Three Minutes

by Anders Roslund

  “More drug barons. Like Toyas?”

  “Toyas? Toyas, Peter?” El Mestizo tapped first on the pilot’s seat, then on his back. “Turn off the intercom.”

  He waited while the pilot turned a small wheel in the middle of the dashboard.

  “Like Toyas? Are you serious? Peter—I have as much property as that bastard. Even more! Twice as much! Two haciendas! Not bad for a half-breed, right?”

  “And two wives.”

  He was just as excited, almost looked sneaky, it wasn’t often he beamed like this.

  “That’s right—two wives! That coward Toyas, who can’t protect his own children, doesn’t have that. Fuck, they’re probably not even his! A thousand dollars says that impotent bastard adopted them with his boyfriend.”

  Beautiful and endless estates were replaced by more jungle, the undulating forest and the Amazon tributaries branching into hundreds of pumping arteries.

  “Two haciendas, Peter. And I have more cars than Toyas, more animals, more children. More in my bank accounts, both in Colombia and in Panama.” He beamed happily, some kind of euphoria that had overflowed into talkativeness. El Mestizo had never spoken so openly before. A happiness that almost felt embarrassing, repulsive, but Hoffmann couldn’t understand why.

  “Soon, Peter. That cage we talked about? We’re gonna help the man sitting in it talk. The one who refuses to do what they say. The same man who’s responsible for that kill list, Peter—for your name and mine being on it. Responsible! That is exactly what he is! Joaquín—this is for you! And it’ll be his fault if we lose more! As far as I like, Peter! As long as I don’t kill him.”

  The euphoria felt embarrassing, repulsive. Hoffmann understood now. This was no ordinary torture session.

  Hundreds of kilometers of dense jungle and no villages, no people. The distances were enormous. The kidnappers had situated Crouse’s cage with care. Hoffmann closed his eyes, hovered. What if someone had told him about all this when he was growing up in a middle-class home in a suburb south of Stockholm? “Piet, listen now—one day you’ll live in a country called Colombia, in South America—one day you’ll be protecting contraband and the next a cocaine kitchen and the next flying over a jungle to torture some powerful American politician. And you’ll do it because you have to, because you’re on the run from a long prison sentence, and because you’ve been condemned to death by the Polish mob you infiltrated on behalf of the Swedish police, until those very same police abandoned you.” If someone had told him that it would have made a good but hardly believable tale. You have to believe in a lie for it to become true.

  The helicopter landed in tall grass at the edge of a tributary of the Río Vaupés. Wide, grand, brown and blue-green water that felt almost warm when you dipped your hand into it.

  The boat pilot introduced himself as Cristobal, head of PRC-guerrilla waterborne transport in the department of Guaviare, and took them to a tree lying a bit out into the river. A boat was moored to it, a rope leading from the stern to its curved trunk and another rope from the bow leading to another fallen tree sticking up from the river bank, sprawling and tormented by sun and water. The boat had space for five fully equipped soldiers, a high-speed one-hundred-horsepower engine, and a flat bottom to land on rocky beaches without getting stuck. Hoffmann and El Mestizo climbed in, and Cristobal turned the ignition key, untied the ropes, and backed out into the stream, gliding westward, downstream. Hoffmann watched him. He was so proud, straight-backed as he maneuvered through the primeval forest in a camouflage uniform, a loaded Kalashnikov hanging off his back. Maybe a little older than the usual soldier. Hoffmann guessed they were around the same age, but it was difficult to tell, guerrilla life aged you prematurely. And it was fascinating to watch him pilot through the strong current—even though he held course, he reversed gears and controlled the boat’s speed by sometimes increasing, sometimes cutting the gas completely in those places where whirlpools danced eagerly.

