Vortex (25 page)

“Yes, Robey?”

“What about artillery support, sir? Do we have any guns on call?”

Kruger shook his head.

“Not deployed. With luck, we’ll be pushing ahead too fast. But there’ll be two batteries of SP guns attached to the column behind us. So if we run into any real opposition, we’ll be able to give the

Swapos a few one fifty-five millimeter shells for their pains.”

More laughter, this time less forced.

A sudden howling, thrumming roar drowned their laughter, grew louder still, and then faded as fast as it had come. Startled, several officers cast frightened glances up toward the tent’s low canvas ceiling and then looked sheepish as they made sense of the noise. The battalion had just been overflown by several large aircraft. Aircraft flying westward into Namibia.

Kruger checked his watch. Nimrod was on schedule. He stood straighter.

“Very well, gentlemen. That’s our cue. You may put your companies on the road. Good luck to you all. ”

The tent flap be flied open briefly and sagged back as his officers ran toward their waiting commands.

A
COMPANY
, 2ND
BATTALION
, 44TH
PARACHUTE

BRIGADE
,
OVER
NAMIBIA

The ride was much rougher this time, even though they weren’t flying as low as they had been on the Gawamba raid. There was a reason for that. Air Force manuals said that the big C-160 Transall troop carriers exhibited “poor gust response,” which was an aerudynamic way of saying that turbulence at low altitude made the plane bump and shudder like a truck on a rutted road.

Capt. Rolf Bekker found himself yawning uncontrollably -a yawn that nearly made him bite through his tongue as the Transall bucked upward, caught in yet another air current rising off Namibia’s rugged hills. He forced his mouth shut and frowned. They’d already suffered through two hours of this jarring ride since taking off from the staging airfield near Bloemfontein. How much farther did they have to go, for Christ’s sake?

He shook his head wearily. Fatigue must be muzzling his ability to think.

He knew precisely how much longer they had to fly before reaching the target. And he knew exactly how long it had been since he’d had a decent hour’s sleep.

Bekker was enough of a soldier not to complain about the hour set for their drop, but a dawn landing meant a midnight assembly for a four

A.M.

takeoff. The hectic preparations had been structured to allow him six hours sleep, but last-minute crises and changes had robbed him of all but a brief nap. There was certainly no way he could sleep on this plane, not with its washboard ride on a hard metal seat.

So, Bekker thought, I will start the biggest military operation in my career tired and short on sleep. When he was tired, he got irritable-not entirely a bad thing.

He only wished he had a better view of the ground below. Bekker preferred going into combat in helicopters-at least their open doors usually gave the troops a chance to get oriented before touchdown. Now, though, he had just a single window to look out of, a window about as clear as the bottom of a beer bottle. He and his men would have to jump trusting that the Transall’s pilot could see the drop zone, and trusting in his ability to put them in it.

Bekkcr wriggled around, straining against the seat straps to took out the window. Nothing but dark sky, paling faintly to gray behind them. He couldn’t even see the rest of the battalion, spread out in five other aircraft.

There were supposed to be other planes in the air as, well-Impala 11 ground attack aircraft to provide close air support, and Mirage jet fighters supplying top cover. None were visible through the dirt-streaked window. Nothing but the huge spinning blades of the Transall’s portside turboprop.

Bekker pulled his eyes away from the empty window and scanned the rows of fold-down metal seats lining either side of the plane’s crowded troop compartment. Just over eighty men sat silently, slept, talked, or read as they waited to risk

their lives. He and his troops were dressed in heavy coveralls and padded helmets-gear designed to help absorb some of the shock generated by slamming into the ground at up to twenty-five kilometers an hour. Parachutes increased the bulk of their weapons and packs. They only carried one chute each. At this attitude, there wouldn’t be time for a reserve chute if the first one failed.

The eighty men in this plane represented just half his company. The rest, led by his senior lieutenant, were on another cargo plane-nearby, he hoped.

They’d better be. He’d need every available man to accomplish his mission.

