Vortex (30 page)

Satisfied that his troops were settling in, Riekert turned his attention to the desolate, tangled landscape to the north. Ugly country to fight a war in, he thought.

“See anything?”

The sergeant shook his head.

“Not a damn thing.”

Riekert focused his binoculars on the nearest thickets of brush, panning slowly from left to right.

“Maybe they’ve gone, eh? Pulled back closer to the city.” He winced as he heard the hopeful note in his voice. He didn’t really want to fight in a pitched battle. He’d seen the statistics too many times. Junior officers died fast in close contact with the enemy. And Robey Ri&crt wanted to live.

“I doubt it, Captain.” The sergeant jerked a thumb northward.

“No birds, see? You take my word for it. Those bastards are still out there.”

“Perhaps, but…” Riekert froze. There. Outlined vaguely against dead, brown brush and tall, yellowing grass. A squat, long-hulled shape.

Oh, my God. The enemy had armor, too. He whirled to his radio operator.

“Get me the colonel. Now!”

A high-pitched, whirring scream drowned him out, arcing down out of the sky. Whammm! The ground one hundred meters below Rickert’s position suddenly erupted in smoke and flame-ripped open by an exploding shell.

The young South African officer sat stupefied for an instant. He’d never been under artillery fire before.

Whammm! Another explosion, closer this time. Rock fragments and dirt pattered down all around.

Riekert snapped out of his momentary paralysis.

“Cover! Take cover!

Incoming!”

The whole world seemed to explode as more and more shells rained in-shattering boulders and maiming men, blanketing the ridge in a boiling cloud of smoke and fire.

Capt. Robey Riekert,
SADF
, never heard the Cuban 122mm shell that landed just a meter away. And only a single bloodsoaked epaulet survived to identify him for burial.

FORWARD
COMMAND
POST
, 20TH
CAPE
RIFLES

“Damn it!” Henrik Kruger pounded his fist against the metal skin of his

Ratel as he watched the barrage pound his forward infantry positions.

“Sagger missiles, armor, and now artillery! Goddamn that stupid, bootlicking bastard de Wet! What the hell has he gotten us into?”

His staff looked carefully away, unwilling to comment on his tactless, though accurate, assessment of the SADF’s commanding general.

Kruger forced himself to calm down. Rage against his idiotic superiors could wait until later. For the moment, he had a battle to conduct and a battalion to lead.

Unfortunately, his choices were strictly limited. Tactical doctrine said to suppress enemy artillery with counter battery fire. But tactical doctrine didn’t mean squat when the nearest artillery support was still six hours away by road. And the battalion’s heavy mortars didn’t have the range to reach the enemy firing positions.

That left him with just two options: either retreat back behind the ridge, pinned in place until friendly guns could get into position; or charge into close contact with the enemy troops, making it impossible for them to use their artillery superiority for fear of hitting their own men.

Time. Everything always came down to a question of time. The longer he waited, the longer the Narnibians had to bring up reserves and fortify their positions.

Kruger thumbed the transmit switch on his mike.

“Delta

Charlie Four. Delta Charlie Four, this is Tango Oscar One. Over. ”

Hennie Mulder’s bass baritone crackled over the radio.

“Go ahead, One.”

“Are you in position?”

Mulder’s reply rumbled back.

“Sited and ready to shoot.”

Kruger nodded to himself. Good. D Company’s 81mm mortars were his only available indirect fire weapons. And Mulder’s heavy weapons crews were about to earn their combat pay for the first time in this campaign.

8TH
MOTOR
RIFLE
BATTALION
,
CUBAN
EXPEDITIONARY
FORCE

Karrumph. Karrumph. Karrumph. The first South African mortar rounds landed fifty meters in front of the thin Cuban skirmish line. Gray-white smoke spewed skyward from each impact point, More rounds followed, each salvo closer still to the soldiers and vehicles scattered across the valley. In seconds, a gray haze drifted over the line, billowing high into the air and growing steadily thicker as more and more shells slammed into the ground.

Senior Capt. Victor Mares stood close to the open side hatch of his parked BTR-60 and stared south, straining to see through the South

African smoke screen. Nothing. Nothing but the dull, dark mass of the ridge itself. Damn it.

