The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare (39 page)

I sipped a couple of spoonfuls of the soup we’d ordered. I couldn’t keep it down. My stomach was doing somersaults. We both took turns dashing in and out of the toilet in the back of the cafeteria. The term ‘shitting it’ out of fear was true. Our eyes darted back and forth, down to the bus bay below. I could see out into the car park. I was expecting the cartel members with greased-back hair to swoop in and start shooting at us and we’d have to run for our lives.

Two hours ticked by. It felt like two days.

‘
Amigo, bus,
’ said the old man behind the counter. I looked down and the coach was pulling into the bay.

‘Billy, get your bags, let’s go.’ We ran down the stairs to the ground floor. No cartel heads with guns. So far, so good.

We joined a queue. ‘Bogotá?’ I said to the driver, who was checking the tickets.

‘
Sí,
’ he said, nodding. No one asked us for ID. Phew.

We took our seats. The bus engine rumbled and we moved off. Neither of us spoke. The bus drove through a wide avenue dotted with trees and was soon on an open road, leaving the city behind. With every kilometre put between us and Cúcuta I felt better.

About 45 minutes passed. ‘Billy, I think we’re in the clear,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘If they were after us they’d have caught up by now.’

After about an hour the bus began to climb and then hit heavy traffic. It inched along for about ten minutes then stopped. The driver opened the door and we got off. The traffic stretched for a kilometre ahead. The whole mountainside to our left had collapsed. Landslides. Yellow diggers were chugging away up ahead, scooping up mud. ‘There’s nothing we can do here, Billy, we’ll just have to wait. But I still think we’re OK.’ I was sure we were. But I’d prefer to be hurtling towards Bogotá. Not stuck here.

We found a restaurant: a few tables and chairs at the side of the road. A woman walked past with a plate of sliced watermelons for sale. Billy was off chatting to girls again – to a dark-haired chica sitting on her own drinking Coke through a straw. ‘She’s Italian,’ said Billy. ‘I told her we’d been in Los Teques and did a runner.’ I looked at him. ‘You idiot,’ I thought. ‘She was there herself,’ said Billy. Another bizarre twist.

‘I’m Andrea,’ she said. ‘Three years in Los Teques, in the women’s prison.’

‘Did two,’ I said, ‘and got out on parole after 18 months. Got lucky: great lawyer.’

‘How many months did you spend in Caracas after you got out?’

‘Five days.’

‘That’s all?’ she said, shifting in her chair.

‘That’s it. Wasn’t staying there. Took my chances and left.’ I said nothing about our botched drug run with the Cali boyos.

She stayed in Caracas for a year after she got out, she said, then organised a fake passport and fled. Like most do. She was on her way to Bogotá on another bus.

‘Heavy rains. Landslides,
derrumbes
they call them,’ she said. ‘It’s all over Colombia. I heard it on the news.’

‘Let’s hope we’re not stopped again.’

She looked away at the road. ‘I’ve to go to Bogotá and try and get home. Go to an embassy and try to get a passport.’ She paused.

‘I wish you the best,’ I said. I wasn’t getting involved. I had enough on my plate.

The traffic started to move. I finished my coffee, said goodbye and we left.

The bus moved slowly, inching past the diggers and road workers. The traffic eased off and the bus rolled on. It then started to shake violently. It was like a plane in heavy turbulence. I looked down at the road. The surface was gone, probably washed away. It was just stones. I grabbed the hand rest, my body shuddering for hours.

My eyes opened. Where was I? Where was Billy? Miguel, was he following us? I was asleep and had just woken in a panic. Billy was snoring. Dawn was breaking, a halo of sun shining over a mountain peak and a mist floating through trees on the right. I felt a bit more relaxed but was still on edge. The Cali boys could have someone waiting for us at the bus station in Bogotá. It wasn’t over yet, as far as I was concerned.

A few hours later we started a slow descent into a giant valley. Below I could see a criss-cross of streets lined with skyscrapers and office blocks. ‘Bogotá, look,’ said a woman to her child, a little girl, in the seats in front of us. So we were nearly there.

The coach pulled into the station on the outskirts of the city. Billy woke up. ‘We’re here,’ I said. ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ I looked at my watch. It was just after 8 a.m. Twenty-four hours ago we’d got on the bus. ‘I’ll call the consulate.’ I found the number in my pocket and rang it after I stepped off the coach

‘
Consulado de Irlanda,
’ (‘Consulate of Ireland’) said a woman. Music to my ears.

