Vortex

  “I already have, Jim. I already have. Now you get some rest yourself when those Army pukes show up, you hear me?” Craig patted the other man on the shoulder.

  “I need a smart, tough engineer in charge of this operation-not a walking zombie. “

  “Yes, sir.

  Craig turned away, already moving back to his waiting helicopter. He’d come to the waterfront himself to show the colonel and his men just how important their efforts were to the whole expeditionary force-not to try micro managing every last detail of their work. In his book, you found the right man for the job, gave him the tools he needed, and then got the hell out of his way.

  As he neared the camouflaged UH-60 Blackhawk serving as his command transport, an aide hurried overbent low to clear the helicopter’s still-turning rotor.

  “General! Sixth Brigade HQ reports our guys outside

  Pietermaritzburg are taking fire from heavy arty!” ‘

  Craig grabbed the captain by the arm and spun him back around. Their free ride was over. Vorster’s generals had a blocking force in place.

  With one hand clapped onto his helmet to hold it in place, Craig raced ahead and hauled himself aboard the Blackhawk. The Marine riflemen assigned to protect him followed at a dead run.

  Thirty seconds later, the command helo rolled forward on its wheels, lifted off, and raced low over the harbor-moving south at a hundred knots toward the shell-scarred runway at Louis Botha International Airport. Radio reports of the fighting continued to crackle through Craig’s headphones.

  His American and British troops were securely ashore on the Natal coast, but Vorster’s Afrikaners were clearly serving notice that any further gains would have to be paid for in blood.

  3RD BATTALION, 6TH MARINE EXPEDITIONARY

  BRIGADE, SOUTHEAST OF PIETERMARITZBURG, SOUTH

  AFRICA

  The Victorian homes and quiet suburban streets of Natal’s provincial capital, Pietermaritzburg, lay eerily at rest below steep wooded hiNs rising on all sides. No cars moved down the wide N3 Motor Route or rattled along the narrow roads winding off to the farms and small clusters of houses that doffed the forested hollow. Clouds sent patches of shadow rippling over the ground, drifting almost idly from east to west.

  A clock chimed the hour from a tall, redbrick tower over the city hall.

  Its ringing, melodic tones echoed from building

  to building before dying away among the dense groves of mo pane and acacia trees spread across the slopes above the city. Drawn curtains or blinds in every window made Pietermaritzburg and its suburbs look deserted.

  They weren’t.

  One thousand meters south of the open green fields of the Scottsville

  Race Course, soldiers wearing full packs and carrying M16s were visible-moving steadily north along the highway. The U.S. Marines were entering Pietermaritzburg on foot.

  Backed by a platoon of four LAV-25s, Bravo Company’s three rifle platoons trudged grimly in single file along either side of the road. Except for a thin screen of four-man recon teams, they were the advance guard for the whole Allied expeditionary force-one hundred riflemen probing far ahead of massive air, sea, and ground contingents already numbering more than fifty thousand men.

  Craig’s field commanders were using Bravo Company’s Marines in much the same way that a man would use a stick to poke carefully through the branches of a tree while looking for a hornets’ nest. The trouble was that, in this case, any hornets found were likely to be very hard on the stick.

  Whooosh. The long columns of marching Marines reacted instantly to the high-pitched, screaming whirr of a shell arcing overhead. Men scattered into the empty fields to either side of the road. The LAVs spun round in a semicircle and accelerated, racing for the shelter offered by a nearby overpass.

  “Incoming!”

  Capt. Jon Ziss dropped flat by the left side of the highway. His radioman and the others in the company command group threw themselves down on the dirt beside him.

  Whaammm. Flame, smoke, and shattered pieces of roadway fountained high into the air barely one hundred meters ahead. Fragments spattered down all around, clattering off Kevlar helmets and backpacks.

  As the smoke and dust thrown by the shell burst rolled past, Ziss slowly raised his head. Although his ears were still ringing from the blast, he could hear agonized screams rising from men of his First Platoon. Three or four Marines lay huddled on the pavement, scythed down by splinters. He risked a quick glance at the surrounding terrain.

