many of my accountants. Pablo’s main lawyer who was negotiating with the government, Guido Parra, who had also worked with the government, and his fifteen-year-old son were assassinated by Los Pepes and a note was left around their necks for Pablo: “What do you think of this exchange for your bombs now, Pablo?” Los Pepes killed lawyers who had worked for Pablo, preventing them from trying to work a compromise with the government. They killed the sicarios. They killed people who did business, people who had worked at Napoles, anyone who had an association with Pablo or with me. My closest friends were Guayabita, El Negro, Chocolo, my trainer from my bicycle life Ricardo, and my friend since I was fifteen years old, Halaix Buitrago. None of these had connections to the drug business. They were friends who would visit me at the Cathedral to play cards, kick a ball, and help me fill the days. Los Pepes kept track of them. After our escape Halaix went to live safely in Europe. This was not the same El Negro who worked for Pablo, and he and his wife, Marbel, moved to Argentina with members of their family and my own for safety. But Ricardo and Guayabita were kidnapped and tortured to try to get information about finding Pablo and their bodies were found dropped on the street next to the Medellín River. Chocolo was a psychologist and he was on vacation with his wife and six-year-old daughter in Cartagena; he stopped at a traffic light, and in the usual way two motorcycles came alongside and started shooting with machine guns. Chocolo died right there, but miraculously his family was saved.

Los Pepes would come out of the night, unexpected. Five sicarios very close to Otto were staying in a house, along with a sixth person who worked for them at his house. Supposedly nobody knew they were there. These were tough men who had been involved in a lot of violence. One night they were having a party with five lovely girls. The house man was upstairs, and he just happened to look out the window when as many as ten cars suddenly appeared. The doors flew open and maybe forty men, all of them carrying guns, all of them with their faces covered, came running out. The house man climbed out the window and went onto the roof to hide. There was a lot of shooting. Probably two of the sicarios were killed right there. The others were alive, maybe shot, and dragged into the cars. The house man lay still on the roof for at least five hours. When he came inside he found the women tied up.

No question the sicarios were tortured to provide information about where Pablo was. Their bodies were thrown into the street the next morning.

But this was just typical, almost every day about six bodies would be in the streets, usually with notes on them telling everyone that this was the work of Los Pepes and taunting Pablo. Los Pepes attacked everyone and everything touched by Pablo Escobar. Pablo would denounce these acts on repeated occasions without any response from the government.

This was a war, I understand that, but so much was not necessary. I owned a championship horse, Terremoto, meaning earthquake, that was the joy of Colombia. Our country takes pride in its beautiful horses and this was a pure Colombian horse. I was the only person who would ride Terremoto, and he was softer than a Rolls-Royce. He was easily worth $3 million, but his value as a horse to breed other Colombia champions was even greater. I knew the police were looking for this horse to take it like the rest of my property, so it was hidden on a farm in Manizales. One evening the trainer of the horse was at a restaurant when gunmen showed up. They took him outside and put a gun to his head. They demanded, “Where is the horse? Where is the horse?” He didn’t want to tell them, but they threatened to kill his whole family right there. So finally he told them where the horse was kept. Then they killed him.

They kidnapped the horse. A few days later the horse was returned, tied to a post on Las Vegas Street. But the horse had been castrated, its value to the nation as the father of champions destroyed. Its worth in dollars was gone. And then they had starved the horse so he was