‘
Inglés?
’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Paul Keany. I’m here with another Irish national. Our passports have been robbed. Would you be able to organise two emergency ones?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. I could have jumped down the phone and kissed her. We had to bring copies of official reports saying our travel documents had been stolen. ‘Go to any police station and you can do it.’ The consulate was closing at 1 p.m. Time was tight.

‘We’ll be there,’ I said, and hung up. ‘It’s all good,’ I said to Billy. ‘They can get the passports for us today.’

‘Jesus,’ said Billy, smiling. This was happening for real.

‘Yeah, but we haven’t much time. We need police reports for our passports. I said they were stolen and that our flights were leaving tonight. So she said she’d do them on the spot.’

* * *

In a police station we found after walking for a few blocks a cop at the reception told us to sit down. I looked at my watch. It was almost 10 a.m. We had to get the passports organised quickly and try to get a flight as soon as possible.

A cop with round-lensed glasses called us into his office. ‘
Sí,
’ he said, nodding, as Billy explained to him that our documents had been robbed. ‘
No problema.
’ After about half an hour we walked out with two forms completed. I could see that Colombia was decades ahead of Venezuela when it came to getting things done.

Outside, we piled into a taxi. ‘
Consulado de Irlanda,
’ I said to the driver, showing him the piece of paper with the address. We drove past modern buildings and shopping malls with McDonald’s and upmarket cafes. I felt safe. Caracas this wasn’t.

The taxi driver got lost and started going around in circles. ‘Here, here,’ I said, pointing at the address. He drove around the same block again. Up ahead I saw a gold Irish harp insignia on a plaque at a building entrance. ‘There, Billy. Look, look, we’re here. The harp.’

‘The harp,’ he said. ‘Heyyyyyyy.’ We started cheering and hugging each other in the taxi. The driver glanced at us in the rear-view mirror. I paid the guy and we stepped out. It was 11.30 a.m. Plenty of time to do our paperwork.

We walked into the offices. A beautiful Colombian woman in a grey suit attended to us. ‘Mr Keany?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Please sit down.’ We spun our story again: that our passports were lifted on the bus to Bogotá. We handed her the police report and passport photos we had organised in Caracas. ‘Everything seems to be in order,’ she said. ‘Just give me a few moments.’

She stepped out.

‘Nearly there, Billy, all looks good.’

* * *

We’re at El Dorado airport. We check our bags in at the Lufthansa desk. A stewardess with a yellow scarf taps our travel details into a keyboard. ‘Mr Keany, Mr O’Reilly. Your boarding passes,’ she says, handing us our documents. I have only a light bag. Billy checks one bag in. I watch it disappear down the baggage belt and under plastic flaps. Visions of my suitcase in Caracas airport flow back to me. Relax, Paul, there’s no coke this time.

‘Paul, let’s go,’ says Billy, ‘it’s done.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘I was just thinking. And good work with the tickets.’ Billy had contacted his father and he’d agreed to pay for both our tickets home. Another saviour. I also emailed the flight details to my nephew Mick to let my family know I was homeward bound.

We walk through security and then queue at immigration. I’m still nervous. I’ve no cocaine in my suitcase this time, but officials in Latin American airports still give me the jitters. The official looks at both our passports.

‘Where is your stamp for Colombia?’ he says.

‘What stamp?’ says Billy.

‘Your entry stamp when you arrived?’ I never thought of this one.

‘We came from Venezuela.’

The official calls a woman over. Not again, I think. Let us go. She studies our passports. ‘You must come this way,’ she says in English. No. We step into an office with windows. I look out at passengers passing through to their boarding gates. I want to run and join them.

‘You have no entry stamps. You are illegal in Colombia,’ she says. An official with a gun in a holster stands next to her.

‘We didn’t know,’ I say. ‘We came from Venezuela. They never stopped us at the border and asked us to get our passports stamped.’

‘You are obliged to do it yourself. You are illegals. It is a crime. You have to go to jail.’ The male official steps forward, reaching for his handcuffs. I want to puke.

‘No, hang on,’ I plead. ‘We didn’t know. We’re tourists. We made a mistake.’

Her face softens. She speaks to the immigration cop in fast Spanish. ‘OK. You can pay a fine. That is the only way you will leave for Ireland.’ Thank God. She tells me the price in Colombian pesos and I work out in my head it’s about 300 euro. It’s about what I have left.

