Vortex (109 page)

Everyone had piled into the emplacement dug for the wheeled van, but

Korster had taken one moment to look at the shredded antenna, tilted crazily off the vertical. A failed relay was now the least of its problems.

They had been hit by an anti radar missile, and without the radar to warn them of the missile carrier’s approach, they had been unable to turn it off in time. It appeared the Americans had called his bluff.

The radar was dug in on a small hill that not only gave it excellent coverage, but now afforded a ringside seat on the attack below. Jet aircraft, in pairs or flights of four, appeared over the ridges and hills. Rolling inverted as they passed over the crest lines, they would approach from different directions, sometimes separated only by seconds, it seemed.

Korster watched as they bombed the equipment parks and antiaircraft sites. The
SAM
launchers seemed to be getting special attention from the fighters. He saw one or two missiles launched, probably in optical mode, but they failed to hit anything, and that was all the response the unready crews could muster.

The manmade storm lasted about fifteen minutes. Korster waited two or three minutes to see if there were any later waves of attackers, but finally decided that the raid was over. He looked over the town. A gray haze covered large sections, the still morning air holding the smoke overhead. Several fires burned, and he could see two of his precious
SAM
launchers lying on their sides. Scattered figures wandered around, still in a daze.

He had to get down there and see what was left. Turning to the senior technician, he saw that the man, a beefy sergeant, was sitting upright, being bandaged by one of his coworkers. Korster started to tell the sergeant to check the radar van for new damage when he heard a chattering sound to the southwest.

It sounded as if his antiaircraft guns were firing again, and he was ready to dive for cover again when one of the men pointed.

OVER
LADY
SMITH

General Garrick watched the assault from five thousand feet up and two miles back. It was close enough, with effort, to see individual men through his binoculars.

His headset, tuned to the frequency of the attack aircraft, allowed him to follow the aircrafts’ preparatory attacks, as well as their escape without casualties. The first wave of gunships had been timed to hit within a minute of the last jet’s attack, and for the most part, they made it.

Coming in low, the Apaches raced toward pre briefed targets that had been found on the reconnaissance photos. The South Africans were recovering quickly, he noticed. Flak emplacements sent streams of tracers up, forcing the gunships to jink and dive. One gun, opening up on the flank of the oncoming choppers, caught a machine and slammed several rounds into the tail boom. Its anti torque rotor out, the aircraft spun twice then slammed into the ground.

Returning fire with rockets, missiles, and chain guns, the gunships suppressed any location that opened fire. Garrick had heard the assault commander declare the LZ “cold,” and still in formation, the slicks started coming in. The Apaches and scout helicopters moved off to predetermined areas, covering both the landing zone and the town itself.

“General, we’re at bingo fuel.” The voice in his headphones pulled him back from the landing zone to his noisy metal perch. Helicopters could not stay airborne forever, and the pilot had a long way to go.

“Right. Take me to the division’s forward command post, please.” Garrick sighed. Oh, well, once the men were out of the slicks there would be little to see from the air anyway.

LADY
SMITH

Korster and his technicians watched the landing and the right from their hilltop. Since the initial attack on their position, the enemy had not molested them, and Korster and the others

had maintained a low profile. Three more R4 rifles and a pistol were not going to influence events below.

The small group hugged the earth and watched as wave after wave of

American helicopters landed and disgorged soldiers and heavy equipment.

The firing in town started almost immediately, with Korster listening on the field telephone to the surprised garrison commander’s orders to dig in and hold in place.

The South African defenders numbered no more than a weak battalion, but they knew the town and refused to budge from a building until they were blown out or killed in place.

Korster visualized the Americans advancing up Poorte Street, and he heard his colonel radio the order to abandon the Royal Hotel, one of the buildings being used to billet the men. He waited, hoping that the defenders would somehow hold, but it was clear who the eventual victor would be. The kommandant gave them another hour at most.

He stood up suddenly, surprising the other men.

“Come on, we have work to do.”

