Vortex

by Larry Bond

  O’Connell looked grim.

  “So those bastards were going to drop another nuke?

  This one?”

  Levi nodded again and tapped the bomb’s exposed corea smooth piece of dark metal about half the size of a small grapefruit.

  “It seems hard to believe that this little lump and its twin over there could kill thousands or even tens of thousands, doesn’t it? But believe me, this is really all one needs-a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium. That and the proper arrangement of a few more kilos of high explosive. “

  O’Connell took an involuntary step backward.

  “Christ! That stuff’s U-235?”

  Levi nodded a third time, inwardly amused. Like many laymen, O’Connell obviously had some serious misconceptions about nuclear materials. He’d also been too busy planning the operation itself to attend Levi’s technical training sessions. The temptation to lecture, just a bit, was simply too strong to resist.

  The Israeli scientist laid his palm flat on the bomb’s metallic core.

  “As a solid metal, U-235 is not dangerously radioactive, Major. It’s mainly an alpha emitter, and even your skin can stop alpha particles.” He stroked the smooth black surface.

  “You could even hold this in your lap for a month or more without suffering any significant ill effects.”

  O’Connell took the unsolicited science lesson with good grace. He grinned suddenly, appearing years younger for a brief instant.

  “Hell, Professor,

  I’d curl up to sleep with every one of these damned things for a year if it meant getting ‘em safely out of this frigging country. “

  Ten Rangers led by the leader of the battalion’s Support Platoon trotted down the steps and crowded into the bunker.

  “Okay to take these now,

  Colonel?”

  “You bet. Carry on, Harry.” O’Connell moved toward the entrance with Levi in tow.

  The Israeli scientist risked a quick glance at his watch. So far so good.

  He’d helped the Rangers find and capture South Africa’s nuclear arsenal.

  Now he had to try completing the most difficult part of his mission-the part he’d kept secret from the Americans. He cleared his throat.

  “Your troops hold most of the compound, don’t they?”

  “Yeah.” Small elements of Pelindaba’s garrison still fought from sections of trench along its northern perimeter, but almost all the rest of the

  South African soldiers had been killed or wounded. O’Connell paused just outside the bunker doorway and looked down at him.

  “Why do you ask, Professor?”

  Levi swallowed hard. Now for the lie.

  “Because I’d like your permission to search the Administration Center for certain scientific documents of interest to both our governments. Records of nuclear experiments and weapons design blueprints, among others.” He scanned the men hurrying to and fro outside the storage complex-carrying wounded, collecting weapons, and checking corpses. Bomb blasts echoed off in the distance as carrier-based planes kept pounding away at other South African military installations and air bases.

  “All I need are a few minutes. Five at most.”

  O’Connell walked away without answering, his face hard and remote.

  Levi limped after him.

  “Please, Colonel, it’s important.” The American stopped and turned around.

  “I agree, Professor. But your personal search isn’t necessary. Captain Kelly already has a team going through the Admin building. They know what to look for. We need you here with the weapons.

  “

  Levi choked. The Americans were ahead of him? He tried again.

  “But my technical expertise could be invaluable. I should be there-“

  “So you can destroy any records showing the size and composition of your own country’s nuclear stockpile? I don’t think so, Professor. “

  Levi felt his jaw drop open in shock.

  O’Connell smiled wryly.

  “You and your compatriots should have known better, Esher. Americans are sometimes naive, but we’re not stupid.

  Naturally, we’re grateful for your country’s help with this operation, but that doesn’t make us blind or deaf.” He shook his head slowly.

  “I’m afraid Jerusalem’s just going to have to live with the knowledge that some of its best-kept secrets aren’t so secret anymore.”

  Levi stood openmouthed for a moment longer and then shrugged, accepting his defeat with good grace. So much for the Mossad’s rather Byzantine plot. Washington would soon know exactly how much weapons-grade uranium

  Israel had received from the Pelindaba enrichment plant. And that, in turn, would allow the United States to calculate exactly how many nuclear bombs his country had manufactured for its own deterrent force.

