Vortex (32 page)

Pellervo blanched.

“No, Comrade General!” He hurried on, practically stammering.

“I was called away a short time ago to resolve a problem with our ammunition storage. It has just been corrected. ”

Vega looked him up and down.

“Comrade Colonel, you should not let one crisis upset your plans or cause you to rush. I need officers who can remain calm in confusion, who can improvise and overcome difficulties. Is that clear?”

Pellervo nodded several times, his face pale beneath a desert-acquired tan.

Vega changed tack, satisfied that his reprimand had hit home.

“Are your preparations on schedule?”

“Si, Comrade General, everything is going according to plan.” Pellervo waved a chubby hand toward the busy airfield, obviously relieved to be out of the spotlight.

“Excellent. ” Vega turned away, hands clasped behind his back.

The attack slated to begin in just five hours was still risky, but he couldn’t see any reasonable alternative. Soviet air transports could ferry in enough men and gear to hold Namibia’s northern regions against South

Africa’s invasion force, but they couldn’t carry large numbers of heavier weapons and armor. The tanks and heavy artillery he needed to mount a successful counteroffensive could only come by ship.

And just one port on the Namibian coast was large enough to accommodate the Soviet-owned freighters and troop transports already at sea. Just one.

Vega stared southwest, away from Karibib’s busy airport, his eyes scanning the barren Namibian desert. South Africa’s high command was about to learn that two could play this game of strategic hide-and-seek and misdirection.

AUGUST
25-5TH
MECHANIZED
INFANTRY
,
SEVENTY

FIVE
KILOMETERS
WEST
OF
WINDHOEK
, ON
ROUTE
52

The eastern sky had brightened from pitch-black to a much lighter, pink-tinged gray-a sure sign that sunrise wasn’t far off. Sunrise and the start of another day of war.

he hulls of dozens of South African armored vehicles stood out against the vast sand wastes of the Namib Desert. To the south, the rocky, rugged slopes of the Gamsberg rose twenty-three hundred meters into the cloudless sky, punching up out of the desert floor like a giant humpback whale coming up for air. Other mountains rose beyond it, all shimmering a faint rosy red in the growing light, and all leading generally east toward the Namibian capital of Windhoek.

Col. George von Brandis sat atop his Ratel command vehicle studying his map. Von Brandis, a tall, slender, balding officer, was not happy. Not with the position of his battalion. Not with his mission. And not with his orders.

He and his men had been driving steadily eastward since leaving Walvis

Bay, South Africa’s coastal enclave, before dawn on the eighteenth-crushing a few minor border posts and a company-sized Namibian garrison holding the Rossing uranium mine in the process. Since then, they’d met little resistance and made tremendous progress.

By rights he should have been exhilarated by the 5th Mechanized

Infantry’s successes, but von Brandis couldn’t help looking worriedly over his left shoulder-off into the vast emptiness to the north. General de Wet and his staff were fools if they thought the Angolans and Cubans were going to leave him alone. Luanda’s Marxists had too much to lose if

South Africa reoccupied its former colony. They were

bound to hit him soon. Even if there weren’t any major enemy units to the north, there certainly weren’t any South African units out there either.

The flat, and landscape stretched off to his left like an unknown world.

Von Brandis looked at his map. His supply lines also concerned him. He’d taken everything but a small security detachment with him when he left

Walvis Bay. Follow-up reinforcements were slated to garrison the port, but until they arrived, the place was almost defenseless. And any enemy who captured Walvis Bay would control his battalion’s only link with

South Africa.

Damn it. He crumpled the map and stuffed it into a pocket of his brown battle dress. Pretoria’s orders posed an un resolvable dilemma. He’d read the careful, staff-written phrases a hundred times, but being carefully crafted didn’t make them any clearer.

The 5th Mechanized Infantry had been ordered to push east toward Windhoek as rapidly as possible, maintaining constant pressure on Namibia’s defense forces. Von Brandis and his men were supposed to seize territory and pin the enemy units deployed around Windhoek, especially Namibia’s single motorized brigade. In a sense, they were supposed to draw the enemy’s eyes and firepower away from the far stronper
SADF
column advancing from Keetmanshoop.

