Vortex

  Combat service ribbons and decorations added splashes of different colors to his dark blue jacket.

  “A blockade, General?”

  Gen. Walter Hickman, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, nodded once.

  “We can move a carrier battle group down from the Indian Ocean and cut off South

  Africa’s seaborne commerce. “

  Nicholson was shocked and didn’t bother concealing it.

  “Use the military?

  That’s insane! A blockade on South Africa’s imports and exports would send world commodity prices into the stratosphere! And that’s precisely what we’re trying so desperately to stop!”

  Others around the table muttered their agreement.

  Forrester held up his hand for silence and got it. He tapped Reid’s economic report.

  “I don’t think there’s anything we can do to stop these price increases, Chris. As long as those bastards in Pretoria are in power, we’re going to be in trouble. So maybe it’s worth some short-term pain to get rid of what would otherwise be a long-term problem.”

  Nicholson changed tack.

  “What if Vorster decides to retaliate against

  U.S. citizens still inside South Africa?”

  “Highly unlikely, Mr. Director.” Edward Hurley reentered the fray.

  “Vorster’s already at war with the Cubans, the Narnibians, and at least four-fifths of his own population. I doubt he’ll want to add us to the list.”

  The bearded State Department official pushed his glasses back up his nose before continuing.

  “In any event, there aren’t many Americans left in

  South Africa as targets. Fewer than three or four hundred as near as we can tell. ” He flipped to a page near the back of his briefing binder.

  “We’ve been tracking the numbers on a day-by-day basis. Most tourists left after we posted the travel advisory, and companies still

  doing business inside the RSA have been shuttling their American executives home for weeks. Plus, we’re already down to a skeleton staff at the embassy.”

  “All right. But what if their navy tried to stop us?” Nicholson seemed determined to find reasons to scuttle the proposed blockade.

  Hickman snorted.

  “The South African Navy has a few short-range missile boats, three old submarines, and no naval air capability. They’re a fourth-rate naval power. ” He shook his head.

  “Hell, Libya’s a bigger naval threat! Our ships can patrol well out to sea-beyond their range-and block a merchant ship traffic into and out of the country.”

  Nicholson purpled.

  “I don’t doubt that we could establish such a blockade,

  General. That’s not my point.” He turned to Forrester.

  “The key question is, should we do such a thing in the first place?”

  “What’s your alternative, Chris?” Forrester asked, curious to see what the

  CIA director had in mind.

  Nicholson opened his mouth and then shut it again, taken aback.

  “I’m not saying there’s any kind of a guarantee that a blockade will force the South Africans to dump Vorster and act more reasonably,” Hickman explained, “but it would sure as hell boost the pressure on their economy.”

  “Just how much pressure?” Forrester directed his question to a still-stunned Hamilton Reid.

  The secretary of commerce rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Quite a lot, Mr.

  Vice President. South Africa could still export by air and ground of course, but those are awfully narrow ‘pipelines’ for their major products.”

  He nodded toward the map.

  “And some commodities, especially oil, have to come by sea. In fact, oil imports are their biggest Achilles’ heel. It’s about the only mineral resource South Africa doesn’t have in ridiculous abundance.”

  Hurley frowned.

  “I’m not sure that’s quite right, Mr. Secretary. Last time

  I checked, Pretoria was supposed to have a five-year strategic petroleum reserve stashed away.”

  “A five-year reserve in a peacetime economy,” General

  Hickman pointed out.

  “But there’s a war on down there, and wars burn gas at a helluva rate.”

  Forrester nodded slowly.

  “True enough. And imposing a blockade on South

  Africa’s imports would send a pretty goddamned strong shot across

  Vorster’s bow-one he couldn’t shrug off or just ignore. ” He felt a small, tight smile spread across his face. Even thinking about doing something real, something concrete, about the mess in South Africa made him feet better.

  He looked at Hickman.

  “How soon could that carrier group reach South

  African waters?”

  “We could have a carrier, her escorts, and eighty-six aircraft in range in eight days, Mr. Vice President.”

  “I still don’t think sending a warship is the best course of action.”

  Nicholson sounded worried, almost alarmed at the idea.

  “Using any kind of military force would be inflammatory. “

  “And just whose opinion would we be inflaming, Mr. Director?” Hurley didn’t bother hiding his sarcasm.

  “The South Africans? Hell, I should hope so. That’d be the whole point of the exercise. The Europeans? I sincerely doubt it. If anything, most Europeans are even more outraged by Vorster’s actions than people are here in the States.”

  Forrester mentally scored a point for Hurley. His reading of European political and public opinion seemed right on target. As an example,

  Britain’s prime minister had long been one of the staunchest opponents of indiscriminate sanctions aimed at South Africa. But the revelation that Vorster had played a hand in the deaths of Frederick Haymans and his cabinet had swung him around almost one hundred and eighty degrees. In the last two days alone, he’d been on the phone twice with the President urging joint U.S. and British action against what he now called

  “Vorster’s dastardly cabal.”

  Hurley faced him squarely.

  “In a nutshell, I think General Hickman’s suggestion has merit, Mr. Vice President. We’ve been damned for not doing anything. Let’s be damned for doing something constructive.”

