Vortex (15 page)

His hands tightened around the binoculars.

The Cessna’s radio crackled into life.

“This is Captain Roald Pedersen of the United Nations Monitoring Group calling the unidentified aircraft overhead. Are you receiving my transmission? Over. ” The UN officer’s accented English marked him as a Norwegian.

Kruger let the binoculars fall around his neck and thumbed his own mike.

“Receiving you loud and clear, Captain.”

“Identify yourself, please.” Pedersen’s politeness didn’t disguise the tension in his voice.

For an instant, Kruger stared at the speeding trucks below, tempted to tell his pilot to just turn and fly away. Then he shrugged. He wouldn’t gain anything by being intransigent. Observers in the truck column must have jotted down the Cessna’s identification numbers by now. No one would believe this was a simple civilian joy flight gone astray. Besides, perhaps he could reason with this Norwegian peacekeeper.

“this is Kommandant Henrik

Kruger of the South African Defense Force.”

Pedersen’s next words dashed that hope.

“You’re violating Namibian airspace, Kommandant. And I’m ordering you to leave immediately.”

Order? The bastard. Kruger fought his temper and spoke calmly.

“I urge you to reconsider your ‘suggestion,” Captain. I’m currently pursuing a terrorist force that crossed into our territory and killed one of my men. Surely we have the right to defend ourselves?” He released the transmit button.

“I’m sorry, Kommandant.” Better. The Norwegian sounded genuinely apologetic.

“But you haven’t got jurisdiction on this side of the line any longer. I must insist that you turn back immediately or I will be forced to take stronger measures. ”

Kruger pondered that. What stronger measures? The UN troops weren’t likely to start shooting-at least not without being shot at first. But what could he do if they continued interposing themselves between his oncoming soldiers and the still-fleeing guerrillas? Blast them out of the way? Not likely. Not if he wanted to avoid a major international incident and the resulting damage to his country’s reputation and his own career.

He glanced at the map still open on his lap. Forbes and his APCs would be visible to the UN convoy in minutes dramatically raising the stakes in any prolonged confrontation. What now seemed a simple border violation by a single aircraft would suddenly become a full-scale raid by South

African armored vehicles and infantry.

He swore under his breath. There weren’t any good choices. He thumbed the mike’s transmit button hard enough to hurt.

“Papa Foxtrot One to Papa

Foxtrot Two. Over.”

Forbes’s clipped accents spilled over the airwaves.

“This is Two, One.”

“Break off pursuit. I say again. Break off pursuit. Return to base.” The words left a foul taste in Kruger’s mouth. Being defeated by an armed enemy would have been bad enough. But being driven off by interfering “peacekeepers” was even more irritating.

He didn’t doubt that the Norwegian captain and his men would try their best to catch the fleeing guerrillas. The UN troops were honorable in their own way. But they lacked the combat experience and field craft to do a thorough job. The ANC’s terrorists would escape to live and murder another day. It was a depressing thought to carry back empty handed to the dusty airstrip beside the 20this bunker-ringed camp.

JULY
1
B-NYANGA
BLACK
TOWNSHIP
,
NEAR
CAPE

TOWN
,
SOUTH
AFRICA

Shots and screams echoed over the roar of anno red-car engines and crackling police bullhorns.

“Goddamn it!” Ian Sheffield kicked wildly at the dirt, trying to vent some of his anger and frustration. It didn’t help.

By rights, this should have been one of the best news gathering days of his tour in South Africa. Hints dropped by a sympathetic officer and a long, wearying listening watch to a moderately illegal police scanner had paid off. He and Sam Knowles had come on the scene just after the government’s paramilitary security units moved into the crowded huts and alleys of the

Nyanga Township. But it was going to be a wasted effort unless they could get some good footage of the brutal police sweep going on just two or three hundred yards away.

And that was just what they weren’t to be allowed to get. A solid phalanx of blue-and-gray-uniformed riot troopers, wheeled armored cars, and growling German-shepherd attack dogs blocked the motorway off-ramp leading to Nyangaholding the gathering mass of foreign correspondents at bay as if they were wild animals.

