by Jonas Saul
Then she screamed. She cried out and almost lost her balance. Her eyes welled up in tears and she had to struggle to stay on her feet.
Inside the smaller box was an index finger. One she knew all too well. They had cut off Aaron’s finger and found her in Greece to deliver a message. There was only one response to this horror. The cartel would die for this. All of them. Every last one.
Casper was shouting something beside her. She spun him around, yanked his weapon out of its holster and ran toward the parking lot, her eyes blurred with tears.
Casper shouted behind her again, but she knew he could never keep up with cracked ribs and a severely bruised chest.
Sarah ran with purpose. She ran, fueled with anger. The rush of wind dried her eyes. Every last cartel member would pay for this. Aaron’s hands were his career, his karate. All this because she stopped their laundering connection. It was her fault. She had to make things right. And she would, starting with this Mexican.
“Sarah!” Casper yelled behind her. “Don’t do it!”
She ran harder. The Mexican had disappeared from sight. He had to have gotten into a vehicle. But which one?
She was closer now. Close enough to see the cars leaving the large lot. An Audi pulled out, female driver. A Fiat came next. Then she was at the entrance to the parking lot, running along the line of half a dozen vehicles waiting to move out into traffic.
He wasn’t in any of the cars.
“Dammit!” she shouted.
She looked around, scanning cars close to her. Nothing. Casper was catching up, lumbering along.
Then she saw the Mexican.
He had traversed the parking lot but not to get in a car. He was still walking away, on the far end of the lot.
She started running again. Casper shouted behind her to stop.
In less than a minute, she was twenty feet behind the Mexican before he turned around, a gun in his hand.
Between breaths, she said, “Tell me who sent you.”
“Go to Tijuana,” the man said. “They will know you’re there. Someone will come pick you up.”
“How do I know Aaron’s alive?”
“You have my word. That was only one piece of him. The other piece is waiting for you in Tijuana. Trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
The Mexican pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “They told me you would come after me. Here,” he tossed the phone. She caught it. “There’s a video of Aaron on that. Taken an hour ago. They texted it to me.”
Sarah turned the video on from iMessage. It was Aaron, saying he was okay. They had fed him and offered water. He raised his bandaged hand to the camera, then forced a smile. Before the video ended, he did a subtle shake of his head and his eyes clouded over. Then it stopped.
He was warning her to stay away. In that brief second, Aaron told her to leave him there, to leave him to die. She didn’t just feel it, she knew it.
But she would never leave him there.
Casper caught up and stayed behind Sarah, panting and wheezing.
“I’ve done what I was supposed to do,” the Mexican said. “I’ve delivered the message. Now I must return safely so Aaron stays safe. If I don’t return safely, you will receive one hundred more packages like that one, piece by piece.”
“Send a message back to them in Mexico,” Sarah said.
The Mexican lowered his weapon, then slipped it in his pants at the back.
“What is it?” he asked.
“This.”
Sarah shot him in the forehead without hesitation. He stumbled backwards, tried to catch himself, then fell. Sarah walked up to his fallen body. His eyes roved around trying to see her. She shot him three more times in the chest.
“Nobody takes my family and dismembers them without consequences.” She kicked the man’s dead body. “I’ll burn the cartel to the ground before I’m through. Pablo Escobar ain’t got shit on me. Little Mexicans will hear horror stories about the white American girl who came to Mexico and destroyed the drug business single handedly. You hear me,” she shouted. “No one fucks with my family.” She was nearing hysteria and felt good with the loss of control. The wonton abandonment released the pressure racing between her temples.
Casper’s hands gently touched her arms. He leaned in close as her breath seethed in and out between her teeth.
“We have to go,” Casper whispered. “People are coming.”
He pushed a little, but she resisted.
“We need to leave now, Sarah.” His voice was firmer. “Give me my gun back.”
The spell broke. She blinked. A moment later, she handed Casper his weapon.
“Come on. The chopper’s just over there.”
Casper got on his cell phone and texted something. Sarah started walking in a daze.
The chopper’s rotors began turning.
