📸 Photo

EL ALTO AIRPORT

I followed the policeman who had spoken to me, and the other one walked behind me. There was no point in trying to escape; I wouldn't have made it to the terminal door. Besides, I had only just checked in my bags. There was no way that they could have found the drugs already and then traced them to me. As we walked along, I asked them what the problem was, but they couldn't speak English. They kept repeating the word 'perros' and touching their noses.

I was still quite relaxed at that stage. I didn't yet know what 'perros' meant, but I had dealt with airport police before and had always outsmarted them. I had been doing this drug business since I was a boy. When I was younger, I was like an action man — I could go anywhere in the world with merchandise and never get caught. Sometimes I worked out of India with hashish or heroin, sometimes from Pakistan, but the last few times had been out of South America with cocaine. I would fly over, buy a few kilos through my Bolivian contacts, and then fly back and sell to my contacts in Europe. I never got caught, because I was smart. This time would be no different. I also had a friend in a high place in case things went wrong.

The two policemen led me through a door, down a set of stairs and then along a dimly lit corridor that ran under the airport terminal. Finally, we stopped outside an office and the policeman in front knocked. A plaque on the door read, 'Colonel Toro Lanza'.

'Pase,' ordered a voice from inside. The policeman opened the door. Behind a large desk sat a stern-looking officer with a well-decorated uniform indicating his rank of colonel. He had a commanding presence, and the policemen who had escorted me were obviously afraid of him. They pushed me forward. The colonel looked at me fiercely.

'Siéntese, señor,' he demanded, indicating the seat in front of his desk. 'Su pasaporte, por favor.' I handed him my passport. He inspected my photo and then looked back at me to make sure it matched.

'¿Señor Thomas McFadden, sí?' he asked, reading my name from the passport.

I nodded.

'Do you speak Spanish, Señor McFadden?'

'No. Only English.'

I waited for an explanation of what was going on, but the colonel didn't look up. He continued flipping through the pages of my