Ian and Knowles could hear the shooting and see oily, black columns of smoke rising from burning homes, but they couldn’t see anything from where the police had stopped them.

Vorster’s security services weren’t taking any chances that foreign cameras could videotape their goon squads on the rampage. No videotape meant no story-at least not on the television news broadcasts that brought the world to living rooms across America and Europe. The network anchors in New York,

London, and Paris wouldn’t waste much airtime reporting a story without exciting visuals.

“Well, well, well. Whatta ya know…. There is another way in to that dump.”

Ian stopped in mid kick and spun around to face his cameraman.

Knowles was leaning against the hood of their station wagon, scanning a coffee-stained and torn street map of the areas around Cape Town.

Ian joined him.

“What have you got, Sam?”

Knowles’s stubby finger traced a winding, circuitous route on the barely legible map.

“See this? These bastards have all the major roads blocked, and probably all of the minor ones, too. But I’ll bet they don’t have enough men to cover every nook and crank in this rabbit warren.”

Ian looked at the area Knowles was pointing to. The Philippi Industrial

Park. A maze of aluminum-sided warehouses, factories, and storage sheds.

Ian shook his head regretfully.

“Wouldn’t work, I’m afraid.” He traced the shaded border between the township and the industrial area.

“There’s a barbed-wire-topped chain link fence running all along this area.”

Knowles grinned and reached in through the car window onto the passenger seat. He lifted a towel-wrapped bundle and briefly exposed a pair of wire cutters.

“Fences, old son, are meant to be cut …... Ian thought he’d never seen his stocky sidekick look so much like the fabled Cheshire Cat. He matched Knowles’s broad smile with one of his own and opened the car door.

Twenty minutes later, the two men crouched behind a rusting row of trash bins-less than fifteen feet from the chain link fence separating Nyanga

Township’s ramshackle huts from the industrial park’s machine shops and warehouses. Tendrils of smoke and faint shouts, shots and screams, drifted faintly downwind from the north-clear proof that South Africa’s riot troops were still engaged in what they euphemistically called “the suppression of minor disturbances.” Ian planned to call their bloody work something very different. But first he and Knowles had to get inside the township, get their videotape, and get out. And that might not be so easy.

He risked a quick glance toward the nearest police post, two hundred yards down the fence. The ten shotgun-armed policemen manning the sandbagged post were alert, but they were looking the wrong way. They were there to stop

people from escaping-not to stop journalists from breaking in.

Ian pulled his head back around the corner and carefully unwrapped the wire cutters. Knowles knelt beside him, video camera and sound gear slung from his back.

“Everything cool?” The little man sounded breathless. Not scared, Ian decided, just excited.

He nodded.

“We’re clear.”

“Well, let’s do it, then.”

With their hearts pounding and equipment rattling, the two men raced to the fence and dropped flat-waiting for the angry shouts that would signal that they’d been seen. None came.

Ian rolled onto his side and slipped the wire cutter’s sharp edged jaws over a rusting metal strand near the bottom of the fence. They slipped off at his first attempt to snip through the strand. And then a second time as he tried again. Christ. His fingers felt three times their normal size. As if they’d been pumped full of novocaine.

Knowles moved restlessly beside him, but didn’t say anything.

Ian wiped both hands on his pants and tried a third time, applying steady pressure to the wire cutter’s twin handles. C’mon, cut, you bastard. This time the fence strand snapped apart with a low twang. Finally.

He kept working-slicing upward through the fence in a series of steady, repetitive motions. Slip the cutter’s jaws over a chain link. Don’t think about the police standing guard not far away. Just squeeze. Squeeze hard.

Move on to the next strand and do it all again.

He finished almost without realizing it.

“That’s good enough,” Knowles whispered, taking the wire cutters out of his hand.

Ian came back to his surroundings and studied the ragged hole he’d torn in the fence. His cameraman was right. The opening was just big enough for them to wriggle through and just small enough so that it might not be too noticeable from a distance.