  Mile after mile on the river, through vegetation and the animal chorus of sounds claiming this as their place, we live here, we rule, except for the blue sky and the ruthless sun. One hour of a winding, anxious journey until Hoffmann recognized the drone of the boat’s engine as the pilot veered off toward the shore, shouting stay in the boat and waiting two seconds until giving it full throttle. They headed straight for the shore with the propeller halfway up from the water, gliding on top of what seemed neither river nor beach, a no man’s land of thick reeds and leaves and the wayward branches of mangroves. All the way to the riverbed, and they felt the boat scrape the bottom—mud, rocks, the occasional log. They jumped out onto solid ground between four potrillos, canoes carved directly from balsa trees.

  Cristobal went first, slashing with his machete at the branches that grasped them as they passed by. Foul-smelling. Swampy. Hot. Insects. Hellish humidity. And after a dawn rain the narrow path had turned to sticky mud. A few hundred meters and they arrived at the base camp. Always in similar places, extremely inaccessible and feared by both the Colombian regular army and the police, many of their own would die in any attack while the guerrillas could slip out and survive—this was their backyard.

  On the edge of the camp they passed by a truck that had held twenty young guerrilla fighters, who were now sitting on the ground and leaning against their backpacks, waiting for something.

  The boat pilot nodded toward the open space in front of them, the huts and tents framed a simple deck of planks, like a square in a city. “You can watch TV over there. Sometimes the reception’s not bad.” A small television set was tied to a branch, like in the camp at the cocaine kitchen.

  Farther away, behind the huts, a new group of men appeared, similar to the soldiers sitting on the ground waiting for something. “Prisoners. The normal kind.” Hoffmann counted twelve. Dirty and torn clothing, long hair and beards, chains around their necks. “They’re not worth much. But they’re good to have around for prisoner exchanges. Those ones are being moved to another camp.”

  That was why the soldiers had been transported here and now chained the prisoners neck to neck, linking them together, a train of hostages that would carry their little packs through the jungle—a straw mattress and whatever few personal belongings they’d had with them at their kidnapping several years earlier, and which despite daily visitations had yet to be confiscated.

  Cristobal gestured with his machete toward the dense shrubbery—time to move on. Hoffmann had, during that brief stop, committed a sketch of the base camp to memory, its location and housing, and the lower hollow that sloped steeply down on the camp’s right edge. The boat pilot’s regular blows with his blade led them to a clearing and for a moment they escaped the canopy and were drowned in blue sky and followed the birds. Egrets, Hoffmann was sure of it. He counted every step. Two hundred, five hundred, twelve hundred equally long steps, ever darker, ever wetter. And then they were there. Campo Importante. A new detention center for only four prisoners, political hostages whose value was quite different from the thousands of Colombian soldiers and police officers scattered throughout the other jungle camps. The human resources for specific transactions. And if that kind of exchange were impossible, the guerrillas kept them, kept them for months or years, until it became possible. The most precious jewels locked in a safe, taken out occasionally to see how they shone, enjoying that possession, stashed until they were carried out or sold.

  “I’m leaving you here.” Cristobal was swallowed up by vegetation as suddenly as a short man appeared from it, a red bandanna wrapped twice around his head and jingling spurs on his muddy boots. Hoffmann wondered if he always wore them, or if it was in their honor.

  “Welcome.” His hand was limp, the man content to just offer it. “My name is Maximiliano Cubero—head of the PRC’s special front. The others call me Commandant, but it would do me great honor if you were to address me by my first name.” A handshake that didn’t match the impression he intended to make.

  “This is my camp. The soldi
ers you see have been selected by me, all very well trained and combat ready. PRC elite. And that is your assignment.” He turned and pointed to a cage set up in the far corner of the camp.

  The cage. So close. Hoffmann excused himself, walked through the camp while El Mestizo stayed with the commandant, passed by a row of young soldiers, many of them women recruited from Colombia’s poorest neighborhoods, who chose this rather than a brothel. And he did exactly as he had at base camp, made a map in his head where no one could reach it, spacing out huts with sparse planks on the floor and walls of palm leaves and the doors of empty rice sacks. Until he was there. Worn, dirty, eyes that were exhausted—but it was still possible to recognize Speaker Crouse from the pictures in El Espectador. A powerful chain around his neck, connected to his wrists and ankles, and they tightened as he sat down directly on the floor and ate what was in his dish, the kind of bread that was just flour and water fried in oil.

