Vortex (39 page)

“Calm down now, meneer. We’ll have a patrol on the way up there in minutes. Just stay in your house and don’t get in the way. We’ll deal with those blacks for you.”

“Yes, yes, I will stay inside. Hurry, please.” Uys hung up and stepped back from the phone, hands held away from his sides.

“That was very good, Mr. Uys. Very good, indeed. You’ve been most cooperative.”

The Afrikaner farmer looked up into the sardonic eyes of the tall, muscled Zulu leaning negligently against his kitchen countertop.

“You will not harm us then … as you promised?”

The Zulu smiled wryly and shook his head.

“Of course not. We do not make war on women, children, or old men. We leave that to your government.”

The black man stood up straight, suddenly seeming even taller.

“But the police are another matter entirely. They are fair game.”

He stroked the R4 assault rifle cradled in his hands.

“A beautiful weapon, Mr. Uys. Another reason we owe you our thanks. It will make our task this morning much easier.”

Uys’s leathery, weather-worn face crumpled. He’d been issued the rifle as a member of the neighborhood Commando-one of South

Africa’s paramiliuuy home-guard units. And commandos were supposed to kill antigovernment guerrillas, not arm them. He’d failed his nation and failed his people.

the Zulu leader watched him sob for a moment and then turned away, disgusted. He looked at the younger black man standing close to Uys’s moaning, panic-stricken wife.

“Watch them closely, but do not hurt them.

You know when to leave?”

The younger man nodded, eyes bright and excited.

“Good. Mayibuye Afrika!” The older Zulu raised his new assault rifle high in a salute and strode out of the farmhouse toward the rest of his waiting men.

White South Africa was about to learn that not all Zulus had forgotten their warrior past.

NATAL
POLICE
PATROL
,
NEAR
RICHARDS
BAY

Blue light flashing, the police squad car turned off the highway to the left, bumping over gravel and loose dirt onto an unpaved track leading to the Uys family steading.

Four uniformed officers of the South African police crowded the car-two in back and two in front. All were middle-aged reservists called back to duty when the younger men went north to join the police and Army sweeps through black townships.

“Ag, man, I tell you, there’s been some blery heavy fighting up there in the Namib. 1,ots of boys won’t be coming home. That’s what I’m hearing anyway.” The driver kept his eyes on the road, but his mind was on the argument they’d been having off and on since leaving the station that morning.

One of the two men in back snorted.

“And I say that’s just defeatist bullshit, Manic. I read the papers, man, and I’ve seen nothing about heavy casualties.”

“No surprise there, man! You think they’re going to print everything that happens? Just so some communist spy can read it with his morning post?”

The driver smiled as his

sarcasm drew chuckles. He glanced over his shoulder at a beet-red face.

“They’re tossing big shells back and forth up there, Hugo. And I know what that’s like. I was in Angola back in ‘75 when those verdomde Cubans started pouring one hundred twenty-two millimeter shells in on our poor heads like they was raindrops. I said to myself, I said, Manic… A barrage of groans drowned out the driver’s thousandth recitation of his heroic wartime exploits.

The squad car bounced and rolled over ruts left by the heavy trucks that carried Piet Uys’s wool to market and his unneeded sheep to the slaughterhouse.

The youngest of the four men squirmed uncomfortably in the front seat.

“How much farther to this place anyway? I’ve got to take a piss like you wouldn’t believe.”

The driver laughed.

“I’m not surprised, man. You must have drunk ten cups of coffee with your lunch. Don’t you know all that caffeine’s bad for you?

It will kill you someday. Shit!”

He slammed on the brakes and fought for control as the squad car fishtailed to a bone-jarring stop amid a yellow-gray cloud of dust and thrown gravel.

Rocks spanged off the cab of the large, open-topped truck blocking the road.

“Christ! Those damned blacks could have killed us with that stunt!” The driver sounded personally aggrieved at the thought that anyone would wish him harm.

“Get out and see if they’ve left the keys in the cab, Hugo.

Otherwise we have to go around.”