  To the west, a row of wood-frame, one-story houses offered the only possible cover. The flat fairways and shallow sand traps of a golf course to the east would be a killing ground for enemy artillery. And the same could be said of the racetrack to the north. He and his troops could only run west.

  Whooosh. Another round howled in out of the sky, landing farther back this time.

  Whaammm. The 155mm South African shell slammed straight into the rearmost

  LAV and blew it apart. Pieces of armor and mangled rubber tires spiraled off the road.

  Jesus. For several seconds, Ziss stared in horror at the blazing wreck, unable to move. Then reason took over. The Afrikaners had to have an OP, a hidden observation post, directing their fire. So either he and his troops got out of sight or they’d be slaughtered out here in the open.

  He scrambled to his feet, shouting, “Let’s move it, people! Into those houses! Over there!” He waved an arm to the west.

  All up and down the freeway, individual Marines rose and ran for cover, each bent forward at the waist as though he were pushing forward against high winds. Another shell burst behind them and several more men were bowled over-left lying dead or badly wounded.

  Ziss found himself running side by side with his radioman, Lance Corporal

  Pitts. He grabbed the handset Pitts offered.

  “Mike One Two, this is Bravo

  Six Six, over.”

  “Go ahead, Six Six.” Ziss recognized the deep Southern drawl of his battalion commander.

  “Give me a sitrep.

  The two men charged through an open garden gate and slid to a stop beside one of the houses. Panting Marines from Bravo’s First and Second Platoons pushed in after them. The artillery barrage ended-leaving behind a strange silence broken only by moaning from the wounded sprawled across the highway.

  Ziss moved across the backyard of the house and crouched low next to a row of rose bushes planted as a hedge. He punched the transmit button on his handset, noticing with

  some detachment that both his hands were shaking.

  “We took some arty, One

  Two. Big stuff. They’ve got the N3 zeroed in and spotters out there somewhere.”

  “Do you want fast movers? Over.” The Navy had bomb laden flights of

  F/A-18s and A-6s circling overhead on call, just itching for the chance to blow South African guns or troops to kingdom come.

  The Marine captain shook his head impatiently, realized what he was doing, and punched the talk button again.

  “Negative, One Two. I don’t have any observed targets. We’re gonna have to hunt for their damned OP.

  “

  “Understood.” His battalion commander paused and then came back on line.

  “The Navy says their flyboys didn’t manage to spot any of those guns firing.”

  No kidding. The South African artillery battery was probably parked almost forty klicks away-well hidden among the Drakensberg’s woodlands and narrow mountain valleys. A plane would practically have to pass right over an artillery piece while it was firing to see anything. Even then the Afrikaner gunners were undoubtedly moving their weapons from camouflaged firing position to firing position-employing the classic battlefield tactic of “shoot and scoot. “

  Ziss shook his head in frustration. They needed counter battery radar to pinpoint the enemy artillery-and all of the MAF’s target acquisition units were still tied down providing protection for the Louis Botha

  Airport.
/>
  That left the Marines with just one unpalatable option: they’d have to scour every inch of Pietermaritzburg and its surrounding hills in what was very likely to be a vain search for the enemy observation team calling down the artillery. Until then, South Africa’s big guns could sweep the N3 and block any significant advance toward Pretoria. Heavily armored main battle tanks might be able to roll right through a barrage, but fuel tankers and troop trucks would be sitting ducks.

  He staggered upright, trying to get a better look at the terrain ahead.

  Once past this small spur of residential development and the racetrack, the ground sloped down toward a small stream before rising again into the city proper. Church spires and the tower of a Moslem mosque were sharply outlined against the treelined escarpment.

  Terrific. A single rifle company couldn’t even begin to cover that much territory.

  “We’re going to need some help on this, One Two.”

  “Understood.” Another brief pause while the battalion CO evidently tried to unscramble what had suddenly become a very confused situation.