  It was only when Hoffmann got really close that he saw the rest. How the skin on his face and arms and hands was covered with uneven swellings, wide bruises, blotchy patches. They’d given him quite a beating. And then—the speaker’s right foot. They’d pulled out all the toenails, left behind fleshy and pus-filled sores. That was why he was sitting on the floor. They’d already started, and failed at, the work that El Mestizo had been hastily summoned here to finish. The work he’d been so pleased about in the car and helicopter.

  Hoffmann didn’t yet know the real purpose of torture, what they wanted the speaker to say or do—what he was supposed to say or do by the time El Mestizo was finished with him. Just a few meters from a cage with bars of bamboo. And now the speaker heard him, looked up from his bowl, and his eyes—this man was tormented, but not broken.

  Timothy D. Crouse dropped the bowl. Someone was standing near the cage. Someone new, not the soldier who guarded him nor the commandant who controlled him, this one didn’t wear a uniform and his eyes weren’t filled with contempt. Crouse tried to see who it was, but the pounding, irregular pulse from his right foot cut through his body like knives before and after each breath. Pointy, shiny knives that stabbed with rending blows, pouring down his neck and back and hips. That was where they started, the upper part of his body, hitting him with fists and canes.

  The pain cut through his joints and muscles and nerves, but he withstood it. Again and again. But not the consequence of it—gradually losing the ability to think clearly, fighting against the daze, no longer feeling sharp or analytical. Which is who he was. That’s why he couldn’t place the man outside the cage. Even though it was someone he recognized. Someone he’d seen before. He was sure of it. That way of moving, not quite a young man but still physically fit. That tattoo on his head, a lizard, or maybe a snake, a green tail disappearing down his neck.

  Crouse stretched out his right leg, angled it up, the pain didn’t let go, but it lessened for a moment. And he made another attempt, looked at his visitor again, focused, trying to force himself to think. And then it occurred to him.

  It’s you. From the surveillance images on the large screen at the NGA. Your way of moving, the top of your head—what you can see from above on images that aren’t captured with perfect clarity, the sum of thousands of hours of surveillance from spy satellites. The one the operators and investigators failed to identify. You, who work side by side with the violent man we managed to identify as Johnny Sánchez, or El Mestizo. You, who until now had no face. But now you do. I see you. I recognize you.

  Piet Hoffmann met the speaker’s eyes. At first they’d seemed muddy, unfocused, but now they were completely clear, with a bite and an edge that seemed to cut right through him. And he wanted to say something to them, lean forward against the bars and whisper, Crouse, you don’t know it, but we’re on the same side, I was recruited by your countrymen, your employees, for your project, to infiltrate the very people who hold you captive, hurt you. But he couldn’t. The soldier posted as a guard right outside the barred opening was too close. If she were to hear, see, suspect, it would all be over.

  Maybe later. If I can get close without them seeing me. Then I’ll tell you.

  “Speaker Diaper.”

  Crouse’s eyes changed. They looked tormented. But there was something else, something just as strong. Hate.

  “You’re a very important person to us, Speaker Diaper.”

  The commandant. And El Mestizo. They’d placed themselves on either side of Hoffmann and were looking into the cage, at the person sitting on the floor with a chain around his neck.

  “That’s why these nice gentlemen have traveled all this way for you. All the way from the big city. In order to talk to you. Since you don’t want to talk to us.”

  The American didn’t withdraw further into the cage, didn’t try to escape into one of its corners—away from the man with the rattling spurs. But he didn’t reply either, he sat still and stared at them even though he knew what was coming, why they were here.