The beefy policeman in back nodded and reached for the squad car’s door handle. He never finished the movement.

Bullets shattered the front windshield and punched in through the car’s thin metal sides-tearing through flesh and ricocheting off bone before tumbling off end over end into thin air. Three of the four South African policemen died instantly. The fourth lived just long enough to claw futilely for his holstered pistol before sliding slowly down the bloodsoaked seat.

Thirty meters up the hillside, the Zulu leader rose from his crouch, already replacing the half-used clip in his assault rifle with practiced hands. He turned to the small group of men hiding beside him.

“Take all their weapons and ammunition. And look for a portable radio set. We will need it all before we are done. ”

He watched in silence as they raced down the hill toward the bullet-riddled police car. The assault rifles, shotguns, and pistols carried by the dead policemen would more than double the firepower at his disposal. Better still, the news of this bold deed would spread, drawing more young men from the kraals and city streets to his side-and to the cause of his exiled chief.

He smiled. After more than a century of uneasy peace, the Zulu war regiments, the imp is were once again on the march.

SEPTEMBER
6-
MINISTRY
OF
LAW
AND
ORDER
,

PRETORIA

Brig. Franz Diederichs sat at attention in front of Marius van der

Heijden. A general in the Security Branch of the South African Police,

Diederichs was a short, wiry man whose narrow face was dominated by a pair of cold blue eyes and a cruel, thin-lipped mouth. It was a face that reflected its owner’s character and temperament.

“You understand the importance of this assignment, Franz?”

Diederichs nodded once.

“Yes, Minister.”

Van der Heijden ignored him. In his view, subordinates were, by definition, incapable of fully understanding anything they hadn’t heard at least twice.

“The President’s decision to give this ministry direct control over KwaZulu reflects his personal confidence in our ability to get the job done. Nothing must shake that confidence, understood?”

Diederichs nodded again, carefully concealing his impatience. Both van der Heijden’s mannerisms and his ambitions were well-known to those who worked for him.

“Good.” The deputy minister of law and order laced his fingers across a prominent paunch.

“Then you will also understand my insistence that this ‘insurrection’ —he sniffed

contemptuously, as though that were too significant a term for what was happening in Natal—be smashed as quickly as possible.”

Diederichs leaned forward.

“Will I be able to call on additional police units or troops, Minister?”

Van der Heijden shook his head.

“No. Manpower is too scarce at the moment. Every trained man is needed for service on the Namibian front or to help maintain order in the townships. You must work with what you have. You must use terror, Franz!” He pounded his desk once and pointed a plump finger in Diederichs’s direction.

“Terror must swell your ranks!”

His outstretched finger swiveled and came to rest, aimed now at the portrait of Karl Vorster hung prominently on the far wall.

“The President himself agrees with this precept. In his own words, Brigadier. In his own words! He has said that he wants one hundred dead Zulus as payment for every policeman they have so foully murdered. Ten kraals are to be wiped from the face of the earth for every white farm they dare to attack!

Blood must answer for blood! And fire for fire! Show no mercy toward these traitorous blacks, Franz.” Van der Heijden paused, breathing hard.

“End their cowardly ambushes. Root them out. And then kill them!”

For the first time since entering the room, Diederichs allowed himself a single, short smile.

SEPTEMBER
7-
CNN
HEADLINE
NEWS

The dramatic images from Namibia occupied center stage during CNN’s hourly news recap. “in a visit designed to show the depth of Cuba’s support for

Namibia, Cuban president Fidel Castro today landed in Walvis Bay on a whirlwind tout of the war zone. ” A smiling, cigar-chomping Castro seemed perfectly at home in a sea of military uniforms. His apparent vigor contradicted persistent rumors of ill health, though the bushy, once-brown beard had gone almost completely gray.

The video image showed Castro, with Vega at his side, touring the captured South African port. Several Cubanflagged merchant ships could be seen behind them hurriedly off-loading tanks, planes, and artillery onto Walvis Bay’s long piers. Antiaircraft units and
SAM
batteries guarded against South African air attack.

The view shifted to show troops in fortifications outside the town, cheering wildly as Castro and his general appeared.

