Vortex

by Larry Bond

  Even carrying a full combat load-four TOW antitank missiles and a GE 7.62mm Minigun-each weighed just over a ton and a half. Technicians were already swarming around the two choppers, frantically prepping them for flight. Special blade-folding and stowage techniques developed by the 160th were supposed to allow both gunships to be assembled, loaded, and in the air within seven minutes.

  Carrerra hoped those estimates were accurate. O’Connell and the nearly four hundred Rangers still fighting at Pelindaba would need those helicopters overhead by then, covering their withdrawal to Swartkop. He clicked the talk button on his radio mike.

  “Rover One One, this is Tango

  One One. Icarus. I say again, Icarus.”

  Swartkop Airfield had been captured. He and his troops were holding the way home open-at least for the moment.

  HEADQUARTERS COMPANY, 1/75TH RANGERS

  O’Connell snapped a full magazine into his M16 and eyed his closest subordinates.

  “Right. You heard Carrerra. We’ve got Swartkop. Now we need those goddamned nukes.” He looked at his radioman.

  “No word from Bravo

  Three?”

  Weisman shook his head. The radioman had a droopy, sad eyed face made mournful by nature. He looked gloomy even at the best of times. Right now he looked heartsick.

  O’Connell made several quick decisions. The Rangers of Bravo Company’s

  Third Platoon were supposed to have dropped right on top of the weapons storage complex and its guard bunkers. It was beginning to look as though they’d been wiped out. Either that or all their radios were on the fritz.

  Sure. In any case, he’d have to go find out what had happened. South

  Africa’s nukes were Brave Fortune’s prize-its only prize. Without them, this whole operation was nothing more than one big bloody disaster.

  He started issuing orders.

  “Fitz, you and Brady stay here with Doc and the wounded. Keep an eye peeled for anybody using that to come down on our backs.” He pointed north along the trench. Several of the bunkers along

  Pelindaba’s northern perimeter were still in South African hands, and the slit trench would offer cover and concealment for any counterattacking force.

  Sergeant Fitzsimmons, a linebacker-sized Ranger from Colorado, nodded once and moved down the narrow trench with his M 16 out and ready. Brady, a smaller black man who delighted in a thick, almost impenetrable Southern drawl, followed him, cradling an M60 light machine gun. He looked eager to try his weapon out on the first available Afrikaner.

  O’Connell watched them go and turned to the rest of his able-bodied headquarters troops. There weren’t many. Maybe half of those who’d jumped.

  He made a quick count. Seven officers and roughly twenty enlisted

  Rangers-and with only two M60s for support. He shook his head, impatient with his own pessimism. He’d have to make do.

  “Okay, let’s mosey on down this trench and see what the hell’s holding up Bravo Three. “

  He caught Esher Levi’s anxious eye.

  “Can you make it with that bum ankle of yours, Professor?” Jump injuries were always painful, and the Israeli scientist’s injury had probably already had time to swell inside his boot.

  Surprisingly, Levi smiled-a brief flash of white teeth. He leaned on an M 16 he’d taken from one of the seriously wounded. ” I have a crutch,

  Colonel. And I suspect that I can hobble with the best of you.”

  O’Connell decided that he liked the man. Levi was a lot

  tougher than he looked. Having a sense of humor was vital when all you really felt like doing was screaming. He nodded briefly and turned to

  Weisman.

  “Spread the word that we’re going after the nukes.”

  He checked his watch. It felt like an eternity, but they’d only been on the ground for eight minutes. Those Navy flyboys ought to be joining the party at any moment now.

  “All set, Colonel.” Weisman looked as unhappy as ever.

  O’Connell tapped the assault rifle slung from the radioman’s shoulder.

  “Cheer up, Dave. Who knows, you may even get a chance to use that thing.”

  Weisman looked just the tiniest bit happier.

  O’Connell gripped his own M16 and stepped out into the middle of the trench. Rifle and machinegun fire crackled nearby, punctuated by muffled grenade blasts. Alpha and Charlie Company platoons were busy wreaking havoc on South African barracks and silencing enemy-held bunkers one by one. The sky to the west and north seemed brighter, lit by the fires of burning buildings and vehicles.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Tense, camouflage-painted faces stared back at him from beneath Kevlar helmets.