His hand tightened around the radio handset. The smoke made his Sagger teams useless. The wire-guided missile had to fly at least three hundred meters before its operator could control it. Visibility was already down to one hundred meters or less.

He clicked the handset’s transmit button.

“All units, report in sequence!

”

Negative sighting reports crackled over his headphones, rolling in from the platoon commanders stationed left to right along his line. Nobody could see through the smoke or hear anything over the deafening noise of the mortar barrage.

Crack!

Mares jumped. That wasn’t a mortar round exploding. It was the sound made by a high-velocity cannon.

Whaamm! A
BTR
near the middle of his line blew up in a sudden, orange-red fireball, blindingly bright even through the obscuring smoke screen. Greasy black smoke from burning diesel fuel boiled into the air.

“Here they come!” Panicked shouts poured through his headphones as South

African Rooikat and Eland armored cars surged out of the smoke at high speed with all guns blazing. Three more BTRs exploded, gutted by 76 and 90mm cannon shells that tore through thin armor intended only to stop fragments. Machinegun fire raked the nearby thickets and boulder fields-slicing through brush, ricocheting off rocks, and puncturing flesh.

Cuban soldiers screamed and toppled over, some still twitching, others already dead.

Helmeted South African infantrymen were visible now, advancing in short rushes, firing assault rifles and light machine guns from the hip. Squat, boxy shapes trundled out of the concealing smoke behind them-armored person el carriers armed with machine guns and 20mm semiautomatic cannon.

Mares stood motionless, shocked by the ferocity of the South African assault. His troops were being cut to pieces right before his eyes.

A
BTR
roared past him, sand spraying from under spinning tires. Hatches left open by its disembarked and abandoned infantry squad clanged to and fro. Other vehicles followed, fleeing the carnage spreading up and down the

Cuban front line.

The 8th Motor Rifle Battalion was collapsing.

FORWARD
HEADQUARTERS
, 20TH
CAPE
RIFLES

Henrik Kruger’s Ratel command vehicle lurched abruptly as its front wheels bounced over a rock the driver hadn’t seen. He braced himself against the open turret hatch and kept scanning the steep, brush-choked slope stretching before him.

Three Ratels were moving a hundred meters out in front

-spread wide in a wedge formation. More APCs were farther ahead, already down on the valley floor and vanishing into the smoky haze. Incandescent, split-second flashes from inside the smoke screen showed where vehicles were firing. Flickering, molten-orange glows marked the smoldering funeral pyres of their victims.

A blurred, static-distorted voice crackled over the radio

Kruger took one hand off the hatch coaming to press his headset closer.

The constant din created by barking tank cannon, chattering machine guns, mortars, and screaming men made it difficult to hear-let alone think.

“Say again, Echo Four. ”

“The bastards are running, Tango Oscar One! Repeat, we have them running!” Maj. Daan Visser’s wild exhilaration came clearly over the airwaves.

“Am pursuing at full speed!”

What? Kruger suddenly felt cold. At full speed, Visser’s armored vehicles would soon outpace the rest of the battalion. And that meant his infantry companies wouldn’t have the armored support they needed. It would also leave the Rooikats; and Elands moving blind through enemy-held territory.

He squeezed the transmit switch on his mike.

“Negative, Echo Four. Wait for the infantry. Do not, repeat, do not pursue on your own!” He released the switch, listening for a reply.

He never got one.

ROOIKAT
101,
ATTACHED
RECON
SQUADRON
, 20TH
CAPE
RIFLES

Diesel engine roaring, the eight-wheeled Rooikat
AFV
bounced up and over the lip of a narrow gulley at high speed. Small trees and thorn bushes lining the gulley were either knocked aside or flattened and crushed by its big radial tires.

Maj. Daan Visser stood high in the Rooikat’s open commander’s cupola.

Dark, tinted goggles and a fluttering orange scarf protected his eyes and his mouth from the sand and acrid smoke. The long barrel of a cupola-mounted machine gun bounced and rolled beside him.

For the moment, Visser and his crew were effectively alone on the battlefield. Swirling smoke and dust had so cut visibility that the seven other Rooikats and Elands of his two troops were out of sight and out of command. And they’d left the supporting infantry far behind. From the sounds echoing through the haze, the foot sloggers were still busy mopping up scattered resistance.

