Vortex (65 page)

Ian felt Emily stir and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, cautioning her to stay out of it. This was his fight.

He looked steadily into Kruger’s eyes.

“There’s no reason you should,

Kommandant. No reason at all. ” He heard Emily gasp softly in surprise and distress.

“Matt and I will take our chances on our own. But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll keep Emily safe or get her out of the country.”

He pressed on, anger making his voice harsher, rougher.

“And if I ever hear that you’ve broken your word or hurt her, I’ll come after you myself. Is that clear enough, Kommandant?” He stopped talking, afraid that he might have gone too far and endangered even Emily.

But then slowly, almost imperceptibly, a tight, thin smile appeared on

Kruger’s sun-browned face-spreading from his firm mouth to the crow’s-feet around his steel-gray eyes.

“You make yourself very clear,

Meneer Sheffield.

The South African officer offered his hand.

“And you can all count on my help.” He shook his head, amused at some

private joke.

“God help me, but I must have a weakness for romantic idiots.

”

Ian shook his outstretched hand-an action imitated, after a brief hesitation, by Matthew Sibena.

“Now what?”

Kruger helped Emily climb over the wall and stepped back, allowing them to cross as well. He laid a hand on the Land Rover’s open door and smiled again.

“Now, meneer, we make arrangements for the three of you to hide someplace where Vorster’s police and spies will never think to look.”

“And just where would that happen to be, sir?”

Kruger’s smile blossomed into a full-fledged grin.

“Why, inside South

Africa’s largest military base, my friend. Where else?”

NOVEMBER
12-
SUPPLY
BASE
FIVE
, IN
THE
HILLS
NEAR
PESSENE
,
GAZA

PROVINCE
,

MOZAMBIQUE

The corpses were laid out in a neat, orderly row. Even their clothes had been straightened, but nobody could rearrange the bodies where they’d been torn apart. Each bore several bullet wounds in the chest or face.

Maj. Jorge de Sousa had seen bodies before-hundreds, it seemed. Like these, most of the dead had been simple, unarmed Mozambican peasants, but these villagers hadn’t been shot by Renamo guerrillas. They’d been gunned down by socalled allies” guarding a Cuban supply depot.

There were a dozen such depots, each carefully hidden among the low, brush-choked hills surrounding Pessene. Each supply dump held a sizable fraction of the food, fuel, and ammunition needed to support the Cuban tanks, motorized rifle troops, and artillery moved into Mozambique over the past four weeks.

Each was guarded by a platoon or more of soldiers, a mixed

unit of Cubans and Libyans stationed together to foster “fraternal socialist awareness.” Or so their political officers had claimed. Well, de Sousa thought coldly, these troops certainly didn’t look fraternal. They stood clumped in distinct national groupings while he and Lieutenant Kofi inspected their victims.

There were five bodies-two men, two women, and a teenage boy. All were pathetically thin, almost skeletal, dressed in rags that passed for clothing. They’d been shot for trying to steal a fifty-kilo sack of rice.

The rice bag, no different from hundreds of others piled high throughout the supply dump, lay nearby, also displayed as evidence. Apparently it had taken all five of them just to pick it up and carry it, a sign of their weakened condition.

The Cuban lieutenant in charge of this detail explained in Spanishaccented

Portuguese, “We heard a noise last night and fired a flare. Then we saw these thieves trying to make off with the rice, so we arrested them. And then we shot them.” Smiling, he motioned toward the row of corpses, slowly lowering his arm when he saw no praise forthcoming from de Sousa.

The Mozambican major turned on his heel and walked over to the Libyans.

Their uniforms were the same dark khaki color, but had a different cut, and they wore billed caps instead of the soft, floppy “sun hats” of the Cubans.

Both groups were armed with AK-47 assault rifles.

Their apparent leader, if de Sousa understood the Libyan’s rank insignia, was a sergeant whose dark-skinned face seemed locked in a perpetual scowl.

Without saying anything he looked the major up and down as he approached.

Finally, prompted by a glare from the Mozambican officer, the Libyan reluctantly came to attention and tossed off a salute that was almost grounds for a charge of insubordination.

