Vortex (61 page)

A hundred rifles cracked as one, this time pointed straight at the disordered mass of people streaming out of the stadium.

Almost every bullet struck home-puncturing lungs, shattering bones, or ripping through arms and legs. Taylor saw dozens of people jerk and fall as they were hit. Hundreds of others fell flat as well, trying desperately to find cover on the open ground. A few people kept running, but most stopped, shocked and stunned by the blood and death around them. Ominously, in the sudden silence after the volley, they could still hear steady firing from the other side of the stadium.

Taylor stared from Reitz to the broken and bleeding bodies littering the trampled green grass and back again. Incredibly, the Afrikaner wore a small, pleased smile. Enough!

He moved in front of Reitz and yelled, “Cease fire!” Hastings immediately echoed him.

“These poor people are no further threat to us or anyone,

Colonel. ” Taylor ground the man’s rank out between clenched teeth.

“I’ll order the men to move in and start making arrests.” Taylor turned to issue

Hastings new orders and felt himself spun back round.

the colonel’s face was red, almost purple with rage.

“Rooinek swine! I will not have one of my orders countermanded. You and Hastings are both under arrest! Report to headquarters at once and stay there until I have time to deal with you!”

Then, his voice rising, he shouted, “Since you love these people so much, you can join them in prison! I’m taking personal command of this company, and I’ll do what you are apparently unable and unwilling to do-put an end to this lawbreaking! ”

Taylor stared at Reitz in amazement. Had the man gone utterly mad?

“What lawbreaking?” He pointed toward the bloodsoaked lawns and gravel paths outside the stadium.

“It’s over! Finished! My God, can’t you see that?”

Reitz was still in a rage.

“Major, I don’t want to hear any more from you! You don’t know how to deal with these criminals, and you don’t want to learn. Get out of my sight-and take that weakling Hastings with you!

By the time I’m through, you’ll both be lucky if you’re not hanged!”

Taylor stared at his colonel a moment longer before trained reflexes and ingrained discipline took over. He stiffened to attention, turned, and started walking back to the command post with Hastings trudging silently at his side. He felt strangely empty of emotion, unsure of whether he should feel shock at the slaughter he had just witnessed, anger at Reitz, or shame at his relief. No, not shame. He’d done nothing wrong.

Behind him, the demonstrators were beginning to stir. Many knelt weeping by dead or dying friends. Others sat shaking, unable to move. A few were crawling away in a futile search for better cover or escape. People were still trying to get out of the gas-filled stadium, but those in front, who saw the horror before them, were trying to turn around. Being choked and blinded by tear gas must have seemed preferrable to being butchered on the open ground.

The long, thin line of South African soldiers looked numbly at the carnage in front of them, each obviously trying to reconcile his own actions with his conscience. Murder was not a part of the soldier’s code, and this had been a kind of murder. Their lieutenants and noncoms glanced uneasily at each other-shocked by the open break between their colonel and the battalion’s secondin-command. Taylor was one of them-a fellow reservist and a peacetime neighbor.

Reitz swept the formation with an ice-cold glare, and they all turned to face forward, Deliberately, he called out, “A Company, at the rioters, fire!”

Taylor turned in horror. Reitz was not satisfied. He intended to kill and go on killing.

Obedient under orders, most of the men raised their rifles, aiming at the crowd. But when only one of the company’s lieutenants echoed the colonel’s order, instead of all three as was customary, they lowered their weapons again and looked back at their officers in confusion.

Reitz walked closer to the line. He drew his pistol, worked the slide, and held it in front of him, muzzle pointing up.

“Damn it, I gave an order, and I’ll shoot the next man who doesn’t obey instantly! Now fire!”

“No!” Taylor shouted. He sprinted toward the colonel. The personal consequences and discipline be damned. Discipline meant following lawful orders, not committing coldblooded murder at the whim of a madman.

He was still ten meters away when Reitz turned and saw him coming.

Pure hatred on his face, the Afrikaner swung his pistol in Taylor’s direction. Without thinking, he fumbled for his own sidearm as Reitz aimed and fired.