  One by one, the others around the table nodded, some with

  more enthusiasm than others, but all agreeing nonetheless. Only Nicholson shook his head angrily, evidently outraged at having been overruled.

  Forrester suspected that the CIA director’s anger had more to do with his perceived loss of face than with any serious disagreement over policy.

  He glanced at the wall clock.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen. I’m meeting with the President in half an hour, and I’ll pass along the recommendation that we dispatch a carrier battle group, with the eventual mission of establishing a maritime blockade of all South African ports.”

  He smiled crookedly.

  “In the circumstances, I suspect he’ll approve it wholeheartedly. “

  More nods. Everyone present knew only all too well how much heat the

  President was taking from the Congress and the media for his apparent inaction. With no economic or diplomatic options, the administration’s carefully worded statements had only served as a point of departure for its critics. Action, easy to call for but hard to specify, was the only thing that made good PR.

  Forrester glanced down at his agenda. One penciled-in item remained. He looked up.

  “Also, effective immediately, the President’s asked me to establish a Crisis Group to monitor the southern African situation and to provide day-to-day control over our initiatives in the region.”

  Still more nods. Establishing a Crisis Group-a full-time team of junior

  NSC members and staffers-was the logical next step. Everyone in the room could see that events in South Africa were moving too fast for the ordinary processes of government to be effective. The cabinet officers who made
up the regular National Security Council had too many other responsibilities to devote full attention to a single prolonged crisis-no matter how important or how dangerous.

  Forrester stared down the table, focusing his gaze on Nicholson’s red face. The CIA director had already proven surprisingly unwilling to back proposals made by other members of the President’s inner policy-making circle. It was time to make sure he knew who held the reins on this issue.

  “I’ve recommended that Ed Hurley take charge of the group, and the

  President agrees. I expect deputies from all concerned departments and agencies to be assigned by this afternoon. Understood?”

  Forrester noticed several ill-concealed looks of surprise on several faces around the table. With the crisis escalating, most of the NSC’s members had undoubtedly expected him to name a military man or one of the intelligence agency deputies. Well, they’d reckoned wrongly. Hurley had the brains and background needed for the job. He’d also shown that he had the guts and political savvy needed to take on those above him inside the administration. Forrester had him marked as a serious contender for higher office in the near future.

  Even better, Hurley was still low enough down on the totem pole to feel awkward about exercising his newfound authority without frequent consultation. Neither the President nor Forrester planned to relinquish any substantive part of their power over U.S. policy toward Pretoria.

  The growing catastrophe in southern Africa was now much too important to be left solely in the hands of the bureaucrats and political appointees.

  NOVEMBER 6-ABOARD THE USS CARL WNSON, SOUTH OF THE MALDIVE ISLANDS

  The American battle group spread over a hundred square miles of the Indian

  Ocean, steaming west just long enough to allow its massive, Nimitz-class carrier to launch and recover her aircraft. Eight other ships ringed the carrier-two guided-missile cruisers, a pair of guided-missile destroyers, two more destroyers for antisubmarine warfare, and two bulky combat support ships carrying needed fuel, ammunition, and stores. Well ahead of the battle group, two Los Angelesclass attack submarines slid quietly through the water, their ultra sophisticated computers constantly sifting the sounds of fish and ocean currents-searching for telltale engine or propeller noises that might signal the approach of a hostile surface ship or sub,

  Above the battle group, aircraft of various types orbited slowly in

  fuel-conserving racetrack patterns. Huge, twin-tailed F-14 Tomcats loitered on combat air patrol. A twin engined

  E-2C

  Hawkeye provided early warning of any incoming plane or missile, and a boxy

  S-3 Viking swooped low now and again to monitor the line of passive sonobuoys it had dropped ahead of the oncoming carrier group.

  Aboard the carrier itself, video monitors brought the sights and sounds of the busy flight deck to the Carl Vinson’s soundproofed flag plot. Radios muttered near control consoles, relaying conversations between the Vinson’s air wing commander, the CAG, his assistants, and pilots already in the air, landing, or awaiting takeoff. Glowing computer displays updated the position and status of every unit in the formation.

  Rear Adm. Andrew Douglas Stewart ignored the constant hum of activity all around as he scanned the message flimsy that had just arrived. As he read, he rocked back and forth slowly on the balls of his feet-still as compact and trim as he’d been when he earned his living as an attack pilot over

  North Vietnam.

  The creases around Stewart’s cold gray eyes tightened as he skimmed through the various addresses that showed this order had originated with the Joint

  Chiefs of Staff-and presumably somewhere inside the White House before that. The real meat came in the second short paragraph.

  “.. . Proceed at best speed to… ” The admiral eyeballed a nearby electronic chart. The latitude and longitude contained in the message marked a point approximately four hundred nautical miles east of Durban.

  “You will prepare for contingency operations off the South African coast on arrival. “

  It still read the same way the second time through. Contingency operations off South Africa. He whistled once and then swore under his breath.

  “Son of a big, bad bitch!”

