The Extraditionist

by Todd Merer

  Paz crossed himself. It occurred to me how little I knew about him beyond our common goal. What was his life like? Did he still fuck his wife? Did he like his kids? Have grandkids? A girlfriend? Was he thinking about how his referral fee might change their collective futures? Or did he intend to take the money, then live footloose and fancy-free?

  His phone rang. He said, “Sí,” listened, then hung up, face flushed. He said, “Time to go.”

  Cars for hire were lined up outside the hotel, but we walked by them. We continued walking for a few blocks. Paz kept glancing across the street. I followed his gaze to a man wearing jeans and a tee. The man reached a corner and turned right.

  So did we.

  Soon we were out of the hotel district and in a neighborhood of littered streets and shuttered storefronts. It was growing dark. The streets were desolate. In many sections of Cali, one does not stroll at night. This was such a section.

  The man we were following turned a corner.

  When we turned it, he was gone from view.

  The door of a parked car opened.

  “Get in,” the driver said.

  We got in the car, and it pulled away. It was a midsize that needed a wash. Paz and I sat in the back. Up front were the driver and the shotgun. Normal-looking types, but if you were in the business, you weren’t normal. Driver kept flicking his eyes to the rearview mirror to see if we were being followed. Shotgun kept twisting around, looking all over. I snuck a glance:

  Warehouses faced rutted streets.

  No people, no other cars.

  We squared a block.

  Driver suddenly accelerated into an alley. Shotgun opened a door for us to get out. We did. The car headed down the alley and was gone. The alley was dark and quiet and smelled foul.

  What next?

  I thought maybe another car. Wrong. Light suddenly flooded the alley as a door opened, and a man leaned out and motioned for us to enter.

  We did.

  The door closed behind us. For a moment, it was pitch dark, then flashlights beamed in our faces. From behind the lights, the man told us to raise our arms.

  We did.

  Hands patted us down. An electronic wand passed over us. Our phones were taken. “An understandable precaution,” Paz said nervously. The flashlights went out, and the door opened and we were told to go.

  We did.

  A van waited in the alley now, its rear doors open. We climbed in the rear, and the van started off. A curtain obscured the driver. Through my window, I watched the neighborhood recede, and then we were back in downtown Cali. I thought we were headed for the hillside neighborhoods, where gated homes were few and far between, but instead, we turned onto a highway.

  Soon Cali fell behind us. On both sides of the road, mountains outlined a moonlit sky. I knew we were going through the valley but not in what direction. We passed a sign with an arrow pointing to an exit—Yumbo—but all I saw in that direction were fields of tall green cane . . . another sight from my past.

  There had been a time when my ex-wife and I called ourselves Children of the Cane because of a man I sometimes met in the middle of a Yumbo sugarcane field in a ramshackle bar with the unlikely name of The Sahara Club. My ex and I had had private names for everything, back when we were in love and she thought well of me—

  Forget the man. Forget her thoughts. Forget her.

  The van hummed along.

  It was growing dark but still very warm. Paz had taken his suit coat off. His shirt was damp. I pulled up a mental map of Colombia. After thirty minutes we didn’t reach the airport, so I figured we were heading south, away from Cali down the Cauca Valley, which went all the way to Nariño.

  Made sense. Nariño was guerrilla territory, and Sombra reputedly bought coca from guerrilla factions engaged in perpetual strife with the government. Was Sombra bringing us into a war zone? Then again, the meet might not be in Nariño, because the river valley intersected dozens of smaller valleys, and these were veined by hundreds of no-name canyons. All secluded, remote, Sombra-type lairs.

  So, maybe we were headed to Popoyán, the City of Cathedrals.

  Perhaps, like Rigo, Sombra intended to meet me at a church—

  Paz leaned closer and quietly said, “Jamundí.”

  Something caught in my throat . . . another memory. This one cut deep.

  What goes around comes around.

  I had returned to Jamundí.

  CHAPTER 10

  Flashback: twenty years ago.

