Bruce Conord

STORY STATEMENT Three girls crossed the bridge to party in Mexico — only one returned. Jesse Arroyo, an Apache-Mex-American, thought he'd left his twenty years of combat overseas. But when his estranged daughter is kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, he enters a struggle to save her more desperate and deadly than any he ever faced before. Apache-Mex-American, Jesse Arroyo, spent twenty years in Special Forces fighting for his country. Now, his return home to reconcile with his estranged daughter has turned into every parent’s nightmare — she’s become one of the “Desaparecidos,” the Disappeared. Not as a random victim, but targeted by the ruthless Zeta drug cartel. “Why” makes all the difference. ANTAGONIST In superficies, the antagonist in this novel is El Cacique, Carlos Hernandez, the insane head of the Zeta Cartel’s “plaza” in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. A plaza is the innocuous term for the territory along the border controlled by drug-smuggling gangs. Hernandez fancies himself as a direct descendant of the Aztec king, Montezuma. However, a cast of bad-guy characters pepper the story — villains such as Ché, a Mayan Indian assassin from Guatemala, who hunts Arroyo, and the wicked Florencia, the “mistress” of El Cacique, revealed to be the real cartel boss. She personifies the forces of evil, greed, and sadistic cruelty that are the true antagonists behind the story. I’m aware the “forces of evil” phrase is a bit of a cliché, but I can only describe the terror and mindless violence perpetrated by the cartels in that way. The named adversaries, and nameless but dangerous gang minions, provide the roadblocks and life-threatening obstacles Arroyo must overcome to find, and save, his kidnapped daughter. The Zetas took the young woman because her grandfather, a Texas banker who laundered their money, skimmed millions from the cartel. Power, respect (or fear, as they define it) and insatiable greed are the cartel’s motivations — without regard for the human cost. TITLES The Border (original title) Come And Get Her (current choice) The Warrior or The Last Warrior To Die in the Desert GENRE COMPS This novel is a contemporary thriller that echoes a classic Western theme. Set on the border with Mexico, it delivers cover-to-cover tension and suspense, along with strong characters and a touch of dark humor. The Cartel (2015) Don Winslow’s fictionalization of the real cartel internecine cartel warfare, meets The Missing (2003), a very popular revisionist Western movie, based on Thomas Eidson’s original 1996 novel. It features a similar plot line. The immediacy of The President’s Daughter (2021 Clinton/Patterson) and the border kidnapping in The Wrong Hostage (Eliz Lowell 2009) or Louis L’Amour’s Last of the Breed (2019) a contemporary epic that requires the hero to recall his Sioux skills to survive. CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT LOG LINE Ex-soldier Jesse Arroyo must save his estranged daughter, kidnapped by a ruthless Mexican drug cartel — and he is her only hope for rescue. TWO LEVELS OF CONFLICT Arroyo, for all his patriotic heroism, physical prowess, and sense of morality, carries some heavy baggage. On a mission, and against orders, he ambushed a man who was responsible for the death of several fellow soldiers while they were under a white flag. To his horror, a child died in the car as a result of his attack. His action was out-of-character. The guilt and regret he felt caused him to end his self-imposed exile as a soldier and to try and connect with his estranged daughter. He needed to make amends, not only for the girl's death but also to his daughter. SAMPLE CONFLICT SCENARIO: In the story, Arroyo discovered an underground room where the cartel held a kidnapped girls’ soccer team. He captured a young cartel member. When a firefight erupted, Arroyo risked his own life to save the young man, despite his involvement in the team’s captivity. Saving the young man was Arroyo's natural reaction. SECONDARY CONFLICT: Arroyo’s long overseas enlistment came after his girlfriend and her father rejected and ghosted him. He found out two years later that she bore his daughter, Sherilyn. Intimidated by her family, Sheri wanted nothing to do with her father. This familial conflict complicated his rescue efforts. SETTINGS The opening scene is outside Arroyo’s run-down ranch outside San Saba, Texas. “I knew it looked as if it hadn’t seen paint since the mid-1800s — and probably hadn’t. The far end of the porch sagged in one corner, and an old rusty air conditioner hung precariously from the porch window.” A police station in Laredo followed by a gun smuggler’s barn near Lampasas. “The barn’s interior stocked as many guns as a National Guard Armory. Hay bales, piled three yards high, lined the circumference. Leaning against the barricade, semi-automatic rifles filled several wide gun racks. On the rough floor, plastic tables overflowed with handguns and machine pistols. Shafts of sunlight streaming down from chinks in the wood siding spotlighted their dull metal barrels. Fine dust floated like sparkle in the lines of light.” The home and online news office of Liza Montes, an anti-cartel blogger. It becomes the scene of a deadly attack from cartel criminals and corrupt police. “Monte’s home, a two-story Spanish-colonial style building with side-by-side neighbors, rested one house from the corner. Masses of bright red, pink, and white bougainvillea flowers spilled over the imposing, fortress-like walls surrounding her residence. Besides their breathtaking colors, the exotic bushes provided additional security. Bougainvillea’s sharp thorns would prove painful to anyone climbing over. As would the shards of broken glass imbedded atop the wall’s crown." The rest of the novel remains in and around the border town of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Settings with scenes include a mechanic’s garage, a nightclub, a motel, and a hotel in the downtown. A crucial scene/setting is the Grupo Portor “factory,” a cover for a major drug lab and smuggling tunnel to the US. “Its buildings, with a broad, barn-like formation between them, sat close to a slight depression in the land. A gully ran alongside the entry drive down to a dry creek bed near one corner of the smaller left-side structure. That building contained no widows. Large exhaust fans with metal hoods and mini-split air conditioning units peppered the flat roof. In the rear, a much smaller structure extended beyond. It featured a tall chimney, maybe thirty-feet high, made of cinderblock. A power plant? No idea what it was, but it didn’t matter.” The last few locales are still being written but will feature a primitive ranch in the Mexican desert and a shoot-out along the Rio Grande River. HIGH CONCEPT: Ex-GI goes to war against a Mexican drug cartel.