“We have to move faster if we’re going to make it out of Greece. The police are already coming. They heard the shots.”
Sarah’s pace picked up. Getting out of Greece meant going to Mexico.
She started running. Mexico. Where she could kill more Mexicans.
Enzo Cartel Mexicans.
They made it to the helicopter as three small Greek police cruisers raced toward them.
Less than ten seconds later, the pilot lifted the machine off the ground and out over the sea.
Sarah closed her eyes. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. Would it ever end? Would she ever catch a break?
“You know, he was probably right,” Casper said.
“Fuck you.”
“Killing him sends a wrong message.”
“They want me. Aaron won’t die until I get there. Too risky for them. If Aaron’s dead, I don’t have to come. Aaron will be fine.”
“Still, wrong message to send.”
“Fuck you still stands.”
“Clearly you’re not interested in talking to me. And you seem quite angry.”
Sarah kept her eyes closed. The gyro wasn’t sitting well in her stomach anymore. Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten.
Mexico …
The tears couldn’t be held back. The helicopter shook with the winds coming up off the Aegean as they raced back to Athens and ultimately Mexico where a fight was brewing for Sarah. A fight she was ready for.
The Enzo Cartel had taken family. Her family. This fight was personal.
She tightened her fists as she wept.
The cartel had no idea who was coming for them.
None whatsoever.
She kept her eyes closed and thought of murder.
Dead bodies enveloped her thoughts when she envisioned The Cartel.
The Cartel …
Afterword
Dear Reader,
With The Abandoned, I wanted to explore Sarah’s life in a deeper way. I wanted to reach inside and see what she felt about Aaron. We saw more of Aaron’s feelings in The Unlucky and now it was time for Sarah to open up. How I decided to do that was by having him in peril because of her.
I asked myself, what would happen if Sarah ran to help others in need when the people who needed her the most were her own people, her family? How would she feel if she discovered that Aaron’s kidnapping and subsequent torture was laid at her doorstep?
Part of my madness here is that I want to display another side of Sarah. A maniacal, insane and brutal Sarah is coming to The Cartel, Book 15, one that will stop at nothing to free Aaron. The ride in the next book will be one of the hardest runs for Sarah. I’m worried at times she might not be able to endure it and still maintain a level of kindness, her heart intact.
We’ll have to see …
As with most—not all—Sarah Roberts novels, there’s a beginning and an end. The bad guys get taken care of and all ends well. But in my head, Sarah’s life continues beyond the limits of the page. I even have people ask me, “What would Sarah do in this instance?” and, “How would Sarah feel about this?”
I felt it important in this novel to have a subp
lot—Aaron’s story—to begin in this novel and come to completion in the next as it would happen in reality. Several authors do this—Jo Nesbø, Mo Hayder—and I’ve often wanted to, but hesitated until now.
As Sarah’s life isn’t bound to the pages of a book’s formula, things can happen behind the scenes that set in motion the next book, or even the next few books. Yet at the same time, The Abandoned’s bad guy, James Wong, and the overall story arc doesn’t continue on to other books like when Sarah was hunting Armond Stuart in The Warning and didn’t catch up with him until the end of The Crypt.
So there you have it. Aaron is in trouble and Sarah’s on her way. The Cartel will be explosive and extremely dangerous, and should be out by September 2015.
My wife and our two daughters have been traveling through Europe again this year. We’re currently in Greece, will be in Denmark for the month of June and back to Greece for the summer. Because of this, I like to add locations I enjoy visiting during our tours. Having Sarah come to Amsterdam and walk the canals as my wife and I did was fantastic for me as a writer. We loved Amsterdam, and I’ll be displaying pictures on the Sarah Roberts Facebook page a few weeks after this book is released.
To have her land at the Athens airport and stay a night in the Sofitel, where we once stayed, works for the story and for me. It’s like revisiting places I’ve been and brings deeper meaning to the phrase, write what you know. I am literally writing what I know.