  Mady is my new bride. We’re not only joined at the hip; she is also my accomplished paralegal. We are deeply in love and best friends and workmates. Our future is bright and limitless. My professional star is rising. I’m just a couple of years out of law school, not yet thirty, but already I’ve become a hell of a trial lawyer. My ascent begins when I work some courtroom magic, get lucky at the same time, and win a no-win case. For a Colombian. He sends his friends to me. His friends send friends.

  One day I receive a call from a man with a hoarse voice. He is extremely polite. Reserved. Would I consider an expenses-paid trip to Cali to discuss a case?

  “Yes,” I say. “With my paralegal.”

  “Of course.”

  But I have reservations about bringing Mady. Maybe even concerns about myself. Colombia doesn’t have good press. This is the wild nineties, and bad shit happens there. Enough for the State Department to issue travel warnings. But Mady wants to go. Growing up in a Spanish household, she heard good things about Colombia. She admires the country’s writers and poets. But I’m not into fiction or fantasy. I’m uneasy—

  Until a Mr. Green appears with first-class expense money for two and a $25,000 retainer for my time. Two hundred fifty unissued Franklins.

  Outside the Cali airport terminal, a small convoy awaits us. Dark-windowed Chevy Luminas. Ours is the middle van. Our driver and his assistant do not speak during the trip, which is south through the Cauca Valley.

  To Jamundí.

  We leave the highway for secondary roads that grow smaller until we are on a narrow path through dense jungle. Dappled sunlight flickers through the dark windows; in the light, Mady is changeable: beautiful and more beautiful.

  The vans emerge from the trees to a vast green in the center of which is a large, modern glass-and-steel building. Mady asks the driver what it is.

  “The training center for America de Cali.”

  I’m impressed. This is a world-class soccer team the Cali big boys are rumored to own. Was the man with the hoarse voice one of them?

  “Look,” says Mady.

  Behind the building are three or four perfectly groomed soccer fields, on each of which uniformed teams are playing. When we get out of our Lumina, we can hear their cries across the turf. The sky is deep blue, the day warm and breezy, the colors so bright . . .

  I remember as if it were yesterday.

  We walk along the sidelines.

  I see a player who seems familiar. When he grins and waves at me, I recognize him as Mr. Green, who fetched my fee for several Colombian clients. Small world, I think.

  Even smaller than I imagined.

  In short order, I see half a dozen other Colombians I’ve met: a bail jumper, another fugitive, the brother of a client, the husband of another client, an unindicted coconspirator, still another Mr. Green. Some are spectators, some are players, one a referee.

  Why are they all here? Am I dreaming?

  Until that moment, I had dismissed references to Colombian cartels as law-enforcement hyperbole. But now it dawns on me. If all these seemingly unconnected people know one another, it can only mean one thing:

  Yes, Benn, there is a cartel.

  And so there was. Their CFO turns out to be the man with the hoarse voice. Nacho Barrera. He is bespectacled, modest.

  “The problem is my brother, Max,” Nacho says.

  Max, short for Maximilian, had been recently arrested in New York. Max ran Nacho’s money-laundering enterprise, each day sending a jetlin
er nose cone filled with drug money from New York to Cali. For this service, Nacho charged the other Cali bosses fifteen points to the dollar. Brother Max also ran a kilo-distribution operation out of Queens, where he blended in with the Colombian émigré community.

  “I’ll do anything to help Max,” Nacho says.

  “If there’s a way, I’ll find it,” I say.

  If. I didn’t make promises that couldn’t be kept. I told the truth, come what may. Nor did I pretend my clients were upstanding citizens. I knew what they did, but it didn’t matter. Some people sold weapons; they sold a product the system deemed illegal. So what? In those days, I and everyone I knew used blow. Except Mady, who was—as she had been so often in those days—looking at me strangely.

  “Money is not a problem,” Nacho says. “Whatever it takes.”

  Nothing better in the world than being well paid for something you love doing. I’m thinking this when Mady turns and says, “Hello, who’s this?”

  A little girl has appeared. She has long brown hair that cascades around her shoulders, hair the same brown as her eyes, which are large, like a child in a Keane painting. She is gravitating toward Mady, but her eyes are fixed on me. I wink, and the girl giggles.

