these taxis was equipped with a big antenna that made it possible to make mobile phone calls. Most of the calls Pablo made were from these moving cars, which would make it impossible for anyone to find the place from where the call was made.

After spending three weeks together Pablo believed it had become too dangerous, so we went our separate ways. We would get together late at night about every three days, spending the time playing cards, talking, and barbecuing in the backyard. It was during this period that Pablo had the closest escape of his many close encounters. He told me that his bodyguard Godoy would take a plain car every few days to meet the boys carrying the mail. This meeting was always at seven o’clock when the streets were most crowded. That day Godoy returned to the house in the car as usual. When Pablo heard the horn signal he ran downstairs and swung open the twin doors of the garage. Godoy drove in quick—and two men on a motorcycle came racing in behind him before Pablo could close the doors. One of these young men—almost kids—pulled a gun and pointed it directly at Godoy’s head and screamed, “Get out of the car, motherfucker.”

Pablo was frozen. He couldn’t know if these men recognized him or if this was just an ordinary Medellín crime. “Give them the car,” he told Godoy. “Don’t worry about the package. Just get out.”

The young man turned the gun on him. “Don’t move, motherfucker,” he said. “I got a bullet for you too.” These two street robbers had done what the police and soldiers of Colombia and the United States could not do, what the Cali cartel and the paramilitaries and the bounty hunters and Los Pepes could not do—they had put a gun two feet away from Pablo Escobar.

But they didn’t know it.

They stole the car and the letters and drove away. Pablo left that house right away and never returned or paid attention to it. He went into the forest with his family for a few days of complete safety. He knew he could last forever in those woods, but for him that wasn’t living.

More dangerous than any of the enemies we had fought before was Los Pepes. Their members had been part of us, so they knew much more information than anyone else. It has never been proved, but it has been strongly suggested that Los Pepes was really working with the government. According to the Colombian Caracol News, published December 22, 2007, ex-paramilitary Salvatore Mancuso, before he was extradited to the U.S., had officially accused former Colombian president Cesár Gavíria of joining forces with them to assassinate Pablo Escobar, and kill all our organization’s members.

One reason to believe that is true is that the government never tried to stop anything they did. Even more, because the vigilante killers of Los Pepes moved in secret it is pretty much known that after the sun went down members of the other government organizations put on their masks and became part of Los Pepes. In fact, information between all the forces, the government as well as the death squads, flowed easily. When only the government knew the secret place where members of our family were staying, for example, that place was attacked by Los Pepes. A clear example was that only the former attorney general, Dr. Gustavo de Greiff, had known where Pablo’s wife and two children were secretly secluded, and protected. Nonetheless somehow the killers from Los Pepes found out that location and his family was attacked with a grenade launcher fired from the ground to the fourth floor. Fortunately nobody was injured. Pablo was devastated by that news, which ended any possibility that he might safely turn himself in.

Pablo fought back. The fear of the people had been realized. The violence that rocked the country had started again. And also the kidnappings of important people. It had all gotten completely out of control again. The country had become one battlefield. Colombia was under siege. People were afraid to go out of their homes even to the shops or the movies. All in search of one man. There was nothing that the government would do to stop it.

Los Pepes couldn’t catch Pablo, nor could they find me, so instead they began killing anyone who was part of our organization. They didn’t go just after the sicarios; instead they went after people working for Pablo who couldn’t defend themselves. They killed