The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare (38 page)

The bus pulled off and about ten minutes down the road I relaxed. ‘Jesus, that was a close call.’

‘Too close,’ said Billy, shaking his head. ‘I thought we were gone.’

‘That’ll be the last one now,’ I said. Silvio’s escape classes were coming back to me. ‘You will get one or maybe two army stops,’ he said. I hoped it would only be one.

* * *

The next morning I watched the sun rising. It peeped over a mountain ridge in the distance, almost winking at me. Soon dark clouds were scattered across the sky and light rain sprayed the window. The bus was ascending a mountain, labouring up steep roads. I stared out at the landscape. Swollen rivers. Jagged mountains.

Soon we started descending from the mountains and doing good speed on a wide motorway with brisk traffic. I could make out a town in the distance. On the left I saw a sign for an ‘Aeropuerto’. ‘Be nice to get out of here, Billy, fly home,’ I said.

‘Yeah, hit the skies.’ But without passports, no chance.

I later saw a sign for San Cristóbal. I knew from studying the map before the trip we were on the last leg to the border. ‘This is it.’ I looked at my phone. It was just midday. We’d been travelling for 18 hours. I was sweaty, groggy and hungry.

The bus turned off onto a dusty road where up ahead I saw what looked like a border-control building. It came to rest and a cop stepped on. Shit. This wasn’t good. I hoped he could be easily paid off like the last one.

I looked back to Miguel then to Billy. Our eyes met again. Was this it? Would we be hauled off? Handcuffed? Trucked back to Los Teques? Billy spoke to Miguel. ‘
No problema,
’ he said. He looked relaxed. In control.

The cop moved closer. Same drill: he checked IDs. A quick scan and a cursory nod. Then came the dreaded word. ‘
Pasaporte?
’

‘We were robbed,’ said Billy. That was our story.

‘
Cómo?
’ (‘What?’) he said. ‘
No pasaporte?
’ His brow furrowed. My stomach knotted again. Billy motioned to Miguel. He held up his identity card, a note folded behind it. ‘No,’ the cop said, waving it off. Oh my God. This was no Deputy Dawg to be bought off with a few notes. ‘
Oficina,
’ he said. I looked at Billy. Our hearts sank.

‘The cop says we take our luggage,’ said Billy. His face looked worried, like he was about to cry.

The cop waved us into a white building like an army barracks. For a moment myself and Billy looked at each other. Let’s run for it. But where? There were open fields behind. How far would we get? There was a table on a footpath where two cops sat, guns in their holsters. No chance of fleeing.

We stood in a large room. Miguel’s face was flushed with fear. His
tranquilidad
was gone. ‘You two take your clothes off,’ said the cop in Spanish, ‘one by one.’ I stripped off first. Thank God my cash was hidden in my rear end. But would he slip on the plastic gloves? I emptied my pockets, taking out about 100 euros’ worth of bolos.

It was Billy’s turn. He slipped off his T-shirt, showing a money belt strapped on his waist. ‘Ah,’ said the cop, ‘take it off.’ Billy took out the cash. There was about 1,000 euro in bolos. The guard’s eyes lit up. ‘Get dressed,’ he said. He stepped up to the table and put the money into a pile. Miguel’s eyes now nearly popped out of his head. He didn’t know we had money. But he was supposed to pay any bribes. I could have strangled him. The deal was we’d smuggle the coke to Europe. They’d pay the bribes. ‘Over there,’ said the cop. He led us to a room at the side.

We stepped in. The door closed. ‘Fuck, Billy, it looks like we’re going back to Los Teques.’ He stood there shaking. His hands trembled. Tears welled up in his eyes.

I wanted to kick myself. How could I be so stupid? Why did I rush it all? Why didn’t I just stay in Caracas longer and organise a false passport? You stupid bastard, Paul. You’ve blown it. We’d be rushed back to Los Teques. I’d have to serve the full eight years. I’d be 54 when I got out. No. I sat down and put my head in my hands.

We heard the cop and Miguel speak in the next room. Raised voices. Billy put his ear to the door. ‘I can’t make it out.’

‘Hopefully he’ll take the money, Billy.’ I took in a deep breath of hot, sticky air.

The door opened. The cop stood there. I saw Miguel wipe sweat off his brow. Time stood still. The cop pointed to the money. ‘
Todo es para mí?
’ (‘It’s all for me?’) A smile broke out on his face. I just nodded and smiled with him. This was the moment of truth. He’d take the bribe. I could feel it.

‘
Todo es para tí,
’ (‘It’s all for you’) I said.