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  The Rangers trotted south down the trench, with a determined Prof. Esher

  Levi limping in their midst. As they moved, a sound like ragged, rolling thunder rumbled overhead. The Vinson’s carrier-based planes were winging into action.

  TIGER FOUR, OVER WATER KLOOF MILITARY AIRFIELD, NEAR PRETORIA

  The F/A-18 Hornet came in low from the southeast, roaring two thousand feet above Pretoria’s suburbs at almost five hundred knots. Lights appeared ahead of the speeding American plane-a string of widely spaced lights running east to west for more than a mile.

  The Hornet’s pilot, Lt. Comdr. Pete “Pouncer” Garrard, keyed his mike.

  “Tiger Lead, the runway is lit.”

  “Roger that.”

  Garrard concentrated on his flying, lining up for what he fervently hoped would be a perfect attack run. Tonight’s show wasn’t just for some inter squadron trophy. This was for real. Six Durandal anti runway weapons hung beneath Tiger Four’s wings, ready for use on one of South Africa’s biggest military airfields. The F/A-18 angled left half a degree, edging onto the imaginary flight path its computer calculated would produce the best results.

  Garrard spotted movement on the runway off to his right. Two winged, single-tailed shapes were rolling down the tarmac, still on the ground but picking up speed fast. The South Africans were trying to get fighters in the air. Too late, mi amigos, he thought, using fragments of the street “Spanglish” he’d picked up during a boyhood spent in southern

  California.

  The word RELEASE blinked into existence in the lower left hand corner of his HUD. Aggressive instincts and years of training paid off as he stabbed the release button twice and yanked the Hornet up into a forty-degree climb. Two separate shudders rippled through the plane as a string of Durandals tumbled out from under its wings-falling nose-down toward the runway below.

  Grunting against g forces that quadrupled his effective weight, Garrard pulled the climbing F/A-18 into a tight turn and craned his head all the way around to stare at the scene now behind and to his right. He wanted to see what happened when his bombs went off.

  Small drogue parachutes snapped open behind each bomb. At a preset altitude above the runway, rocket motors inside the Durandals fired. All six weapons accelerated straight down, smashing into the earth below before exploding. Six flowers of flame, smoke, and spinning chunks of shattered concrete blossomed in a ragged line, angled across Waterkloof’s primary strip. Two actually struck the narrow runway, heaving and buckling the thick concrete for eight or ten meters, in addition to a five-meter crater.

  One of the two South African fighters racing down the runway ran into a smoking, jagged crater at more than one

  hundred miles an hour. The jet slammed nose first into the concrete in a fiery shower of sparks, broke in half, and blew up. Garrard whooped into his oxygen mask. Scratch one Mirage! One down and one to go.

  But the other South African interceptor emerged from the wall of smoke and tumbling debris apparently unscathed. Afterburner blazing, the Mirage F. ICZ soared off the runway-clawing frantically for altitude.

  Garrard clicked his mike button.

  “Tiger Lead, one hostile airborne.

  Engaging. “

  He shoved hi
s throttle forward and pulled the Hornet into a rolling, vertical climb, groaning involuntarily as the Hornet’s g force meter flickered past seven. At the same time, he switched his HUD to air-to-air mode. Two concentric circles leapt into view in the middle of the display.

  The circles identified cones of vulnerability-areas of the sky in front of his plane where his heat-seekers had the best odds of scoring a hit.

  The sky and ground seemed to spin around, changing places, as Garrard pulled his F/A-18 inverted. Just a little more. Almost…

  The climbing Mirage came into view in his HUD’s upper left corner. A target designation box appeared around the South African jet’s dim, wavering shape. Garrard rolled his plane back upright and accelerated. The Homer streaked after its opponent.

  As the F/A-18 closed, the box surrounding the enemy plane moved slowly down and across its HUD-sliding toward the center. Garrard’s finger poised over the fire button on his stick. Come on, you bastards, lock on! It might not make much sense to swear at the simpleminded circuits inside the two

  AIM-9L Sidewinders his plane carried, but somehow it did make him feel better.

