Gavíria. The police and the army are not permitted inside this prison. If you want, you can bring the regular prison officials to do this search, but I will not allow the army and even less the police. Please remember, gentlemen, I fought a war with the police and this policy is the result.”

The assistant minister looked very upset. To make the situation more comfortable, Pablo offered to allow soldiers inside, but only without weapons. The two officials accepted this, but when contacted, the president refused. Breaking his pact with Pablo, he insisted the army enter with their weapons, that there could be no compromise. I think he was concerned he would look weak if he accepted Pablo’s offer.

But Pablo was just as strong. “They can’t come inside with weapons,” he insisted. “No one’s coming in here armed to kill us.” The government men tried to calm the situation, but Pablo insisted: “We don’t know what their intentions are. I do not trust my life with them.” There was no solution to this standoff and we all waited to see what would happen. What happened was that the government sent many more soldiers, as well as helicopters and airplanes. We learned from sources that two loaded Hercules airplanes had left from Bogotá to Medellín, and already truckloads of soldiers from Bogotá were coming up the mountain to replace the troops from Medellín that were patrolling the prison’s perimeter.

After dark the government officials decided to leave. “Let’s go to sleep tonight,” Mendoza said. “We’ll come back tomorrow to figure out how to solve this.” But just at that moment Pablo got a phone call from an army general we trusted. He informed Pablo that the government planned to capture or kill him, or even extradite him. Pablo took me aside and explained the situation knowing that we were the only two who knew what was going on. Our options were narrow. The first thing he decided was to keep the government officials as hostages. He explained to them: “I’m sorry, but you can’t leave here right now. We need you to ensure our own security while we figure out what to do.”

The situation could be solved only by the president, but Gavíria refused to get on the telephone. Pablo’s lawyers tried many times to contact the president, but it was clear that the president had his own plan. Pablo did not want to leave the Cathedral, but he had no choice. We all believed the army wanted to come in and kill us. It was time to leave. All of us except me got armed with the weapons that had been hidden a long time, including a machine gun and rifles. Pablo had an Uzi on his right shoulder and his Sig Sauer stuck in his waistband. Without saying anything I left the prison building and slipped into the cool night. I was going to prepare our escape route. The fog was drifting in, which gave me some cover. Pablo and I had walked the perimeter of the prison many times, searching for the ideal place to get through the wire fence. We were convinced this was the only place in the entire perimeter we could leave unseen. Months earlier I had buried wire cutters near the place we had selected. The nearest soldiers were about eighty meters away. Pablo and I had carefully selected this place to go through the fence because it led directly to a gulley, a trench cut in the ground by a stream that served as a natural tunnel. The wire fence was thicker than I thought it would be, and much more difficult to cut. I had to be very quiet because sounds flow easily in the night. One of the most difficult challenges we faced was getting through the high-voltage fence. Everybody was worried they would be electrocuted, and truthfully they would have preferred to be shot dead instead of fried. My engineering knowledge allowed me to bypass this system. Eventually I cut a hole just barely large enough for our men to slip through one by one, and then I went back to the prison building.

Inside the prison our hostages were terrified. They had been captured by Pablo Escobar so probably they abandoned hope. They were scared quiet and lost all skin color. Colonel Navas took a glass of whiskey and said, “This could be the last whiskey I will drink in my life.” Then he went to a Bible and read Psalm