‘
Sí,
’ added Billy. There were about 1,200 euro in bolos on the table: about a year’s salary for the cop.

‘
Gracias amigos,
’ he said. I breathed out a sigh of relief, like letting the air out of a bicycle tube. Yeah, happy Christmas, you bastard.

Miguel nodded at us. ‘Billy, we get our things and get out of here – now.’ I grabbed my bag. We walked past the police outside. I wanted to say, ‘Your mate in there’s after winning the lottery – and he’s not sharing with you.’ I was sure of that.

The three of us boarded a local bus to San Antonio. I knew this was the town right on the border; Silvio told us in the escape classes. We sat midway down the bus. Miguel sat at the front. We were the only three passengers. It revved up and pulled out.

‘That prick,’ said Billy. ‘He’s supposed to be paying the bribes.’

‘Prick is right. I’ll kill him. Strangle him.’ The last few minutes in the cop shop rushed through my head. I felt numb. It was all like a dream.

The bus chugged along dusty roads. Miguel was chatting to the driver, glancing at us with his beady eyes. ‘He’s getting ready to jump,’ I said. ‘I don’t trust the bastard.’

‘I know. He’ll run for it if the cops pull us in again,’ said Billy. ‘He knows we’ve no money for more bribes.’ I had, but I wasn’t broadcasting it just yet.

I made a split-second decision. I knew if the cops boarded again we were trapped. Nowhere to go. ‘Right, we’re getting out of here. Get off, now. I’m not staying on.’ We picked up our bags. ‘Off, now.’ The brakes screeched. The bus jerked. We jumped off.

Miguel ran after us. ‘
Qué pasa?
’ (‘What’s happening?’) he said, waving his arms.

‘
Tú no dinero,
’ (‘You no money’) I said, getting in his face. I wanted to kill him. But it wasn’t the time or place. We still might need him. ‘How do we cross the border?’ I said in Spanish.

‘Bus,’ said Miguel, looking worried. We were like two dogs in his care. He knew his master would make his head roll if he didn’t get us to Colombia safe.

It was just a few minutes’ walk to San Antonio. We walked along a road where traffic snaked around a dog’s-leg bend. Old men with sombreros stood outside car-part shops. Up ahead I saw the frontier. A white building, a checkpoint. Drivers pulled down their windows to cops. Locals walked through. We watched for a while and realised that pedestrians weren’t being stopped. We knew it was time for us to go for it.

Freedom. It was so close I could taste it.

Nearly there. Faster, Paul, walk faster. One more step. One more.

Billy was speed-walking up ahead, as if he was competing in the Olympics. I watched him pass through the checkpoint.

I walked past a hatch in the wall. It slid up. ‘
Pasaporte?
’

That’s what I expected, but it didn’t happen.

I passed through and stepped out onto a bridge, a trickle of a stream below. We were free. Venezuela was just a few feet behind, but we were on Colombian soil.

Billy kept walking. He stopped at the end of the bridge. It was about 100 yards to the other side. I knew Miguel was right behind. I didn’t care. ‘Billy, we’re through, we’re through.’ We shook hands.

‘We made it, I know,’ he said, with a beaming smile. ‘We made it.’ His face then darkened. ‘What about him?’ he said, nodding at Miguel.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ I said. ‘I’ll take care of that.’ I was hard and fit. Months of gym work had prepared me for this trip. An old Colombian wasn’t stopping me from getting home to my family. If it came to it, I’d have to hurt him. I knew I would do it.

‘Where do we go now?’ said Billy.

‘Get a hotel,’ I said. We walked about 500 yards. Miguel was behind me. I thought about giving him a few slaps and running. But this was Colombia – his territory. For all I knew he’d have a local drug cartel swoop on us in minutes. Best to keep him on board for now.

The sun was beating down. We passed makeshift foreign-exchange offices: a table and chairs on the side of the road where locals were buying and selling Colombian pesos and Venezuelan bolos. Others sat next to oil cans, using plastic tubes to fill up motorbikes and cars with dirt-cheap petrol from back over the bridge in Venezuela.

‘
Hotel, acá,
’ (‘Hotel, here’) said Miguel, pointing at a two-storey building set back off the main road. He said his boss owned it and we’d stay there for the night. Interesting. A hotel on the border. These boyos had it all sorted out.

Miguel showed us our room, which was up a flight of concrete steps. Two single beds and a TV. The door closed. I heard feet shuffle in the next room. Miguel was staying close by. Billy went and showered. I sat down with only one thing on my mind: how do we get away from Miguel? I had some ideas, but now it was time for a drink.