The technicians looked at him with amazement. They had followed and discussed the progress of the American attack. They had seen gunships and other helicopters fly directly over the ruined van. What did he think he was doing?

“The sergeant needs to have his wound tended. I want every document shredded and piled in the center of the radar van. We will burn them and the van with them and deny both to the enemy.”

For him, the fighting was over. He’d see what the Americans could do with this land.

JANUARY
2-44TH
PARACHUTE
BRIGADE
REACTION

FORCE
,
NEAR
SKERPIONENPUNT

Maj. Rolf Bekker burrowed farther under the camouflage awning he’d rigged over his foxhole and then lay motionless-imitating other animals he’d seen survive the desert’s bone-dry air and sun-drenched heat. Movement meant sweat. Sweat was lost water. And water was life.

His watch alarm beeped softly. Time for another drink.

He uncapped his third canteen and took a careful swig, swishing the body-temperature liquid around the inside of his mouth before swallowing.

Despite the flat metallic tang imparted by the canteen itself, the water tasted good. And it felt good trickling down his parched throat. He recapped the canteen and hooked it to his web gear.

Still thirsty, Bekker settled back to wait. It was ironic, though a self-imposed irony. While he and his three hundred paratroops rationed their precious water mouthful by mouthful, one of South Africa’s two significant rivers, the Oranje,

lay only eight kilometers away-flowing northwest on its way toward the

Atlantic. Eight kilometers south, that was all. Only a brisk two hours’ walk, perhaps less.

Right now, though, the river might just as well have been on the far side of the moon. His own strict orders kept his men under cover in their fighting positions.

There was a good reason for that. Bekker’s northernmost outposts were already reporting dust rising in the distance. Henrik Kruger’s renegade battalion was coming south down the only road he’d left open and apparently unguarded. In reality, the men of the 20th Cape Rifles were being lured right into a killing zone.

The Afrikaner major studied his handpicked battlefield through slitted eyes. If anything, the brown, barren valley seemed even more suited to his purposes now than it had when he’d ringed it on the map.

Bordered by the rugged foothills of the Langeberg to the east and an only slightly less rugged ridge to the west, the valley sloped gently downhill from the Kalahari Basin before falling away sharply into the Oranje River basin. An unpaved secondary road ran down the eastern edge of the valley flanked by a long, low hill topped only by small patches of brush and three solitary, stunted trees.

Bekker’s two infantry companies were posted along that hill, carefully dispersed in six camouflaged platoon strong points surrounded by thin, hastily em placed minefields. To give his infantry a stronger long-range punch, he’d attached a Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifle team to each platoon. Indirect fire support would come from the two sections of four 81mm, mortars in place behind the hill-their crews crouched ready and waiting in shallow pits scraped out of the dirt and sand. And finally, he had his two Puma gunships on standby several kilometers away.

His battle plan was simple. Use HE from the mortars to kill Kruger’s truck-mounted infantry. Hit the enemy’s APCs with rounds from the Carl

Gustavs. Finish any vehicles left moving with 30mm cannon bursts from his helicopter gunships, and then mop up with his rifle-and machine gun armed paratroops. Bekker smiled to himself. Simple, yes.

And also damned effective. That was what combat experience taught you.

Simple things worked. Complicated plans or weapons usually looked good on paper and then got you killed.

His radio crackled softly.

“Rover Foxtrot One, this is Tango Zebra

Three.” Tango Zebra Three was the call sign for his northernmost observation post.

Corporal de Vries passed the handset across the foxhole.

“Go ahead,

Three.”

“Enemy scouting force in sight. Four Land Rovers ahead of the main column.”

Bekker propped himself up against the lip of the foxhole and raised his field glasses. The lead Land Rover leapt into view-dented, travel stained, and armed with a heavy machine gun on a pivot mount. Four men in South African uniforms rode in the vehicle-a driver, gunner, and two others. He lowered the glasses and pressed the transmit switch.

“Keep your heads down, Three. Let them pass.”

