G A Z / A' E ; '^1%: i: mwg. r'i-y Spring 20/5 . ..A - ^ ): > . >yff :’ : \ -V -# .lyiRAH KHAMEit ’3 6 < ^*-:v - c^Mjtc(£ Jou/mctiiSt, lV^ ’ i- THE /VfW YORK TfMES P-&i4‘ I AN A — atL i— AUDIO nORYTELLlNG —'THE JVgixr— DC Jour nalist s 74 /M/l/^(/VG«f 'neSCAREDMfCAREE ...d /n ^ M O R E Felix Against the Barbarians Felix Batista ’77 was a master at negotiating the release of kidnap victims, right up to the moment he disappeared. By J ay H einr ichs ’77 and Bil l T hickstun ’77 Illustrations by Riki Blanco I. K&R Man T his st or y is not about —not just about—the kidnap­ ping and probable murder of our classmate, Felix Batista ’77. But to know his full story, we must start here. On December 10,2008, Felix was having an early dinner in Saltillo, capital of the Mexican state of Coahuila, about three hours south of the Texas border. Americans know Saltillo best for the traditional clay tiles it exports to high- end kitchen designers and interior decorators; but the biggest employers. General Motors and Chrysler, operate a pair of automobile assembly plants. They have made the region relatively prosperous, fostering the growth of an upper-middle class, stirring patronage in the better eating establishments, and creating a boom in another industry: hostage taking. One of the town’s best restaurants, El Meson Principal del Norte, special­ izes in spit-roasted meat. Felix had ordered the goat. An American citizen born in Cuba and based in Miami, he was a consultant whose work took him to Mexico at least 20 times a year. He was dining with three associates, speaking fluent Spanish—the sort of scene our world-friendly college likes to imagine—when one of his two cell phones rang. The call came from a friend named Pilar Valdez, head of security for the Saltillo Industrial Group, He was being held by Los Zetas, the most vicious drug cartel in a nation dominated by cartels. While the Zetas and other Mexican gangs have grown rich from smug­ gling narcotics and marijuana into the United States, in the past decade or so, kidnapping has provided a growing alternative revenue stream. Almost half of all Mexicans say they have been affected by kidnapping—having been taken themselves, having had a relative or friend abducted, or having received scam calls saying a loved one is being held. Relatives of victims often receive a finger or an ear to hurry negotiations along. The kidnappers go where the money is, focusing on the nation’s business class. Which is why Felix was in Mexico. A security expert, he had given a pair of lectures to local business­ men, telling them how to respond in the event of a kidnapping. Keep calm, he told them. Don’t offer too much money. Felix knew what he was talking Spring 20IJ 33 about; he had been instrumental in the release of some too hostages, ac­ cording to the Houston-based firm he worked with, ASI Global. A “response consultant” with more than two decades’ experience, Felix was at the top of a growing profession called K&R, kidnapping and ransom. Soon after Pilar Valdez called him, the man’s son came into the restaurant and sat at another table. Felix talked to the young man, then left the restaurant briefly and returned looking shaken. After a visit to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, Felix rejoined his dinner companions. He handed over his laptop, shoulder bag, and a cell phone—the one he used to call his family. “If Fm not back soon,” he said, “call these numbers.” He left a card with the contact information for ASI and for his wife, Lourdes. Then he stood out on the curb for half an hour. Shortly after seven o’clock, two vehicles drove up. Pilar Valdez sat in one of them, a white Jeep Cherokee. He had been badly beaten. One of the men inside the SUV came out and put his arm around Felix. They talked briefly, and Felix got into the car. An hour later, Valdez was dropped off with a few pesos for transportation. Felix has not been seen since. There is more to Felix’s story, entailing the usual corrupt officials, American diplomats, the FBI, the toxic outward flow of drugs to the States and the reverse flow of guns; Felix’s wife; their five grown children; his music and friendship and the scholarship in his name that reflects the best of the College. But as you shall see, Felix himself provided the moral of the story. He once wrote to friends that his work in kidnapping and ransom was to fight “barba­ rism.” At a time when the purpose of the liberal arts is under challenge, Felix gives us an