'But there are many. Around 40 questions.'
Escobar told his son he would call back later in the day. 'I may find a way to communicate by fax,' he said.
'No,' Juan Pablo said, apparently concerned that use of a fax would somehow be too dangerous.
'No, huh? OK. OK. So, good luck.'
Escobar hung up.
Lt. Hugo Martinez and his special Colombian police electronic tracking team had not been able to assemble in time to chase the signal from this phone call. However, the American technicians at Centra Spike and the Search Bloc's own fixed listening posts had triangulated it to the same Los Olivos neighborhood where the calls had originated the day before.
They hunkered down and waited for the promised next call. If Escobar was going to try to answer 40 questions, he was going to be on the phone a long time.
At precisely 3 p.m. that Thursday, Escobar called his son back.
Juan Pablo again began relaying the journalist's questions. The first asked the son to explain what it would take for his father to surrender.
Escobar instructed, 'Tell him: 'My father cannot turn himself in unless he has guarantees for his security.' '
'OK,' said Juan Pablo.
'And we totally support him in that.'
'OK.'
'Above any considerations.'
'Yep.'
'My father is not going to turn himself in before we are placed in a foreign country, and while the police -'
'The police and DAS is better,' interjected Juan Pablo. 'Because the DAS are also searching.'
'It's only the police.'
'Oh, OK.'
Pablo, resuming: 'While the police -'
'Yeah.'
'OK, let's change it to, 'while the security organizations. . .' '
'Yeah.'
'. . . continue to kidnap . . .'
Lt. Hugo Martinez drove away from his police surveillance unit's temporary staging area in a Medellin parking lot on Thursday, Dec. 2, 1993. His friend on the switchboard at the Tequendama Hotel in Bogota had just alerted him that Pablo Escobar was on the line to the hotel.
Escobar's voice had been recognized right away, even though he was still pretending to be a journalist. He had called the hotel several times to speak with his wife and family staying there.
All of the men at the staging area followed Hugo out. The rest of the Search Bloc was converging on the Medellin neighborhood of Los Olivos, where Hugo's surveillance team had pinpointed the source of Escobar's call.
Excited and nervous, Hugo could feel all of his father's men, hardened veterans of the police assault team, close on his heels. Hugo's reputation with the men in the Search Bloc had improved since his rocky beginning, but they remained skeptical. He knew that if he failed again now, with all these men awaiting his direction, he would never live it down.
The tone in his headphones and the line on his scanner directed Hugo to an office building just a few blocks from the parking lot. He was certain that was where Escobar was speaking. No sooner had he named the address than the assault force descended, crashing through the front doors and moving loudly through the building.
Escobar continued to speak calmly, as though nothing was happening. Clearly the fugitive was not in the office building now being raided.
Hugo felt panic. How could his equipment be wrong? He took two long deep breaths, forcing himself to remain calm. So long as Escobar was talking, he could still be found.
In the passenger seat of the white Mercedes van, Hugo closed his eyes for a moment and then looked again more carefully at the screen, which was no bigger than the palm of his hand. This time he noticed a slight vibration in the white line that stretched from side to side. The line spanned the entire screen, which meant the signal was being transmitted close by, but the slight movement suggested something else.
From experience, Hugo knew this vibration probably meant he was picking up a reflection. It was very slight, which is why he hadn't noticed it before. When the reflection was bouncing off water, the line usually had a slight squiggle in it, but this line had no squiggle.
'This is not it! This is not it!' he shouted into his radio. 'Let's go!'
To his left was a drainage ditch with a gently moving stream of dirty water. To get to the other side, where Hugo was now convinced the signal originated, his driver had to go up a block or two and turn left over a bridge.
When the van had crossed the bridge and returned on the other side of the ditch, Hugo realized that only
