Vortex (102 page)

Group-transferring armor, infantry, and artillery units northward to reinforce the First Tactical Group.

From now on, the Second, still bogged down in the mountains west of

Mozambique, would confine its operations to raids and noisy feints designed only to pin down the South African troops facing it-not to gain ground. The real push, Cuba’s final offensive, would come from the north.

He looked up.

“Inform all commanders, Colonel. We attack again at oh four hundred hours on the twenty-second. ”

Gen. Antonio Vega would give his enemies another twenty four hours to weaken their formidable defenses.

TRANSVAAL
COMMANDO
“
GOETKE
,”
THORN
DALE

ON
NATIONAL
ROUTE
ONE

Generations of hardworking Afrikaner farmers and cattle ranchers had known

Thomdale as simply “the town—as the closest center of commerce and culture. But the small collection of houses and shops had slowly been withering on the vine for years. Business and people alike were drifting southward to booming Pietersburg, forty kilometers away along the new NI superhighway. By the time of the Cuban invasion, there were only two generations in Thomdale’s tiny white population-the very young and the very old. Almost everyone else had gone, lured away by the opportunities and excitement of South Africa’s big cities.

Like many small towns in similar circumstances, Thomdate had been dying a slow, inexorable, and almost painless death. Then the Cubans had come.

At first, the invasion had been more a matter of inconvenience than of terror. Of day or night curfews imposed while

armored columns roared past on the highway. Of newly paved streets and fertile fields crushed by tank treads. Of growing shortages and increasing humiliation.

All that had changed when Castro’s rear echelon and support troops arrived. They’d rolled through Thomdale like mechanized locusts on the march-stealing food, looting shops, and terrorizing those who’d stayed behind to watch over homes and farms.

Most of the men were already gone, off on commando harassing Cuban supply lines and killing isolated stragglers. Much of the rest of the white population had fled into the countryside with them rather than risk the tender mercies of their enemies.

They’d been right to flee. The local commando was too good at its job, and the Cubans had decided to make their friends and families pay in blood for their success.

One night, in reprisal for what they called “acts of terrorism,” three batteries of Cuban artillery shelled the town with poison gas and white phosphorus. Five minutes of wholesale, indiscriminate slaughter had turned Thomdale’s wood and brick buildings into fire-blackened shells filled with horror.

Now fourteen-year-old Jaime Steers lay silently in the burnt-out ruins of his own home and watched the campfires lit by enemy soldiers. He’d lain there for hours, hidden behind a pile of rubble and covered by a sheet of black plastic. Despite the darkness he could see moving shapes and occasionally, faces illuminated by the fires.

The Cuban supply convoy was camped in what had once been the town’s main square. Ten trucks escorted by almost as many armored cars and personnel carriers had driven into Thomdale just before dark. Ibe ruined town made a good resting place after the wearying, day-long journey from Cuba’s main supply depot at Bulawayo-deep inside Zimbabwe. And this was the fourth convoy in as many days to laager there.

The Boer commando led by Erasmus Goetke planned to make them pay dearly for their lodging.

In more peaceful times, Goetke had been a prosperous farmer, a lean, wiry man who many said could coax wheat out of dry sand.

When the Cubans burned his farm and stole his crops, he had sworn a solemn oath to destroy this newest enemy of his people. He was a religious man, well versed in his Afrikaans Bible, and his rage was of biblical proportions.

So Goetke had gathered not only his commando, but every man and boy old enough to carry a gun. Their women were spies and messengers. Children too young to fight hid in the hills with their grandmothers and listened to stories of other battles. But Jaime Steers was just old enough to play an active role in this act of vengeance.

It was his birthright. A remembrance of deadly struggles against powerful enemies was etched deep in the heart of every Boer. All of Afrikaner history had been a story of bullheaded perseverance-against the elements, the Zulus, the British, world opinion, and now the Cubans. With a tradition of resistance, they bounced back from hardship and tragedy like steel springs.

Jaime kept his eyes glued to the binoculars his father had given him-studying the men Commandant Goetke had promised would die.

