One of them punched Rivero in the gut. As he doubled over and gasped for air, trying not to vomit, a black sack slipped over his head and the drawstring tightened around his neck and was tied. His arms were tugged behind his back, and plastic cuff-ties snapped around his wrists.
He felt hands pushing him along down the hallway, and heard the jeers and shouts from other prisoners incited by the presence of Colombian military or police. He felt a plastic bottle strike his head.
Rivero heard guards shout orders and threats to the prisoners to keep them in line.
One prisoner, a man whose family was killed by FARC, charged down the corridor, his eyes set on Rivero with hatred and rage. The man held a piece of sharp, jagged metal low in his hand. Two guards intercepted him and beat him down with the butts of their submachine guns, pummeling his skull, battering him, until he stopped moving. They disarmed him and left him on the floor of the corridor.
They guided Rivero down a narrow stairwell, pushing him along and occasionally striking the butts of their weapons against his head and back. At the bottom of the stairs, they directed him down a long hallway, at the end of which he heard a door open. Hands shoved him inside.
Now he heard water dripping into a dank puddle with a slight echo.
They stripped the clothes and underwear off his body. He felt the cold air against his bare skin, the dirty cement floor beneath his feet. Then he heard water running through the pipes in the wall, and seconds later it streamed onto the floor. He felt the expanding puddle reach his feet.
They blasted him with three high pressure hoses.
Whichever direction he turned, there was more water coming at him in an endless flow.
When he went onto the floor, one hose’s flow was directed over his head.
He’d been water-boarded before. Although his mind understood the process and the physiological effects, his senses still screamed at him that he was drowning, and he fought for air. There was water in his nose, causing his sinuses to burn painfully, and in his throat. His lungs screamed. His body went into a panic. He gagged and choked and thrashed on the dirty squalor of the floor. When he twisted his head to the side, and there was a brief break in the water against his face, he sucked the air into his lungs and screamed, pleaded for them to stop, but they said nothing.
The onslaught continued for several minutes — felt like a lifetime — until long after the fight slowly and finally ebbed from Rivero. He screamed, thrashed, and cried until he was too weak to do anything but curl up on the floor and whimper.
The men took two hoses away, lowered the pressure on the third, and left it showering over Rivero. He lay naked, wet, gasping, freezing and shivering in a ball on the floor, hiding his shriveled genitals behind his hands.
“Here’s the deal, Cesar,” a disembodied Spanish-speaking voice said. Rivero did not recognize the voice from past interrogation sessions. “I possess neither the time nor the patience to fuck about with you, so I’ll lay it out for you in simple terms.”
Not that Rivero knew it, but the voice belonged to Daniel, whom he had never met, and the ANIC officer was accompanied by an American codenamed Carnivore and a squad of four specially selected special ops troops led by a captain named Aguilar.
Like the Colombians, Avery wore a balaclava. He kept his mouth shut the entire time, which wasn’t difficult for him. Daniel had advised him that it be best that neither prison staff nor inmates heard an English-speaking voice or American-accented Spanish in case there was an investigation later.
It was never mentioned aloud, but Avery realized that Daniel did not expect Cesar Rivero to return to his cell after tonight.
“Arianna Moreno,” Daniel continued after several seconds. “The whore they call the Viper, we want to know where and how to find her. We killed her nasty psychopath brother last week, shot him in the back as he fled like a helpless, little girl into the jungle, and now we’re going to end her life and deliver a long overdue measure of justice on behalf of the people they’ve killed and the families they’ve destroyed.”
That caught Cesar Rivero’s attention. He stopped gasping and writhing, fell abruptly silent and still on the floor and seemed to forget about his physical discomfort.
“We tried this once before, didn’t we, Cesar? You managed to hold your silence and protect the whore. But not this time. We’re not National Police, Cesar. We can do whatever we want, and if you do not cooperate, you’re going to an unmarked grave this time, but not before I take you apart one miserable, worthless fucking piece at a time.”
Avery thought Daniel put on a good performance. There was menace in his voice, and Avery didn’t doubt for a second that Daniel meant every word of it. Avery held no sympathy for Rivero. The man was presented a very clear and fair ultimatum, the means to escape a horrendous, excruciating ordeal, and he was free to make his decision. Rivero’s fate was entirely in his own hands. But part of Avery hated to see a weak, defenseless creature suffer. A wounded, starving wolf was still a sight that warranted pity.
They all knew which choice Rivero would make, and Avery pitied the man for the hell he was about to put himself through.
From behind the soaking wet hood over Rivero’s head, there was a strained chuckle that turned into a hacking cough. “So you fuckers are ANIC? ANIC had their try, too. I’m not afraid. I haven’t had a shower in two months, so go ahead, and turn the water back on, you sons of whores.”
Daniel’s voice stayed calm, measured.
“Who I am isn’t important, because I won’t be the one asking the questions, Cesar. If you don’t talk to me right now, we’re all leaving Bellavista together and turning you over to the Black Eagles. No one’s expecting you to do the smart thing, and the Black Eagles are looking forward to your visit. They must have had to draw fucking straws to see who gets their hands on you.”
Silence reigned.
The tension in the room was palpable.
Black Eagles was the name for a number of armed groups formed after the dissolution of the AUC, the United Self-Defense Unit of Colombia, a paramilitary death squad that targeted members of FARC, ELN, and the cartels, as well as their families and left wing politicians. They were financed by mining and oil companies whose businesses were threatened by the insurgent groups. AUC, and subsequently the Black Eagles, were added to the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations for their mass civilian killings and human rights abuses. Over 20,000 killings and disappearances have been linked to the group. While the National Police Search Bloc unit hunted the Black Eagles and former AUC members, ANIC maintained loose ties with certain factions who shared a common enemy in FARC and the cartels.
When Rivero finally spoke, his voice did not sound as resilient as his words. “Go ahead. It’s been a long time since I had a chance to spit on a Black Eagle.”
Daniel was not going to ask again.
As Aguilar’s soldiers approached Rivero and produced a syringe to inject him with Etorphine, Avery couldn’t help but grimace, thinking that Cesar Rivero really should have made a smarter decision. Once the small dose of the diluted horse tranquilizer took effect, Rivero’s limp body went into a sack, was sealed inside, and removed from the prison.
By the time his captors woke him up with a shot of synthetic adrenaline, they had already moved Cesar Rivero to an abandoned textile factory in western Medellin.
Medellin was now a heavily industrialized and urbanized city with solid infrastructure, flourishing businesses, and brand new skyscrapers, but in the 1980s, when the powerful cartel named after the city flourished, Medellin was the most violent city in the world. Although many of the city’s neighborhoods are now completely peaceful and safe, in other areas paramilitaries and gangs engage in gun battles on the streets. Here no one would dare interfere with the Black Eagles or report anything they saw or heard to the police. A gunshot or two wouldn’t spark alarm or draw attention here.