  “Alpha and

  Charlie companies are closing on your position now. Plus Brigade has released another platoon of LAVs and some M60s for support. I’m shifting the HQ forward now, so hold up until we get there. “

  “Will do.” Ziss saw a medic go by at the run, medkit and bandages in hand.

  Oh, Christ. He’d almost forgotten about his wounded.

  “I need a dust-off here, One Two. I’ve got several wounded for immediate evac. “

  “Roger that. Dust-off is already en route. ETA is five minutes. ” His commander’s businesslike tone shifted, becoming more concerned.

  “Hang on,

  Jon. We’re coming. Out. “

  Ziss acknowledged and signed off, not sure which of the two emotions warring within him was stronger-relief now that help was on the way, or irritation at being treated a little like a panic-stricken teenager. He handed the mike back to his radioman and moved off in search of his platoon leaders. They had some planning to do.

  “Captain!” He hadn’t taken more than five or six steps when Pitts caught up with him.

  “Rover Three One reports hostile movement on the western slopes of Signal Hill.” Rover Three One was the call sign for one of the recon teams scouting the ground in front of Bravo Company.

  Signal Hill? Now just where the hell was that? He flipped open a tattered topographical map. There it was. A nine hundred-foot high, wooded hill just west of the city. He almost smiled. The Afrikaners were starting to show themselves. Fine. Time for an air strike. He grabbed the handset again.

  “Mike One Two, this is BravoA sudden loud popping sound made him look up just as a

  window in a nearby house shattered. And for the second time in only a few minutes, Ziss threw himself prone.

  “Sniper! Hit the dirt! “

  He wriggled back to the line of rose bushes as M16s opened up from houses all around-punching rounds in the general direction of Pietermaritzburg.

  The company’s M60 machinegun teams were next, indiscriminately hosing down buildings and treetops that might conceal Afrikaner troops. Parked cars hit by gunfire started going up in flames.

  Capt. Jon Ziss gritted his teeth and checked the clip in his own rifle.

  This was going to be one bitch of a day.

  DECEMBER 27-FORWARD HEADQUARTERS, ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, TOWN

  HILL, NORTH OF PIETERMARITZBURG

  Town Hill rose nearly nine hundred feet above the Natal lowlands, and more than three hundred feet above Pietermaritzburg’s central business district. For years, the city’s wealthiest families had been building their homes on its slopes, drawn by its spectacular views and easy access to the Durban-Johannesburg highway. And now the same factors made Town

  Hill the perfect site for the forward headquarters of the Allied expeditionary force.

  In the middle of a street once reserved for Mercedes and other luxury automobiles, four camouflaged command vehicles sat parked back-to-back in a rough circle. Tarpaulins covered the open spaces between them, essentially creating a single large headquarters tent. Staff officers from two countries and all four branches of the armed forces crowded the tent-receiving reports from fighting units scattered all across South

  Africa, planning the next day’s operations, and generally getting in each other’s way.

  Lt. Gen. Jerry Craig stood outside, ignoring the controlled chaos of his forward HQ. His binoculars were focused on the N3 Motor Route as it wound northwest through a narrow valley. He frowned. Right now the road looked more like a serpentine parking lot than a superhighway.

  Long columns of trucks, APCs, and other vehicles were backed up all the way south through the city-evidently brought to a dead stop by more fighting somewhere up ahead. An ambush? More harassing fire from South African heavy guns? A roadblock? Craig shrugged. It didn’t really matter. What did matter was that Vorster’s troops were slowing his advance to a nightmarish crawl.

  Just securing Pietermaritzburg had taken a full day, three infantry battalions, air strikes, artillery bombardments, and dozens of casualties.

  Since then, his men had been forced to fight for every kilometer they gained on the only main road from Natal to Pretoria.

  The pattern was always the same. Units moving along the highway would take sudden fire from enemy troops hidden on a hill, behind a ridge, or in a side canyon. In response, they had to deploy off the road, call in air or artillery to pound suspected Afrikaner positions, and then peel off platoons or companies to drive any survivors back into the mountains.