No problem there. A clear, though somewhat dangerous, mission.

The trouble came in a last-minute addition tacked on when Pretoria realized its limited resources would not permit the swift reinforcement of Walvis Bay. So de Wet’s staff had “solved” its problem by ordering the 5th Mechanized Infantry to be everywhere at once. Advance aggressively on Windhoek, but ensure the security of Walvis Bay. Pin most of the enemy mobile force, but take no offensive actions that might expose the base to loss.

In other words, he was supposed to move fast and hard against the

Narnibians, while simultaneously covening hundreds of kilometers of exposed flank and keeping his rear secure. Right.

The colonel grimaced. They didn’t pay him to play safe,

or to avoid risks. The best way to keep his flanks safe was to keep moving so rapidly that the enemy never knew exactly where his flanks were.

Noises rising from the vehicles laagered all around his Ratel told him his battalion was waking up. He looked around the encampment. The 5this camouflaged armored cars and personnel carriers were vastly outnumbered by a fleet of canvas sided trucks, petrol tankers, and other supply vehicles bringing up the rear. A huge logistical tail was a necessary evil when fighting in Namibia’s and wastelands. Without large quantities of ammunition, fuel, food, and especially water, the battalion’s fighting vehicles would be helpless.

He yawned once and then again. It had taken all night to refuel and rearm the unit’s operational vehicles, and his maintenance crews were exhausted from recovering and repairing those that had broken down during the long, wearing advance. More than twenty Eland armored cars, Ratel personnel carriers, trucks, and towed artillery pieces had needed their foulmouthed swearing, sweating attention.

Now refitted, but hardly refreshed, his men were walking about the battalion laager in the predawn gray, starting engines, checking equipment, and brewing tea against the early morning chill. It was just bright enough to see the shadowy forms of the men and their vehicles as a blinding red bar of light edged over the hills on the eastern horizon.

Von Brandis squinted into the rising sun, looking for the enemy he planned to destroy before continuing his drive on Windhoek.

“The remnants of a

Namibian battalion were dug in on a line of low hills, really just rises, stretching from north to south. Remnants might even be too strong a word to describe what should be left of the Swapo unit, he thought. The 5th

Mechanized had already smashed one company strength force of Namibian infantry the day before, and a second that same afternoon.

Unfortunately, the battalion’s need to refuel, rearm, and repair its broken-down vehicles had prevented a full-scale exploitation of those victories. The night’s respite had given the Narnibians time to assemble a scratch force blocking the western route to their capital.

Von Brandis shrugged. One quick firefight should do the trick. He unfolded a battered, oil-stained map. It never hurt to reexamine an attack plan formulated late at night by lamp light.

” Morning, Kolonel. ” His driver, Johann, handed him a chipped china mug.

Sipping the strong, scalding-hot liquid, von Brandis studied the map and tried to ignore the Ratel’s bumpy, hard metal decking beneath him. He also tried to forget his rumpled appearance and barnyard smell after a week in the field. Some of his troops swore that the stink of unwashed clothing, dried sweat, and cordite made the best snake repellent known to man. He didn’t doubt it. No self-respecting reptile would dare come within half a klick of anyone who smelled so bad.

But despite all its drawbacks, the colonel had to admit that he enjoyed campaigning. He liked the hard, outdoor life, the rewards that came with higher rank, and the challenge of defeating his country’s enemies. He studied the map as if it were a chessboard, looking for a tactical solution that would spare his men any loss and crush the Narnibians completely.

Reality never quite measured up to paper expectations, but he was happy with his present plan. It should produce heavy enemy casualties with a minimal expenditure of ammunition, fuel, and friendly lives.

He was measuring distances when Major Hougaard’s voice crackled over his radio headset.

“All Foxtrot companies ready to go. Foxtrot Delta is already moving.”

The sound of engines roaring behind him confirmed his executive officer’s report.

Excellent.

Von Brandis traced the gully he’d found on the map. It paralleled Route 52 to the south, bypassing the low hills in front of them before winding north. On his orders, the battalion’s dismounted scouts had spent the night checking it and quietly clearing the depression of a few sleeping guards. They now watched the Narnibians from the gully’s edge and awaited

D Squadron’s Eland armored cars.