  “Trouble, Admiral?” His chief of staff hovered on the other side of the plot table.

  Stewart handed him the message and watched his surprise.

  The younger man unconsciously scratched at his balding scalp and shook his head.

  “I don’t get it. What kind of ops are we supposed to prepare for?”

  “Damned if I know exactly, Tom.” Stewart shrugged. He’d read about the

  South African military situation in the daily intelligence summaries, and they were about as helpful as the out-of-date magazines the COD planes delivered. Certainly nothing he’d read seemed to warrant direct U.S. involvement. He smiled slightly to himself.

  Could it be that the Joint Chiefs and the political bigwigs were actually thinking and planning ahead for once? It was doubtful, but he’d seen stranger things in his thirty-odd years in the military.

  He shook himself out of his reverie. They had a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in. Even with all the latest in instantaneous communications and computer navigation, a carrier battle group couldn’t turn on a dime.

  “Get your boys busy, Tom. I want to be ready to alter course in half an hour, after this ops cycle. Check the training schedule, and make sure it allows enough aircraft for air and sea surveillance missions. ” Stewart glanced at a row of clocks set to show local times at various points around the globe.

  “In the meantime, I’ll be on the secure net back to D.C.” He glanced down at the message still held in his chief of staff’s hand.

  “I’d like to have somebody back there tell me just what the hell is going on.”

  The younger officer nodded once and hurried away in search of his staff-already pondering the most efficient way to continue the training cycle while the Carl Vinson and her escorts moved toward Durban.

  For the first time ever, major elements of U.S. military power were being focused on South Africa.

  CHAPTER

  Civil War

  NOVEMBER 9-STATE SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER, PRETORIA

  Karl Vorster and his cabinet met in their windowless chamber for the tenth time in as many days. Caught between the twin pressures of a bloody, stalemated war in Namibia and escalating political chaos at home, the cabinet was starting to crack. Several chairs were empty, abandoned by men who’d resigned-men either unable to stomach Vorster’s actions or who feared being held responsible for them by a new government.

  Marius van der Heijden blinked rapidly, his eyes watering in the thick haze of tobacco smoke choking the small room. More evidence that sinful addiction could overcome the best intentions of weak-willed men, he thought irritably. Weaklings like Erik Muller, though on a smaller scale.

  Muller’s pale, agonized face rose in his mind, and he shied away from the memory. The security chief’s pain-filled death had been richly deserved, but not pretty.

  He drove Muller’s image away by concentrating on the situation maps tacked up on the chamber’s otherwise bare walls. Clusters of multicolored pins dotting the map showed only the vaguest outlines of the disaster spreading with wildfire rapidity across the whole country. An open revolt crushed in Durban, but untamed elsewhere in the Natal. Secessionist movements springing up among the former Afrikaner faithful in the Orange

  Free State and the Transvaal. The entire elected city council of Cape

  Town under arrest for suspected treason. And so it went-each succeeding piece of news worse than the last.

  “I tell you, my friends, we simply cannot go on like this. Not for another week, let alone a month! We must find a way to win peace before our nation burns down around our very ears! “

  Reluctantly, van der Heijden turned his attention to the speaker, Helmoed

  Malherbe, the minister of industries and commerce.<
br />
  Malherbe pointed to the sheets of trade figures and economic statistics he’d passed around the table.

  “Already the economy is a complete shambles. Inflation is at forty percent and climbing fast. Exports are running at scarcely half last year’s level. He showed every sign of droning on for hours.

  Van der Heijden scowled. He loathed Malherbe. The man was nothing more than a gutless, whining, rand-pinching economist. Always a pessimist, a naysayer, and a second guesser He looked toward the head of the table, hoping their leader would put this coward in his proper place.

  But Karl Vorster sat silent, his head cradled in his hands as he listened to Malherbe’s recitation of economic catastrophe.

  Van der Heijden frowned. Since Muller’s arrest and execution, Vorster had been quieter, less likely to take control of the meetings he called. Even worse, he hadn’t yet named a replacement for the late and unlamented director of military intelligence.

  And that was a crucial error. Muller had been a boy-loving bastard, but he’d also been a competent covert operations specialist. Without anyone at the helm, his whole directorate was adrift-unable to plan, organize, or carry out the kind of selective assassinations and kidnappings that might have nipped some of these troublesome rebellions in the bud.

  “All of these problems are only compounded when the police and security troops overreact in places like Durban.” Malherbe waved a hand in van der

  Heijden’s direction.

  What? The newly promoted minister of law and order snapped to full attention. He glared back at Malherbe.

  “Brigadier Diederichs and his troops acted properly to restore order, meneer. Are you suggesting that they ought to have allowed those rebels to seize the city?”

  “Not at all.” Malherbe sniffed.

  “But I’m not sure what you mean by ‘order,” Marius. Most of Durban’s industries are idle. The port is almost completely paralyzed. The jails are full. The morgues are full, and do you know what? There are a lot of white bodies in those morgues-many of them Afrikaner bodies. Oil refinery technicians. Factory managers. Civil servants. Ordinary white citizens. People whose skills we desperately needed.”

  He turned toward Vorster.