He sighed. At least with a low-altitude drop and static lines, all the troops jumping from this Transall should come down close together. And the

Namibians would be totally surprised.

A bell sounded and a red light over the door came on. The jumpmaster waiting near the door straightened. Holding up his right hand with the fingers extended, he shouted, “Five minutes!”

At last. Bekker hit the strap release and rose from his seat.

“Stand and hook up!”

His men hurried to comply, hurriedly slinging the weapons they’d been checking or stuffing books into already bulging pockets. As they stood, the floor of the plane tilted back sharply as it pulled into a steep climb from a “cruising” altitude of one hundred fifty meters up to three hundred the minimum safe altitude for a static line drop. The engine noise changed, too, building from a loud, humming drone to a teeth-rattling bass roar as the loaded plane clawed for altitude.

Bekker was sitting in the front of the cargo compartment, near the nose. As his men hooked up, he walked rearward, looking over the two files of paratroopers, one standing on each side of the plane. He inspected each static line to make sure it was properly routed, then swept his eyes over the rest of their equipment-personal weapons, grenades, radiosatl the material they’d need to survive once on the ground and in contact with the enemy.

From time to time he stopped to clap a shoulder or to exchange a quick joke, but mostly he moved aft in silence. These men were all combat veterans, and they were as ready as he could make them. With little time to spare, he came to the head of the lines of waiting men. He turned and stood facing the closed portside door. On the opposite side of the cabin, Sergeant Roost took his position by the starboard door.

Bekker hooked his own static line onto the rail and watched closely as his radioman, Corporal de Vries, checked it and his other equipment. The shorter man mouthed an “Okay” and gave him the thumbs-up.

The final seconds seemed to take hours.

As the Transall leveled out, its engine noise dropped from a roar, down past the previous drone to a steady low hum. Bekker knew the pilot was throttling down to minimum speed, trying to reduce the rush of air past the aircraft. At the same time, the jumpmaster prepared the two side doors, one after the other.

Swinging inside and back, the opening door let in bone chilling cold air and the roar of laboring engines. Bekker had to steady himself against the buffeting as the air roared in.

The jumpmaster nodded, and the captain swung forward to stand in the opening, hands gripping the door’s edge on either side.

Bekker looked out and down on a brown and hilly landscape. One dry riverbed to the south was marked by a dotted pale-green line of stunted trees and brush. Rocky hills rose farther to the southeast, with a single road paralleling them to one side, leading straight to their target,

Keetmanshoop.

The town of Keetmanshoop had no industry. There weren’t any diamond or uranium mines nearby, and only enough farms to feed the local population of some fifteen thousand souls. But Keetmanshoop was worth its weight in gold to the South African invasion force.

From his perch, Bekker could see the town laid out in a precise, right-angled grid below him. Columns of smoke from burning buildings showed where Air Force Impalas had bombed and strafed identified Namibian army barracks and

command centers just moments before. He could also see what did make

Keetmanshoop so valuable-the meta led two lane roads leading to it like a spiderweb, and the rail lines arcing out to the east, north, and south.

And most important of all, the airport.

Just a single two-thousand-foot strip, it was the logistical anchor on which Operation Nimrod rested. Without that small runway, South Africa wouldn’t be able to move men and supplies into Namibia quickly enough to sustain its offensive. With it, they could just squeak by.

One small burden disappeared as he scanned the runway. The field seemed undamaged, and there weren’t any Namibian military aircraft parked on the tarmac. Even better, he couldn’t see any fire rising from the two or three sandbagged antiaircraft positions clustered around the airport’s small redbrick terminal.

The bell rang again, and the light over the cargo door flashed from red to green. The Jumpmaster slapped his shoulder. Now!

First in line, without thinking or feeling, Bekker simply stepped out the open door and into space. A blast of cold air punched into his lungs. He dropped earthward in a split second of gut-wrenching free-fall before he felt the static line tug.

