Vortex

  -081513 Nov-NORTHERN TRANSVAAL MIL COM -Fragmentary call from SAP HQ in

  Messina reports attack by hostile armored car units and unidentified aircraft. Report unconfirmed. Unable to reestablish contact with

  Messina.” Below the text of this message, someone had scribbled, “Phone lines probably cut.”

  He flipped from sheet to sheet. Each succeeding report showed enemy units pushing deeper into South African territory.

  “Wommandant?”

  Startled, Metje looked up into the somber face of one of his officers.

  The man handed him two more telexed reports.

  “I think you should see these, sir.”

  “101513 Nov-NORTHERN TRANSVAAL MIL COM -Helicopter-borne infantry attacking

  Wyllie’s Port. Infantry confirmed as Cuban, repeat, Cuban.”

  ” 10 1613 Nov-NORTHERN TRANSVAAL MIL COM -Louis Trichardt Air Base under heavy enemy air attack. Losses and runway status as yet unknown.”

  “My God… ” Metje’s voice trailed away in shock and disbelief. More than eighty kilometers inside South Africa, Wyllie’s Poort was a narrow pass across the Soutpansberge -a chain of wooded mountains, ridges, and lichen-covered cliffs just north of Louis Trichardt and its military airfield. Two highway tunnels, each several hundred meters long, carried

  National Route I through the mountains at this point. Whoever held the pass held the key to the whole northern Transvaal.

  “I think General de Wet should know about this, don’t you, sir?”

  What? Tell de Wet? But de Wet and the others were in another room, busy crowing over reports of rapid progress in Namibia. None of them were paying much attention to anything happening beyond the front lines outside Windhoek.

  Metje struggled upward from his contemplation of complete and unmitigated failure.

  “I’ll take care of these, Captain. Stick to your own knitting, if you please. Dismissed.”

  Without saying another word, the younger officer stalked rigidly away-hurt, angry, and resentful.

  Metje ignored him. He had problems of his own.

  His body temperature seemed wildly variable. One minute he was shivering, chilled to the bone, and the next he was sweating profusely, convinced he was burning up. No matter how hard he tried to fit the pieces together into another, less threatening pattern, he kept coming face-to-face with a single, horrifying conclusion: Colonel Heerden had been right all along. The Cubans were attacking from the north and east driving hard for the undefended heart of the South African nation.

  Metje could see that now. And in that realization he saw the certain end of his military career and all his political ambitions.

  He ran a clammy hand over his face. It was so unfair. De Wet and the other generals would need a scapegoat, and he certainly filled the bill. Any court-martial would be swift and sure-able to reach only one conclusion and one sentence.

  For an instant, just an instant, Metje was tempted to stay and play the farce through to its appointed end. Doing his duty up to the last possible moment was the only honorable course left open to him. But doing his duty would not mitigate his punishment.

  Metje dropped the sheaf of contact reports on a nearby desk, turned on his heel, and left the room. His staff watched him go without saying anything.

  They probably imagined he was on his way to report to de Wet.

  Good. That would buy him time-the time he needed to get clear of the headquarters complex and Pretoria.

  Metje suddenly understood how Heerden must have felt while fleeing this same post.

  Sometimes it felt good to give in to impulse.

  it took de Wet and the others almost an hour to realize that their new chief of military intelligence had vanished. It took them several minutes more to realize just how big a disaster they were facing.

  And all that morning Cuba’s armored columns advanced.

  BLOCKING FORCE, 2ND TRANSVAAL INFANTRY, ON NATIONAL ROUTE 4, NEAR

  HECTORSPRUIT, SOUTH AFRICA

  Commandant Neils Bergen stood on a low hill looking out over a panorama of bright green sugarcane fields and small square groves of orange trees. Off to his right, the Crocodile River wound its lazy way east toward Mozambique.

  His shadow, lengthened by the setting sun, stretched east as well.

  He shifted his binoculars, gazing downslope at his small team of engineers as they scurried to and fro-planting mines and building hasty, improvised barricades across the four lane highway running east to west.