Automatically, he threw himself to the ground, thumb cocking the hammer of his own weapon. The pistol’s blinding flash and the crack of a bullet racing close overhead reached Taylor at almost the same instant. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hastings charging forward, and Reitz turned, drawing down on the running officer.

No! Taylor squeezed the trigger, something inside him seeming to leap out along with the bullet.

Reitz staggered back, agony on his face as bright-red blood spread across the chest of his uniform jacket. He tried to hold his aim on Hastings and failed. Then his legs folded and he crumpled to the grass. One hand clawed briefly at the sky and then fell back.

Hastings skidded to a stop and knelt beside the fallen Afrikaner.

Taylor rose to one knee, stunned by the speed with which he’d moved from officer to prisoner to mutineer. He wanted to stop and think, to understand what he had done, but there wasn’t time. He levered himself to his feet and ran toward Reitz, shouting, “Get an ambulance!”

It struck him as odd that nobody was calling for help for all the protestors who’d been shot, but that the colonel’s wounding brought an instant reaction from him.

Hastings laid the colonel’s head down on the ground.

“We don’t need an ambulance, Major.”

Taylor could see Reitz’s unseeing, open eyes and shuddered. But he didn’t feel ashamed, or even sorry. He’d killed before, in battle, and this felt no different. Reitz had been bent on murdering unarmed civilians, not because of what they had done, but because of who they were.

He looked from the corpse to find many of Hastings’s soldiers and all of

A Company’s officers surrounding him. One of the lieutenants, Kenhardt, said, “You’re in command now, Major. What are your orders?”

The other officers and noncoms nodded eagerly.

Again, Taylor had the sensation of being pulled along by events instead of shaping them. Was he in command? Despite shooting his own colonel? He shook his head, trying to clear it. Someone had to take charge. In the circumstances, the battalion’s senior captain would be a better choice-but that was Kloof. The crackle of automatic weapons fire drew his attention to the far side of the stadium. Kloof and his men were still shooting unarmed protestors.

Right, first things first. He grabbed the nearest enlisted man and ordered, “Tell Captain Kloof to cease fire and report back here on the double. Nothing more than that, understand?”

The private nodded and ran off.

Hastings looked troubled.

“Chris, that damned Afrikaner will just order you, me, and everyone else in reach arrested. We’d probably be shot after the kind of trial these people would give us. ” His junior officers nodded their agreement.

Taylor’s mind raced. These people, Hastings had said contemptuously. As though the men in Pretoria weren’t worth obeying. Well, was that so far off? Vorster, his cabinet cronies, and pet generals certainly weren’t the

Army and the government he’d sworn to serve. Everyone in authority seemed to have gone mad.

He shook his head. Hastings was right. Vorster’s Afrikaner fanatics would kill him, they’d kill Hastings, and anyone else who crossed their path.

And they would just keep on killing.

All right. He’d stopped Reitz from killing. Now he’d see how much more killing he could stop. Or start, he reminded himself. Crossing the line from personal disobedience to armed rebellion could not possibly be a bloodless journey. But perhaps it was a journey that should have been begun long ago, he thought, remembering all the wasteful violence and death he’d seen these past few months.

Taylor took a deep breath and nodded to Hastings.

“Form your troops,

Johnnie. I have new orders for them.”

Five minutes later, Kloof trotted up to see two soldiers carrying Reitz away, and A Company formed by platoons near its armored personnel carriers. Paramedics from neighboring hospitals were already moving slowly through heaped bodies outside the stadium-sorting the dead from the wounded and those who might live from those who would surely die.

He ran the last twenty meters to where Taylor waited.

“Good God, Major!

What’s happened to the colonel?”

It was the first time Taylor had ever seen the younger Afrikaner officer forget to salute.

The major nodded to Hastings, who silently walked away toward his waiting troops. Guiding Kloof by holding his upper arm, Taylor moved in the opposite direction.

“Unfortunately, Captain, Colonel Reitz was killed while attempting to commit murder.”

Kloof drew back in shock, able only to exclaim, “What?” and stare at him.

