'Don't you give me this coldness! Holy Mary!'
'And you?'
'Ahhh.'
'And you?'
'What about me?'
'What are you going to do?'
'Nothing. . . . What do you need?' Pablo asked. He did not want to talk about himself.
'Nothing,' his wife said.
'What do you want?'
'What would I want?' she asked glumly.
'If you need something, call me, OK?'
'OK.'
'You call me now, quickly. There is nothing more I can tell you. What else can I say? I have remained right on track, right?'
'But how are you? Oh, my God, I don't know!'
'We must go on. Think about it. Now that I am so close, right?' Pablo said, in what appears to be a suggestion that he was about to surrender.
'Yes,' his wife said, with no enthusiasm.
'Think about your boy, too, and everything else, and don't make any decisions too quickly, OK?'
'Yes.'
'Call your mother again and ask her if she wants you to go there or what.'
'OK.'
'Remember that you can reach me by beeper.'
'OK.'
'OK.'
'Ciao,' said Maria Victoria.
'So long,' her husband said.
With the police Search Bloc listening in and recording the conversation, Pablo Escobar chatted on the phone with his wife and family as they holed up in a hotel in Bogota, trying desperately to get out of Colombia. It was Thursday, Dec. 2, 1993.
After Escobar had spoken with his wife, his son, Juan Pablo, got back on the line. Juan Pablo had been given a list of questions from a journalist.
Often, when Escobar was in trouble, he used the Colombian media to broadcast his messages and demands, trying to whip up public sentiment in his favor. Other times, when he was displeased with the media, he would have reporters and editors killed. Juan Pablo wanted his father's advice on how to answer these questions.
'Look, this is very important in Bogota,' Escobar told his son. He suggested that they might also be able to sell his answers to publications overseas, an opportunity to lobby publicly for his family to be given refuge. For now he just wanted to hear what the questions were. He said he would call back later to help his son answer them.
'This is also publicity,' Escobar said. 'Explaining the reasons and other matters to them. Do you understand? Well done and well organized.'
'Yes, yes,' Juan Pablo said. He began to read the questions: ' 'Whatever the country, refuge is conditioned on the immediate surrender of your father. Would your father be willing to turn himself in if you are settled somewhere?' '
'. . . Go on,' Pablo instructed.
'The next one is, 'Would he be willing to turn himself in before you take refuge abroad?' '
'Go on.'
'I spoke with the man and he told me that if there were some questions I did not want to answer, there was no problem, and if I wanted to add some questions, he would include them.'
'OK. The next one?'
' 'Why do you think that several countries have refused to receive your family?' OK?'
'Yes.'
' 'From which embassies have you requested help for them to take you in. . . ?' '
'OK.'
' 'Don't you think your father's situation, accused of X number of crimes, assassination of public figures, considered one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world . . . ?' ' Juan Pablo stopped reading.
'Go on.'
