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

happened, he guided the screen door closed, and backed away from the porch toward the motor pool.

The captain met him at the rolling door.

“Everything good?”

“No movement,” Sage replied.

“We’re loaded. We can drive the snow machines out the back.”

Sage followed the captain inside, found his headlamp and pulled it over his head. Inadvertently, the light passed over the handcuffed and gagged commissioner and a flash of recognition passed between he and Sage.

Sage had never felt such shame. This was a man who had treated him with respect and kindness, even as a trespasser. In the black of night, he had returned the man’s goodwill with villainy. Sage dropped his eyes and looked at the commissioner’s feet. The commissioner was wearing boots.

The arrest team mounted the snow machines, and as planned they fired them up at the captain’s signal. The roar in the barn was deafening after the silence of the raid. They were thirty yards from the farmhouse. The snow muted all, but it seemed very unlikely that eight howling machines wouldn’t roust the sleeping family.

The snow machines roared out the back door of the motor pool. Sage followed, erupting into the brisk night air in the wake of the pungent two-cycle oil. The boy most experienced with snow machines cut the trail in front, followed by the captain with the commissioner tied behind him. Sage was the last in line. The next few minutes would determine whether or not they’d face resistance.

Snowflakes slapped against his cheeks, but it felt like a liar’s freedom; like succumbing to fate. They’d taken the commissioner and they were getting away with it.

It was going to be a long, cold few hours, racing through a snowstorm toward their home county, but the die was cast. No matter how gently the snow fell or how the clouds warmed the earth, the speed of the snowmobiles blew the chill right through Sage’s clothes.

Four of the machines carried two high school boys each. Sage was the least experienced with snowmobiles, so he’d been assigned rear security, and he was alone on his machine. He followed in the groomed tracks of the seven others.

There was no reason to expect the Lathrops to follow. The boys had pulled the keys from the old snow machines and tossed them away. Sage stopped anyway, at the distant edge of the family ranch, and looked back toward the house. The snowfall obscured everything, but he could barely make out the white-blue glow of the barn light. He saw no other lights.

Would he see kerosene lamps burning inside the house this far away through the snow?

The family had to have woken to the sound of the snow machines, but it would be some time before they figured out that Commissioner Pete was overdue back to his bed. By then, the arrest team would be ten miles away.

The captain and the boys were driving the snow machines like Grand Theft Auto, so Sage couldn’t linger on rear security. He popped his goggles back on and chased after the fleeting taillights of his companions.

By the time he caught up with them, three machines were stopped, waiting in a line. They’d traveled maybe five miles from the ranch in just fifteen minutes. At this rate, they’d easily cross the county line before dawn.

Sage pulled alongside the last snow machine in line and shouted over the rumble, “Why’d we stop?”

“Burton’s having trouble with his machine,” the kid shouted.

Halfway up the line, one of the boys madly yanked at the pull start rope. Sage pulled up alongside.

Sage yelled at the boy. “Grab your backpack and leave it. The rest of the group is dropping us. Get on the back of Sherman’s sled.”

The boy complied, and the four sleds at the back of the team were underway again in thirty seconds. The front half of the group had stopped to wait for them on the next rise in the snow-covered county road.

But when Sage’s group reached them, two snow machines had their hoods up, and those boys were hauling on the pull start ropes too. All these snow machines had electric starters. Pulling on the start rope meant they couldn’t get them to catch spark, which made no sense, since the machines had started like eager lions back at the barn.

Captain Chambers bellowed from the lead, “Leave them and double up. Now! Let’s go.”

Boys rushed to collect their bags and jump on the backs of the machines that ran. When they’d consolidated, Sage’s was the only sled left with just one rider. They were now down three machines. Sage searched his mind for answers: what had he missed when he checked the snow machines? Why were they failing?

The team launched forward and covered another mile before the captain’s snow machine sputtered to a stop. The point man looped back when he noticed he was alone. All the machines circled the captain and his captive.

“Mine just died too,” one of the boys yelled.

“Mine too.”

Sage’s own snow machine sputtered. He listened with dread as it hitched, coughed and went silent. His gas gauge showed full.

Sage shook his head in disbelief. Something was profoundly wrong, and it couldn’t be happenstance. After three minutes of panicked shouting, all the snow machines had gone quiet. They were just ten miles from Pete Lathrop’s ranch, on an ice-covered county road, deep in enemy territory. They hadn’t seen another barn in miles.

The captain unstrapped Commissioner Pete and dragged him to his feet. He ripped the duct tape off his mouth with a savage yank.

“Ow,” Pete said. He sounded remarkably composed for a kidnap victim.

Captain Chambers drew his sidearm, a nickel-plated 1911 handgun, and put it to the commissioners chest.

“What the fuck is going on with your snow machines, Pete?” he fumed at his rival.

“Well,” Commissioner Pete drawled, “I’m guessing you guys are doing some kind of Guns of Navarone thing where you nab old men while they piss off their porch. I still need to pee, if you don’t mind giving me a moment.”

Captain Chambers poked him