The Cubans moved confidently, strutting through the twisted wreckage left by their incendiary shells. Most squatted around the campfires, heating rations or brewing coffee. Several amused themselves by urinating on a mass grave dug for those who’d died in the bombardment.

The sight brought tears of frustrated anger and hate to Jaime’s eyes, clouding his vision. His uncle, his smiling, bright-haired aunt, and three young cousins lay entwined in that grave-butchered without warning or pity. His hands balled into fists. He wanted to kill and kill and kill again.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. Simple thoughts raced through his mind in a dizzying succession. Calm down. Don’t let them bear you. They mustn’t hear you. Not yet.

Jaime choked back a racking cough. The smell of smoke and other burnt things still clung to the ashes.

Slowly, very slowly, his hands unclenched. He kept watching the Cuban camp, wanting desperately to hear or see his

father and the other commandos as they closed in, but knowing that if he could spot them, so could the enemy sentries. No, it was better by far to wait in silence and seeming isolation.

So he lay flat, trying hard to cultivate the stoic patience of the fighting man. He glanced once at the luminous dial of his watch: 2010 hours. The others should be in position by now. It would be his honor to signal their attack with a single, well-placed bullet.

He lowered the binoculars and fumbled for the rifle by his side. It was not a modern assault rifle, but a bolt-action British .303 Enfield, fitted with a telescopic sight. Jaime was rated a good shot by both his friends and his father, which among Boers made him very good indeed.

The rifle’s smooth wooden stock felt good against his cheek and shoulder-a solid, reassuring promise of vengeance. No man with such a weapon in his hands and an enemy in sight was truly impotent.

He scanned the distant shapes outlined against the campfires.

His father had told him what to look for, and he’d picked his own target-a tall, black-haired man whose uniform was neater than the others.

Although Jaime couldn’t speak Spanish and was too far away to hear it even if he could, it was clear that when the tall man spoke, other men listened, and obeyed. He had to be an officer.

Scraps of charred paper fluttered in a sudden gust of cold night wind.

The breeze was across his line of fire. Not the best situation, he thought, but at least it would carry sounds away from the Cuban sentries.

His father’s team, led by Commandant Goetke, was stationed downwind, hopefully close by.

A bird chirped suddenly, barely audible over the noise of the wind rushing over ruined homes. It was time.

Carefully, slowly, silently, Jaime Steers lifted his rifle and swung it onto the brace he’d half-buried in the pile of rubble in front of him.

Then he squinted through the telescopic sight and settled into firing position.

Although the sight was more powerful than his binoculars,

it had a narrower field of view. For a heart-stopping moment he thought he’d lost his target. But then he found the Cuban again, sitting in front of a small fire by himself, sipping cautiously from a steaming cup held in his right hand.

Through the sight, Jaime could actually see the Cuban’s smiling, clean-shaven face clearly. A cold sensation rippled down his spine. He’d hunted game often enough and had even stood guard over their house when his father had been worried about unruly blacks in the town, but he had never had to kill a man before.

Then, remembering what had happened to his uncle’s family, he realized it wouldn’t be too difficult. He checked the wind and adjusted his grip a little. Holding the Cuban officer in his sight, he took a deep breath and let it out. Another quick, shallow breath. His cross hairs settled over the man’s uniformed chest and steadied.

He pulled the trigger.

The Enfield cracked once, sounding very loud in the darkness, and the

Cuban looked up just as Jaime’s shot struck him. He fell forward, folding inward as though the bullet had let all the air out of him. His coffee cup dropped out of his hand and rolled onto the ground.

Through the scope, Jaime saw stunned men looking at their fallen leader.

Most seemed frozen in place.

A sudden chorus of other shots rang out, and Jimmy knew his brother,

Johann, and his other friends were also in action. Sentries and other soldiers all around the laager began failing-cut down by well-aimed rifle fire.

Goetke had placed Jaime and the other snipers all around the encampment.

They were supposed to force the Cubans to go to ground, to hunker down inside their defensive circle.

Jaime squinted through his sight at the fire-lit scene of confusion, remembering Commandant Goetke’s strict orders: “Do not shoot unless you will kill your target. I don’t want a lot of fire. I want deadly fire.”

