Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

So Adan first boarded a private sports-fishing yacht out of Cabo, then transferred to an old fishing boat for the long, slow trip for a landing on the southern Colombian coast at the mouth of the Coqueta River. This was the most dangerous part of the trip because the coastline is under control of the government and patrolled by the private militias hired by the oil companies to guard their drills and derricks.

From the fishing boat Adan climbed into a small, single-engine skiff. They went into the river at night, guided by the flames shooting out of the refinery towers like the signal fires of hell. The river mouth was silty and polluted, the air thick and dirty. They slipped up the river, past the oil-company properties, wrapped in ten-foot-high barbed-wire fences with guard towers at the corners.

It took them two days to get up the river, dodging army patrols and private security squads. Finally he’d got into the rain forest, and now he gets to make the rest of the trip by jeep. Their route takes them past the coca fields, and for the first time Adan sees the origins of the product that has made him millions.

Well, sometimes he does.

Other times he sees dead and wilted fields, poisoned by the helicopters that spray defoliants. The chemicals aren’t particular-they kill the coca plants, but they also kill the beans, the tomatoes, the vegetables. Poison the water and the air. Adan walks through deserted villages that look like museum exhibits-perfect anthropological exhibits of a Colombian village, except no one’s living there. They’ve fled the defoliants, they’ve fled the army, they’ve fled FARC, they’ve fled the war.

Other villages they pass have simply been burned out. Charred circles on the ground mark where huts once stood. “The army,” his guide explains. “They burn the villages they think are in league with FARC.”

And FARC burns the villages they think are in line with the army, Adan thinks.

They finally reach Tirofio’s camp.

Tirofio’s camouflage-clad guerrillas wear berets and carry AK-47s. A surprising number of them are women-Adan notices one particularly striking Amazon with long black hair flowing from beneath her beret. She meets his stare with one of her own, one of those what-are-you-looking-at glares that makes him turn his glance away.

Everywhere he looks he sees something going on-squads of guerrillas are training, others are cleaning weapons, doing laundry, cooking, policing the camp-and all the activity seems organized. The camp itself is large and orderly-neat rows of olive-green tents are set up under camouflage netting. Several kitchens have been constructed under thatched ramadas. He sees what appear to be a hospital tent and a dispensary. They even walk past a tent that houses a library of sorts. This is not a gang of bandits on the run, Adan thinks. It’s a well-organized force in control of its territory. The camouflage nets-to disguise against airplane surveillance-are the only concession to a sense of danger.

The escort leads Adan to what looks like a headquarters area. The tents are larger, with canvas sunroofs attached to create porches, underneath which are washbasins, and chairs and tables made from rough-hewn lumber. A moment later the escort comes back out with an older, stocky man dressed in olive-green camouflage and a black beret.

Tirofio has a face like a frog, Adan thinks. Fatter than one expects from a guerrilla, with deep pouches under his eyes, heavy jowls and a wide mouth bent into what seems to be a permanent frown. His cheekbones are high and sharp, his eyes narrow, his arched eyebrows silver. Nevertheless, he looks younger than his almost seventy years. He walks toward Adan with vigor and strength-there is no shakiness in his short, heavy legs.

Tirofio looks at Adan for a moment, sizing him up, then points toward a thatched ramada under which are a table and some chairs. He sits down and gestures for Adan to do the same. Without any introduction he says, “I know that you help to support Operation Red Mist.”

“It’s not political,” Adan says. “It’s just business.”

“You know that I could hold you for ransom,” Tirofio says. “Or I could have you killed right now.”

“And you know,” Adan says, “that you would outlive me by perhaps a week.”

Tirofio nods.

“So what do we have to talk about?” Adan asks.

Tirofio pulls a cigarette from his shirt pocket and offers one to Adan. When Adan shakes his head, Tirofio shrugs and lights the cigarette, then takes a long drag and asks, “When were you born?”

“Nineteen fifty-three.”

“I started fighting in 1948,” Tirofio says. “During a period they now call 'La Violencia.’ Have you heard of that?”

“No.”

Tirofio nods. “I was a woodcutter, living in a small village. In those days, I had no politics. Left wing, right wing-it made no difference to the wood I had to cut. I was up in the hills one morning, cutting wood, when the local right-wing militia came into our village, rounded up all the men, tied their elbows behind their backs and cut their throats. Left them bleeding to death like pigs in the village square while they raped their wives and daughters. Do you know why they did that?”

Adan shakes his head.

“Because the villagers had allowed a left-wing group to dig a well for them,” Tirofio says. “That morning I came back to find the bodies lying in the dust. My neighbors, my friends, my family. I walked back into the hills, this time to join the guerrillas. Why do I tell you this story? Because you may say you have no politics, but the day you see your friends and family lying in the dirt, you will have politics.”

Adan says, “There’s money and the lack of money, and there’s power and the lack of power. And that’s all there is.”

“You see?” Tirofio smiles. “You are half a Marxist already.”

“What do you want from me?”

Guns.

Tirofio has twelve thousand fighters and plans to have thirty thousand more. But he has only eight thousand rifles. Adan Barrera has money and airplanes. If his planes can fly the cocaine out, they can fly the guns back in.

So if I want to protect my cocaine source, Adan realizes, I will have to do what this old warrior wants. I will have to get him guns to protect his territory from the right-wing militias and the army and, yes, the Americans. It is a practical necessity, but there is also a sweet measure of revenge in it. So he says, “Do you have an arrangement in mind?”

Tirofio does.

Keep it simple, he says.

One kilo equals one rifle.

For every rifle Adan flies in, FARC will allow one kilo of cocaine to be sold from its territory, at a price discounted to reflect the cost of the weapon. That’s for a standard rifle-the AK-47 is the weapon of choice, but the American M-16 or M-2 is also acceptable, as FARC can get the right ammo from captured army troops or right-wing militias. For other weapons-and Tirofio desperately covets shoulder-held rocket launchers-they will allow a kilo and a half, or even two kilos.

Adan accepts without negotiating.

Somehow he feels it would be unseemly to bargain, almost unpatriotic. Besides, this deal will work. If-and it’s a big if-he can get his hands on enough guns.

“So that’s it, then,” Adan says. “We have a deal?”

Tirofio shakes his hand. “One day you will come to see that everything is politics, and you will act from your heart instead of your pocket.”

On that day, Tirofio tells him, you will find your soul.

Nora lays out clothes on the bed of their suite at a small hotel in Puerto Vallarta-shirts and suits she bought for Adan in La Jolla.

“You like?”

“I like.”

“You’ve hardly looked at them,” Nora says.

“I’m sorry.”