Profundo,” which means “profound trip.” I have asked many people, including my English teacher Jay Arango, what he thought the initials could mean. There has been no satisfactory answer. But while I sat there in my cell, wondering for the first time, the events that would become history were taking place.

In the official reports the government said that probably Pablo and Limón heard a noise downstairs when the police came inside. The reports all claim that the government shot only after Pablo and Limón began firing at them. That I do not believe. There is no way they wanted to capture Pablo and risk that one day he would be free. He was going to die there.

These reports say that Limón was shot first on the roof and fell to the ground. Then Pablo tried to run across the roof to the back of the house, carrying two guns with him, but he was shot there and collapsed. Limón had been shot many times. Pablo had been shot three times, in his back, in his leg, and just above his right ear. There have been many stories about the source of the third bullet. The claims are that it was the Search Bloc shooting. Some people claim Pablo was killed by an American sniper from another roof. But after he was shot and fell on the roof, the Delta Force Americans posed for pictures with him like at an animal hunt.

That’s the story, but this is what I believe happened: The police barged in through the doors and Pablo told Limón to see what that noise downstairs was. When Limón went to see he was shot numerous times, and died right there near the entrance. While Limón was heading to the door Pablo decided he would escape to the roof. There on the roof Pablo looked around and saw he was surrounded. He would never allow himself to be captured or killed by the government. Pablo had always said that he would never be caught and taken to America. In my mind there can be no doubt about what happened. Pablo understood that there was no escape, and did not want to be a trophy for those who were out to kill him. He did as he always had said he would: He put his own gun to his head and deprived the government of their greatest victory. Truly, he preferred a grave in Colombia over a jail cell in the United States. At the end, in his last hour, he stood fighting like a warrior. And when there was no hope, he committed suicide on that roof.

In front of the building the police fired their weapons into the air and started screaming, “We won. We won!”

Luzmila had been late returning to the building. As always, she took a cab to a point a few blocks away from the building and walked the rest of the way. But this time people were running to the block. She stopped a young policeman who was carrying his gun and asked what had happened. “It’s Pablo Escobar,” he said to her. “We just caught him! We just shot him.” Luzmila dropped the packages she was carrying for him. She sat down on the curb and cried.

Soon our mother and sister Gloria approached the building. The police let them through. A friendly cop helped them. The body they saw on the ground was Limón, not Pablo, and for a few seconds they could believe that the wrong man had been identified, that Pablo lived. Then one of the police told them, “His body is up there on the shingles.” They led her up the steps to see the body of her son.

I was in my cell and I heard the news on the radio. Pablo Escobar was killed by the DEA and the Colombian police. Of course I couldn’t believe it. It did not seem possible. The TV was turned on and it was on all the channels. Pablo Escobar is dead. It didn’t seem possible to me. He had survived so much. We are all mortal, certainly, but the death of a few of us strikes harder than so many others. It was not that I ever believed Pablo could cheat death, but I thought it would come at a time much later. It was hard for me to accept. Finally I too began crying for my brother, for everything that had happened

Pablo had been prepared for his death. He had left a