  One of the missiles growled suddenly in his earphones letting him know that its IR seeker had finally locked on. A flashing diamond appeared over the

  South African jet now barely a mile ahead and starting to turn.

  Garrard squeezed his fire button and felt a small shudder as the Sidewinder mounted on his plane’s starboard wingtip dropped off and ignited. A streak of orange flame arced across the sky. The heat-seeker flashed across the gap between Tiger Four and its prey in less than five seconds. It exploded just yards behind the F. I’s brightly glowing tailpipe.

  The South African Mirage seemed to disintegrate in midair-tearing itself apart as fuel, ammunition, and missile propellant all went up in a thousandth of a second. Burning bits and pieces of torn metal and plastic fell earthward beneath an ugly, drifting cloud of oily black smoke.

  Garrard doubted that the enemy pilot had even known he was under direct attack. Nothing unusual in that. Most ai rto-air kills were scored on planes that never saw their attackers. And getting bounced just seconds after takeoff was every fighter pilot’s nightmare.

  He keyed his mike again.

  “Tiger Lead, this is Tiger Four. Splash one hostile. Runway is out of action.”

  The strike commander’s laconic voice carried well over radio.

  “Roger,

  Four. Nice work. What’s your fuel state?”

  Garrard took a quick look at his fuel display.

  “Approaching Bingo.” The

  Hornet was a shit-hot fighter and attack plane -much better than either the F-4 Phantom or the A-7 Corsair, the two aircraft it had replaced. But the F/A-18 was short on legs. Pretoria, three hundred and fifty miles inland, was near the limit of its un refueled combat radius.

  “Okay, Four. Head for Gascan flight at Point Tango.”

  Garrard clicked his mike twice to acknowledge and turned southeast, flying back toward a rendezvous with KA-61) tankers topped full of aviation fuel.

  Behind him, the rest of the Vinson’s aircraft went to work with a vengeance.

  VOORTREKKER HEIGHTS MILITARY CAMP, NEAR PRETORIA

  A stick of four 500-pound bombs landed just two hundred yards away from

  the small officer’s cottage assigned to Commandant Henrik Kruger. They exploded in a thunderous, thumping blast that instantly shattered every window, toppled bookcases, and threw pictures off rippling walls.

  Ian Sheffield dived for cover behind a sofa as flying glass sleeted across the living room. He lay flat until the floor stopped rocking and then looked up.

  Dust knocked off the walls and ceiling swirled in the air. Razor-edged pieces of glass littered the floor, mixed in with fragments of loose plaster and with splintered pieces of wood that had once been slats for the cottage’s venetian blinds. Several deadly looking shards of glass were actually embedded in the far wall itself. He shivered suddenly, realizing that those bomb-made daggers must have passed within an inch or less of his unprotected head.

  The building swayed again-rocked this time by bombs landing farther off.

  Ian scrambled to his feet, driven by an intense desire to get outside and into a bunker or trench. He’d stayed inside when the air raid sirens had gone off, more afraid of being recognized as a fugitive on the run from

  South African “justice” than of missing out on what he’d thought was only another drill. But it was beginning to look as though his calculations of relative risk were greatly in error.

  More bomb blasts shook the cottage.

  Ian bolted out the front door and into a scene that might have been lifted straight out of the most frightening parts of Dante’s Inferno. A thick cloud of smoke and dust from burning buildings and repeated explosions hung low over the base, making it almost as difficult to see as it was to breathe. What he could see was terrifying.

  One bomb had slammed into a nearby barracks and blown it apart-leaving only a ragged, smoking skeleton of roofless walls and heaped rubble.

  Other bombs had rained down all over the South African camp. Armories, maintenance sheds, and guard rooms alike were either in ruins or in flames. An eighteen-ton Ratel armored personnel carrier lay on its side in the middle of a parade ground-torn and twisted as though it had been first squeezed and then hurled there by a careless giant’s hand.

  As he scuttled across the road in front of Kruger’s quarters, Ian was surprised to find that part of his trained reporter’s mind was still busy jotting down details and impression seven though the rest of him just wanted to dive into some nice safe hole. Christ, he must be going mad.

  This wasn’t the right time to contemplate winning a prize for war reporting. But his brain wouldn’t turn off.