  With the double-tracked railroad line paralleling it to the

  north, National Route 4 was ordinarily a supply officer’s dream and the best way to move an army fast from one place to another, unless that army happened to be Cuban. Now the highway was more like a dagger pointed straight at South Africa’s heart.

  Bergen still couldn’t quite believe the chain of events that had landed him in this predicament. His Citizen Force battalion had been called to active duty just days ago-summoned to the colors as the mutinies and other insurrections spread. They’d mobilized quickly, caught up in a sense of wartime urgency that soon found them pressed into service hunting down ANC guerrillas and rebel commandos.

  He hadn’t enjoyed that at all. Shooting or arresting fellow South Africans was unpleasant duty. Unfortunately, the presence of brown shirt Brandwag “special units” left him little freedom for maneuver. As it was, he’d nearly lost his command after refusing to execute several white prisoners found guilty at a “summary court” held by the area’s senior AWB representative.

  That had been bad enough. But now he faced total disaster.

  When the emergency orders from the Eastern Transvaal Military Command arrived, his three infantry companies were spread out over a hundred-kilometer square, dispersed in patrols and detachments. Just gathering the company-sized force he had here had taken most of the morning and afternoon.

  The rest of his troops were digging in forty kilometers farther back-deep in the rugged foothills of the Great Escarpment. Bergen’s tiny blocking force was supposed to buy time for them, maybe even delaying the oncoming

  Cubans long enough for reinforcements to arrive from Pretoria.

  Sure. The commandant scowled. At least Leonidas and his Three Hundred

  Spartans had fought with a terrain advantage. He didn’t have crap. Under ideal conditions, a well-supported, dug-in company might be able to fend off an armored brigade for a short time-with the emphasis on short. But conditions were far from ideal. This was a fragile force, poorly supplied and lightly armed. My God, he only had mortars for artillery and machine guns for protection against enemy aircraft.

  Boots scraped on rock somewhere behind him. Bergen turned to see an elderly man in jeans and a plain white shirt climbing the hill. The man carried an

  R-4 assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Clearly having trouble climbing the slope in this heat, he paused once, then made it to the crest with a final surge of energy.

  “Andries Kaal, of the Hectorspruit Commando, reporting. “

  The old man didn’t bother saluting, but he did come to attention-smiling slightly at some private joke.

  Bergen wasn’t surprised by the man’s sudden appearance. The Boer tradition of the commando, or local militia, went back to the very roots of

  Afrikanerdom. Even so, he considered Kaal coldly for several moments. He needed solid, dependable soldiers, not fat farmers who might run away in panic at the first shot. With that in mind, would the “Hectorspruit

  Commando” be an asset or a liability?

  At least this fellow’s bearing showed he was a veteran, Bergen decided. He nodded toward the distant town.

  “How many men in your commando?”

  “Fifty, with more coming in all the time.” Kaal smiled, showing a mouthful of extraordinarily bad teeth.

  “We all have rifles, though most of them are not so new as my friend here. ” He patted his R-4 with real affection.

  Fifty men, Bergen thought. He could
have used five thousand. And since almost all white men of military age were already in uniform, Kaal’s commando was undoubtedly made up mostly of older men and teenage boys. He shrugged. No matter, this was a static defense. All they had to do was shoot straight. And die.

  He pointed to the canvas-sided truck doubling as his command post.

  “Talk to my operations officer. Tell him I said to put your men on the left flank, reinforcing the platoon I’ve already posted there.”

  Kaal nodded once and skidded slowly down the rise.

  Bergen lifted his binoculars and looked east again. The Cubans were out there somewhere-and closing fast. He wasn’t surprised that his hands were shaking, jiggling the view through the field glasses. He fought to hold them steady.

  One minute later, the irregular, pulsing whup whup whup

  of a rotor sounded behind him. The noise came from a tiny Alouette III utility helicopter practically skimming the ground on its way toward his position.

  Bergen ran back down to the command truck, catching and passing Kaal as he plodded in the same direction.

