Vortex (3 page)

Bekker moved to the doorway and looked in at a large apartment, complete with its own bathroom. A middle-aged black man with gray pepperingbis close-cropped black hair lay half in, half out of bed, his chest torn open by rifle fire. The captain stared hard at Nkume and jerked a thumb at the corpse.

“All right, who’s he?”

“Martin Cosate. The cell leader here. He was like a father to . , . ” Nku me choked up.

Bekker snorted contemptuously and shoved Nkume into the room with the barrel of his assault rifle.

“Don’t worry about the stiff, kaffir. He’s just another dead communist. If you don’t want to join him, show us the safe.”

For just a second, the informer looked ready to resist. Bekker’s finger tightened on the trigger, Then Nkume nodded sullenly and walked over to a wooden chest in one corner of the room. He pushed it to one side, knelt, and ran his hands over the floor. After a moment, he pressed down hard on one of the floorboards and it pivoted up, revealing a small steel safe with a combination lock.

“Open it, Nkume. And be quick about it!” Bekker was conscious that time was passing fast, too fast.

The black began turning the safe’s dial, slowly, carefully.

Scattered shots could still be heard from the north side of town. A sudden sharp explosion rolled in from the south, and Bekker swung toward his radioman for a report.

The corporal held up one hand, listening.

“Third section reports a police vehicle tried to enter town. They destroyed it with a Milan, but a few survivors are still firing.”

That meant Zimbabwean casualties. Bekker shrugged mentally. He was only supposed to try to minimize collateral damage. Nobody at headquarters expected miracles. Besides,

a few of their own people killed might teach Zimbabwe’s ruling clique to be more careful about allowing
ANC
operations inside their borders.

Nkume finished dialing the combination and turned the safe’s locking handle. Bekker’s soldiers pulled him roughly away from the hole before he could finish opening the door.

“Get him outside,” Bekker snarled. He looked for the leader of his attached intelligence team and saw him standing nearby.

“It’s all yours now,

Schoemann. Take your pictures quickly. ”

Schoemann’s men, one with a special camera, knelt down next to the hole and carefully removed inch-high stacks of paper from the safe. Bekker watched for a moment as they took each page, photographed it, and laid it in the proper order in a pile to one side.

He felt a warm glow of satisfaction at the sight. This was the prize, the real payoff for a month of hard training and intense preparation. The information contained in this one small safe-
ANC
operations plans, equipment lists, personnel rosters, and more—would be a gold mine for

South Africa’s intelligence services. And with luck, the
ANC
wouldn’t even know that these once-secret files had been found and copied.

More firing sounded outside and shook Bekker out of his reverie. Der Merwe and Heitman must be running into more resistance than they’d anticipated.

Schoemann, on the other hand, clearly had everything under control, so he sprinted down the stairs and out into the clear night air. Reebeck, Roost, and the rest of his troops were there waiting for him, listening to the fighting still raging at either end of town. Every man knew that the clock had been running since they first entered Gawamba, and from the sound of the firing to the north and south, it was running out.

Bekker stopped near Reebeck.

“Lieutenant, take your team and cover the intelligence people. Send word as soon as they’re finished. I’m taking de

Vries and going north.”

Reebeck nodded and wheeled to his appointed task.

STRIKE
FORCE
SECOND
SECTION
,
NORTH
END
OF
GAWAMBA
,
ZIMBABWE

Bekker and five men double-timed north through the streets toward the police station, equipment clattering and boots thumping heavily onto the dirt. There wasn’t time to make a cautious, painstaking advance now.

Instead, they’d simply have to risk an ambush laid by any
ANC
sympathizers still at large in the town.

The South African captain didn’t believe there was much chance of that.

He’d seen only a few frightened faces in the windows-faces that quickly ducked out of sight at his glance. The townspeople wisely didn’t seem to want any quarrel with the heavily armed soldiers running down their streets.