  Craig lowered his binoculars and shook his head in frustration. There were enough trails and dirt roads running through the Drakensberg to support small Afrikaner units operating against his flanks-but not enough to sustain his own, larger force. Getting to Johannesburg and Pretoria with a powerful mechanized army meant driving straight up the

  N3.

  Two AV-8B Harrier jump jets suddenly howled past at low altitude, heading for a battlefield somewhere farther along the highway. Bombs bulked large beneath their stubby wings.

  Craig silently urged the Harrier pilots on. C’mon, boys, give the bastards hell, but give it to them fast.

  Time, as always, was an enemy. His intelligence officers claimed that the

  Cubans weren’t advancing any faster. But the Cubans were just 160 kilometers away from South Africa’s capita) and its richest minerals complex. His own troops were still more than 500 kilometers away. You didn’t have to be a mathematical genius to realize that was a prescription for a losing race.

  The sound of squealing brakes drew his attention away

  from his strategic problems. He turned around. A U.S. Army Hummvee had just pulled up in front of his improvised command tent.

  The Hummvee’s sole passenger, a dapper, bantamweight general whose gray, crew-cut hair still showed flecks of black, climbed out and headed straight for him. The man’s lean, suntanned face showed signs of intense anger and irritation.

  Craig stood his ground, preparing himself to exercise a little-used virtue-patience. Holding a unified command sometimes meant having to coddle and cajole fractious subordinates from all the service branches.

  He returned the other man’s rigid salute.

  “Sam.”

  “General. “

  Uh-oh. Formality between near-equals almost always spelled trouble.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Maj. Gen. Samuel Weber, commander of the 24th Mechanized Infantry

  Division, tried valiantly to keep the anger out of his voice. He failed.

  “I’d like to know why the ships with my tanks are still sitting off the goddamned port. I’ve got a hundred and fifty MI tanks out there-all set to come ashore and blow the shit out of these frigging Boers. And I’ve got the crews to man ‘em, but they’re just sitting on their butts at Cape

  Town waiting to fly in to the airport here. So what gives?”
>
  Craig bit back the first words that came to mind. Treating a two-star

  Army general like an unruly Marine second lieutenant probably wouldn’t be the best way to foster interservice cooperation. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “The engineers have only been able to clear enough room to dock one ship at a time, Sam. And right now I need that space to off-load mote essential material.”

  “More essential?” Weber nodded toward the stalled columns crowding the highway below.

  “Christ, Jerry, you need some heavy armor to break this thing loose and gain some running room. Otherwise we’re still gonna be slogging to Pretoria come the Fourth of July.”

  Craig shook his head forcefully.

  “Your MIs couldn’t do much for us right now, Sam.” He motioned toward the panorama of rugged, broken ridges and patches of forest spreading west, north, and northeast from Pietermaritzburg.

  “We have to push through another hundred klicks like that before we’ll reach anything resembling good tank country.”

  “Hell.” Weber scuffed at the pavement with one highly polished combat boot. He looked up.

  “I’ll tell you what, Jerry. You and I both know the

  Boers don’t have much that can even scratch the paint on one of my tanks.

  So bring my MIs ashore, and I’ll go tearing up this goddamned highway so fast we’ll be in Jo’burg before Vorster takes his morning dump.”

  Craig chuckled, pleased by the Army general’s aggressive instincts. For a second, he was half-tempted to let the man try his proposed hightech cavalry charge. Then reality stomped back in bearing a few ugly and unfortunate facts.

  Weber was only half right. His tanks could probably break past Vorster’s blocking force without much trouble or many losses. But just running the

  Afrikaner gauntlet of ambushes and artillery fire with an armored column wouldn’t accomplish much of anything. Tanks had to have infantry support to hold any ground they gained, and they had to have gas to keep moving.

  And neither the infantry’s APCs nor convoys of highly flammable fuel trucks could advance until his lead brigades finished doing what they were already doing-securing every hill and ridge overlooking the N3, meter by bloody meter.