  He was still only halfway there when the Alouette flared out and landed in a swirl of dust and hot exhaust. Its engine whined down slowly-fading in time with its slowing rotor blades. The helicopter pilot, a young, stick-thin man with straw-colored hair, jumped out and hurried forward to meet him.

  The young man’s clean, pressed uniform contrasted sharply with Bergen’s rumpled clothes, already filthy after several days in the field.

  “Lieutenant Bankkop, reporting for duty. “

  “Where the devil have you come from, then?” asked Bergen as he returned the pilot’s salute and then held out his hand.

  Bankkop smiled ruefully.

  “Normally I’m the shuttle pilot for VIPs, but the brigadier thought you might be able to use me today. “

  Bergen nodded emphatically.

  “He thought right, for once. You’re all the reconnaissance I’m going to get forward of my own positions. Understand?”

  The pilot nodded back.

  “Good, then get aloft and head east along the highway. See if you can locate the enemy column. I need to know how much time I have.”

  Bankkop paused just long enough to agree on radio frequencies and to pick up a map before sprinting back to his machine. Less than a minute later, the Alouette was aloft, nose down and engine screaming as it gathered speed. It raced east just above the ground, darting around or over obstacles like some giant insect.

  Bergen climbed into the back of the command truck and found a spot where he could sit and listen to the radio without getting in the way. A wise commander doesn’t disrupt his headquarters staff unnecessarily.

  Nevertheless, he wanted to hear Bankkop’s radio reports for himself-the instant they came in. It was vital that he know the Cuban column’s exact position and approximate strength. In the meantime, he could rest.

  He leaned back against the truck’s canvas wall and closed his eyes.

  At two hundred kilometers an hour, the little helicopter should reach the

  Cuban column’s last reported position in minutes at most. But every minute Bankkop flew east was another twenty minutes of preparation for his men.

  Far too soon, the lieutenant’s voice came over the radio.

  “I can see a group of scout vehicles. Roughly ten klicks from your position. I don’t think they’ve seen me. Continuing east. Out. “

  Bergen kept his eyes closed, but his mind was racing at high speed. The

  Cuban scouts were probably several kilometers ahead of their main force.

  Given that, he tried to calculate when he could next expect to hear from the dapper young helicopter pilot. Even at cruising speed, it shouldn’t be more than a few seconds.

  Then he remembered that the Alouette wouldn’t fly a straight-line course along the road. Like any scout advancing in hostile territory, Bankkop would move from cover to cover, searching carefully from a protected position before darting forward.

  The speaker crackled with static: signs of… no fire… forward.

  ” Bergen frowned. Broken, static-laced transmissions were a common problem during low-altitude flight. Hills, trees, even the curvature of the earth itself could block a short-range radio signal.

  Now they’d have to wait for the helo’s return before they got any information.

  Suddenly it felt hot and stuffy inside the canvas-topped truck. Bergen stepped outside for a smoke. As he lit up, he scanned the hills to the east again. He heard a shout, saw one of the lieutenants pointing, and raised his binoculars.

  There. A wisp of dust floating above the railroad line, half obscured by the raised embankment the tracks rested on. Searching slowly, he saw another, about fifty meters back. The Cuban scout cars Bankkop had spotted earlier were arriving.

  But what else had the Alouette pilot seen?

  Bergen quickly scanned his positions. His engineers were out in the open, still frantically building obstacles across the highway-They’d probably be under fire in another five or ten minutes. Were a few more mines and barricades in place worth risking their lives for? He shook his head and ordered them back in cover.

  Someone shouted from the command truck. -Kommandant!” He ran the few steps back and quickly climbed inside.

  Bankkop’s voice was on the speaker again, loud and clear, but hurried:

  “.. . overcome interference, am at medium altitude. Main column coordinates Romeo three six, Yankee one five. Thirty plus tanks, large number APCs, self-propelled artillery, and SAMs in support.” The engine noise underlying Bankkop’s voice stepped up in pitch and he paused for a moment.

  “Enemy aircraft in the area. Returning to your position now.

  Out.”