He pulled up short at a corner and peered around it. Several soldiers of his second section were visible down the road, in cover and firing at the yellow brick police station not far away. One man lay sprawled and unmoving, while another sat white faced, trying to bandage a wound in his own side. The rest were locked in a full-scale firefight that wasn’t part of the plan.

Bekker pulled his head back and turned to the men with him.

“Set up an ambush two blocks down the main street.” He looked at his watch.

“You’ve got three minutes. Go!”

He belly-crawled forward to the nearest second-section position-two men crouched behind a low rock wall.

“Where’s der Merwe?” he asked.

Bullets ricocheted off the front of the wall and tumbled overhead at high velocity, buzzing like angry bees.

One of the paratroopers pointed to the far side of the police station.

“He headed over there a few minutes ago, Kaptein
. “

Bekker risked a glance in that direction and sat back.

“Right. Stand by for new orders.”

The trooper’s helmet bobbed and Bekker crawled back out of the line of fire. Then he stood and ran to the right, past a row of tiny, one-room shops still shut for the night. Corporal de Vries followed. Once past the police station, he turned

toward the sound of the firing, moving forward in short rushes from doorway to doorway.

At last, he was rewarded by the sight of Lieutenant der Merwe, prone and firing around a corner at one of the police station’s barricaded windows.

Bekker waved him back into cover and went to meet him.

The lieutenant, his least-experienced officer, was breathing hard, but didn’t look overly excited.

“There are at least twenty men over there and they’ve got automatic weapons. We’ve got them pinned, but right now we’re just sniping at each other.”

“And that’s what we don’t need.” Bekker scowled as the firing around them rose to a new crescendo.

“We’ve got to get them out in the open and finish them before the Pumas come in. ”

He put his mouth close to der Merwe’s ear to make sure he could be heard over the fighting.

“We’ve laid an ambush down the street toward Kudu. Pull your people out in that direction and we’ll give these kaffirs a nasty surprise.

The lieutenant grinned and sprinted back to the rest of his men, already yelling new orders.

Bekker, with two of der Merwe’s men in tow, dashed down a side street and over toward the ambush position. Sergeant Roost and his radioman met him there.

“Schoemann’s finished, Kaptein. Everything’s back in the safe just the way it was. And the Pumas are on the way.”

“Excellent. Now, all we’ve got to do is scrape these damned Zimbabwean police off our backs. They don’t seem willing to take no for an answer.”

Shrill whistles blew behind them, signaling the second section’s withdrawal. Bekker grabbed Roost’s arm and swung him halfway round.

“Take these two men and provide security one block back. Corporal de Vries will stay with me.”

He moved forward and risked a quick look down the main street. Second section’s paratroops had thrown smoke grenades and were shouting, “Pull back! Withdraw!” loud enough to be heard in Pretoria.

Bekker checked his rifle and slapped in a fresh magazine, then took a fragmentation grenade off his battle dress. He flattened himself against the wall of one of the houses and saw his troops run by in apparent headlong retreat. They were still dropping smoke grenades behind them, filling the street with a white, swirling mist.

Bekker waited, the seconds passing slowly, his reflexes desperate to do something to burn off the adrenaline in his bloodstream. Deliberately slowing his breathing, he held his position for another moment, and then another.

He heard shouting and running feet. Then the shouting resolved itself into orders in Shona, the chief tribal language used in Zimbabwe. He saw men appear out of the smoke and run past his alley. They were blacks, armed with assault rifles and dressed in combat fatigues. More soldiers than police, Bekker thought.

They streamed by, running full tilt right into the middle of his killing zone. Now!

“Fire! Shoot the bastards!” Bekker screamed. He pulled the pin off his grenade and tossed it into the smoke, back up the street. The South

Africans hidden in buildings and alleys on either side of the street opened up at the same moment-spraying hundreds of rounds into the startled Zimbabweans.

Half hidden by the smoke, the Zimbabwean troops screamed and jerked as the bullets hit them, Most were cut down in seconds. Those who survived the first lethal fusillade seemed dazed, confused by the slaughter all around them.