  Well, he hadn’t been that keen on deceiving the Americans anyway.

  “In that case, Colonel, what else can I do to help you? Your men will soon have the bombs loaded, but you still have wounded to be collected. My conscript service included rudimentary first aid courses… perhaps

  I can assist your medics?”

  O’Connell’s weary eyes lit up with approval.

  “Thank you. My men and I would appreciate it.” He broke off abruptly as several of his noncoms moved past, checking dog tags on bodies scattered around the storage site.

  The Ranger watched them for a moment before shaking his head sadly.

  “I expected losses, but I never thought it would be this bad.”

  Levi tried to offer some comfort.

  “But you’ve won, Colonel. And your battalion’s sacrifices have saved many thousands of lives.”

  O’Connell shook his head again.

  “We haven’t won yet. We’ve still got to get these damned bombs down the road and out through Swartkop.

  The Israeli stared at a horizon lit red and orange by dozens of fires raging out of control. Jets thundered low overhead, crisscrossing

  Pretoria in search of new targets. He spread his hands in confusion.

  “But what kind of fighting force can the South Africans possibly have left to throw against us?”

  “I don’t know, Esher, and what I don’t know could still kill us all.” He raised his voice.

  “Weisman!”

  The sad-eyed little radioman came trotting up.

  “Colonel?”

  “Inform all commanders that we’re pulling out in five minutes. I want every truck or car they can lay their hands on at the main gate ASAP.

  We’ve got a lot of wounded to move. And tell Carrerra we’re on our way.

  Got it?”

  Weisman nodded vigorously, obviously already mentally running over the list of code phrases needed to transmit 0”Con nell instructions.

  “Good. After you’ve done that, put me in touch with Night Stalker Lead and Tiger Lead. I want solid air cover over us all the way to Swartkop!”

  Levi moved away, looking for a medic to whom he could offer his services.

  O’Connell’s depression had vanished for the time being, washed away in a flood of work still to be done.

  Galvanized by their commander’s radioed orders, small groups of Rangers moved into high gear all across the Pelindaba complex. Some helped wounded comrades into stolen trucks. Others carried boxes of captured documents down the Administration Center’s bullet-riddled stairwells, past bodies sprawled in the building’s central hallway, and out through a set of double doors blown open by recoilless rifle rounds.

  To the north, other American soldiers kept up a withering

  fire, trying to pin down those few South Africans who’d survived the initial assault. But slowly, one by one, men slipped away from the firing line, joining skeletal squads and platoons assembling by the compound’s main gate. The Rangers were getting ready to leave Pelindaba’s corpse-strewn lawns and wrecked, burning buildings behind.

  ROOKIAT TWO ONE, A TROOP, I ST SQUADRON, PRETORIA LIGHT HORSE, ALONG


  THE

  BEN SCHOEMAN HIGHWAY, NEAR PELINDABA

  South of Pelindaba, a lone diesel engine growled softly as an eight-wheeled South African armored car ground its way into cover.

  Dried twigs and branches rustled and snapped as the Rookiat’s long 76mm gun poked slowly through the clump of dense brush and low scrub trees.

  Riding with his commander’s hatch open, Capt. Martin van Vuuren leaned far forward over the AFV’s turret, sighting down the length of the main gun barrel, trying to judge the exact moment at which its muzzle would clear the surrounding vegetation.

  The Rookiat lurched upward over a tiny shelf of rock and then dropped level again. At the same moment, its gun tore through the last fringe of brush and emerged into open air.

  ” Halt! “

  Van Vuuren’s whispered order brought immediate results. The muted roar of the Rookiat’s diesel engine died as it came to a complete stop. He swiveled through a complete circle, carefully scanning the terrain around his vehicle. A thin, humorless smile creased the South African captain’s lips. Perfect.

  The Rookiat lay hidden inside a small, thick patch of woods overlooking the Ben Schoeman Highway-the expressway connecting Pretoria with

  Johannesburg. It was also the main road between the Pelindaba Nuclear

  Research Center and Swartkop Military Airfield. More importantly, the dense canopy of brush and tree branches would conceal his vehicle from what he was sure were Cuban ground attack aircraft roaming the night sky over Pretoria.