  “My daughter,” says Nacho. “Sara.”

  Sara looks to be about seven. Mady and I quickly bond with her. For some reason, the kid is fascinated by me. Few people understand my humor. Not only does this kid Sara get me, in no time at all she’s speaking English like a New Yorker.

  “She wishes we weren’t married,” Mady says.

  “Why is that?”

  “She wants to marry you herself.”

  Sara is only one nice aspect of all that follows, which truly is—forgive the cliché—the best of times. Nacho puts the word out, and I become the go-to lawyer of all Cali. I am making serious money. Blizzards of Franklins. I expand my offices. Hire lawyers to do my grunge work. Every day is court, jail, eat, sleep. Every month, we travel to Colombia. We meet with Nacho at one or another of his properties, sometimes in a bar amid the cane fields, in The Sahara Club.

  Max’s case is a slam dunk for the prosecution. When Max goes down, I will suffer the ignominy of being dunked on. There is no way out unless he cooperates against the big guys, but this is before extradition, and since the big guys never leave Colombia, there are no big fish to cooperate against because they send only workers to the States. Back then, the Colombian DTOs functioned vertically, handling everything from growing to street-peddling. If a worker got busted, his family, although technically hostages to guarantee his silence, would be well taken care of. Merely bringing up the subject of cooperation was enough to get your throat slit.

  But to my surprise one night in The Sahara Club, Nacho brings up cooperation. I remember the moment clearly. Despite its shabbiness, The Sahara is stocked with crates of world-class wine. We are working through a third bottle of California’s finest cabernet—Nacho loves all things American—and the mood is mellow when, in that raspy voice of his, he says, “Perhaps there is one way to solve all our problems.”

  I take a sip, look at him.

  “Cooperation, Benn. We give the federals things in return for Max, yes?”

  “Things?” Meaning other people and their money. Meaning I’d be on the wrong side of a lot of angry narco-traffickers.

  “Pablo’s things.”

  Brilliant Nacho. His Cali cartel was at war with Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cartel. Pablo’s forte was brute force. Nacho’s was brainpower. He had spies in Medellín who knew the specifics of Pablo’s people and operations.

  And so Max did what at the time was unthinkable for a Colombian. He became a sapo. A rat. And I became the messenger between him and Nacho, bringing Max information on Medellín drugsters, who in turn fed it to the DEA.

  This was shortly after credit for cooperation became codified in federal law, ushering in a new era in which prosecutors had loose guidelines about sources of cooperation, their primary focus being results. Which meant guys could literally buy their way from jail by selling out others.

  I don’t mention any of this to Mady. It’s high-voltage stuff, no need for her to walk beneath live power lines.

  Nacho finances an organization called People against Pablo Escobar. PEPE. A rare acronym that earns my seal of approval. In point of fact, PEPE is one big sicario hit team.

  Soon Pablo goes down. Cali is victorious. Nacho reigns.

  Max’s sentence is reduced from thirty years to fifteen. Nacho delivers a huge bonus. Despite his newly elevated status, he is humble. As a boy, he escaped a poor barrio by the only route available, much like American robber barons for whom criminality was a stepladder, men like Joseph Kennedy Sr., who made his first fortune as a bootlegger.

  To my surprise—and I think to Nacho’s—we become friends.

  Life is good. I have money, Mady, a future. All is well.

  But then all of a sudden, it isn’t.

  Nacho owns hundreds of properties: fincas, mining tracts, Cali high-rises. His life is a moveable feast among them. On one trip, we meet at a grand mansion on several thousand acres near Jamundí known as Toylandia. A private resort for Nacho’s DTO, it features a shooting range, billiards hall, several gyms, a soccer field, golf course, horse barns, cockfighting arena, a lake stocked with game fish, and bathing beauties galore. Nacho even has a personal chef named Maestro.

  One evening, we are enjoying Maestro’s fare when Nacho gets a call that makes him frown. He excuses himself for a moment, leaving us with Sara. The moment becomes an hour, then two. Night falls. Maestro leaves. The three of us are alone. The vibes are negative.