  Despite all the destruction, he couldn’t see many bodies. The ten-minute delay between the time the first air raid sirens sounded and the first bombs cascaded down must have given everyone a chance to find cover.

  Everyone but him, that is. He dodged a blazing five-ton truck still rolling down the road with its driver slumped behind the wheel.

  Another stick of bombs rained down on the barracks row just across the parade ground-exploding one after the other in rippling series of blinding white flashes. Shock waves slapped him in the face and punched the air out of his lungs. Ian ran faster, heading for the shelter Kruger said had been dug in front of his quarters.

  There! A dark hole seemed to rise up out of the parade ground’s flattened grass and tamped-down dirt. Without slowing, Ian threw himself through the entrance and tumbled head over heels down into a low-roofed bomb shelter. He lay still for a moment, facedown on the dugout’s earthen floor and very glad to be there. Three other people were there ahead of him-Kruger, Matthew Siberia, and Emily van der Heijden.

  As he rose to his knees and spat out a mouthful of dirt, Emily’s worried face brightened.

  “Ian!”

  She rushed over and he felt a pair of wonderfully warm arms tighten around him. She didn’t say anything more. She didn’t have to. He could feel her shaking.

  Ian buried his face in her sweet-smelling, auburn hair. When he looked up, he found Henrik Kruger’s sardonic gaze fixed on him.

  “A rough night, Meneer Sheffield?”

  A near-miss rocked the bunker. Dust sifted down through gaps in the timber roof. Kruger’s expression didn’t change.

  This guy was a damned cool customer, Ian thought, deciding to reply in kind. He nodded abruptly.

  “Perhaps a bit loud, Kommandant.”

  Surprisingly, Kruger smiled.

  “That is the trouble with war, my friend.

  It’s very hard on your hearing.”

  Emily and Sibena stared at the two of them, half-convinced that both of them were beginning to slide over the edge into total insanity.

  In the air above them, jets roared back and forth, strafing or bombing any target still visible through pillars of rising smoke. A
nd two battalions of crack South African infantry cowered in bomb shelters and foxholes-pinned down by American air power.

  Pelindaba’s garrison was on its own.

  HEADQUARTERS COMPANY, 1/75TH RANGERS, NEAR THE WEAPONS STORAGE SITE,

  PELINDABA

  “Jesus!” Lt, Col. Robert O’Connell yanked his head back below the trench parapet as a sudden burst of machinegun fire ripped past. The goddamned

  South Africans were on their frigging toes. Still, he’d seen enough-more than enough.

  The enemy had a heavy-caliber Vickers machine gun ensconced in a reinforced concrete bunker barely thirty meters north of the nuclear weapons storage area-covering every possible approach from the western side of the Pelindaba compound. Other bunkers guarded the eastern approaches. Bravo Company’s Third Platoon had found that out the hard way.

  Dead Rangers were strewn across the ground between the trench and the barbed wire fence surrounding the storage site. Most lay within a few feet of the trench-mowed down only seconds after they’d climbed out of cover. Some were draped over the wire, butchered as they tried to cut their way through. Several bodies still tangled in bloodsoaked parachutes lay crumpled inside the weapons storage area.

  O’Connell felt sick. Many of his best Rangers lay dead out there. A few of Bravo Three’s forty-two men were probably still alive, huddled behind scraps of cover or playing possum in the middle of that murderous field, but the platoon itself had ceased to exist as a viable fighting force.

  He gritted his teeth and motioned his officers and senior noncoms over for a quick conference. Regrets could come later. Right now, he and his thirty or so headquarters troops had to find a way to knock that damned machine gun out. Until they did, nobody was going to be able to get inside that storage site, and more importantly, nobody was going to be able to haul the nukes themselves out.

  “Well, anybody got any brilliant ideas?” O’Connell looked from face to worried face.

  His executive officer, Maj. Peter Klocek, pursed his lips and tilted his helmet back a few inches so he could wipe his sweat-streaked forehead.

  “Can we get a Gustav here?”

  “No time. ” O’Connell shook his head regretfully. The battalion’s recoilless rifle teams were scattered over a wide area-busy knocking out other enemy bunkers and strong points The Carl Gustav team attached to