that at that moment we were the most wanted outlaws in the world.

I can remember Pablo doing push-ups every morning while Gacha, wearing bright green sweatpants, would try to work out while smoking a big cigar. I remember Gustavo and Carlos Lehder playing tennis all afternoon. Carlos loved to read the newspapers. And I spent much of the time riding bicycles to try to stay in shape and clear my mind of the problems. It was unusual, we were living near the golf course and Pablo didn’t play golf. But what we would do was early in the morning or later in the afternoon we would turn over our T-shirts and play soccer on the golf course.

After staying awhile in the high official’s beautiful house Pablo and I each rented our own homes with our families near the country club. Panama was so nice that I asked Pablo if we should buy a property in there. He told me, “No. I don’t trust Noriega. If anything happens he’ll take possession of our properties. Better to rent than buy.”

While we were in Panama Pablo and various associates held meetings with representatives of Colombia’s government to try to work out an arrangement for all of us to go home safely and without charges against us. These were secret meetings, as the Betancur government wanted no one to know they were negotiating with the traffickers. In return for being granted amnesty and canceling the extradition treaty, Pablo and his associates offered to stop the business, give aid to a program that would develop substitute crops to replace income from marijuana and cocaine—and pay off the total national debt of Colombia. I don’t remember exactly how many billions that was, I know it was more than $9 billion, but it would have been necessary for all of the drug cartels in Colombia to participate in exchange for the end of extradition. Even with everyone involved it would have been difficult, but possible, to raise those funds. The threat was that if there was no deal the cartel would have to fight back.

Would Pablo have actually gotten out of the business? I believe it was possible. He already had enough money for the rest of his life and this deal would have let him live completely free. But no one will ever know for sure, because when the supporters of Lara Bonilla in the government learned of the negotiations they insisted the government reject any such agreement out of respect for the justice minister’s life. They even built a monument to Lara. For a short time we had hope that we could go home and live our lives, but the rejection made it clear that was never going to happen.

To make certain that we had no surprises from the Panamanian government, Pablo was paying a couple of colonels on our general’s staff to provide us with inside information. So we knew every move that Noriega was going to make. It was one of these colonels who informed Pablo that Noriega had said that he was going to speak with the North American government, especially to the DEA. He said, “They are looking at him and he is trying to negotiate his freedom. His deal was that if he gave them you, he would be clean.”

Probably to show his serious intentions to the Americans, Noriega ordered his military to capture 16,000 barrels of ether that were supposed to go to the new laboratory being built in Panama with his approval, organized by some of Pablo’s associates.

Pablo knew that there was nothing he could do as long as we were guests in Noriega’s country. In secret he gave the order that everybody had to leave Panama right away. He had a couple of airplanes and helicopters sent to him. Several members of the family went back to Medellín, others to Europe, and we were to go to Nicaragua.

There were only a few places we could safely go. Finally we requested asylum from the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and there we settled for some time. Pablo brought with him 1100 kilos, which could be turned into cash.

Some of Pablo’s friends went to Brazil and others to Spain. Most of the leaders were going their own way.

It’s hard to describe the strange thoughts I had in my mind. Only months earlier I could go anywhere in Colombia and be greeted with respect as an athlete and a successful businessman. Now I could no longer walk down any street in