The footage ended with a close-up shot of a jubilant Fidel Castro pumping his clenched fist in the air in triumph.

Castro’s elated image vanished and CNN’s hightech Atlanta studio reappeared.

“In other news from overseas, India’s foreign minister again insisted that Pakistan abandon its covert support for… ”

FORWARD
HEADQUARTERS
,
CUBAN
EXPEDITIONARY

FORCE
,
THE
STRAND
HOTEL
,
SWAKOPMUND
,
NAMIBIA

Night had fallen across the Namibian coast.

Thirty kilometers north of Walvis Bay’s ship-choked anchorage, high-ranking Cuban officers again filled the Strand Hotel’s formal dining room. Candlelight gleamed off polished silverware, fine crystal, and shoulder boards crowded with stars. Black waiters and busboys moved from table to table, for once plainly happy in their work. The Strand’s white managers and wine stewards were not happy. They clustered near the kitchen entrance, sour faced and carefully supervised by armed guards.

Outside, the Atlantic surf boomed, sending the hissing, foam-flecked remnants of waves surging onto Swakopmund’s sandy beaches. The infantry squads dug in above the high water mark were all alert-their machine guns, mortars, and other heavy weapons manned and ready. Searchlights mounted on T-62 tanks parked hull-down among the dunes probed out to sea, stabbing through the darkness at precise, timed intervals.

Inside, the assembled officers ate, gossiped, toasted one another, and covertly eyed the two men who sat alone at the head table.

Gen. Antonio Vega toyed with his pastry dish, conscious that Cuba’s president and absolute ruler ate with lip-smacking gusto beside him. He frowned slightly at the sugary and fruit filled concoction. He’d always preferred plainer fare, soldier’s fare-rice and beans, sometimes mixed with a little beef or chicken. Food that satisfied hunger without leaving one lolling about in an overfed stupor. The kind of food you could get in

Cuba-at home.

His leader’s tastes were quite different, and Vega knew better than to try imposing his own culinary views on Fidel Castro. Particularly not when he was about to urge that communist Cuba undertake one of the largest political, military, and strategic gambles in its short history.

Vega sipped his wine, studying the crowded dining room over the rim of his glass. It was an astonishing sight. There were probably more senior

Cuban military men concentrated here in this tiny hotel on Africa’s most desolate coast than there were left in all of Havana.

So many men in fact that the Strand Hotel had been hardpressed to accommodate them all. Vega had gladly turned his quarters over to Castro, but their two staffs had engaged in a very careful assessment of relative ranks before the remaining rooms could be assigned. In the end, several of Swakopmund’s wealthiest burghers had been turned out of their homes to make room for some of the junior officers.

This evening’s dinner had been served in shifts, with the lowest-ranking officers and staff members eating quickly and early, so that the two principals and their higher aides could eat at a fashionable hour, before moving on to the important business at hand.

Important business, indeed, Vega thought, keeping a tight rein on his expression. Castro and his entourage must see only the outer man-calm, cool, collected, and thoroughly professional. The storm of mingled emotions-excitement, nervousness, and joy-that ebbed and flowed inside him had to stay hidden. Marxist-Leninism was a scientific faith, and its true believers were supposed to remain unswayed by sentiment, personal ambition, or petty hatreds.

“Excellent, Antonio. A fitting conclusion to a glorious day.” Castro pushed his empty plate aside and absentmindedly combed his fingers through his beard, brushing away small crumbs and flakes of pastry crust.

Vega lowered the wineglass and inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment.

Castro bent his own head for a moment, puffing one of his trademark cigars alight. Then he looked up, shrewd eyes fixed on Vega’s face.

“You may begin the briefing, General. Medals and propaganda films have their own time and place, but now we must contemplate the next steps in this war. And as the saying goes, the wise man makes sure his shoes are tied before setting out on any journey. ”

Vega smiled. As always, Castro knew how to get to the heart of the matter.

Vega nodded to one of his hovering staff officers, who in turn motioned to the cadre of young lieutenants stationed at the door.