De Sousa tried Portuguese, then English, even Tsonga, without getting any intelligible response. As a Moslem from one of Mozambique’s northern provinces, Kofi had more luck with his Tsonga-accented Arabic. The sergeant gave slow responses to the lieutenant’s questions.

Kofi turned to de Sousa.

“He says they have orders to execute anyone who tries to steal from the supply dumps, Major. ”

De Sousa sighed wearily. His orders had been to guard the dumps, using force only if necessary. Someone else had obviously amplified those orders considerably.

When he’d been made responsible for the security of these supply dumps, he’d thought he would be protecting them from Renamo attacks-not from his own countrymen. But the guerrillas had stayed clear, scared off by each depot’s defenses. Instead, starving villagers had flocked to the area -drawn by rumors of vast stockpiles of foodstuffs.

Everyone in Mozambique was starving. If you chased peasants away, twice as many would return. If you arrested them, you’d have to feed them with food you didn’t have, or dip into the supplies you were supposed to protect. And if you used up these supplies, the Cuban column slated to attack South

Africa from Mozambique might not be able to reach its objectives.

It was what an American would call a catch-22, de Sousa thought. Then he shrugged. Americans always thought every problem had to have a solution. As a Mozambican, he knew that wasn’t true.

The men in Maputo had thrown in their lot with Cuba’s grand strategic gamble. And that meant that almost every truck, every railroad car, and every cargo plane coming into their country carried military supplies-not foodstuffs for civilian consumption. Until the Cubans completed their logistical buildup and launched their attack, Mozambique’s peasants would suffer.

De Sousa ordered the bullet-riddled bodies returned to their nearby village for burial, knowing only too well that the Cuban and Libyan guards would probably just dump them out in the brush, somewhere out of sight and smell.

This massacre was the third such incident. De Sousa hoped it would be the last, but doubted it. He could only hope Vega’s planned offensive would start soon, not only so that the South Africans would be defeated, but also so that starving peasants wouldn’t have these sources of fatal temptation dangling in front of their faces.

His eyes wandered over row after row of stockpiled rations, fuel drums, boxes of small-arms ammunition, and stacks of shells. The Cuban Brigade

Tactical Group concealed in the surrounding hills had to be almost ready to move. His friends in Maputo told him that the flow of Soviet ships and cargo planes had slowed to a trickle. And inspection visits by high ranking officers had dramatically increased-all sure signs of impending action.

Good, he thought, returning the guard detachment’s careless salute, the sooner these “socialist brothers” of ours are busy killing Afrikaners, the sooner we will have our country back. Nevertheless, as he climbed into his jeep for the long ride back to headquarters, de Sousa couldn’t help wondering if this Cuban “cure” wouldn’t turn out to be just as bad as the South African “disease.”

CNN
HEADLINE
NEWS

The satellite feed from Windhoek had all the elements of good television news: a sweeping analysis of the military situation in Namibia by a veteran reporter, the panoramic backdrop of a war-menaced city, and even the grim image of a T-62 tank parked in full view. Millions of viewers around the world were being given a real-time glimpse of what a commentator had already called “one of the century’s most bizarre military conflicts.”

Clad in a belted khaki field jacket with his press credentials prominently displayed, the
CNN
correspondent looked almost more like a soldier than did the openly curious Cuban tank crewmen perched atop the

T-62’s turret and rear deck.

“After weeks of comparative openness in its dealings with the Western news media, Castro’s army has begun cracking down. Security at Namibia’s busy ports and airfields has been increased.

All front line passes for journalists have been revoked. And the commander of this growing army, Gen. Antonio Vega, has dropped completely out of public view. Sources close to the Namibian government report the general is now at his forward field headquarters-somewhere in the mountains outside this capital city.”

“The reporter pointed toward the Soviet-made tank behind him.

“Other sources report seeing large columns of armored vehicles like this T-62 rolling south on Namibia’s highways or parked in heavily defended staging areas. And everyone in Windhoek has grown used to hearing the constant, day and-night roar of massive Soviet cargo planes ferrying still more men and equipment into this small African nation.”

He faced the camera squarely.

