The Cartel (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 15) Read online

  The Cartel

  by

  Jonas Saul

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Imagine Press Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-927404-42-3

  The Cartel

  Copyright © 2015 by Jonas Saul

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Jonas Saul Titles

  The Sarah Roberts Series

  1. Dark Visions

  2. The Warning

  3. The Crypt

  4. The Hostage (*Featuring Drake Bellamy from The Threat)

  5. The Victim (*Featuring Aaron Stevens from The Specter)

  6. The Enigma

  7. The Vigilante (*Featuring Aaron Stevens from The Specter)

  8. The Rogue (*Featuring Darwin and Rosina Kostas from The Mafia Trilogy)

  9. Killing Sarah

  10. The Antagonist

  11. The Redeemed

  12. The Haunted

  13. The Unlucky

  14. The Abandoned

  15. The Cartel

  16. Losing Sarah

  17. The Pact (Coming Soon)

  The Jake Wood Series

  1. The Snake

  The Mafia Trilogy (Starring Darwin and Rosina Kostas)

  1. The Kill

  2. The Blade

  3. The Scythe

  Standalone Novels

  1. The Threat (Starring Drake Bellamy)

  2. The Specter (Starring Aaron Stevens)

  3. A Murder in Time (Starring Marcus Johnson)

  Short Stories

  1. The Burning

  2. The Numbers Game

  3. Trapped

  4. Twisted Fate (Tales of Horror)

  Compilations

  1. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 1-3

  2. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 4-6

  3. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 7-9

  4. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 10-12

  5. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 13-15

  6. The Mafia Trilogy

  7. The Jonas Saul Thriller Trilogy (The Threat, The Specter, A Murder in Time)

  Beginning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Sarah Roberts entered the Mexican church under the cover of night, her guns safely hidden in a bush a few feet from the large wooden doors at the front of the church. She winced as the clunk of the heavy doors resounded softly throughout the building’s interior announcing her arrival.

  With one quick glance over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed, Sarah slipped inside the huge Roman Catholic church on the outskirts of Tijuana.

  She moved to the right, stayed close to the wall, and watched for a priest or nun to come out and greet her.

  Absolute silence filled the cavernous building of worship. Pews placed in an orderly fashion started at the back and stopped near the front at a round baptismal font. She recalled one of those fonts saving her life as a church in Los Angeles exploded around her a lifetime ago.

  On the opposite side of the church, scaffolding rose to the ceiling. They were restoring sections of the interior wall. A balcony parapet thrust out of the left side of the scaffolding, its edge chipped and the frontal area discolored with age.

  With her back against the wall, she thought about her sister’s note. Vivian had picked the church and the time. But to what end? To meet someone? To hurt someone? To learn where the cartel that had kidnapped Aaron, her boyfriend, were keeping him? So far, the five days Sarah had been in Tijuana, none of the authorities had lifted a finger to go after the Enzo Cartel holding Aaron. Stagnant, languid in a hotel room, almost a week had passed while Aaron suffered somewhere close by.

  Then Vivian suggested an idea. Hit the cartel man by man, piece by piece. Whittle them down. Weaken them. Then go for Aaron. Sarah had agreed. The first task was this church. Then she was off to the Baja Café a few blocks away.

  Okay, Vivian, I’m in. Now what?

  When no answer came, Sarah moved toward the front. Her running shoes squeaked on the wax floor. A wooden door beckoned up ahead.

  In here, Vivian?

  When she left the hotel at this late hour, security was changing. DEA and FBI agents were jointly managing the operation along with the Mexican authorities, but according to Vivian, that was what would get Aaron killed. The American authorities had a purpose. But they thought like Americans. They approached law enforcement like Americans do and that worked on American soil, but down here, in Mexico, it was about who you knew or feared. With friends or associates, you could get things done. But with fear, you could accomplish anything or become paralyzed by it. Since Sarah didn’t know anyone in Mexico and didn’t have the time to make acquaintances, she had to rely on fear. If she created enough fear in the Enzo Cartel, Aaron’s chances of survival rose.

  But how does one create fear in an organization that had mastered their livelihood on it?

  Vivian said she knew how to scare the cartel and offered up her plan. It was risky and dangerous, but a plan nonetheless. If it meant Aaron’s odds of surviving rose, Sarah was in.

  She made it to the wooden door on the other side of the church and tried the handle. Locked.