Visser grinned beneath his scarf. Let Kruger’s poor, cautious sods worry about routing out every last sniper. He and his lads would show them the right way to win this war. Smash a hole in the Swapo lines, pour through, and then run the survivors into the ground. That was the road to victory.

And to glory.

Forty meters ahead, a fleeing BTR-60 blundered out of the smoke into the

Rooikat’s path.

“Gunner, target at one o’clock! ”

The AFV’s overlarge turret whined, spinning thirty degrees to the right.

“Acquired!” The gunner’s voice reflected Visser’s own exultation. Nothing was easier than shooting at people unable or unwilling to shoot back.

“Fire!” The turret lurched backward as its main gun fired, easily absorbing the sudden shock. A 76mm armor-piercing shell ripped the enemy
APC
open from end to end in a spray of white-hot fragments and fuel.

Seconds later, the Rooikat raced by the BTR’s shattered, blazing hulk, passing so close that Visser could feel the heat of the flames on his face.

Another kill. Another trophy.

Something moved in a dense patch of brush off to his left. He spun round in the open cupola, eyes searching for the enemy vehicle that would be his

Rooikat’s next victim.

It wasn’t a vehicle. Just a lone infantryman who’d risen from the tangle of thorns and tall grass in a single, fluid motion-with an RPG-7 at the ready.

Time seemed to slow.

Visser noticed something odd. The man was light skinned, not a black. The grenade-tipped muzzle of the
RPG
swung left, tracking the still-moving

Rooikat.

Oh, my God. Visser clawed frantically for the machine gun mounted next to him, ice-cold fear surging upward to

replace elation. If he could just swing the MG around in time, he’d cut the swine in half…. The foot soldier fired his
RPG
at point-blank range. Trailing flame, the 85mm rocket-propelled antitank grenade flew straight into the side of the

Rooikat’s lightly armored turret and exploded.

In a strange sense, Maj. Daan Visser was lucky to the end. The blast killed him instantly. His three crewmen weren’t so fortunate. They burned to death in the fire that swept through the Rooikat’s mangled turret and hull.

20TH
CAPE
RIFLES

Commandant Kruger looked out across a valley unloved by nature and now ravaged by man.

Burning vehicles spewing smoke dotted the battlefield some alone, others in small clusters. Bodies littered the ground near each wrecked vehicle. Brush fires set by mortar rounds and exploding fuel tanks crackled merrily, punctuated by short, sharp popping sounds as the fires swept over dead or wounded men carrying ammunition.

Medical teams roamed the valley, searching for men who could still be saved. Overcrowded ambulances were already wending their way south from the battalion aid station transporting serious cases to the evac hospital set up in Rehoboth. Some were bound to die on the sixty-kilometer trip.

Technicians and mammoth tank recovery vehicles clustered around some of the wrecks-preparing to drag away any that could be repaired. Still more quartermaster corps units crisscrossed the battlefield, collecting the individual weapons rifles machine guns, and RPGs—dropped by both sides.

Other men stumbled or were prodded toward the rear with their arms raised high in surrender. Small groups of prisoners being driven south at bayonet point. Cuban prisoners.

Kruger frowned. The presence of Cuban. motor rifle units explained the stiff resistance his men had faced, but it raised another even more troubling issue. South Africa’s intelligence services had claimed that a shortage of strategic transport would make it impossible for Cuba to interfere with Operation Nimrod. It didn’t take a genius to see that they’d been dead wrong.

The question was, how many Cubans were already in Namibia and how fast were they arriving?

Footsteps crunched on the sand behind him. He turned slowly and saw the short, stocky, grim-faced officer who’d replaced Visser.

“Well, Captain?”

The other man swallowed hard, obviously still reluctant to believe what he had to report.

“Scarcely half the squadron is ready for action. Two

Rooikats and an Eland are total write-offs. Two more need major repair.”

Kruger nodded. The casualty figures tallied precisely with his own preliminary estimate. Visser’s idiotic cavalry charge had done serious damage to the enemy, but it had also wrecked his own force. And when added to the serious losses suffered by B Company, that spelled big trouble for the 20th Cape Rifles.