Steve Murphy - Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar, the World’s Most Wanted Criminal

I knew something was very wrong when I picked up the phone at my new apartment in Bogot.

Javier?

I recognized the voice of my group supervisor, Bruce Stock, on the other end, but there was a slight tremor, a hint of uncertainty in the way he pronounced my name.

Bruce was in his early fifties and had worked as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent around the world for most of his career. He was a big man, about six foot four, and just about one of the nicest people I had ever meta gentle giant. He was also unflappable. He had to be; he was heading up one of the most dangerous missions in the history of the DEA. Bruces priority was capturing Pablo Escobar, the billionaire Medelln Cartel chief who was responsible for the myriad car bombs that were going off around Colombia, not to mention smuggling tons of cocaine to North America and Europe. Escobar and his brutal sicariosmost of them teenage assassins plucked from the shantytowns that surround the city of Medellnwere killing anyone who stood in their way. They had already gunned down Colombias minister of justice, massacred most of the countrys Supreme Court judges, and killed a prominent newspaper editor who dared denounce the power of the cartel. All these assassinations took place before I arrived in Colombia, but you could feel the tension everywhere. There were tanks at the airport and fierce-looking soldiers armed with machine guns on the streets.

At the beginning of 1989 when Bruce called me at home, I had already been in Colombia for eight months, and, like everyone else at DEA headquarters in the U.S. embassy, I was totally obsessed with my new assignmentgetting Escobar. It was my job to help capture and put him on a plane to the United States, where he would stand trial for all his crimes. It was the threat of extradition that led to Escobars warhis reign of terroragainst the Colombian government and us American law enforcement agents.

I arrived in Bogot from my first DEA posting in Austin, Texas, where I focused on small-time Mexican meth and coke dealers. I knew Colombia would be the biggest challenge of my career, and I thought I was ready. I had already inserted myself into the Bloque de Bsquedathe so-called Search Bloc made up of elite Colombian cops and intelligence agents who had six hundred men searching for Escobar pretty much twenty-four hours a day. The Search Bloc worked from a police garrison in Medelln, and I spent a good part of every week there, with the Colombian National Police as they hunted for the murderous drug kingpin in his hometown. I had been told that some members of the force were corrupt and on Escobars payroll, so I was pretty cautious about who I hung out with, who I spoke to.

On weekends, if I wasnt working, I sat for hours in my Bogot pad. I loved my sprawling four-thousand-square-foot home on a busy intersection in the center of town. I had breathtaking views of the city below and the towering Andes on one side. From my living room window, which was about forty feet wide, I felt I could reach out and touch those majestic mountains. For the truth is, I felt on top of the world in that four-bedroom palace with its separate maids quarters in the heart of Bogot nightlife. It was all too big and too grand for a bachelor from Texas, but it was a great place to bring my dates. They were always stunned by the view, which frankly made seduction all that much easier. It was a far cry from my boxy one-bedroom in Austin, which impressed no oneleast of all me.

Little did I know that my life of luxury was about to end that Saturday afternoon when I heard Bruces tremulous voice on the phone.

He didnt say much, and I could tell from his breathing that he was trying to steady his voice, to remain as calm as possible. At that moment, I knew my life was in grave danger.

Javier, listen to me: Go get your gun, leave everything else behind, and get the hell out of there, he said. Sorry, but theres no time to explain. Its Escobar. He knows where you are.

Its Escobar. He knows where you are.

I searched for my weapona 9 mm semiautomatic pistoland headed to the elevator, scanning the hallways like a frightened fugitive, watching to see if anyone was lurking in the corners or behind a door. My hands shook as I pressed the elevator button, and every few seconds, I felt for my waist holster to make sure that my gun was in place. Somehow, it was reassuring to graze the cold metal with my fingertips.

Calma, calma, Javier! Tranquilo, hombre.

I heard the voice of my abuela, the toughest person I knew. Shed once stood up to would-be burglars in our home in Laredo and also got me out of countless difficult situations.

Tranquilo, tranquilo!

I rushed through the garage, furtively looking around to make sure no one was following me. I felt for my gun and unlocked the door of my OGVofficial government vehiclewhich in my case was a bulletproof Ford Bronco. As I started the engine with a roar, I immediately realized that I hadnt bothered to check under the chassis for explosives. Thankfully, the truck didnt blow up, and I screeched out of the underground garage and gunned it to the U.S. embassy, which was only a few miles away.

I thought of my grandmother and willed myself to breathe deeply as I sat in what seemed like endless Bogot traffic. I chose to go through the most congested route to the embassy because I figured that I could easily blend into a traffic jam and become anonymous. I breathed a long sigh of relief when I saw the steel gates of the embassy, which was built like a fortress. Bruce met me at the DEA offices, which were next to the embassy garage, when I arrived.

I never found out if Escobar had planned to kill me or just kidnap mean important American pawn in his battle against extradition. Our intel was that he had ordered his sicarios to find the Mexican DEA guy, which could only be me, since I was the only American of Mexican origin on staff. Escobars men didnt have the exact address, but they knew that I lived at the corner of Seventh and Seventy-second, and it would be a matter of a few days or even a few hours before they traced me to my building, where I was one of the only gringos in residence. Between the CNP and the DEA intelligence experts, we tried our best to get to the bottom of the threat but couldnt find anything.

That night, I moved into a safe house that the embassy had set aside for emergencies like mine. After a few weeks passed with no new threats from Escobars people, Bruce found me an apartment in Los Rosales, close to where the U.S. ambassador lived. It was a much fancier part of the city, cut with manicured hedges, lavish mansions, and beefy private security dressed in black, heavily armed, and carrying walkie-talkies. I missed my downtown aerie.