“One thing seems clear: the preparations for Cuba’s long-expected counteroffensive are in their final stages.

Though only Fidel Castro and his generals know the precise day or hour, no one can doubt that their soldiers will soon strike south, trying to drive South Africa out of this battered and bleeding country.”

Vega’s elaborate deception plan was working. The Western news media, like

South Africa’s intelligence services, were seeing exactly what they expected to see.

STAGING
AREA
ONE
,
NEAR
BRAKWATER
,
NAMBIA

Staging Area One lay nestled in a broad valley between barren, boulder-strewn hills. Empty cornfields stretched to either side, abandoned by their owners under orders from Cuban security troops. Only a few scrub trees dotted the low hills, each blasted by the heat, and shade was something to think about, not to find. The main highway connecting

Windhoek with Angola ran right past the camp.

A barbed-wire fence two meters high encircled the entire compound, pierced only by one gate where it crossed a side road connecting with the highway. Rows of tents and vehicles were visible beyond the fence.

Col. Josd Suarez, chief of staff of the Cuban Expeditionary Force, strode slowly through the staging area trailed by an array of nervous officers.

He was so tired that he almost had to force himself to take each new step.

He’d been up since five, with only a few hours’ sleep the

night before. Managing the Namibian campaign in Vega’s absence, even while holding along a relatively static front, was more than exhausting.

Battlefield and intelligence reports. Staff conferences. Decision after decision. And inspection tours such as this one. They all drained a man of energy continuously-giving him no chance for any real rest.

Suarez frowned. If this was how he felt after just a week in temporary command, he didn’t see how Vega managed his own, much greater, responsibilities. Where did the older man find such a seemingly inexhaustible source of personal energy? He shook his head, realizing he’d probably never find out. The general, like most good commanders, kept a large part of his inner self unknown and unknowable-even to his closest friends and subordinates.

In the meantime Suarez reminded himself, he had his own work to do. He straightened up, concentrating on his inspection.

The equipment park sprawled over several acres. Row after row of long, angular sand-colored shapes sat motionless, their appearance deceptively real even at this distance. Suarez actually smiled, his mood lightened by seeing such a successful ploy.

He walked closer to inspect what appeared to be a BTR60 armored personnel carrier. It had the right shape and dimensions, but a rap of his knuckles revealed a fiberglass shell instead of an armored hull. Though the decoy lacked brackets and hatches and vision blocks, from a hundred meters away it was arguably a BTR-60.

Its eight wheels were actually painted cement cylinders, designed to keep the rest of the decoy from blowing away in the valley’s ever-present wind.

Suarez continued, striding past rows of fiberglass APCs, T-62 tanks, artillery pieces, and even trucks, all made of fiberglass in local factories. Brought in at night in threes and fours, American intelligence satellites and South African reconnaissance planes recorded what appeared to be a slow and steady buildup of troops and armor just north of Windhoek.

Six other phony staging areas, along with two real ones, cluttered the mountain valleys around Namibia’s capital. Security for all of them was as tight as he could make it with the limited resources at his disposal. The reason for that was obvious. If the South

Africans ever learned that Cuba’s buildup inside Namibia was one part reality to three parts charade, they’d start asking themselves hard questions about where all those tanks, troops, and guns really were.

And that would be disastrous.

Suarez hoped his political masters would make up their minds soon. Every day they delayed gave their enemies more time to realize just how badly they’d been fooled.

NATIONAL
SECURITY
COMMAND
BUNKER
,
OUTSIDE
HAVANA
,
CUBA

DC1 Intelligence Estimate Southern Africa #846 (Revised)

Most Secret

Summary: The open rebellion in South Africa’s own armed forces, combined with the reactionary government’s ongoing and inevitable political disintegration, offers Cuba and its socialist allies a correlation of forces more favorable than at any other time in recent history. In addition, all available information confirms the complete success of our efforts to deceive the enemy’s military intelligence apparatus…. Fidel Castro flipped from page to page, skimming rapidly through the report prepared by his spy service, squinting in the harsh glare of overhead fluorescent lights. Its conclusions mirrored his own deeply held beliefs.