“All my life, and all my father’s life,” I say, “the government has sent us out into mountains and jungles of Colombia, to the regions where the government has no power. These places have always been the same—before the guerrilla and the narcos and the paramilitaries, there were bandits, there was the Violence, there was chaos. So we carve out order in the chaos. Sometimes I think it is like a man with a machete hacking a path through the jungle. Everybody who follows behind us, it’s their job to think about justice, about whether the state is cruel and callous, or good and benevolent. It’s my job to carve the path.”
“Then,” Mason says, “you are yes?”
“To call it a peace is too much, far too much,” I say. “I’m a soldier. I’ve seen guerrillas turn to paramilitaries turn to drug gangs turn to politicians. I’ve seen massacres over the scraps left behind after our victories. I know the law of unintended consequences. So we need to maintain presence and . . .” I consider whether this is the time to bring up the point of the evening, and decide I might as well. “There’s Operation Agamemnon. Already, it’s not going well, and this will complicate matters. I don’t want to say it, but I’m afraid the job will become too much for the police to handle on their own.”
“Ha!” Mason says, seeing the point I’m making. “Switching Agamemnon to the army . . . Well, I think of Agamemnon as law enforcement, not war. Yes?”
“Sadly,” I say, “there’s not much of a difference here.”
Operation Agamemnon is a police-led strike at the Clan Úsuga, alias the Gulf Clan, alias the Urabeños, a criminal group with an estimated two thousand members. It’s the largest campaign against a criminal group in Colombia’s history, with an order of magnitude more resources than we ever threw against Escobar. Also, given the FARC peace treaty and the peace talks ongoing with our other major group of communist guerrillas, the ELN, it’s the most important thing going on in Colombia. But it’s police led, which is a problem, and not just because the police lack our skills and are more prone to corruption and infiltration.
Having the Americans on board right now for a shift to making Agamemnon an army operation would put us, philosophically, in the same place. The modern Colombian army depends on millions of dollars of U.S. aid for the maintenance of our air power—a necessary capability in a country filled with jungles and mountains—and so despite the international news declaring an end to “the longest insurgency in history,” it is critical that all parties involved understand that “war,” loosely understood, continues in Colombia. War, and “war,” requires continuing support.
Mason turns to my daughter. “What do you think, Val?” Her name sounds dead on his tongue.
“That’s my father’s business,” she says. “I’m in my second year at university, studying law. We talk about the deal, but . . . I don’t know enough yet to earn an opinion. I think someone should really know what they’re talking about before they open their mouth.”
“You’d make a terrible American,” Mason says, laughing.
“It sounds strange,” Valencia says, “knowing that my father is an operations officer in the special forces, you’d think I would know all kinds of things about what’s going on . . .”
“We don’t talk about work,” I say, “inside these walls. This is a home. Our kind of work has no place in a home.”
Mason looks chastened. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s good. Every rule should be broken sometimes, especially for guests. Valencia, do you have any questions?”
She thinks for a moment, and Sofia eyes our daughter with her head cocked. Is she nervous? In truth, the rule is more for Sofia’s benefit than Vale’s.
Finally, Vale says, “What do you tell your daughters about what you do? Do they know about it?”
“Oh.” Mason looks at me warily, and I nod to him, slightly. He leans forward. “At first, nothing.”
Valencia nods.
“But kids learn things, I don’t know how. When they were old enough we had to have the war talk. The war talk, and the sex talk. Not very fun, those talks.”
I have had neither of those talks with Valencia.
“What was it like for you?” he said.
Valencia looks nervously at my wife, then at me. “The only scary time was when I was really young. Five or six, I think.” Without wanting to, I raise an eyebrow, and Valencia quickly adds, “Nothing happened. But . . . there was a time when my mother was very nervous.”
There’s a moment of silence. My wife looks sad, and then says, “Saravena,” the name of an oil town where I’d been tasked with building bridges to a community that hated us.
“That was a difficult place,” I say. “It still is.”
Valencia doesn’t say anything more, because she is a respectful child. I think about making a comment on those days, about being a father and fighting a war, but instead I wave my hand dismissively. Valencia’s face is opaque. I had always thought we shielded her perfectly, and the degree of achievement and obedience we see in her is proof that we raised her well and protected her from anything truly damaging, but of course children notice more than you think. Perhaps she knows better than I how Saravena changed me. I was too busy living through it.
“Good,” Sofia says, clapping her hands. “No more of that. And much more of the limoncello.”
• • •
After dinner, Mason and I have cigars in the garden of our apartment complex, leaving the women upstairs. I watch him put one of my lanceros to his lips and take a puff. He holds it awkwardly, and lets too much saliva touch the quickly dampening edges. Odd, for a military man, not to know his