  It seemed an ideal position, even though van Vuuren still wasn’t sure of just what the hell was going on. His A Troop had been on routine patrol when the enemy air strikes began-moving slowly along a wide circuit outside the perimeters of both Pelindaba and the Voortrekker Heights Military Camp. Now his radios were out-jammed across every possible frequency. And the two other Rookiats under his command were gone. He’d seen one blow up, shredded into a blazing fireball by cannon shells from a strafing enemy plane. The other had simply vanished, lost somewhere in what had quickly become a confused, harrowing race through a deadly gauntlet of smoke and flame.

  Fresh scars on Rookiat Two One’s turret, souvenirs of steel splinters sprayed by a near miss, showed how close a race that had been. Van

  Vuuren’s fingers lightly brushed a bruise spreading across his left check. He winced, remembering the tremendous, ringing impact that had thrown him face first into the Rookiat’s ballistic computer and laser range-finder readout. The enemy bomb couldn’t have landed more than thirty or forty meters away.

  He shuddered. That had been too damned close. For the moment, he was content to wait here-safely hidden and out of the line of fire. A muffled cough from below reminded him to check his crew.

  He lowered himself into the vehicle’s crowded, red-lit turret. Anxious faces stared up at him.

  “Now what do we do?” The pressure lines left on Corporal Meitjens’s face by his gunsight made him look something like a raccoon.

  “We wait.” Van Vuuren’s own uncertainty added a bite to his tone.

  “And you keep your damned eyes glued to that night sight!”

  Meitjens hurriedly obeyed.

  Minutes passed, dragging by one by one. Van Vuuren had left his hatch open for comfort. Even when sitting idle, a four-man crew generated a lot of heat inside the Rookiat’s turret. And the cool night air pouring in through the open hatch provided a bit of welcome relief.

  Sound also poured in through the hatch, and the South African captain sat with his eyes closed, listening to the noise of a one-sided battle. Bombs echoed in the distance-dull, thumping explosions that seemed to shake the very air itself. Jet engines roared past from time to time as enemy planes came in on strafing runs against some poor sod stupid enough to show himself. But the bombing seemed to be tapering off.

  The bastards up there must be running out of targets, van Vuuren thought sourly. The steady crackle of heavy small arms fire rose from off to the north-audible now over the diminishing noise of the air bombardment.

  The Rookiat’s commander opened his eyes and sat up straight. Small-arms fire? Were soldiers in the Pelindaba garrison actually trying to shoot down jets with rifles and machine guns? If so, they were braver than they were wise.

  “Sir! Trucks moving south on the highway. Many of them.” Meitjens sounded as surprised as van Vuuren felt. What kind of idiot would try to run a truck convoy down a multi lane highway in the middle of an enemy air attack?

  He motioned the corporal aside and pressed his own face against the thermal-image sight. Bright green shapes moved into view, hot against cold hillsides and an even colder night sky. By God, they were trucks!

  Van Vuuren found himself counting aloud.

  “Ten, eleven, twelve…

  eighteen, nineteen… ” He shut his mouth abruptly. More than two dozen vehicles were out there, rolling past his position at twenty kilometers an hour. A sizable convoy even under ordinary circumstances.

  And the circumstances were scarcely ordinary. He couldn’t understand it.

  Why weren’t those trucks being blown to pieces by enemy air attack?

  A nagging fear suddenly crystallized into certainty. The aircraft weren’t attacking those trucks because they were all on the same side. He couldn’t figure out how the Cubans could possibly have moved their troops so close to Pretoria so fast, but that would have to wait. All that mattered now was that he had what must be a communist truck column under his Rookiat’s 76mm gun.

  “Target! Five hundred meters! Load HE!” Van Vuuren kept his eyes glued to the night sight. By rights he should sit back and allow Meitjens to man the gun, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to do it himself. In the past thirty or so minutes, he’d been bombed and strafed and generally terrified half out of his mind. Now he wanted the pleasure of personally killing some of the Uitlanders whose airborne comrades had been responsible for all of that.