The town in Greece we currently live near is called Nafplio. It was Greece’s first capital before Athens took the title. If you’ve read my other novels, you would have heard of Nafplio from The Specter and Killing Sarah. We love this town and have returned often because of the wonderful people and food. As mentioned in the novel, Scuola is one of our favorite Italian restaurants in Nafplio. I had Sarah walk through old town—designed by the Italians—and into the square. I’ve never stayed in the hotel where Wong stayed—it’s one of the most expensive hotels in Nafplio—but I figured Wong would’ve chosen that one so that’s why it’s in the story. Besides, it’s near the water and I needed Sarah to see the Island Castle of Bourtzi.
I have actually taken the water taxi over to Bourtzi, toured the castle and routinely found holes in the wall similar to the one where “Jonas Saul” located the ledger.
Which brings me to my next point: I have added myself, my wife and this time, our daughters to this novel. I’ve done this once before in The Rogue, but felt I needed to this time for several reasons.
The first reason is the same one I offered up in The Rogue: I’ve always loved when other authors have done this such as Alfred Hitchcock and Clive Cussler. When writing The Rogue, I was in Italy touring the countryside by train and so it made sense to have Sarah bump into us on the train. While writing The Abandoned, I’m touring Greece by boat and living in Nafplio, so again, it was natural for me to assume my character—Sarah Roberts—would bump into us.
Lastly, I added my daughters as a tribute. They often shoot out questions and ideas for Sarah. What if Sarah did this? What would Sarah think of that? When Odette said Sarah hadn’t been in a plane crash situation yet, and if she was, how would she go about saving people, I added that to the beginning of this novel. So a big thank you goes out to Odette, my daughter, for adding a plot point to this novel.
Another thank you goes out to Bethany, my oldest daughter, for the ideas she has added to the Sarah Roberts Series coming up. We sat down and talked out a scene for the upcoming pregnant Sarah story. And a dynamic scene for Sarah’s baby once she’s born. But I’m getting away with myself here as that’s half a dozen books further down the line … or more.
I’d like to thank Agrotospita Country House for hosting us during our stay in Nafplio. Check them out. A fabulous place to stay when touring this fine town. The owners speak amazing English and help with every need. Whether you want to tour the ancient theater Epidaurus, built around the sixth century BCE, or visit Agamemnon’s Tomb, built around 1500 BCE, or even tour Argos, a city that has been continuously inhabited for the past 7,000 years—the longest in European history—the owners of Agrotospita will help you on your way.
And finally, I need to send out a special thank you to Conner Quinton and his mother Sara Quinton. I added them to the final scenes of the plane crash. Sara is a reader of the Sarah Roberts Series and allowed me to use her and her son’s names. Conner is fourteen and lost his father, a soldier, to the war overseas. Sara lost her husband. Their story moved me to tears and I wanted to add them to The Abandoned in a way where they helped save lives in the story, as they did on the plane. Similar to the man in their life, who saved lives and lives on in their memories. He’s the true hero here and I salute him.
May he rest in peace.
Also, thanks to Holly Tuell who allowed me to use her husband’s name, Buck as my disappearing black ops agent, Buck Schaffer, also known as Casper. He’s in The Cartel as well. So to Buck … thanks for the use of your name and thanks, most of all, for reading the Sarah Roberts Series.
Until next time, and you’re lost in the pages of The Cartel, please forgive me in advance for what happens to Sarah and Aaron. All I can tell you is that their love never dies. I won’t reveal more, except to say that the next ride is absolutely crazy. It frightens me, too!
Then onto Book 16, Losing Sarah. There’s so much more to come.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. And get caught reading.
I love you all!
Jonas Saul
Good reviews are important to a novel’s success. If you enjoyed The Abandoned, please leave a review wherever you purchased the book.
Sincerely,
About Jonas Saul
Jonas Saul is the author of the Sarah Roberts Series and The Mafia Trilogy.
Visit his website, www.jonassaul.com for upcoming release dates, and to sign up for the newsletter. Jonas lives in Washington, USA.
Contact Jonas Saul
Website: http://www.jonassaul.com
Twitter: @jonassaul
Email: [email protected]
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