“She started out with the Ejército Popular de Liberación—the EPL. It was a guerrilla group, fighting for a socialist revolution in rural areas with the long-term aim of taking over the country. Men and women, all ages. She marked herself out as a particularly ruthless fighter. Lots of stories about what she did. The EPL was fighting the Popular Liberation Army, and one story was that she was personally responsible for the execution of twenty-five PLA soldiers. The story is that she killed them, then drank their blood.”

“Apocryphal?” Ellie said.

“I sure as shit hope so,” York said. “But some of it is true. She keeps a low profile, but she’s never been afraid of not correcting mistakes or exaggerations if it helps her legend to grow, and there’s more than enough out there to confirm that she’s dangerous. The EPL was demobilised and she joined a rival paramilitary group: the Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá. Again, her time in the ACCU was marked by more stories of what we might consider atrocities, but what the locals down there see as acts of great heroism. Robin Hood shit—you know what it’s like. The ACCU was absorbed into the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia and she was sent to join the AUC’s Centauros bloc. Seems like she got her first taste of the criminal life under the group’s finance chief, a particularly slippery customer by the name of Don Lucas. He was in charge of laundering funds and collecting extortion payments. The AUC was demobilised in the early 2000s, but La Bruja wasn’t ready to hand over her guns. She and Don Lucas got together to form El Centro. We nabbed Lucas three years ago and then—as far as we can make out—she took over.”

“Did Lucas talk?”

“Not a word, even when he was looking at spending the rest of his life in a supermax. He said he was too scared of her.”

He clicked again and a map of Colombia appeared on the screen.

“So, she’s moved decisively over the last few years. Under her leadership, El Centro expanded across the country. They started in Rionegro, but moved west and east until they were in control of a band of jungle that was two hundred miles deep, stretching from Puerto Berrío in the east to Antado and Nabuga in the west. She’s always been strategic in how she gets things done. She can cut deals or go in hard. But however she’s done it, it’s worked. They’ve either absorbed their rivals or taken them out. El Centro is now the most expansive and successful cartel in Colombia since Escobar.”

“And the Mexicans?”

“That might have been her masterstroke,” York said.

He clicked again and an image of a dead man filled the screen.