For all the focus Bob had on a depth of local knowledge, maybe he wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees, maybe she had something to say about Colombia that wasn’t about knowing the people or the culture but about knowing the systems applying violence across the globe. And maybe, because she “fucked a mercenary” once, and because that mercenary was in Colombia, she was uniquely positioned to get insider access into the next permutation on the massive, industrial-scale U.S. machine for generating, and executing, targets.
But then Bob finished with, “And I know there’s not a ton of validation covering a war nobody cares about, but Jesus Christ, Liz, that’s why we’ve got to do it. If you’re not going to tell this story, who is? I never thought you’d just give up.” Which stung. And she realized that perhaps she couldn’t afford to trust Bob with the dreams she’s been spinning for herself. Perhaps he’d tear them apart. And also, perhaps, Bob could go fuck himself.
So that’s what she said. “Go fuck yourself, Bob.” The video feed didn’t register his reaction but Bob was a big boy, he’d managed journalists in war zones a long time, she doubted that was enough to draw blood. So she went deeper. She told him he was a fool, because it wasn’t 1971, because people don’t read newspapers now, because there’s no page A26 to flip past, because people don’t accidentally get reported facts on the way to the opinion page anymore.
“All the reported facts in the world shrivel up and die in the presence of universal indifference,” she said. And then, going further, she added, “People don’t even read about Afghanistan, where they at least sort of know there’s a war on, and you think doing spade work in Colombia is going to make a difference to anyone? Excuse me for not wanting to shovel words into a hole until I die.”
At which point she realized the video feed from Afghanistan had stalled completely, and there was just Bob’s frozen face, the mouth slightly open, and a snippet of a word here or there until it failed, so Lisette sent an apology email and went to bed.
The sad thing was, she wanted to believe like Bob did, but he was only right in another world, a world with the kind of media ecosystem that supported his kind of work, and the kind of popular culture where one was expected to have a broad sense of the world, rather than an in-depth, ideologically inflected analysis of the latest Twitter moment. The question was not, Which style of reporting is best in an ideal world? It was, How do you reach people?
• • •
In a small town on the border with Venezuela, Jefferson Paúl López Quesada met with a former lieutenant of his, Tomás Henríquez Rúa. Javier had come a long way from the days when he used to chain-saw enemies of the paramilitaries in the middle of town squares. After the demobilization he’d stayed in the region around La Vigia, and when Jefferson ended up in prison in Venezuela had attached his little group to the Urabeños, running extortion as well as handling an increasing percentage of the cocaine trade moving across the border.
“I’m proud of you,” Jefferson told him at their meeting.
Javier ignored the praise. He knew the meeting was about the shake-up after the death of El Alemán. Javier told his former boss that he was mostly watching and waiting. “How close are you to the Urabeños?” he asked.
Jefferson told him, and Javier grinned. Javier liked his old boss, and had liked working for him. But more importantly, he knew his old boss had connections with the Cartel of the Suns, a drug trafficking ring run by the Venezuelan military. With the FARC about to sign a peace treaty with the government, the Cartel needed other clients with cocaine to transport. And so Jefferson was moving across the border to expand supply.
“You know,” Jefferson said, “in the Castaño days I used to work for El Alemán. That fat pig.”
Javier smiled. “I didn’t mind working for him,” he said. “But I think I will prefer working for you again.”
Jefferson would have smiled back but a stabbing pain in his gut seized him. It had been happening more and more. So the best he could work up was a grimace and a firm handshake, which was good enough.
• • •
When Diego learned that Lisette Marigny was coming to visit him in Colombia, he permitted himself a fifth beer, then a sixth. He read distractedly for an hour. He did fifty push-ups. Then he stripped naked in front of his bedroom mirror and surveyed what had become of his body. He decided he had become old.
Is that a gray hair? he thought, looking not at his head but at his crotch. He plucked it. And