Taylor put steel into his voice. It was essential that this Afrikaner hear no sign of weakness or fear.

“Reitz ordered our troops to continue firing at the protestors after they had dispersed. I countermanded his illegal order, and when he attempted to murder Captain Hastings and myself, I was forced to shoot him in self-defense.”

Kloof ‘s eyes flicked down to the now-holstered pistol, and then up to meet Taylor’s steady gaze.

“Major, there is nothing illegal about shooting protestors who try to resist arrest by running.” The Afrikaner’s eyes narrowed.

“I heard the colonel talking to you earlier. And I know that he ordered my company here because he did not trust Hastings or his men.”

Kloof stepped closer.

“In fact, Major, I think he was going to have you and Hastings arrested, for dereliction of duty, disloyalty, or both.

“Therefore, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Colonel

Reitz.” The captain started to reach for his sidearm, but paused when he saw Taylor slowly shake his head. He frowned and pulled the pistol from its holster. His frown grew deeper as Taylor stood motionless, apparently unconcerned.

The major merely looked over his shoulder, nodded briefly, and said, “I think not, Captain. I suggest that you drop your weapon and turn around slowly. Very slowly.”

Kloof heard several metallic clicks behind him. He paled. He’d heard that sound nearly every day of his professional life. It was the sound of safeties being released.

He let his pistol fall from nerveless fingers and turned to see half a dozen rifles aimed at his stomach, all held by men of A Company.

The Afrikaner licked lips gone suddenly dry.

“Is this a firing squad,

Major?”

Taylor shook his head, almost amused. He didn’t doubt

that it would have been a firing squad if the Afrikaner captain had held the upper hand instead.

“Just a guard detail. We’re making a few changes,

Andries. You and some of your like thinking friends are going to jail. And we’re letting the elected officials of this city out to form a new government.”

“What? That bunch of traitors?”

“Yes, Captain Kloof, that’s right. That bunch of ‘traitors’ and my bunch of ‘traitors’ and a lot of other ‘traitors’ are going to bring this country back to some semblance of sanity, starting with Cape Town.”

Motioning to the guards, Taylor said, “Get him out of hem. ”

As Kloof was led away, Taylor ordered Hastings and his platoon leaders to bring C Company over, one platoon at a time. They would either join the rebel force or be detained. He was sure of two of C Company’s junior officers, and the third might side with them as well.

Then, with two rifle companies firmly in hand, they’d see how many others in the city’s military garrison and police force would join them to throw off Pretoria’s dictatorial control.

Sighing, he looked at his watch. It was already one-thirty in the afternoon, and he had a lot to do before dusk.

STATE
SECURITY
COUNCIL
CHAMBER
,
PRETORIA

Messengers kept bringing in new reports from Cape Town, none of it good.

Radio stations off the air. Contact lost with the international airport.

Telephone lines down. It was always news of some strand’s being cut, some part of the fabric of government lost to their control.

The room was filled with government officials and military and police officers. Maps of Cape Town and Cape Province hung on the wall, and colored circles showed the known extent of the revolt. Vorster and his civilian ministers sat at one end of the table, while military aides under General de Wet’s somewhat confused direction tried to manage the few forces still under their control.

It was clear those forces were shrinking fast. Only one battalion, the 16th Infantry, had officially mutinied, but reports from the two other battalion commanders near Cape Town indicated that their units were not “completely reliable. ” Commandos had formed in the city and the surrounding townships, and many were siding with the mutineers.

Government strength seemed to be coalescing around Table Mountain, the three-thousand-foot high escarpment dominating the city skyline and the southern Cape Peninsula. Honeycombed with caves and bunkers, it had been always been designated as the final defensive position for South African forces holding Cape Town. Now infantry companies and fragments of infantry companies were reported regrouping atop the mountain.

Marius van der Heijden found himself clasping his hands as though in prayer as he listened to the steady stream of bad news streaming in and forced himself to pry them apart. He glanced toward the end of the table where Karl Vorster sat white-faced and immobile. His eyes, once so impressively cold and clear, were now shadowed and rimmed with red from too many sleepless nights.