  Dammit! Why am I here, Vivian? Why bring the guns just to leave them outside? Why this church?

  The internal lights had been dimmed for the night. Emergency lighting near the exits offered enough light to navigate.

  She waited a heartbeat, then started across the center of the church, meandering through the pews. She crossed the middle aisle, then down between another set of pews until she reached another wooden door wedged into the side of the scaffolding.

  Someone cried out, barely audible.

  Sarah jolted to a stop. She didn’t have to wait long to hear it again. A female cried from behind the door in front of her.

  She looked around for a weapon and grabbed a steel pipe off the first level of the scaffolding.

  With the pipe gripped tight in her right hand, she twisted the doorknob slowly. The door opened without a sound. The room behind it was small and appeared to be an office of some kind. An old wooden desk that had seen better days sat in the corner, the top of the desk scattered with papers. Another door stood open at the back of the room. Sarah stepped inside and headed for the door at the back, her stomach d
oing flips.

  With each step across the stone floor toward the back of the room the female voice cried out. Sarah jerked at the harsh, distinctive sound of someone being smacked.

  “Shut up, you bitch,” a man’s muffled voice resonated from behind the door in front of her.

  The realization of what was happening in the other room came to Sarah in a rush. Anger rose in her, tightening her shoulders and neck muscles. Fueled by a sense of duty combined with fury, Sarah strode to the door, yanked it open and brought the pipe up to strike.

  What the two men were doing to the nun made her want to kill both of them. But maybe it was a good thing that her guns were stashed in the bushes at the front of the church. She didn’t want to commit murder in the House of God.

  The nun was bent over a table. One man, back to Sarah, held the nun by the wrists while the other man stood behind her, his pants and underwear around his ankles. The nun’s habit was cast aside in a pile on the floor. She cried silently, her eyes averted in shame, a black cloth covering her mouth to quell her screams.

  Sarah had impeccable timing. The man behind the nun, his genitals exposed, was about to physically violate her.

  Their eyes met.

  “Señorita?” the man facing her said. “American?”

  You could’ve prepared me better, Vivian.

  “I think you came to the wrong party,” he said, moving away from the distraught woman and reaching for his pants.

  The man holding the nun’s wrists swung his head to glare at Sarah. He let go of the nun and pivoted.

  Sarah lurched forward and aimed the steel pipe at the man’s collar bone. Her aim was true. The collar bone snapped like a twig underfoot in the forest, the sound corresponding with the man’s scream. He dropped to the stone floor and rolled to his uninjured side, screaming and squirming.

  Sarah eyed the other man who had stopped raising his pants.

  “This is a case of wrong place, wrong time,” she shouted.

  “Too bad,” the man replied, his penis losing its rigidity, “you showed up. You’re right, though, wrong place, wrong time for you.”

  “Not for me,” Sarah shouted over the man wailing on the floor, waving her finger back and forth. “You are in the wrong place.”

  The nun slipped off the side of the table and crawled away to huddle in the corner, covering herself as best she could with her hands.

  “We’re Halcones for the Enzo Cartel. The eyes and ears.”

  Ahh, okay Vivian. I see your angle better now.

  The man moved closer, not caring that he was half naked. “We’re like spiders. Once in our web, you never get out.” He licked his lips and roved Sarah’s body with his eyes, starting at her feet and stopping at her breasts. “You’ll do fine. Hey Miguel, we got us a hot nun for fun. But this one, she’ll just add to the party.”

  Sarah moved a step back to prepare for her lunge. That simple movement saved her life as the man on the floor suddenly turned, brought up his good arm with a gun in his hand, and fired wildly at Sarah.

  Without thinking, acting purely on instinct, Sarah pitched forward, shoved the pipe into the man’s shoulder and grabbed for the gun.

  The man, weakened by the pain in his broken collar bone, the pipe now jamming into him, weakened his grip. Sarah deftly yanked the gun from his grasp and spun it around to aim at him as he squirmed.

  Then she fired.

  A hole opened in the would-be rapist’s chest. His eyes widened and his scream echoed throughout the small room.

  Sarah brought it up to bear on the other man before he moved two steps closer.

  “Oh, little girl.” The man stood five feet away, his mouth in a condescending smirk. “You’re dead. You have no idea what you just did.” His Spanish accent worsened as his anger increased. “You’re so dead. In the worst possible way.”

  Blood bubbled out of the chest of the man on the floor as he gagged.

