Honor Road by Jason Ross (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

see any women, but they would be inside tending to the bride and following the required traditions.

“Fuckers eat well,” Perez commented as he munched on a Powerbar.

“You’re not wrong,” Mat replied. The serving tables clustered against the inside wall of the compound. The food filled Mat’s binos. Men buried a meat dish under heaping scoops of rice flavored with carrots and spices from twenty-gallon pots. The dark specks looked like dead flies, but they were raisins. Afghans did not fuck around when it came to food. Their grub made the military MREs and energy bars seem like processed cardboard.

The Afghan men dipped from communal plates. Oranges were served whole, peeled and shared. A young man Mat took to be the groom drifted among the other men, greeting them and laughing. He held hands with an older guy. Maybe the father or the best man.

Mat and Perez could’ve brought a hellfire down on the compound and not kill a single person who wasn’t a Taliban sympathizer, but that wasn’t the mission. Their orders were to take out a single guy and his security detail, and not waste another soul if possible. Still, they were so far into Zabul Province, they could erase an entire village and it probably wouldn’t catch print in the newspapers.

Mat and Perez watched and waited. After a time, the bride made her appearance. She walked slowly, demurely; her henna-tattooed hands clasped in front of her. Her attendants carried a decorated cloth awning over her head. It hid her face from Mat’s position, but he was surprised by the beauty of her gown. The gold and red edging caught the rays of the setting sun and twinkled like an aura.

She moved more gracefully than her attendants, and the awning undulated as they walked with her. Mat caught the profile of her face. On any other day, the bride was a six-out-of-ten. Pretty, but not hot. To Mat, watching from half a kilometer away, with the low sun caressing her with its final rays, greater beauty could not be imagined.

“We’re Mission Incomplete,” Mat said, his eyes fixed on the young woman. “He ain’t coming.”

Perez wasn’t convinced. “He could show up late.”

Mat checked the road again and a wisp of dust rose from behind the rolling hills.

“Vehicles approaching.”

Perez scrambled for his binos.

They’d have a narrow window for the strike, if this was their guy. They’d provide the cake eaters at the TOC with eyes-on confirmation of the target, then the head shed would green-light launch, then a UAV driver, stateside, would pull the trigger. All those steps had to happen in the time it took the HVT to step out of his vehicle, but before he entered the compound. It was like shagging two sisters in the same house without either finding out, and without making the dog bark.

The TACP spoke up, “Three vehicles. Two technicals with crew-served and one sedan. With a parade like that, that is our dude.”

The Air Force required one of their own guys to be present on a strike like this one. Mat was there to back Perez up in a shooting situation, even though Mat out-ranked him. In any case, the TACP was a solid warrior. They were a good team together.

Perez lowered the binos. “You ID the target and I’ll make the phone call.”

“Roger that.”

Mat settled on his ruck, prone, with his elbows resting comfortably on his sleeping pad. The binoculars steadied. The trucks pulled into the dusty parking lot, the gunners swiveled to-and-fro, hunting for invisible threats. Neither looked into the sun, where the Predator swam on air currents, happy as a falcon.

The sedan parked. The dust swirled, then cleared. Mat recognized the HVT, rising out of the back seat.

“HVT identity confirmed,” Mat said.

The TACP rattled off confirmation into the radio.

Mat’s job was done. He swiveled his view back to the compound. They must’ve heard the vehicles arrive. The bride and her entourage stopped floating among the crowd, and all eyes turned to the open gates of the compound.

The bride’s face lit up and she gathered her skirts.

“No, no, no, no. Be smart. Stay put,” Mat muttered.

She bolted from under the awning. The bride broke decorum and rushed toward the gate, her face radiant. There hadn’t been any intel about a personal relationship between the bride and the HVT, but his arrival turned her into a bubbling schoolgirl.

“No, no, no. Stay inside,” Mat hissed. He glanced over his binos. The target and the security team had circled up in the parking area. The HVT checked his hair in the driver’s side mirror.

“There’s a civilian running toward the target,” Mat told Perez.

“No authority to cancel the Reaper for collaterals...” Perez stated the obvious. Their job was to call the arrival of the HVT, not to sweat a couple civilian casualties. Some collateral damage was “baked in” to the plan. Vaporizing the whole compound was to be avoided.

“We could call it in again when they go to leave,” Mat squabbled. He knew they wouldn’t do it. By then, it would be dark, and target ID would be impossible.

“Negative,” Perez replied.

The bride ran through the gates, her bright orange shawl and brilliant, yellow dress flowed around her legs like pooling ephemera. One of the bridesmaids followed close behind.

They made it half-way to the grinning Taliban chieftain when the hellfire missile turned the ground into a tower of dirt-vapor. A full second later, the concussion hit Mat’s face like a sand blaster.

The wave passed and Perez radioed, “Target eliminated.”

Mat caught a flash of color in the roiling dust and returned to his binoculars. A brilliant, orange, flickering ghost rose above the churning mushroom. It danced on the air currents; twisting, reaching, rising above the death below. The soul of the bride, stripped of her body, pirouetted into the evening sky.

“...the fuck was that?” Perez uttered.

“Sergeant Best,” a man’s voice jostled Mat from sleep. Mat cracked his eyes. Sheriff Morgan hovered over him with a thin smile. “It’s morning,” the sheriff said.

Mat moaned, then rubbed