Capítulo 31: War:-
Sensing weakness in its rival, the Cali Cartel started to move against the Medellín Cartel in the late 1980s. Both groups had different organisational structures. The Medellín was an alliance between independent operators, whereas Cali was run by a four-man executive board. Below the board were accountants, engineers and lawyers, and then the work-force. The executives, some of whom had law degrees, considered themselves more sophisticated than the rustic men from Medellín. They were known as the gentlemen of trafficking, whereas Medellin was regarded as thuggish The head of the New York DEA told journalists, "Cali gangs will kill you if they have to, but they prefer to use a lawyer."
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In 1988, the Cali Cartel rebuffed Pablo, who wanted both cartels to join forces against the government. Instead, the Cali Cartel cut a deal with the authorities whereby its business operations would be left alone in exchange for providing information about the Medellín Cartel. The Cali Cartel told the enemies of the Medellín Cartel the whereabouts of Pablo's safe houses and hiding places. These enemies included special units of the Colombian police assigned to find Pablo. The authorities were supposedly after Pablo to stamp out his illegal trafficking, yet were helping the Cali Cartel expand its cocaine business.
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A cousin of Pablo's was at a farm with his family on vacation when the police showed up. After stating that he didn't know where Pablo was, he was hung upside down with his eyes covered, tortured by electricity and had needles inserted into his testicles. He died in front of his family. Friends, associates and bodyguards of Pablo received the same treatment. Due to the police torturing and killing so many of his associates, Pablo put a bounty on their heads. Teenage hit men attacked police stations with machine guns and bombs to claim thousands of dollars. In retaliation, police death squads drove through the barrios, machine gunning young people unlucky enough to be out after dark.
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After eating dinner on January 12, 1988, Pablo left his family in Monaco, an eight-story apartment building, protected by rein-forced steel. He hid out at a farm ten miles away. Around 5:30 am, a bomb went off at Monaco that woke people up two miles away. The blast killed two night watchmen, left a crater in the street thirteen feet deep, shattered windows throughout the neighbourhood, broke water mains and cracked the entire face of the building. Within minutes, Renault arrived to transport Pablo's wife and son to a safe house.
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Pablo made a call. "Mom, you'll soon watch some news about a bomb in Monaco. But I just called you, so you'd know nothing happened to me."
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By the time Roberto showed up, Pablo said he already knew who was responsible. Half an hour after the explosion, he'd received a call from the Cali Cartel's Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, who said he'd heard about the bomb and wanted to know if Pablo and his family were OK. Rumours were circulating that the bomb had been planted by DAS agents, but Pablo suspected Gilberto.
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Pablo knew that Gilberto had spent time in prison in Spain with a bomb-maker for the Basque guerrillas. Pablo tracked the bomb-maker down, asked him to train some of his workers and promised him excellent prices on cocaine to sell in Spain. After the bomb-maker agreed, Pablo asked if he'd ever had any experience working in Colombia. The man replied that he'd met someone in jail who'd brought him to Colombia to train some guys to make a bomb to be used against the government. Surrounded by armed bodyguards, Pablo said that the bomb had been used against him. The bomb-maker's face turned white. Pablo told him not to worry and urged him to start to train Pablo's workers.
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Gilberto called Pablo, protesting that he hadn't done anything. Pablo told him to stop lying and to get ready to be hit.
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A car bomb exploded by Pablo's mother's house. Cut by glass, she was hospitalised. Pablo's pregnant sister had also been asleep on the fourth floor. In hospital, she gave birth to a baby that had to live in an incubator for several weeks. Another sister on the fifth floor was treated for shrapnel wounds.
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Regarding the Cali Cartel, Pablo told his mother, "If they broke my heart it was because they placed the first bomb."
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The Cali Cartel offered a band of killers from Medellín $5 million to kill Pablo, but he hired the killers himself. Pablo ordered the firebombing of the drugstores through which Cali laundered money.
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By 1989, bombs were exploding almost daily, and international mercenaries, including ex-SAS members, had joined the hunt for Pablo.
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Pablo's nemesis in the police was the man in charge of the DAS, Miguel Alfredo Maza Márquez, who'd refused Pablo's offers of bribery and pledged to defeat the Medellín traffickers. Pablo and Maza set about trying to kill each other. On May 30, 1989, a remote-detonated car bomb with 350 kilos of dynamite failed to seriously hurt Maza, but killed seven of his bodyguards. Although the under-belly of his armoured car was destroyed, the general opened the door and emerged, holding one of his injured men. "All at once I felt as if I had been tossed into the air by the surf," the general said. Afterwards, a psychiatrist was assigned to help Maza recover.
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With a price on his head of $10 million, Pablo went on the run without bodyguards because he believed that amount of money could tempt anyone. For eight months, he stayed at a farm forty miles away from Medellin, in the company of his brother and a couple who lived there. Visitors such as politicians or lawyers were brought to Pablo blindfolded. He stationed lookouts in the neighbouring farms, which he owned. He passed the time swimming in a pool by apple and orange trees, playing dominoes outside with a barbecue cooking or with his dog, Hussein, which had bitten him when he'd bought the farm.
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The police arrived one morning. Pablo moved into a secret compartment built into the house. Pretending to be an artist, Roberto answered, wearing a cap and an artist's glasses. In the living room was an unfinished painting of a farm and a small cow. The police said they were searching the neighbourhood because they'd found a head on one side of the road and a body on the other. Roberto said he'd been up painting and was oblivious to the goings-on outside. The police came in, drank some coffee and left. To let Pablo know that the police had gone, Roberto knocked in a special way that only they could decode.
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For several months, Pablo stayed at another farm called the Parrot with members of the cartel including Jorge Ochoa and Gacha. It was by a river so clear that all of the fish were visible.
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One night, Roberto had a bad feeling, so he made sure their boat had plenty of fuel. A local farmer radioed at 6 am, warning them to flee because trucks and helicopters were on the way. Pablo's usual response to helicopters was to call them mosquitoes and to gesture slapping them away as if they meant nothing, but this time they had to hurry. With bullets whizzing by them, they raced out of the farm and headed for the mules and boats.
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Without shoes or a shirt on and abandoning his paperwork in the house, Pablo dashed out with a machine gun. Bullets rained down and tore through the vegetation. The traffickers returned fired at the helicopters. Trying to get to a river, Pablo's brother-in-law came under heavy fire. Shooting at the helicopters, Pablo watched his brother-in-law die. Others trying to escape were cut down by bullets.
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They were so surrounded that Jorge Ochoa took his gun out as if contemplating the suicide pact agreed by the Extraditables. Pablo told him that the time wasn't right. If it was, he would do the same. Jorge put his gun away and they escaped into the woods. The police arrested fourteen people, but none of the leaders. When they were safe, Pablo - known for remaining calm under all circumstances cried for the loss of his brother-in-law.
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