  Shit Vivian, Casper’s going to be pissed about this.

  The last man standing raised his hands waist high.

  “Señorita, put the gun down.”

  The nun had quieted in the corner. She had taken her black habit and covered her body with it like a blanket.

  Sarah shrugged one shoulder. “Wrong place, wrong time, eh? You shouldn’t have been here. What Cartel did you say you were with?”

  “The Enzo Cartel. But maybe we can let this go if you just put the gun down. Walk out of here and we’ll see if we can forget this ever happened.”

  The guy writhing on the ground moaned through gritted teeth as his shirt soaked through with blood. “Fuck that,” he managed to say. “She dies for this. But a hundred men rape her first.”

  “Now, now,” his partner said. “No one’s raping no one today. Ain’t that right, Señorita?”

  “Kick off your pants,” Sarah said.

  “What?”

  “You want to live? Kick off your pants. Then shove them over to me.”

  He didn’t move.

  Sarah rushed up and whacked him in the jaw with the pipe. She swung around him and set the gun against the man’s ear while he moaned.

  “I don’t fucking care what cartel you work for. Remember my name. Sarah Roberts. Memorize it. Take it back to your boss, your drug lord, the Capos. I have a message to deliver. Now, kick off your pants or I will kill you.”

  He hesitated another few seconds, then used his feet to pull out of them. The nun remained quiet under the cover of her habit.

  “Tell whoever matters in the Enzo Cartel that they came after the wrong person.” Sarah thought of Aaron, his captivity, his missing finger. Then Vivian invaded her consciousness and whispered what she needed to do.

  Sarah glanced at the nun holding the habit up to her neck. She was young, no more than mid-twenties. Had she been raped, Sarah wondered how she could ever come back from that as a nun. Hopefully what happened wouldn’t stop the nun from remaining in her faith.

  “Take off your shirt,” Sarah told the man still standing.

  “You can’t be serious,” he mumbled.

  His jaw was swelling fast but it didn’t appear to be dislocated. Sarah raised the pipe in warning.

  “Okay, okay.”

  He pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. Now he was completely naked.

  Sarah lowered the gun and shot a bullet into the naked man’s right foot just below the ankle.

  He dropped to the floor beside his friend, his hands wrapping the wound as if that would take the pain away. Sarah kicked his underwear out the open door and grabbed his dirty pants. She walked over to the nun and set the pants down, keeping an eye on the men in case they had another gun concealed somewhere.

  “Take these.” Sarah pushed the pants closer. “Cover yourself until you can get another habit.”

  “But Señorita,” the nun said through her tears, her voice surprisingly strong for what she had just endured. “I have this one.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I need this one. That’s why I came here tonight.”

  The nun looked at the habit, then the jeans, and back to the habit.

  “Take it,” she said.

  Sarah slipped the habit over her head as the nun put the jeans on. Her breasts were covered in a too tight sports bra, but Sarah figured she had enough clothes on now to get to wherever she slept in the church.

  The man with the bubbling chest wound had grown quiet. His eyes were glazed over and his breathing shallow. The other man held his bleeding foot and cried like a baby, breathing through clenched teeth.

  “You’re gonna pay for this,” he stammered.

  “Just remember my name.” She came around until she was facing him, the habit a bit big for her, flowing out like a dress. “Sarah Roberts. And I’m here to kill the Enzo Cartel. Send the message. No one lives. Got it? No one lives.”

  Sarah adjusted the cowl of the habit until only her face showed through. The veil protruded outward covering her face from side view. Now that the nun was
standing, Sarah saw that they were about the same size physically.

  “You ever heard of stigmata?” Sarah asked the Mexican holding his foot.

  “What?” he shouted, his voice cracking, his mouth barely opening.

  The other Mexican had stopped breathing. His dead eyes stared at the ceiling.

  “What’s my name?” Sarah asked.

  The man repeated it perfectly.

  “Good.”

  As the nun exited through the door, Sarah kicked the man on the stone floor. She hated rapists. They weren’t worth the bullet that killed them.

  She understood why Vivian brought her here. It was as much for the nun’s habit as it was to stop the violation. The hatred for what rapists did, the stealing of innocence, was something Sarah never needed to see again, but also understood that she would never escape. It was her life now, her job. Sarah was in a unique position with Vivian to be able to hurt these kinds of people. As much as she never wanted to be near them again, there was no way she could avoid it.