vice versa. Out here, if we don't have each other's backs, we're dead meat." He put the pack of Gauloises away. "When you told me you'd found something fundamental enough to change the mission I believed you."
So you have come to see the famous Corellos."
Roberto Corellos, Narsico Skydel's cousin, smirked at Moira. He sat in a comfortable armchair. The room, spacious, filled with light, with its deep-pile rug, porcelain lamps, paintings on the walls, looked like someone's living room. But as Moira was about to discover, Bogota's prisons weren't like any others in the world.
"The American press wants to speak with the famous Corellos, now that he's in La Modelo, now that it's safe." He drew a cigar from the breast pocket of his guayabera shirt and with great fanfare bit off the end and lit up, using an old Zippo lighter. With another smirk, he said, "A present from one of my many admirers." It wasn't immediately clear whether he meant the robusto or the Zippo.
He blew a cloud of aromatic smoke toward the ceiling and crossed one linen-clad leg over the other. "What newspaper are you with again?"
"I'm a stringer for The Washington Post," Moira said. These credentials had been presented to her by Jalal Essai. She didn't know where he had obtained them and she didn't care. All that concerned her was that they would hold up under scrutiny. He assured her that they would, and so far he'd been right.
She had arrived in Bogota less than twenty-four hours ago and had obtained immediate permission to interview Corellos. She was mildly surprised that no one seemed to care one way or the other.
"It's fortunate that you came now. In a week or so I'll be out of here." Corellos stared at the glowing tip of the cigar. "This has been something of a vacation for me." He waved a hand. "I have everything I could want - food, cigars, bitches to fuck, anything and everything - and I don't have to lift a finger to get them."
"Charming," Moira said.
Corellos eyed her. He was a handsome man, in a rough, hard-muscled way. And with his dark, smoldering eyes and intense masculine presence, he was certainly charismatic. "You have to understand something about Colombia, Senorita Trevor. The country isn't in the hands of the government, no, no, no. In Colombia power is split between FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the drug lords. Left-wing guerrillas and right-wing capitalists, something like that." His laugh was as raucous and as joyful as a macaw's cry. He seemed completely relaxed, as if he were at home, instead of in Bogota's most notorious prison. "FARC controls forty percent of the country, we control the other sixty."
Moira was skeptical. "That seems something of an exaggeration, Senor Corellos. Should I take everything you tell me with a grain of salt?"
Corellos reached behind him and placed a Taurus PT92 semi-automatic pistol on the table between them.
Moira felt sucker-punched.
"It's fully loaded, you can check it if you want." He seemed to be enjoying her shocked reaction. "Or you can take it - as a souvenir. Not to worry, there's plenty more where that came from."
He laughed again. Then he pushed the Taurus to one side. "Listen, senorita, like most gringos I think you're a bit out of your league here. Just last month we had a war in here - the FARC guerrillas against the, uh, businessmen. It was a full-scale conflict, complete with AK-47s, fragmentation grenades, dynamite, you name it. The guards, such as they are, backed away. The army surrounded the prison but wouldn't venture inside because we're better armed than they are." He winked at her. "I'll bet the justice minister didn't tell you about that."
"No, he didn't."
"I'm not surprised. It was a bloody fucking mess in here, let me tell you."
Moira was fascinated. "How did it end?"
"I stepped in. FARC listens to me. Escuchame, I'm not against them - certainly not what they stand for. The government is a dirty joke, they've got that part right, at least. They know I'll stand with them, that I'll rally my people to support them - so long as they leave us alone. Me, I don't give a fuck about politics - right-wing, left-wing, fascist, socialist, I leave the semantics to the people who have nothing better to do with their stinking lives. Me, I'm too busy making money, that's my life. Everyone else can rot in hell."