The parachute streamered out of its pack and snapped open-slamming him painfully against his harness in sudden deceleration. He glanced up and saw the billowing, sand colored canopy that meant he could add another successful jump to his logbook. Now high overhead, the huge Transall lumbered on, still spewing out men and weapons canisters. Other transports followed, each laying its own drifting trail of slowly failing parachutes.

Bekker looked down and felt adrenaline surging through his veins. Fifty meters. Thirty. Twenty. This was what he lived for-being in the front of the assault wave, leading the attack.

The ground rushed up to meet him, and he bent his legs and rolled as he hit.

CUBAN
EMBASSY
,
RUA
KARL
MAM
LUANDA
,

ANGOLA

The sun, rising in a cloudless early-mo ming sky, bathed Luanda’s government ministries, shops, and dense-packed shanties in a pitilessly clear light-revealing layers of dirt and spray-painted political slogans coating once-whitewashed walls. The capital city of the People’s Republic of Angola had grown shabbier with each passing year of bloody civil war and Marxist central planning.

Luanda’s government offices were still shut, their outer doors padlocked and windows dark. The bureaucratic workday never began till long after sunup.

Angola’s socialist ally and military protector evidently had a somewhat different attitude toward time. Lights were already winking on all across the fortified Cuban embassy compound on Rua Karl Marx-Karl Marx Street.

Gen. Antonio Vega was still dressing when Corporal Gomez knocked on the door and without waiting burst into the room.

“Comrade General, our embassy in Windhoek is on the phone. They’re saying that someone just attacked the city with aircraft! The Vega a tall, slender man with a stern, narrow face and gray-streaked black hair, stood facing a small mirror propped up on his nightstand. At the moment, he was only half clothed one bare shoulder showing the delicate tracery of scar tissue left by fragments from an exploding mortar round. It was a scar he’d earned more than thirty years before while leading one of Fidel Castro’s guerrilla units against the old

Batista government.

Visibly annoyed at being interrupted, Vega snorted.

“What? Ridiculous.

Those idiots must be seeing things.” He continued pulling on his uniform shirt, though with slightly more speed than usual.

“It would be straining their military expertise to recognize an air raid, even if one did occur.”

Gomez blushed. Vega had a razor-sharp tongue-a tongue that matched his wits. It was said that even Castro felt the edge of the general’s icy sarcasm from time to time. The

corporal doubted that. Senior military men who angered Fidel Castro once never lived long enough to anger him a second time.

Gomez, waiting with noticeable impatience near the door, did not agree or disagree, but instead volunteered, “The ambassador was on the phone to

Windhoek when I was sent to find you, sir.”

Vega finished buttoning his shirt and grabbed his uniform coat. He strode quickly out the door, not bothering to close it or order Gomez to follow.

The corporal did both without being told and raced after him down the carpeted hall toward the embassy’s Command Center.

Cuba’s ambassador to Angola, Carlos Luiz Tejeda, stood surrounded by a small crowd of wildly gesticulating aides and officers. He had one ear pressed hard against a red telephone, trying to listen amid the increasingly frantic din.

Vega slowed to a walk.

The noise level dropped abruptly as all of the officers and most of the political aides in the Command Center stopped talking and moved to the sides of the room. The general’s contempt for unnecessary chatter was well-known.

Tejeda saw Vega and nodded gravely, but continued talking on the phone. A chair materialized near the general and he sat down.

Tejeda ended his phone conversation by asking for hourly updates and hung up. He stood silent for a moment. Then he took off his gold-rimmed glasses before wearily rubbing one hand over his face.

Vega realized with some surprise that Tejeda was unshaven and dressed only in slacks and a half-buttoned dress shirt. In all the years they’d worked together, he’d never seen the man so unkempt. The ambassador was ordinarily something of a dandy. Things must be serious.

Tejeda’s next words confirmed that.

“General, I have grave news. We now have confirmation that South African forces have invaded Namibian territory. ”

Vega sat quietly as the ambassador outlined the situation -at least as far as it could be determined from the first sketchy reports. An air raid on

Windhoek. Airborne landings in Keetmanshoop. And unconfirmed sightings of South African armored columns pouring across Namibia’s southern border.