91. Finally he asked for a telephone and called his family to tell them goodbye. He told us he didn’t even know what his mission was when he was ordered to fly to Medellín.

Later in the night Pablo ordered the prisoners taken to his bedroom. He had tried many times to contact the president, even through Father García, but Gavíria would not accept the phone calls. There was no longer a question of leaving for us. Pablo said clearly, “Either we flee or we all die.” Pablo and I went to the hidden room and packed ourselves with cash. We heard airplanes circling above and I flipped a switch that operated the lighting system I had installed, and the Cathedral went into darkness. The dark prison was lost in the fog. But inside the lights going off scared everyone, especially the hostages. It was explained to them this was necessary for security but I don’t know how much they accepted that.

Outside it was very quiet. We could hear the birds and insects and occasionally a soldier yelling. Inside radio stations were broadcasting the story. They all got it wrong: One said the army had taken control of the Cathedral and there had been casualties. Another said Pablo had been captured and was already on an airplane to Florida. But all of them spoke of this military assault. They gave us some good information. Pablo used the mobile phone to speak with his family. The reports terrified them. “Don’t worry,” he told them. “Don’t listen to the news. The situation is being resolved directly with the president.” I called my children to tell them the same thing. And then Pablo and I both called our mother.

We had thought about this night many times. Pablo always walked around with the laces of his sneakers open and we all used to say, the day Pablo ties his sneakers is the day we’re in real difficulty. There were already as many as two thousand soldiers surrounding the Cathedral. An air controller we paid informed us helicopters from Bogotá had landed in Medellín. Things were now happening fast. Pablo gathered all of us and told us who would be leaving and who would be staying. He picked the most fit knowing we would have to move fast. Then he bent over and tied the laces of his sneakers.

He said to me, “Roberto, let’s put our radios on the same frequency.” We visited the hostages, told them to remain calm, that this situation would be solved without bloodshed. Then he told them he was going to sleep for a while and would see them again in the morning. There have been stories written that the guards were bribed and we just walked out the door, that Pablo and others were dressed as women, that we paid more than $1 million to leave. With all the soldiers around, many of them from Bogotá, bribing all of them would have been impossible. Instead, Pablo decided we would slip out of the prison one by one at five-minute intervals. It had started raining, so the dark of night, the thick fog, and the rain gave us good cover. Pablo went first and took a good position to see everything that was going on around him. I waited with the hostages a few minutes and told them that I was going to lie down. Then I went back to my room to make my final preparations.

I put on boots, put new batteries in the radiophone, and took my transistor radio so I could hear the news. I finally put on my raincoat and my old bicycling hat with the message Bicicletas El Ositto, Bear Bicycles. It was time to leave. There were only a few things we left behind that mattered, for Pablo it was his collection of records by Elvis and Sinatra. I left the bicycles I loved and my mini-lab for cancer and AIDS research. I walked slowly through the dark, empty building. It was a strange feeling. I looked for the lights of the city below the mountain, but Medellín was hidden in the fog.

I walked toward the fence where I thought Pablo and the others were waiting, but something happened. In the dark I got confused, I got lost. And for the first time that night, I felt panic. I felt completely alone. There wasn’t much I could do, I couldn’t make a sound because the soldiers were too close. Like in a race, I took