  The lights go out. From the darkness come gunshots. They grow louder, closer.

  I scoop Sara in my arms, take Mady’s hand, and we leave. Outside, none of Nacho’s people are around. I find a car with keys in the ignition. We get in, and I drive from the property. Sara is crying. She knows something bad is happening.

  I’m not sure which way to go. Behind us flash the lights of other vehicles, gaining on us. Then I realize we are passing cane fields. The Sahara Club. I pull in, cut the lights, kill the engine. The pursuit cars pass. We sit in the dark, empty bar, waiting.

  Much later, Sara and Mady are asleep when I hear sounds. I slip through shadows to the entrance. From outside, footsteps. Low voices. Two men. Looking for us. I look around for something to defend us with. But there are just wooden wine cases . . . atop which lies a crowbar.

  The door slowly edges open.

  I flatten against the wall, sure the intruder can hear my beating heart.

  A man enters. He holds a gun. I come up from low and behind and place the crowbar around his throat and yank—crunch—and he goes limp. I know he’s dead but don’t care—no, I’m glad there’s one less of them to deal with. I am operating on an automatic pilot I never even knew existed.

  I bend for the fallen man’s gun as the second man enters. Without thinking, I point and shoot. The muzzle flash is blinding, the shot deafening in the shack.

  When my faculties return, I see both men lying still and hear Sara’s sobs. Mady is holding her tight, rocking her.

  “Stay here,” I whisper, and leave.

  I don’t know whether the two men were alone, but surely, their comrades cannot be too far away. I move their car deep into the cane, where my own car is already hidden. It is dark, and it would be insanity to drive with headlights on. But I will remain outside, so if others come I can lead them away from The Sahara Club.

  Hours pass. Nothing. Dead quiet, but then:

  From the cane: “Sara. Sara. Sara . . .”

  The voice is hoarse. Nacho’s?

  Before we can stop her, Sara bolts.

  We go after her, but she is gone in the cane. And then comes another cry. Not Nacho, but Sara. Her voice is fearful, calling for me by my middle name, a name I never use but one Mady had playfully shared with her.

  My seldom-used name echoes, a cry . . . but from where?

&n
bsp; Then another shot rings out.

  Then all is silent.

  We stay there until late the next afternoon when, hopefully, it will be safe to leave. Mady cannot bear being in The Sahara with the dead men, so we wait in the car. It must be a hundred degrees inside it, but it’s even hotter outside. I sit behind the wheel. We do not talk. There is nothing to say.

  I know she is thinking about Sara. So am I.

  I know she’s thinking about the dead men. So am I. But my regrets are solely about Mady’s reaction. Myself, I’m not rueful in the slightest. If I thought one of the fuckers was still breathing, I’d go back inside and pinch his nose until he stopped. I’m glad I reacted the way I did and won’t brook any criticism. After all, who can argue with the fact that I’m the last man standing? I’m also pissed as hell. Angry that Mady doesn’t appreciate my defending us. What, she’d have preferred being murdered?

  I mutter, “It was them or us.”

  Mady does not answer.

  It is not until we are back in Cali that we learn Nacho and his people and his extended family all have been murdered by a newly formed alliance of smaller cartel bosses.

  During the flight home, Mady gives me the silent treatment. As we land, she says she’s done working. I nod understandingly. My present clients are gone. But, I add, there will be new ones. There always are.

  “You don’t understand. I don’t want to do this work anymore.”

  “We can’t just quit. I’m a lawyer. This is what I do.”

  “I’m not a lawyer. You do it without me.”

  “Look, I know this was a bad—”

  “You killed two men, Benn.”

  “Them or us . . . and Sara.”

  Mady wipes a tear. “I know that. I’m just sorry—no, I’m angry that I was there.”

  “I had no idea what was going to happen—”

  “I’m not angry with you, Benn. I’m angry with myself. You preferred not seeing things, but I couldn’t do that. I’ve been thinking this way for a while. Maybe from the beginning. I don’t want my life to be helping criminals.”