  Bergen silently thanked the pilot for the information, and for his bravery. By climbing he’d restored radio contract, but he’d undoubtedly also drawn unwelcome attention to himself.

  The Kommandant, along with most of his staff, went outside.

  He knew it would be only moments before the helicopter arrived back over his position. He could hear his operations officer relaying the order for all platoons to hold their fire.

  They waited, and word quickly filtered down through the men until everyone watched the eastern sky.

  Suddenly, Bankkop’s gnat-sized helicopter popped over a hill several kilometers away. It was moving fast, adding the speed from a shallow dive to that from its overworked engine.

  Two specks appeared close behind the Alouette, weaving from side to side in what looked like a lethal dance. Then, as Bergen and the rest of his men watched in horror, a puff of white smoke appeared under one of the specks and stabbed out toward the fleeing South African helicopter.

  He raised his binoculars in time to see the missile pass clear of the

  Alouette. Christ, that was a near-run thing!

  Bergen swept his binoculars back to the two enemy helos closing in on the South African scout. They were Mi-24 Hind gunships. His heart sank. Smaller, slower, and unarmed, the Alouette was completely outclassed. Bankkop dove right, racing for cover behind a grove of orange trees.

  Two more missiles flashed out from under stubby wings of each Hind. They closed the narrow gap in seconds. One missed the violently maneuvering

  Alouette-arcing aimlessly off into thin air. The other guided, though, homing in on the South African scout craft’s hot exhaust. It detonated in a short, sharp ball of orange flame, and the explosion blew the tiny helicopter’s tail boom clear of the shattered airframe.

  The Alouette’s cabin section, boom, and blades all spiraled to earth separately, taking only seconds for the short trip. Then, without even decelerating, the two Soviet-made gunships gracefully turned away, careful to stay well out of machinegun range.

  As they disappeared behind the railroad embankment, Bergen heard a roaring, whooshing sound arcing down out of the sky. Oh, shit.

  “Down!”

  He dove for cover in a slit trench next to the
parked truck.

  Artillery started to land all over the place, churning the earth in a rapid fire succession of enormous explosions. Big stuff, one fifty-twos and one twenty-twos, he thought.

  “That meant at least two batteries supporting the Cuban brigade, more, probably three, with one moving forward while the other two fired.

  At least half the shells were fuzed to airburst, exploding overhead and showering lethal fragments down on his men. Since only part of them had found the time to construct overhead protection, most were going to take a heavy beating.

  He could see enemy aircraft, loitering off to the east. Once this barrage lifted, they’d come roaring in with cannon and rockets. He’d heard about what Frogfoots and Hinds could do, and he knew that his piddling light machine guns stood one chance in a hundred of piercing their armor.

  And after that, he could expect a ground attack by at least one battalion of Cuban tanks, with infantry in support.

  He didn’t stand a chance.

  SECURITY CHECKPOINT 36, ON NATIONAL ROUTE 1, NEAR VENTERS BURG

  Floodlights lit the highway from one side to the other, revealing cars and trucks backed up in both directions-their engines idling as drivers waited for their turn at the security checkpoint up ahead. Two canvas-sided trucks, a command jeep, and a wheeled Hippo personnel carrier were parked off to the left side of the highway. Soldiers in full combat gear stood chatting in small groups near their vehicles-utterly bored with what seemed a completely routine job.

  Few of them paid much attention to the flashy red Astra stopped right in front of their barricade.

  Commandant Willem Metje was sweating again. He was tired, hungry, and scared. Even nearly three hundred kilometers south of Pretoria, he still felt too close to both the Cuban offensive and his own government’s brown shirted enforcers, the Brandwag. He’d already bluffed his way past two other checkpoints by using a combination of rank, his AWB pin, and an overbearing manner. But doing that had left him a physical and mental wreck. He was not a good actor.

  And in this case, the third time was most definitely not proving to be a charm.

  He stared through his rolled-down window at the thin, sour looking officer who’d refused to let him through the checkpoint without seeing either a travel authorization or an identity card.