Bekker’s grenade went off, triggering more screams. He raised his assault rifle and started firing short, aimed bursts. Each time he squeezed the trigger, a black soldier fell, some in a spray of blood and some just tossed into the dust. His radioman was also firing and he could hear

Roost shouting in triumph as well. Trust the sergeant to get into it.

Bekker let them all shoot for another five seconds before reaching for the command whistle hung round his neck. Its shrill blast cut through the. firing-calling his men to order. There wasn’t any movement among the heaped bodies on the street. In the sudden silence, he could hear the

Pumas coming in, engines roaring at full throttle.

Their rides home were arriving.

STRIKE
FORCE
RENDEZVOUS
POINT
,
OUTSIDE
GAWAMBA
,
ZIMBABWE

Hands on his hips, Bekker watched his force prepare for departure.

Rotors turning, three transport helicopters sat in a small cornfield just outside of small-arms range of the town, while a Puma gunship orbited in lazy spirals overhead. Paratroops were streaming into the area from three directions. The whine of high-pitched engines, the dust blown by still-turning blades, and the milling troopers waiting to load created what appeared to be complete chaos. Bekker’s eye noticed, though, that the wounded were being loaded quickly and gently, and that his first section, according to plan, was posted for area security.

Corporal de Vries was still at his side and reached out to grab his shoulder. The radioman had to shout to be heard.

“The gunship reports ten-plus troops two streets over!”

Reflexively, Bekker glanced up at the Puma overhead. It had stopped circling and was moving forward, nose pointed at the reported position of the enemy. Time to go.

He started moving toward his assigned helicopter, walking calmly to set an example for his troops. The wounded were all loaded and the rest of the men were hastily filing aboard.

He stopped near the open helo door and turned to his radioman.

“Tell first section to start pulling out.” His order was punctuated by the sounds of heavy firing, and he looked up to see smoke streaming back from the gunship’s thirty millimeter cannon.

Bekker heard Reebeck’s voice shouting, “Smoke!”

Seconds later, every man in the first section threw smoke grenades outward, surrounding the landing zone with a few minutes’ worth of precious cover.

As the separate white clouds of smoke billowed up and blended together, cutting visibility to a few yards, half of Reebeck’s men sprinted from their positions to a waiting helo. The gunship’s cannon roared again, urging even greater speed.

All the other South African troops were aboard now, except for Bekker, who stood calmly next to his helicopter and watched.

A minute later, Reebeck and the rest of his men broke away from the perimeter and raced for their helicopter.

As they clambered aboard, Bekker heard a sharp popping noise over the

Pumas’ howling engines and the wind screaming off their faster-turning rotor blades. Rifle fire. He realized that the Zimbabweans were shooting blindly into the smoke, with a fair chance of hitting something as large as a helicopter. He forced himself to stand motionless.

Reebeck stood next to him, mentally ticking off names as his troops boarded. As the last man scrambled in, Reebeck looked over at Belcker and pumped his fist. The two officers swung aboard simultaneously and hung on as the Puma lifted ponderously out of the landing zone.

As they lifted clear of the smoke, Bekker could see the gunship pulling up as well, gaining altitude and distance from the small-arms fire on the ground. Bodies littered the three blocks between the main street and the edge of town.

The Pumas gained more altitude and he saw dust rising on the road off to the north. He took out his field glasses. A line of black specks were moving south at high speed. A Zimbabwean relief force, headed straight for the town. He grinned. They were too late. Too late by ten minutes, at least. And if you’d made it, you’d have died, too, he thought.

As if to emphasize that thought, a pair of arrowheads flashed close overhead. Bekker tensed and then relaxed as he recognized the Air Force

Mirage fighters sent to provide air support if he had needed it. He also knew that at high altitude, other Mirages were making sure that the

Zimbabwean Air Force left his returning helicopters unmolested.

The Pumas continued to climb, powering their way up to six thousand feet.

There was no further need for stealth, and even that low altitude gave a much smoother ride than they’d had on the way in. The paratroopers were unloading and checking their weapons, dressing minor wounds, and already starting to make up lies about their parts in what had been a very successful raid.