I walked past the reception and under an archway that led outside. Miguel stepped out. ‘No, where you go?’ He stood in front of me.

‘
Amigo, cervezas,
’ (‘Beers’) I said. He stepped aside. I bought a bag of a dozen cold beers from a woman on the side of the road.

Back in the room, Billy stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. ‘This guy’s keeping us prisoner here.’

‘Billy, we’re free – and if that cunt thinks we owe him anything, he can think again.’ If it wasn’t for our cash windfall to the cop in the bus station we’d be on our way back to Los Teques, handcuffed. Both of us wanted to strangle Miguel.

In the bathroom I fished out my money and showered. I sat down on the bed and started counting it. ‘How’d you hide that from the cop?’ asked Billy.

I pointed at my feet. ‘Where’d you think? Down there for dancing, up here in the head for thinking.’

It was evening and we were starving. Miguel was still stationed in a chair at the hotel entrance. ‘
Amigo, restaurante,
’ I said. I had money to pay for good food somewhere but didn’t want him to know.

In a roadside cafeteria three plates were pushed in front of us containing food that looked like beans mixed up in dogfood. I pushed it away. Billy ate two mouthfuls and put down his fork. ‘Muck.’ Myself and Billy chatted. Miguel was sat beside me, eating away. He didn’t say a word. I decided to prod him about his plans.

‘Tomorrow, we go to Bogotá?’ I said, with Billy interpreting.

‘No, change of plans,’ Miguel said.

‘What?’

‘We go to Cali.’ Myself and Billy looked at each other.

‘And your boss?’ Miguel’s jefe was due to arrive tonight.

‘The weather is bad. Rains too heavy. Cars can’t pass. Tomorrow he’ll come.’

Another stroke of luck. My mind spun with escape ideas, which I kept to myself for now. As far as Miguel was concerned, we had no passports and no money and were dependent on him. He was wrong about the cash. The passports? Well, I had a plan.

I had been online in Caracas and scribbled down the phone number and address for the Irish consulate in Bogotá. My plan was to sneak out of the hotel in Bogotá, where we were due to go with Miguel, with Billy in the morning. We would report our passports stolen in a cop shop, get the paperwork and go to the consulate, and with that be able to organise two emergency passports. Fly out of Colombia and home.

That was now up in the air. Bogotá was a good 24-hour trip by bus. Cali was two days away. Miguel’s plan was for us to stay in an apartment there belonging to his jefe. That meant we would be his prisoners. There was already a Dutch guy there who’d been holed up for months waiting for a passport. That’s what Miguel said. More like they were stringing him along. I wasn’t going down that road.

The next 24 hours would see me get home. Or fall into the hands of a Cali cartel.

Billy was quiet on the walk back to the hotel. ‘It’s going wrong, Paul.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m hatching something.’ All we had to do was get up at the crack of dawn. Sneak out of the hotel. Get to the bus station and board a coach to Bogotá, and we’d be free from Miguel.

* * *

My eyes opened. I looked at the clock on the bedside. It was 5 a.m. My Los Teques internal alarm clock still worked. Billy’s deep snores filled the room. I shook him gently.

‘What? What?’

‘We’re going.’

‘Going? Going where?’

‘Ssshh.’ I put my finger to my lips. ‘Outta here. Get up and get your stuff.’

Minutes later we crept down the stairs with our bags. They were concrete steps, no squeaks. Miguel’s room was next to ours. If he opened his door I was ready. I’d do what I had to do. I was on edge, but my thoughts were calm.

We stepped under the archway. The sun was rising. Birds chirped. There was no traffic. How would we get to the bus station? Suddenly a taxi rolled past on the opposite side as we stepped out onto a dusty embankment. The driver saw us and did a U-turn. It was the only car on the road. Another sign. The gods were on our side.

‘Now, Billy, get in,’ I said quickly. I slid into the back seat beside him.

About ten minutes later we pulled up at the bus station in the centre of Cúcuta town. We went upstairs to a cafeteria where I changed a bunch of bolos into pesos and bought two tickets to Bogotá from a guy behind the counter. The same guy then sold us breakfast. Enterprising, I thought. Billy did the talking.

‘When does the first bus leave?’ I asked.

‘Eight,’ he said. It was only just after 6 a.m. now.

‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘Is there nothing earlier?’

‘That’s it, he says, the first one out.’

We sat at a booth by a window. We could see down to the bus bay. Perfect. We’d stay here and dash down when it arrived. We’d stay out of sight for now.