DEATH OF A KINGPIN

True Story Of Pablo Escobar's Demise Reads Like A Novel

Mark Bowden has a way of making modern nonfiction read like the best of
novels. He did it with "Black Hawk Down," the story of a botched American
military raid in Somalia, which was a finalist for the National Book Award
for 1999. He's done it again with "Killing Pablo."

Pablo is Colombian cocaine cartel king Pablo Escobar, who for years led
Colombia law enforcement on a wild goose chase while he lived the high
life, raking in countless millions of dollars selling cocaine to a wildly
consumptive market in the United States. It's a story of official
corruption and cronyism, of terrorism and technology.

It's also the story of how the United States became involved in the search
for and the ultimate shooting death of one of the world's most vicious
criminals. It's a story of how the first Bush administration declared war
on the drug cartels, raising the stakes to a war fought not only by police
officials, but also by the military with all its technological know-how.

It is absolutely riveting. Bowden, an investigative reporter for the
Philadelphia Inquirer, takes the reader inside the mind of Escobar, a place
with warmth for his family and frightening disdain for his enemies, both
real and merely perceived.

Escobar was not averse to exploding a bomb in a public place to send a
message, or to building housing and soccer fields for his country's many
poor. Escobar liked marijuana and American pop music. His uniform was a
T-shirt and new Nike running shoes. He loved his mother and was fond of
young girls. Bowden shows us all this with a stunning virtuosity, and
without bias.

Escobar's organization reflected his immense wealth. He had safe houses all
over Colombia. He had informants everywhere. He used his wealth and
reputation to keep him safe, and he was extremely cunning. If someone in
the government put a $1 million price on his head, Escobar would offer
millions more to whomever would rat them out. Then he'd kill the official,
and maybe the official's family, as well. He bought police officials and
judges, and those he couldn't buy, he either killed or scared off.

But he had a certain following. As Bowden puts it: "Anyone can be a
criminal, but to be an outlaw demands a following. The outlaw stands for
something, usually through no effort of his own. No matter how base the
actual motives of criminals like those in the Colombian hills, or like the
American ones immortalized by Hollywood - Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde,
Jesse James - large numbers of people rooted for them, and followed their
bloody exploits with some measure of delight." The same was true for Escobar.

Escobar played public opinion like a harp, giving interviews to the media,
portraying himself as a patriot and attacking the devil Norte Americanos.
He liked to write, and would rail against extradition and other issues that
the locals felt strongly about.

But while many outlaws remained local heroes, Escobar's reach went global.
"At his height," Bowden writes, "he would threaten to usurp the Colombian
state. Forbes magazine would list him as the seventh-richest man in the
world 1989. His violent reach would make him the most feared terrorist in
the world."

In short, he had to go, and jail wasn't an option. In fact, Escobar did go
to jail once, sort of. He built the prison himself, for himself, complete
with all the comforts of home, including the wherewithal to run his empire.
When things got a little rough, he simply walked away. It was a joke.

By the end of 1989, after killing a national political hero and shooting a
commercial airliner out of the sky, killing innocent civilians, he had gone
too far. "No longer just a law enforcement target, he was now a military
target," Bowden writes. "To the men of America's secret counter-terrorism
community, the ruthless doper from Medellin had become a clear and present
danger."

Bowden deftly shows how Americans took part in the search for Escobar. They
were from all over the clandestine map - the CIA, the DEA, Delta Force, the
list went on. They were there not only to catch the world's No. 1 bad guy,
but also to prove the worth of men and technology in the unsure spook world
after the end of the Cold War and thus secure future funding.

Pablo Escobar was gunned down on Dec. 2, 1993, as he was running along a
rooftop in Medellin attempting to escape. Questions remain over who
actually shot him. Was it the Colombian officials who had been chasing him
for so long, or was it a Delta Force sniper?

As with "Black Hawk Down," Bowden uses his considerable reporting skills to
tell a straight-up story with precision and panache. "Killing Pablo" raises
a few questions and answers a lot more.