Vortex

  “I concur. Hold the second wave twenty miles out, and let’s see what we can do about the artillery.”

  “We’re getting nothing on radio intercepts,” Skiles reported.

  “We don’t know where the guns or the observers are. 11

  Skiles scribed a forty-kilometer arc on the map, centered on the airfield. Craig sighed. The damn guns could be two thirds of the way to

  Pietermaritzburg. It was rough country, far too big an area to search.

  Thinking out loud, Skiles said, “They must be using landline, regular telephones to communicate. In a big city like that, they’ve got a built-in secure communications system.”

  “The initial bombardment was supposed to hit the phone centers along with the radio stations. Every target was reported to be pasted.” Craig took off his hat and rubbed his forehead.

  “Damn it, the only part of the system we know about is the com ms Hit the communications target list again,” Craig ordered.

  “And do it fast.”

  NAVAHO FLIGHT, OFF THE NATAL COAST

  “Navaho One, this is Overlord. Target.” The radio call was a welcome relief for Lt. John “Rebel” Lee and his wingman. Everyone in the world was hip deep in the war, but his flight was “in reserve,” assigned to orbit forty miles off the beach until the right target appeared.

  It took time to arm, launch, and fly aircraft to targets, so pairs of strike aircraft had been place “on call—ready to hit targets of opportunity on command. Navaho Flight was one of six launched by the two

  American carriers after they’d flown off their first strike planes. And he’d listened anxiously as first one flight, then two more, were given missions by their carriers. Now it was his turn.

  Continuing to circle, Lee clicked his mike.

  “Overlord, this is Navaho -Lead. Say target.”

  The strike controller aboard the Carl Vinson responded with a string of coordinates-and a quick description.

  “Target is a telephone switching station-concrete structure.”

  Lee repeated the information back to Overlord.

  The Vinson signed off.

  “Roger your last, Navaho Lead. This is urgent priority. Hit it fast.”

  Lee punched the coordinates into his flight computer, and as soon as he hit the ENTER key, a course indicator appeared on his HUD.

  His earphones carried Overlord’s voice again as the remaining pairs of aircraft were given their missions, all urgent. Something was up, he decided. Well, he’d hold up his end, at least.

  Lee checked his armament switches. Since the carriers were so close to

  Durban, his F/A-18 Hornet was fully armed, with Sidewinders on the wingtips, a single drop tank on the centerline, and eight five-hundred-pound bombs under the wings.

  The map display showed his target, buried deep in the city. It also showed each leg of his plotted course. Lee whistled. Luckily, Afrikaner flak had been light and enemy fighters nonexistent, because this was one bitch of a route. Lee hit the radio switch.

  “Turning to first leg,

  Panther.”

  Lee heard two clicks in his earphones. He glanced to the right and saw his wingman, “Panther” Lewis, turning to follow. Lewis was changing formation, sliding from aft and right of Lee’s Hornet to dead astern, in preparation for what was certain to be an “E” ticket ride.

  USS MOUNT WHITNEY

  “The strike coordinator says he’ll have aircraft on top of the targets momentarily,” Skiles reported. He frowned.

  “But I’m worried about the second air assault wave, sir. We’re going to start cuffing into their fuel reserve in a few minutes. We may have to bring them back, refuel, and launch them again. “

  Craig shook his head.

  “Hell, George, we do that and we’ll

  be delaying the whole operation.” He glared angrily at the map.

  “But I agree, we can’t land any more men until we’ve knocked those guns off target.” Visions of burning aircraft caught while landing haunted him.

  He turned to the admiral commanding the amphibious task force.

  “Steve, take your ships closer to the beach. If the Ospreys don’t have to fly so far coming back, we can buy ourselves a few extra minutes.” Of course, it would also bring them all closer to the South African shore defenses.

  As the admiral reached for the command phone by his chair, Craig added,

  “And be sure the carriers are rearming all their aircraft as soon as they land. We’ll need them.”