She tells me I have to go to the immigration office downstairs in the departures area and pay there. ‘One of you will have to remain here.’

‘I’ll take care of this,’ I say. Billy stays put. I run off down a flight of stairs. It’s 9 p.m. The flight is leaving in 40 minutes. I run up to an office that says ‘
inmigración
’. I see a shutter slowly being pulled down at the teller window where a woman stands. ‘No, please,’ I say, rapping on the glass with my knuckles. ‘I have to pay a fine, a
multa
.’ I show her the paper from the immigration official.

‘
Sí,
’ she says. I hand over 300 euros’ worth of pesos. It is almost every penny I have except for a few loose coins. The gods are with me again. I grab the receipt and run. At the security checkpoint I stand in the queue, almost hopping on my feet in a panic. I pass through and run to the immigration office.

Billy stands inside, his mouth open.

‘I have it. It’s done.’ I’m out of breath.

The woman looks over the receipt. ‘OK, everything is in order. Have a good flight.’

‘I will,’ I say.

We’re at the boarding gate now. I start to relax. We have to empty our pockets and show all our belongings to a security official. I have nothing, only a few loose peso notes and coins. ‘That’s it, Billy,’ I say. ‘That’s it, there’s nothing stopping us now.’

‘You’re right, boy, we’re on our way home.’ We sit down and I watch a European-looking man being led away at the security check. His face has a look of despair I know only too well. ‘Look, Billy, look at him.’ Two cops escort him. Good luck.

The plane takes off and soars into the sky. We made it.

WE LANDED IN DUBLIN AIRPORT. BACK ON IRISH SOIL. WE ALIGHTED FROM the plane and I felt a shiver. It was a chilly winter’s afternoon in December. No tropics here. I didn’t believe we were home and dry yet, though. Neither of us wanted to jump for joy. We were still edgy. To me it wasn’t 100 per cent certain we were in the clear. We stood in line inside the airport at the passport checkpoint. What if our name came up on some Interpol system? ‘Two Irish drug smugglers on the run from Venezuela. Detain immediately.’ We’d be handcuffed and frogmarched off by security.

I stepped forward to the Garda immigration officer, a policewoman. Billy was behind me, almost rattling with worry. I handed over my temporary passport through a hatch in a window. The questions started. ‘What happened to your original passport?’

‘Got robbed on a bus on holiday in Colombia,’ I said. The officer looked over the small four-page document for a few moments. Let me through, let me through.

‘No problem,’ she said. Phew.

‘He’s the same,’ I said, pointing back to Billy. ‘He was robbed with me.’

‘OK,’ said the official, nodding with a serious expression, ‘that’s fine.’

We walked on. Finally home and dry. Up ahead in a corridor I saw a large sign on the wall. ‘
Céad míle fáilte
’ (Irish for ‘A hundred thousand welcomes’). I could have cried.

Billy went to collect his case at the baggage carousel. I saw a guy running towards me. Jesus, who was this?

‘Paul, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I said, baffled. He was dressed casually and didn’t look like a cop.

‘I know you,’ he said, smiling. ‘We met in Venezuela.’

It suddenly dawned on me. ‘Jeff, Jeff the reporter. You came in to visit me.’ How did he know I’d be here? I thought to myself.

‘Jeff Farrell, yeah, good to see you.’ He said he had recognised me in the immigration queue; he was on his way home from South America and had just got off the same flight from Bogotá as myself and Billy. I couldn’t believe it. The chances of it were one in a million. If you had a dollar on it you’d be a rich man. ‘What are you doing home so early?’ he said, smiling. ‘I thought you had a few years more to do in Los Teques.’

‘We did a runner,’ I laughed. I gave him a quick rundown of our escape across Venezuela to Colombia and home. We agreed to meet again. It was fate we were on the same flight. I had it in my head some day he could help me write down my ‘adventure’ in Venezuela.

I walked into the arrivals hall. Sharon, my sister, was there and started crying, her lip trembling. ‘Welcome home,’ she said, and gave me a big bear hug. Mick then gave me a long embrace. He’d seen me off in the airport before I left for Venezuela; now he was greeting me at home more than two years later. It was weird.

‘This is Billy boy,’ I said, introducing Billy to them. They all shook hands.

My mother met me at the door of my parents’ house. ‘It’s great to see you,’ she said, giving me a big hug. It was fantastic being home: the familiar smells of the house, my mother’s stew cooking in the kitchen.