“Roger your last, Rover One. They’re rolling by now. Out. ”

Bekker felt himself start to sweat. The next few minutes were critical.

He was gambling that Kruger’s recce units wouldn’t spot his carefully prepared ambush. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have risked it. An alert scout commander would be too likely to send a team up the hill for a look-see.

But Kruger’s men had been on the run for more than two weeks now-traveling for hours on end each day through empty deserts and desolate mountains. And Rolf Bekker was willing to bet that they’d lost some of their edge.

COMMAND
RATEL
, 20TH
CAPE
RIFLES
,
NORTH
OF
SKERPIONENPUNT

Even with the hatches closed and the air-conditioning going full blast, the Ratel’s crowded interior was still almost unbearably hot. Ian

Sheffield sat across a narrow fold-down map board watching Commandant

Henrik Kruger methodically charting their course. The South African’s calm, cool

appearance made Ian even more conscious of the sweat stains under his own arms and across his back.

The Ratel bucked suddenly, and he grabbed a strap with one hand, hanging on tightly as the
APC
lurched over a bump in the rock-strewn track the

South Africans called a secondary road. The sight of Kruger’s grease pencil skittering randomly across the plastic map overlay made him feel a little better. Even Emily van der Heijden’s old fiancd could lose his grip from time to time.

Ian’s eyes roved around the crowded Ratel. Emily and Matthew Siberia sat wedged in one corner, next to wall clips holding assault rifles and mesh bags full of canteens and spare rations. He met her eyes and nodded ruefully toward the table. She just smiled slightly and shrugged as though to indicate her exclusion didn’t really matter.

But he knew it did matter-especially to her. By rights, he thought, Emily should be up here with them talking over their next move. But it had become clear that Kruger felt uncomfortable when she tried to take an active part in their conferences.

His gaze moved on around the Ratel, studying his fellow passengers. Three young staff officers occupied the folding seats on their commander’s side of the vehicle. One stood beside a machine gunner in the turret, holding a radio headset pressed to one ear-monitoring reports from the scouts probing ahead of the column. All of them looked tired. Sunlight streamed in through eight small firing ports-four on each side.

Kruger finished his work and sat back. He raised his voice to be heard over the APC’s powerful engine.

“We’re making good time today. ” He tapped a spot on the map.

“We should be across the Oranje by noon.”

Ian nodded.

“What then?”

“Depending on what’s up ahead, we push on to Kenhardt and Brandvlei.

After that?” Kruger shrugged.

“That we must talk about, Ian. ”

The South African put his pencil on the tiny town labeled Brandvlei. Ian mentally measured the distance from there to

Cape Town-less than five hundred kilometers. Maybe a two day drive at their present speed.

“What’s the problem?”

“Your country has aircraft based at Cape Town, true?”

Ian nodded. They’d caught bits and pieces of Voice of America news broadcasts en route. Enough to follow major developments in the war. Both the U.S. and Great Britain were still staging troops and air units through the Cape Town area.

Then he realized what was worrying Kruger. What would any red-blooded

U.S. pilot do if he spotted a battalion-sized column of trucks and APCs rolling south toward the city? He’d strafe or bomb the hell out of it, that’s what. Ian looked up.

“Are you saying we run a risk of becoming jet bait?”

“Jet bait?” Kruger hesitated briefly, obviously puzzled. Then his face cleared up as he mentally translated the slang phrase.

“Yes, exactly. We cannot move beyond Brandvlei until we’ve made firm contact with either your nation’s forces or those of the provisional government.

“Well, what’s so hard about-”

The lieutenant manning their radio interrupted.

“Excuse me, sir, but the recce troop reports they have the Oranje in sight! No enemy contacts.”

REACTION
FORCE

Maj. Rolf Bekker held his breath as the long column of canvas-sided trucks and wheeled APCs drove straight down the road into his killing zone. De

Vries’s manpack radio lay beside him, with its whip antenna poking above the foxhole’s camouflage awning.