  NAVAHO FLIGHT

  “Coming up on the IP, Panther. Slow to four fifty knots.” Lee heard his wingman acknowledge with two clicks just as he turned the Hornet over to its attack heading.

  Throttling back, he watched his airspeed fall. They’d made a fast trip from their holding station to the initial point, but from here on, he wanted to take it slow and careful. Flying in a built-up area, against a non briefed target, he needed to look the situation over.

  Lee switched his HUD to air-to-ground mode and made sure that his bombs were selected. He always took extra care with the ordnance panel-especially after an incident in training. He’d made a perfect bomb run on the target, only to find that he’d dropped his centerline tank instead.

  The uneven surface of Durban’s rooftops flashed beneath him, individual homes and buildings blurring by too fast to make out much detail. His HUD showed the range to the target, which at this speed looked just like any other structure. An open box was centered over the computed position of the building, and Lee kept one eye on the box while he used the other to make sure he didn’t fly into anything.

  An F/A-18 ordinarily attacked at six hundred knots or more, but that was usually at sea or over open terrain. Here,

  the buildings rushing by made even a slower speed seem more like Mach two.

  There still wasn’t any fire from the ground, and with a little relief, he concentrated on pinpointing his target. His targeting box seemed centered on a thick smoke column billowing high into the air. In a flash the scene filled his windscreen.

  Lee’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t seen what he’d expected to see. The target was obvious, an already-bombed building in the exact center of the box. It was in ruins, no more than a pile of dirty brick and twisted steel. With an error of less than one foot, he couldn’t argue with the coordinates. That was the target.

  During his one split second overhead, he saw people pointing up at his aircraft, running for cover. He had a momentary image of sandbags in front of the building next door, and men among them, and then he was past.

  Lee checked his wingman. Panther Lewis was still in position. He waved a gloved hand as he spotted Lee looking him over.

  “What’s the plan, boss?”

  “Proceed as ordered, I guess.”

  Panther’s voice revealed his doubts.

  “There’s not much left to hit.”

  ” I know, but we don’t know the story, so we stick to plan A.”

  By this time the two aircraft had “extended” away from the target-gaining enough distance to turn and line up on their programmed target again. Lee clicked his radio switch again.

  “Reverse course, turn left in place. Now.”

  Both Hornets dropped their left wingtips and neatly pivoted one hundred eighty degrees. Lee lined up on Lewis, the new leader, and pushed the throttle forward as his wingman said, “Accelerating.”

  A four-fifty-knot stroll looking over the target was one thing, but they’d make the real attack run at full speed. Flying faster would make their bomb drop more accurate, increase their separation from the explosions, and make them harder targets for the now-alerted defenders.

  The rooftops flashed by below them, and Lee followed his partner in.

  MAIN TELEPHONE EXCHANGE, ON WEST STREET

  The soldiers guarding the phone exchange watched the American planes scream past. They had a fleeting impression of sharp noses and gray, square-cut wings, combined with a roar that filled their heads.

/>   The enemy planes were dangerous, but seemingly random in their destruction.

  Less than two hours before, they had bombed the office building across the street into oblivion, while leaving the telephone building unscathed.

  One soldier had suggested that there must have been secret military work going on in there, and that was why the Americans had bombed it. Among the laughter, the consensus had been that they were just poor shots. They had been lucky. That was something soldiers could understand.

  NAVAHO FLIGHT

  Rebel divided his attention between the rooftops, the cues on the HUD, and his wingman, now a mile in front of him. At six hundred knots, that distance became a six-second separation, barely enough time for the fragments from

  Panther’s bombs to clear. The idea was to do this in one quick pass, in and out before the enemy recovered enough to shoot back.

  Rebel’s HUD was filled with lines and numbers. Altitude, airspeed, weapons settings, steering, and aiming cues covered the angled glass in a confused jumble. Compared to air-to ground attacks, dogfighting was simple. His target box was still centered on the ruined building, but the target itself was obscured by the surrounding buildings.

  Panther’s Hornet bobbed, and Rebel worried that something was making him break off the run. In the time it took him to think that, though, the plane in front of him steadied and then dove sharply, its nose pointing at the ground for a few short seconds.