The commando leader’s tactic was working. With only a few shots coming in from many directions, the Cubans weren’t shooting back, reluctant to expose themselves to an unseen enemy.

Most of the Cubans were behind cover now, and with a

hunter’s instinct, he swung the rifle left-scanning for an armored vehicle he’d noticed parked on his side of the laager. It hadn’t moved for hours.

If its crew were still outside, he knew they’d want to get back inside their nice, safe, armored box.

He didn’t have to wait more than a few seconds. First, a head slowly peeked up over the BTR-60’s hull, and then hands slid along the fender.

Someone was trying to get in through the open driver’s hatch.

Jaime let the Cuban expose most of his body and then shot him through the heart. The man crumpled against the hull, his outstretched arms just short of the hatch. Jaime looked for other soldiers to kill.

A shout from the left rang out. He turned his head in time to see a ball of flame envelop “his”
BTR
. Bright light and a tremendous roar surged through the night air. More blasts followed in rapid succession, all centered on vehicles or among groups of Cuban soldiers lying prone in the open. Agonized screams echoed above the explosions as men turned into blazing human torches.

He gasped in relief. The commandant, his father, and the other commandos were attacking. The older men had crept stealthily to within fifty meters of the Cuban laager. Then, while Jaime and his friends suppressed the sentries, they’d moved in to lob their “Thunderbolts.”

Thunderbolt was an accurate term for the homemade bombs, he thought, watching in awe as they set the Cuban camp afire. He’d helped make them, though he had been threatened with dire consequences if he ever made one on his own. The recipe was simple: glass and plastic containers filled with a mixture of gasoline and soap flakes-a combination that quickly turned into a smelly, half-liquid concoction. His father had told him the mixture was similar to napalm. That hadn’t meant much to him-not until now.

Each Thunderbolt had one of the commando’s precious grenades securely taped to the outside as an igniter. Goetke had assured his men that their gasoline bombs would incinerate any vehicle, no matter how thick its armor. As always, Jaime thought, the commandant had been right.

He watched the battle rage through his rifle scope-wanting to join in, to rush forward and help the commando, or at least to snipe at the Cubans as they fled. His father had been strict, though, and had ordered him not to fire a shot once the gasoline bombs went off. After that, the men of the commando would be inside their enemy’s camp, doing God’s work.

Shouts, screams, and bursts of automatic weapons fire rose above the sound of roaring flames. From time to time, the ammunition or fuel stored in a burning vehicle would explode-spraying white and yellow streaks of fire high into the dark sky. In less than a minute, smoke rolled across the scene, hiding everything in an oily black mist.

Slowly, the sounds of firing died down and the shouting faded away. Soon, all Jaime could hear were flames crackling as Cuban trucks and armored cars burned. He waited, following his orders, and kept watch through his field glasses.

A hand on his shoulder startled him, and he whipped around, reaching for a rifle he suddenly realized was too far away. His father’s voice stilled his panic, though, and the warmth and praise he heard filled him with pride.

“You did well, Jaime. We were watching as you dropped that officer. You killed a captain.”

“You are all right, Father?” Jaime could see that he looked healthy, but he wanted to hear it with his own ears.

“I’m fine.” His father held out one arm, a little reddened, with the hair singed.

“I got a little too close to one of the commandant’s Thunderbolts, but otherwise I’m in good shape. ”

His smile disappeared.

“We lost two men, though, and three others are hurt.” He saw sorrow cross Jaime’s face and quickly added, “It’s the price of our struggle, son. Those who live must remember them and carry on.”

The elder Steers’s face grew grim.

“And the enemy paid, son. We got them all.” He jerked a thumb at the smoke shrouded laager ahead of them.

“Every vehicle there burns. No Cubans have escaped. No Cubans survived, and we took no Cuban prisoners. They are all in Hell.”

Jaime Steers’s eyes followed his father’s pointing finger

toward the burning encampment. Rumor said that the Cubans had sworn to conquer South Africa or turn it into a depopulated wasteland. Well, he thought, with a newly adult grimness that matched his father’s tight-lipped expression, the communists were finding out there was more than one kind of scorched earth.