With infantry squads riding on top, the 90mm gun-armed

Elands would flank the Namibian entrenchments and flush the Swapo bastards out of their holes. Once that had happened, von Brandis planned to hit them with an HE barrage from his battery of towed mortars and then mop them up with a Ratel-mounted infantry assault. It was a bit of overkill, he thought, for a bunch of untrained kaffirs, but twenty-years of warfare in Angola and Namibia had taught him never to underestimate the fighting power of a dug-in enemy.

Also, he wanted to crush the enemy battalion-to so shatter the unit that the Narnibians would have to commit fresh reserves. Anything that drew

Swapo or Cuban troops away from the Auas Mountains would help revive

South Africa’s stalled southern attack. Von Brandis knew his force was supposed to be Nimrod’s secondary effort, but there were many ways to win a war.

He scanned the brown, treeless slopes about two and a half kilometers away, just outside heavy machinegun range. Nothing. No signs of life at all. The hills looked as barren as an arid, airless moonscape.

Von Brandis checked his watch and then his map-following D Squadron’s flank attack in his mind’s eye. Right now the company should be carefully picking its way along the rocky, waterless stream bed, thirteen armored cars with foot soldiers from C Company clinging to them as they bumped and swayed over uneven ground. The scouts were covering their approach, thank God.

He lowered the map again and swung his binoculars left and then right, checking the battalion’s other units. They were formed, hidden by folds in the ground. A and B Company’s Ratels were unbuttoned, but their troops were close by, ready to board and make the planned final assault.

It was getting lighter, and he could imagine the Namibian commander congratulating himself on successfully holding the South Africans at bay for a whole night. A man’s spirits rose with the sun. The Swapo clown was probably trying to decide how he could strengthen his defense or even scrape up enough reinforcements for a limited counterattack…. “Foxtrot Hotel One, this is Foxtrot Sierra One. Enemy

positions are starting to stir. We can hear Delta’s engines.” The scout captain sounded bored-a triumph of training over nerves.

Von Brandis tensed. This was the period of greatest danger. If the Elands were caught while confined by the steep gully walls, they’d be easy targets for Namibian RPGs. If that happened, he was prepared to order an immediate frontal assault to rescue the armored car squadron and its attached infantry. Though normally a dangerous course, it would probably succeed against such a weak Swapo unit-especially one already distracted by a move against its left flank.

“Hotel One, this is Sierra. Ready.” The short transmission from the scouts meant that they were in position. He could expect to hear firing anytime.

Von Brandis heard the crack of a high-velocity gun, but it was somehow a deeper, fuller sound than that made by an Eland’s 90mm cannon.

Whooosh! A shell screamed overhead and burst about a hundred meters to the right, dangerously near a group of A Company Ratels. The explosion threw up a cloud of dirt and rock and triggered a mass movement of men and vehicles. The sound of engines starting and hatches slamming almost covered the sound of other guns, clearly firing from somewhere ahead on the Namibian-held ridge line. The scream of incoming projectiles and thundering explosions became almost continuous.

His vehicles were all under cover, to prevent observation as much as to protect them from incoming fire. Still, the Narnibians were shooting mainly to keep their heads down, and it was working.

The colonel fought the urge to take cover inside his Ratel and instead scanned the enemy ridge again. A momentary puff of gray smoke and stabbing orange flame caught his eye. He focused the binoculars. There!

The shot came from a small, dark bump lumbering downhill toward his battalion’s positions. Suddenly, as if his eyes now knew what to look for, he realized that there were three … five … eight, nine, ten other vehicles, all firing and moving. A tank company!

Small dots clumped behind the tanks. Infantry trotting to keep up with their armored protectors. He lowered his binoculars. My God, the

Narnibians were actually launching a combined arms counterattack on his battalion. It was astounding, almost unbelievable.

New noises rose above the unearthly din. While the tank shells made a low, roaring whoosh, these were high-pitched screams, followed by even bigger explosions. Heavy mortars!