  He saw bombs fall from the wings, and in the same moment, tracers flew up from the ground, narrowly missing Panther’s aircraft. It was hard to tell, but they seemed to be coming from the building he had noted earlier. It was impossible to tell the exact type of weapon. It was probably just a machine gun, but it was the first flak they had seen.

  A split second later, the bombs hit, and as Rebel closed on the target, he gauged Panther’s pattern to be a direct hit.

  Fuck it, Rebel thought. The rubble’s been bounced and someone in that building shot at my wingman. Mentally, he reclassed his mission from “strike” to post attack flak suppression “

  He lowered his nose.

  MAIN TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

  The soldiers were congratulating themselves. Once again, the American planes were bombing the other building, not them. Crouched behind their sandbag barriers, they smiled at their continued good fortune.

  Their luck was running low.

  A second screaming roar filled their ears as something big and gray streaked low overhead. Dark objects came off its wings, and eight five-hundred-pound bombs exploded in the street and on the building.

  Those who were not killed by the fragments or the blast were finished when the telephone center collapsed on top of them.

  LOUIS BOTHA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  The artillery fire slackened momentarily, and Sgt. Jim Cooper looked out across the aAeld. Most of his squad crouched nearby-taking shelter inside a hangar near the LZ, hiding from the relentless Afrikaner barrage. But four of his men,

  the slower ones, lay out on the tarmac, wounded or dead. He couldn’t tell which-not from this distance.

  Cooper faced a serious dilemma. If he ran out to recover them, he might attract unwelcome attention to the hangar and the rest of his men.

  Aluminum sheeting offered concealment-not protection.

  But he couldn’t leave the guys lying out there, maybe bleeding to death.

  He couldn’t.

  Cooper slipped off his pack and laid his M16 down. If he moved fast enough, he might be able to get any survivors under cover while the unseen enemy gunners were shifting targets.

  The barrage stopped.

  Cooper sprinted out, gut-twisting fear pushing him the dozens of meters in record time. He skidded to a stop by the nearest man-PFC Olivera. He gagged. Ollie was gone, a hole in his neck the size of a fist. The next two he checked were dead, too. But the last Marine, Ford, was still alive.

  The sergeant scooped his squad mate up in one clean motion and slung him over his shoulder like a side of beef. Then he started jogging and trotting back toward the hangar-expecting the first deadly shell burst at any moment.

  It finally came, screaming in far off to the left-on top of a cluster of earlier craters. What the hell? Whatever or whoever had been there earlier was long gone to ground.

  Cooper didn’t know why the Afrikaner artillerymen were wasting their rounds tearing up an empty piece of real estate, but he didn’t need to be told what to do next.

  He made it back to the hangar, and as eager hands lifted Ford gently off his shoulders, he said, “You people waiting for an engraved invite? Stand to while I find the LT. We got work to do.”

  USS MOUNT W*TNEY

  General Skiles’s tone was filled with suppressed excitement.

  “Sir, Colonel

  Hayes reports that artillery fire in the LZ is landing off target. And it isn’t being adjusted. “

  Craig grinned and stood up.

  “Looks like the air strikes did the trick.

  Land the second wave before those damned gunners figure out what’s going on. We’re back in business.”

  Minutes passed-minutes filled with increasingly optimistic reports from the landing area.

  “Second wave is ashore, General. No casualties.”

  Craig nodded. With their telephone net scrambled, the Afrikaner guns were in a world of hurt. His people had been waiting on their secondary radio frequencies when the perplexed gunners came on line. And now direction-finding and jamming would make short work of the South African artillery.

  Meanwhile, his first LVTP-7s and landing craft were heading for the beach, and on-scene commanders reported that the airfield would be cleared in half an hour. Some units were already moving inland on foot-securing strategic hilltops overlooking the assault beaches and the roads leading into the city itself.

  Craig stared at the constantly updated computer displays in sober satisfaction. His Marines were winning. True, they hadn’t won yet. He still expected some hard fighting for the city over the next day or two.

