what organs had been seared in the process. He rolled up the flak jacket and used it as a pillow, easing her back down on it. Even if he were able to get her on to the helicopter she’d be gone before they made it back to Bogotá. At least now her last breaths might be a little more comfortable.
She winced. Sweat poured from her brow, merging with the tears streaming from her eyes. She lifted one violently shaking hand. He could feel the effort it took.
‘Mi hijo,’ she kept whispering. He understood. My boy.
He clasped her hand but to his surprise she shook it free and then he got it. She was pointing to a small table with a drawer. He looked at it. ‘El cajón?’
She nodded. He shuffled over and pulled open the drawer. Inside was a small fabric bag containing what looked like keepsakes – a ticket of some description, a ribbon, a lock of dark hair and a much-folded piece of paper. As he inspected it, he saw her nod again. He unfolded it to see it was some form of legal document.
‘Mi hijo,’ she said again. She was looking into the cot, where the little boy still sat, smiling. She returned the smile, beaming, but it was too much for her and she broke down into heavy sobs, her whole body shaking now, her breathing laboured. Through her tears he detected only one word. ‘Roberto.’
‘Si.’ He put a finger to his chest. ‘Patrick.’ He wasn’t sure if she registered. He pushed the bag into her hand and tried to comfort her but she was fading fast. Her breathing rattled, he held her to try and calm the shaking. ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ he said, over and over but eventually he realised she couldn’t hear him. She was somewhere else.
He laid the woman down on the floor and smoothed the hem of her dress down. He found a blanket over the cot and took one final look. She could have been sleeping. Only now, when she was at peace, could he see that she too was just a child, barely a teenager perhaps. He let out a long sigh and gently covered her. What was she doing in a place like this, a sparsely furnished room where the faded green paint was peeling off the walls? What a waste.
‘Hey, what is happening?’ It was JB. He was at the doorway with two soldiers. ‘We should go. We got everything we came for.’ He looked past the Englishman and clocked the body. ‘Shame.’
‘I’m coming,’ Pat said. He looked at the child. What was he to do? This was not part of the plan. None of their intel mentioned the likelihood of collateral damage and they had not factored in human cargo. Yet he could not leave a child in this place; it would be to condemn him to death. He fished out the paper again. The woman, whoever she was, had wanted him to have this. She had wanted him to do something. The right thing. He saw a name on the paper: Roberto Sendoya Escobar.
Escobar? It was a name he recognised from one of the lawyers who had helped his firm set up in Colombia. He remembered what she said: ‘Roberto.’
‘So – you’re Roberto,’ he said, addressing the child. The infant smiled back. ‘Pleased to meet you, too.’ He gathered up the child in his arms and wrapped him in his bedding. ‘You’re coming with me.’
Later that day, Pat entered a Catholic orphanage in central Bogotá, carrying a bundle in tightly swaddled bedclothes. He asked to see Father Londono, whom he was assured would be expecting him. After a brief discussion Pat handed the bundle over to the priest, who bowed in recognition of his Christian act.
‘I’ll be seeing you,’ Pat said, when it was time to leave. ‘Take good care of him. El es especial.’
In the days that followed, news of the gun battle – and the heavily armed birds that dropped from the sky in the early morning sun, bringing mayhem in their wake and the deaths of everyone in what was supposed to be a safe house – spread from village to village. It would not have been long before word reached the ears of a fifteen-year-old boy, one Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria.
Few people would have known that he was connected to a victim of the raid. He lived 350 miles away in Antioquia and probably, like everyone else who heard the news, would have been shocked at first by the brutality in retribution for what had, essentially, just been a robbery, albeit one that had resulted in loss of life. When he thought about it, he might even have admired the ruthlessness of the operation. It was the sort of thing that would appeal to him. But then news filtered through about the young woman who died and the child she left in the house. Escobar had a brief relationship with her and knew the boy was his and that the child had disappeared. How did he feel about that? How did he feel when he found out who had taken his son? He would not have realised it then, but his life was never going to be the same.