answer: a liberal education should nurture civilized souls like Felix Batista who can cross boundaries and carry a light into a barbarous world. U II. Patriot Fel ix Isidor o Batista was as Amer ica n as they come, brought at age seven from Cuba by his parents in 1962. Felix’s mother, Onelia, was a Salgado whose family came to Cuba from the Basque region of Spain. (Many years later, “Isidoro Salgado” became Felix’s alias when he worked incognito in Mexico.) His father, Joaquin Batista, emigrated to New York in 1959, days before the Cuban revolution, with S5 in his pocket. He took a job at a Cuban-Chinese restaurant, leaving behind his pregnant wife; a girl was born back in Cuba a few months later. After three years, Joaquin earned enough to bring his family to America, and they lived in an apartment in Spanish Harlem. Another daughter, Jacqueline, came along a year later. Jackie says that when the children were young the apartment always seemed to be full of new Cuban refugees sponsored byjoaquin and Onelia. Felix attended Our Lady of Lourdes elementary school in Harlem. He showed ambition from the start, not always in ways that pleased his parents. Working to speak the majority language of his new country without an ac­ cent, he picked up English so well that he lost some of the Spanish spoken at home. One day he wanted a pork chop, a chuleta, but mistakenly asked his mother for lechuga. She fried him up a meal of lettuce. His diligence in English and his other subjects paid off, however, winning him grades that earned a scholarship at New York’s Jesuit-run Xavier High School. He joined the rifle team and became its captain. Meanwhile his father had found new employment. Joaquin had been work­ ing two jobs, at the restaurant and at a Chevrolet plant. Now he received an offer as a building superintendent in Rego Park, Queens. Not only did he move his family to a better neighborhood, but Felix also found another attraction: the outgoing superintendent had a daughter, Lourdes, a 14-year- old with dark hair and enormous green eyes. A few months younger than Felix and a year behind him in school, she loved him on sight: “He was so handsome and smart.” Ayear later—in 1969, the year of the Summer of Love, the year ofWoodstock—they began dating in old-school fashion. An aunt or a grandmother would chaperone, sitting between them at the movies. Felix told a cousin of Lourdes that she was a hard woman to date. “She’s the kind of girl you marry,” he said. He left for college when she was a senior in high school. AJesuit teacher who had been to the Language Schools at Middlebury had encouraged him to apply; Felix was admitted with an ROTC scholarship. Soon after he ar­ Associates called him La rived, he got himself elected to an at-large seat on the Student Forum. Fie had the mixed luck of spending his freshman year living in the first-floor, half-basement of Stewart Hall known as the Pits. Felix, an accomplished Eminencia Gris, the Gray guitarist with a rich baritone voice, collaborated with classmate Chuck Andres in writing “The Pits Song”: Eminence. Many knew him When you’re feeling bad and rotten and miserable And about to call it quits only as Isidoro Salgado. It’s good to know that You can’t get as low As the guys down in the Pits. Maybe because they bonded in adversity, the Class of 1977 Pits crew has professional athletes and for its good public schools. Lourdes supplied an attended reunions out of all proportion to their numbers. Sophomore year additional income as a teacher. She had earned her MA in Spanish from they decided to take over a waning fraternity, Zeta Psi, only to find that a Middlebury in 1981 and taught Spanish and English to speakers of other very different crowd from Hepburn Hall had gotten the same idea. Felix languages in grades K-8. In 2005, her school named herTeacher of the Year. joined nonetheless, living there for a term and remaining a social member With five kids and a big mortgage, money was an issue. Felix sold life throughout his four years at Middlebury. The Student Course Guide occupied insurance for less than a year, hoping it would keep him at home more. He much of the rest of his limited free time that year. He served as editor in hated it. And he kept getting calls from people in trouble. “He wanted to do chief, overseeing occasionally blunt assessments of faculty and classes, and something for humanity, for the other person,” Lourdes says.
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