  Urban combat was never easy and always bloody.

  Nevertheless, he was confident of final victory in the battle for Durban.

  He planned to hammer the Afrikaner defenders with overwhelming force, and he knew they wouldn’t be able to talk to each other.

  Craig let himself relax a little. He and his troops had their second foothold in South Africa.

  CHAPTER

  -34

  Slowdown

  DECEMBER 20-FORWARD HEADQUARTERS, CUBAN

  EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, NEAR POTGIETERSRUS, SOUTH AFRICA

  Dozens of Soviet-made T-72 tanks, BTR and BMP armored personnel carriers, and 152mm self-propelled guns sat motionless beneath a blue, cloudless sky. Dust stirred up by passing trucks hung suspended in midair, blown east by a fitful breeze. Weary, bedraggled soldiers moved slowly under the summer sun-fixing broken equipment, cleaning weapons-or were simply catching up on much-needed sleep. Worn down by weeks of constant combat and operating at the end of an increasingly vulnerable supply line, Cuba’s

  First Tactical Group had ground to a halt along a high ridge just south of the mining town of Potgietersrus.

  Gen. Antonio Vega stood off by himself, scanning the lowlands to the south through a pair of field glasses. Vasquez and his other aides waited nervously near a small convoy of BTR-60 command vehicles and GAZ-69 jeeps. He heard their worried mutterings, and smiled. What they saw as their general pigheaded insistence on seeing things for himself never ceased to trouble them. Fears that he might be killed by a South African sniper while touring the front had already caused several ulcers among his staff.

  But Vega liked to visit the front lines. His troops needed the lift they got from seeing their general sharing the same difficulties and dangers.

  He, in turn, needed firsthand knowledge of how his troops and tanks were standing up to the rigors of the campaign-not abstract reports filed by self serving unit commanders.

  What he saw so far
was reassuring. Despite heavy losses and growing fatigue, his men were still confident, still sure they were nearing a final victory over an increasingly desperate Afrikaner foe. Few had the time or information needed to worry about the West’s imperialist intervention in the conflict. Fewer still worried about the fading support for Cuba’s “liberation” force among South Africa’s black population. With Pretoria scarcely more than two hundred kilometers away, they were ready to attack again.

  Vega adjusted the focus on his binoculars, sweeping his gaze southward across a landscape of sparse, scattered trees, open grazing lands, and green tobacco fields. The savannah looked empty, as though it had been utterly abandoned by its human inhabitants. That was almost literally true, he knew -Cuban reconnaissance units had been probing ahead for the past several days. Except for a few small artillery observation posts,

  Vorster’s northern field commanders had pulled their troops back to defend the vital road junction at Naboomspruit -a prosperous farming and mining community fifty kilometers south of Potgietersrus.

  He lifted his binoculars, seeking the far horizon. There it was-Naboomspruit. A purplish smudge at the very limits of his vision. By any reasonable military standard, the town was the last easily defended choke point on the road to Pretoria, Johannesburg, and the almost unimaginable mineral wealth of the Witwatersrand.

  Vega frowned. Naboomspruit would be a tough nut to crack.

  A drowned morass of swamps and bogs ran just east of

  the highway all the way south from Potgietersrus to the Afrikaner-held town. The swamps blocked any possible flank attack to the cast by his tanks and armored vehicles.

  If anything, the terrain north and west of Naboomspruit offered even fewer alternatives for bold maneuver. The Waterberg Mountains rose sharply there-climbing high in a sweeping panorama of vertical cliffs and rugged pillars of rock. That was bad enough. Worse yet, Boer infantry companies and artillery batteries were reported dug in on Naboomspruit

  Mountain, only a few kilometers west of troops entrenched in the town itself. Together, they served as interlocking parts of a much stronger defense.

  It all added up to another bloody and bruising head-on assault against prepared Afrikaner defenses. To take Naboomspruit, Vega’s tank and infantry units would have to come down off their own high ground, cross the open savannah, and then charge straight down the highway.