  “You see? He’s not much for conversation.”

  Then he seemed to change his mind, managed with great pain to get up on his hands and knees, his face turning red, his jaws cramping, his eyes tearing up. He pushed himself up from the floorboards, yanked his upper body up and grabbed onto two of the bars, pulling himself the rest of the way.

  He stood a few meters away, carefully balancing his weight on both feet, even the one without toenails. And then he turned around, meeting his visitors with his back straight.

  The guards—who’d mentioned several times how honored they were to be chosen for what was indisputably the most important task a PRC guerrilla could be chosen for, protecting this asset at any cost, seeing to it that it remained in the possession of the PRC—had all withdrawn. Not because they had been ordered to do so, but gradually. Every step El Mestizo had taken during the torture of Speaker Crouse they had taken one step back. And now, when they couldn’t get any farther away, they turned their faces, one of them even covered his ears.

  Someone had beaten him up with their fists the day before, to no avail, a soldier in his twenties had proudly demonstrated his skills at El Mestizo’s request, intense shadowboxing and a few high kicks against a tree that was supposed to represent Crouse’s chest. Someone had whipped him this morning, to no avail, and El Mestizo had demanded to know where and how—a professional has to prepare in order to continue working from the same level. The canes had been bloody and coarse at one end and the American’s back, buttocks, and thighs had a pronounced pattern of red, swollen lines. The young guard that had been assigned the task—her hair in two braids and pale-red lipstick on her smile, she’d even curtsied to them—had tried to write out PRC with violent lashes in angular letters that reminded Hoffmann of the amateur graffiti of the Stockholm suburbs, young boys with spray cans repeating the name of their gang on wall after wall. Then someone, to no avail, pulled out the toenails from his right foot with a pair of pincers; the commandant had shown them how at El Mestizo’s request and admitted that he himself—assisted by his second in command who held down Crouse’s legs—had been the one to do it. He’d clenched his hands and moved them back and forth between himself and Hoffmann to demonstrate how, even let out a short howl to mimic the prisoner’s, and the guerrilla soldiers in the camp had looked at one another and laughed once they were completely confident that the others would too, and that laughter was what the commandant expected.

  Now they would get their results.

  Piet Hoffmann walked with El Mestizo to the cage but stopped short—only the torturer and the doctor would go through the cage door. And he did as he used to, tried to find an approach, forced himself to think about the very first time, back when all of this was just tall tales. About isolated cases of torture in the city. And about how he—although it hadn’t been his business back then either—had insisted on making it his own, wanted to demonstrate, to prove that he could be relied upon. It had been during his first months of service, when he was just another one of El Mestizo’s men. He’
d tired of fighting with their you’re a European, you are nothing. It didn’t help to tell them that he’d spent time behind bars, already shot two people besides the ones he’d shot in Colombia. Death is easy, they’d blustered, what’s hard is killing slowly.

  Hoffmann had since learned El Mestizo’s methodology. After beatings with fists and canes and pulled-out toenails came electricity. That’s why two of the young soldiers were now heaving a frame made from four welded-together iron bars into the cage. Two square meters, it just barely made it inside lying on its long side, almost hit the ceiling as they angled it. They removed two floorboards and exposed the soil below—to improve conductivity—and from it a line of four iron bars, fifteen centimeters long, all pointed upward. They fit perfectly in the four holes drilled in the bottom of the iron frame. The contraption was slipped onto the bars and held steady in the middle of the cage.

  At El Mestizo’s request, the young female guard cut the string that held Crouse’s dress pants up, pulled them and his underwear toward his ankles. The two soldiers, after mounting the iron frame, now pushed the prisoner toward it, unlocked the chains around his wrists, and attached his arms to the frame instead. His hands were placed over his head and ten meters of copper wire was wound several times around his right wrist and the iron bar, then across the frame to his left wrist and another iron bar, diagonally down to where it was wound several times around his right ankle, and then several more times around the left ankle.