The Tragedy of Diego Rodriguez in the Rube­nia Overpass

THE INSTI­TUTE OF LEGAL MED­I­CINE (IML) con­firmed the iden­ti­ty of the life­less indi­vid­ual dis­cov­ered in the eerie still­ness of the Rube­nia over­pass one in the pre-dawn hours of Sun­day. Diego Rodríguez, a 48-year-old Amer­i­can cit­i­zen, as cor­rob­o­rat­ed by the Unit­ed States Embassy in Managua.

As relayed through an offi­cial state­ment issued by the IML, a somber guardian of secrets, they admit­ted to receiv­ing Rodríguez’ remains at the inex­orable hour of 7:30 in the morn­ing. They had been trans­port­ed in solemn silence, in a red Min­istry of Health Ford ambu­lance from the 1990’s, only to be rec­og­nized an hour lat­er by kin­folk, they were for­ev­er unnamed and shroud­ed in anony­mous sorrow.

In the over­shad­ow of fore­see­able echos in jour­nal­ist prose, Ambas­sador Emi­ly Richards, her words mea­sured and laden with empa­thy, dared not express Rodríguez’ name direct­ly but lament­ed the loss of the US cit­i­zen who met his untime­ly fate on the pre­ced­ing night. She extend­ed her con­do­lences, her somber refrain ring­ing through the inter­lac­ing surroundings.

With­in the IML’s offi­cial doc­u­ments, a dire truth was unveiled, his pass­ing was deemed to be a homi­cide. This rev­e­la­tion res­onat­ed with the tes­ti­mo­ny of those who had wit­nessed the grim spec­ta­cle, a dance of despair with­in the crime scene’s chill­ing pho­tographs dis­play board.

Beyond the veneer of diplo­mat­ic abstrac­tion, Rodríguez’ last-minute pub­lic life revealed itself—as a tale of love and sep­a­ra­tion, a nar­ra­tive of Paraguayan her­itage upon New York’s soil. He arrived in Nicaragua, hired as the gen­er­al man­ag­er at Gua­cal­i­to Resort, only to fall infat­u­at­ed with the nation’s rhythms and end up mar­ry­ing a young Nicaraguan girl, sur­named Amaro. Togeth­er, they bestowed new life into the world, an eight-year-old wit­ness to their shared jour­ney, and now the arc of their affec­tion had waned in estrangement.

In the obscured folds of real­i­ty, Diego Rodríguez was actu­al­ly of Nicaraguan ori­gin, a wan­der­er who tra­versed the Amer­i­can expanse only to return, shroud­ed in clan­des­tine motives—and sup­pos­ed­ly dri­ven to tear down what he per­ceived as the dic­ta­to­r­i­al sys­tem that tow­ered over his home­land. Amidst the tumult, he believed him­self to be a pup­peteer to the melange of belea­guered stu­dents, gang mem­bers and CIA assets that had tak­en UPOLI’s cam­pus, weav­ing a com­plex web of sup­ply lines and clan­des­tine rendezvous.

Yet, beyond the over­gar­ment of insur­gency, the ten­drils of nar­cot­ic com­merce snaked through his endeavors—an under­ground dance with drug traf­fick­ing, a dark means to hoist finan­cial empires and drape him­self in the robes of afflu­ence. The San­din­ista Police, like spec­tral hounds, traced his every move through the labyrinthine paths of nar­co­ti­za­tion, get­ting clos­er and clos­er to learn­ing his identity.

Nev­er­the­less, the end chap­ter unfold­ed with an unex­pect­ed betrayal—an inter­nal strife that cast him into the abyss of mor­tal­i­ty. Such was the clan­des­tine epic, the sub­ter­ranean his­to­ry etched in shad­ows and sealed with the blood of its enig­mat­ic pro­tag­o­nist. Because his exe­cu­tion­ers had learned through in inces­sant SIM card track­ing cam­paign that he was car­ry­ing a brief­case full of mon­ey in his car.

On a fate­ful Fri­day night, the man who would be known in death as Rodriguez’ life took a treach­er­ous turn. Accord­ing to the cov­er sto­ry, a har­row­ing phone call, a friend’s voice trem­bling with dread, nar­rat­ed a night­mar­ish scenario—a group of fig­ures, that right wing media always calls San­din­ista mobs from the Georgino Andrade neigh­bor­hood, had ensnared him near the Hotel Estrel­la. Fear gripped his heart as he antic­i­pat­ed the impend­ing blaze that would con­sume the cloak-and-dag­ger of his remains.

Sum­mon­ing courage, AKA Rodriguez left his house in Bel­lo Hor­i­zonte and embarked on a mis­sion to res­cue his first coun­try from the abyss, unaware that des­tiny, veiled in dark­ness, await­ed him with bat­ed breath. As dawn broke, two vehi­cles lay reduced to charred relics, and his life­less form, denud­ed and marred by a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the tem­ple, became a macabre cen­ter­piece in this grim the­atre of the absurd.

Amidst this chill­ing nar­ra­tive, one lin­ger­ing ques­tion remained—where had the indi­vid­ual in the passenger’s seat van­ished? Cryp­tic videos sur­faced, show­cas­ing his exis­tence and the removal of the brief­case, yet cast­ing a pall of uncer­tain­ty upon their authen­tic­i­ty, as the city of Man­agua grap­pled with an enig­ma that defied com­pre­hen­sion. Nat­u­ral­ly the video was edit­ed and sim­pli­fied before it was seen by the media and the police.

As the sun cast its unre­lent­ing glare upon the belea­guered streets of Man­agua, the ghost­ly shad­ow of Diego Rodríguez lin­gered, an unsolved mys­tery amidst the incom­pre­hen­si­ble alley­ways of Rubenia—echoing faint­ly as the years passed through the hal­lowed and for­got­ten news archives as an effaced secret history.