  Besides, this was going to be easy-what an American would call a “turkey shoot.” Two or three shots to the front and two or three more to the back would trap this tightly bunched truck convoy on a ready-made killing ground. Hundreds of enemy infantrymen would meet death on a wide, empty expanse of asphalt and concrete.

  Van Vuuren gripped the gun controls and traversed the turret to the tight in one smooth, whirring movement. Bright yellow cross hairs centered on the green image of the lead truck. He tapped the laser range-finder control with his thumb and numerals appeared on the screen-382 meters.

  Practically point-blank. He ignored Meitjens’s resentful muttering behind his back. His gunner would just have to learn that rank had its privileges and this was one of them.

  I “Up! 11

  “On the way!” Van Vuuren squeezed the trigger.

  Klaanng! A bright white flash erupted out of the Rookiat’s main gun. The whole vehicle rocked back as it recoiled. Dust swirled through the air, kicked up by the 76mm cannon’s muzzle blast.

  The South African captain pressed his face into the night sight, swearing softly as he waited for the dust to settle. Come on. Come on. Clear. Let me see, blast it!

  Vision returned. Shit! Van Vuuren snarled at the view his screen showed.

  The truck he’d fired at was still moving, and a glowing hot spot two hundred meters farther up the opposite hillside showed where his shot had landed. He’d either missed entirely or the HE round had passed right through the enemy

  vehicle without slamming into anything solid enough to set off its warhead.

  “Up!” Rookiat Two One’s loader was still on the job.

  Van Vuuren traversed right again, bringing the truck back under his cross hairs. This time you die, he promised. He reached for the laser range-finder button…. The night sight went blank. Cross hairs, glowing green images, and digital readouts all faded out and disappeared.

  Van Vuuren stared at his darkened screen in dismay. Both the Rookiat’s ballistic computer and its thermal-imaging system were down. One part of his panicked
mind remained calm enough to guess that the vehicle’s delicate electronics had taken shock damage in the same bomb blast that had scarred its turret armor.

  “Meitiens!” He scrambled out of the other man’s seat in frantic haste.

  Only the gunner had the technical know-how needed to get their ballistic computer up and running again. He collided head-on with the corporal in a confused tangle of arms and legs and curses.

  Van Vuuren’s attempt to do everything himself cost Rookiat Two One precious time it did not have.

  NIGHT STALKER LEAD, 160TH AVIATION REGIMENT,

  OVER PELINDABA

  One hundred and fifty feet above the highway, the MH-8 helicopter gunship, known as Night Stalker Lead, spiraled downward in a tight turn to the right. Ghostly images of trucks, hillsides, and patches of brush spun past at dizzying speed.

  While the AVS-6 nightvision goggles worn by the gunship’s two crewmen made them look a bit like pop-eyed insects, the goggles also turned night into lime-green-tinted day inside a narrow forty-degree arc. Pilots and gunners using NVGs could pick out tremendous detail-the difference between thin, harmless tree branches and thick tree trunks for example.

  That and years of intensive training gave the crews of the 160th Aviation Regiment a combat symbolized by their motto: “Death waits in the dark.”

  The 160this gunships had proven themselves invaluable in combat over Panama and the Persian Gulf. Now they were proving it again in the darkness over

  South Africa.

  Night Stalker Lead’s pilot, a U.S. Army major, leveled out of his turn at fifty feet.

  “You see where that shot came from, Dan?”

  “Looking.” His gunner, a middle-aged warrant officer going prematurely gray, stared straight ahead-scanning the eerie, cartoonlike world visible through his goggles. A low hill rising steeply ahead. Hard-to-see clumps of scrub brush and scraggly trees. Painfully bright fires raging just over the horizon. There!

  “Target! One o’clock! AFV!

  Now the pilot saw it-the solid box-shape of an armored vehicle parked in a copse of trees overlooking the highway. He pulled back on his controls, decelerating to give his gunner a better shot.