He sneaked another quick glance toward the police post.

The South African riot troops were still looking the wrong way. It was time to move, before one of them grew wary or bored and decided to scan the rest of the local scenery.

Ian rolled onto his back and pulled himself through the gap. Knowles wriggled through the fence after first passing the camera through the narrow opening.

They were inside.

Without stopping, Ian rose to his feet and raced forward into a narrow alley between two of Nyanga’s small, aluminum-sided houses. Knowles followed, unslinging his camera as he ran.

Both men paused to get their bearings and then moved on-walking toward the noise of the riot spreading fast through the township. As they felt their way gingerly ahead, stepping wide over trash littering the alley, Ian took a deep breath, trying to suck air into his heaving lungs. It was a mistake.

Piles of rotting, uncollected garbage, the sewage backing up from inadequate sanitation systems, and now, stray wisps of tear gas, all came together to create a single, gut-wrenching odor. He clenched his teeth, fighting down a wave of nausea.

The alley they were in ran straight north between rows of dilapidated, windowless homes, paralleling one of Nyanga’s unpaved main streets. Nothing moved, except for a few scrawny rats that scampered quickly out of their path.

After a few minutes of hard walking, Knowles stopped short of what looked like a major cross street. He looked up at Ian.

“Where to now, kimosabe?”

Ian cocked his head, listening to the continuing sounds of chaos. They seemed louder ahead and to the left. He stepped out of the alley and turned in that direction.

Almost immediately they started seeing people streaming south, fleeing what now sounded more like a pitched street battle than a routine, if brutal, door-to-door police sweep. Most were women and children-some carrying hastily snatched bundles of their household belongings, while others, weeping, ran empty-handed.

Ian saw Knowles raise his camera and start panning from side to side. He moved forward again, with the short, stocky

cameraman tagging along by his side. The pictures of panic stricken flight would be dramatic, but they had to get closer to the action. People back home needed to see just what Nyanga’s inhabitants were running away from.

The two Americans pushed their way north up one of the refugee-choked streets, dodging frightened men, women, and children carrying what they could of their furnishings away from the fighting. The mixed smells of smoke and tear gas grew stronger, and Ian could see orange and red flames leaping from rooftopt farther down the street.

There were more men in the crowd hurrying past. Many had been shot or badly beaten and were being half-carried, half-dragged away by their friends or relatives. Ian had a dizzying impression of a whirl of torn, bloodstained shirts, fearful eyes, and angry, shaking fists, some aimed in his direction.

Their undisguised hatred shocked him until he remembered his white skin.

For all Nyanga’s inhabitants could know, he and Knowles might be members of the state security services-taking pictures for later use both in criminal prosecutions and covert retaliation. Ian felt sweat trickling down his back and beading on his forehead. The fact that they could be in as much danger from the township’s people as they were from the police hadn’t really sunk in before. It wasn’t a reassuring thought.

Ian slipped a hand into his pants pocket, unconsciously fingering his plastic-cased press card as if it were some kind of religious talisman. But he knew it would be a singularly ineffective protection if the township’s angry young men turned on anyone trapped in the wrong-colored skin.

Knowles’s hand touched his arm and he started, instantly ashamed that he’d shown his nervousness so openly.

The cameraman pointed farther up the street.

“I think that’s where we want to be. Whatever bastards are driving these people back are going to have to come through that.”

Ian’s eyes followed his friend’s pointing finger and he nodded. Knowles was right, as usual. The locals had built a barricade of flaming truck and car tires, old furniture, and boxes of canned foods dragged from a nearby grocery. Greasy black smoke from the burning tires hung over the whole street, cutting off the sun and throwing everything into a kind of gray, gloomy half-light.

The two men jogged closer to the barricade, looking for a sheltered vantage point.

They could see the barricade’s defenders clearly now. Young men. Teenagers.

Even a few boys who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old.

None of them were running, and all clutched a rock, chair leg, or tire iron. Any kind of improvised weapon that would give them a chance to hit back at those responsible for this unwarranted attack on their homes and families.