Vortex (68 page)

Still, nobody was going to watch the grass grow under Sgt. Uwe Boshof’s feet. Drills were always followed by inspections. And who could tell?

This alert might even be real. Maybe the higher-ups had warning of an imminent
ANC
raid. Or maybe some farmer had spotted a rebel commando moving into the area.

Whatever. Even though nothing much was likely to happen at Komatipoort, he always believed that preparation for the worst was a wise precaution.

That was why he’d ordered his small twelve-man garrison to stand to. And that was why he’d ordered them to dig fighting positions around the border post itself.

If any of those murdering
ANC
bastards do come sniffing around here,

Boshof swore silently, they’ll feel as if they’ve tried to bite into a buzz saw. It was a promise he felt sure he could keep. Besides their R-4 assault rifles, his men had a heavy caliber Vickers machine gun, grenades, and even a hand-held 60mm patrol mortar. His garrison would be more than a match for any kaffir raiding force.

And if there were white rebels out and about recruiting, the traitorous swine would get short shrift from him. He’d spent twenty-five years in the

SADF-long enough to know how to take orders, even if they did mostly come from a pack of fools.

He yawned once. And a second time. Then his stomach growled, an unwelcome reminder they weren’t likely to eat anytime soon. Meal trucks wouldn’t make the rounds during an alert. Should he tell the boys to open some of their canned rations? Or was Battalion likely to call this whole thing off soon?

Boshof shrugged. Maybe his erstwhile superiors would tell him what the devil was going on when they bothered to get out of bed. He looked toward the guard shack, silently willing the phone to ring.

“Sergeant!”

Boshof turned toward the shout. He saw a slender, youthful figure climbing down out of a tree overlooking the border fence. As punishment for all his assorted sins and radio antics, Private Krom had spent the night in that tree, watching the Mozambican side of the frontier through a nightvision scope. Now he was scrambling down, waving one arm to attract his sergeant’s attention.

Christ on a plate, now what? He stood up and brushed the dirt off his trousers. Then he slung his assault rifle and ambled toward the border.

Krom ran to meet him.

“Sergeant! I can see vehicles on the highway! Dozens of them!”

Boshof groaned inwardly. Another pile of bullshit from the young idiot.

“Nonsense.”

“No, really, I swear it!” The younger man pointed back in the direction he’d just come from.

“I’m telling you, I could see them passing between those two hills there. Moving in convoy. They can’t be more than five klicks away.”

What? Privately, Boshof thought the young recruit was out of his tiny mind.

Still, it might be better to make absolutely sure of that before putting him up on a charge.

He focused his own binoculars on the spot Krom had indicated and grimaced.

The sun’s glare made it tough to make

anything out. If I go blind, he thought, I’ll kill the little son of a

.

His hands tightened around the binoculars. He’d just seen sunlight glinting off glass or polished metal. Krom hadn’t been hallucinating.

There were vehicles on the highway out there. Vehicles headed this way.

And that might mean trouble-big trouble. One thing was sure, Uwe Boshof hadn’t made it to sergeant by taking unnecessary chances.

He grabbed Private Krom by the arm and ordered, “Get on the phone to headquarters. Report ‘many vehicles approaching.” Go! ”

Krom nodded and ran off.

Boshof swung round and bellowed, “Listen up, boys! I want everybody down in those fucking holes! Now!”

For a split second his squad stood frozen, shocked into immobility by the sudden order.

“Move!” Boshof was already lumbering back toward his own foxhole.

His men threw their shovels and pickaxes to one side, grabbed their weapons, and dropped flat in half-dug fighting positions. Boshof followed suit seconds later.

And not a second too soon.

Crouched low, with his binoculars glued to his face, the Afrikaner sergeant heard the clattering, howling roar of twin rotors and twin gas turbine engines an instant before he saw them-a pair of helicopters darting around the side of a low hill, racing westward just over the treetops.

At first they were just oval specks, black dots against the rising sun, but they quickly grew in size and shape until he could identify them as

Soviet-made Mi-24 helicopter gunships. Big ugly monsters, he thought.

He’d never seen a Hind up close before, but he’d seen enough photos and drawings to know what they were. Odd. Mozambique’s armed forces weren’t supposed to have any gear that sophisticated.

What were these gunships doing so near the border? No, strike that. What were they going to do, now that they were here?

His own orders from headquarters were clear. As long as the Mozambicans stayed on their own side of the line, they could do as they pleased. He did note, however, his men were tracking the two helicopters with every weapon they had. He just hoped some hothead didn’t open up without his say-so. He’d hate to get killed just because some kaffir pilot couldn’t resist showing off his brand-new, shiny toy.

The Hinds were still nose-on, closing fast just ten meters above the ground at two hundred kilometers an hour. They flew steadily, changing neither course nor speed. Orders or no, Boshof knew he couldn’t wait much longer. They’d be across the border in seconds. He tensed, readying a shouted command to open fire…

And held it in as the Hinds pulled up, glass-canopied noses wobbling as they suddenly slowed. The two gunships came to a complete stop, hovering twenty meters above the ground and about a hundred meters away, still inside Mozambique.

Boshof studied the two craft closely while waiting for his pounding heart to slow down. Their sloping front fuselages were almost completely glassed in. He could clearly see each Hind’s gunner, seated low and close to the nose. Their pilots were seated slightly higher and behind.

Both gunships hovered, motionless. Dust whirled away to either side, blown skyward by powerful rotors.

The Afrikaner sergeant shook his head angrily. What in God’s name were these kaffirs playing at?

Boshof trained his binoculars on the gunner in the left hand Hind, noticing that, whenever he turned his head, the gunship’s chin-mounted rotary cannon pivoted-mimicking the man’s movements. Interesting. And frightening. It made the helicopter seem more like a living, breathing predator than a simple machine.

Long seconds passed before he realized that both the gunner and the pilot were white. He snapped his binoculars over to the other Mi-24. Both its crewmen were white as well. Advisors? Mercenaries?

Boshof ‘s unspoken question was answered sooner than he would have wished.

The left-hand gunship started to swing right, moving across his front.

As soon as it turned, he saw the insignia on its side. A blue circle covered by a red triangle-with a white

star in the center. Jesus! That was the insignia of the Cuban Air Force!

He dropped the binoculars and grabbed his rifle.

“Fire! Fire! Fire! ”

Boshof’s scream was all it took to free his troops from their paralysis.

Assault rifles cracked all around his small perimeter. Half a second later, their Vickers machine gun opened up with a hoarse, full-throated chatter-spraying steel-jacketed rounds toward the left-hand gunship.

At such short range, the South African machine gun couldn’t miss. Sparks jittered and bounced off the Hind’s streamlined fuselage, boxy heat suppressor, and tail rotor visible signs that its bullets were slamming home. But they were hitting without effect. The Mi-24 was just too well armored.

A fraction of a second later, both gunships cut loose hammering the shallow foxholes surrounding the South African border post with hundreds of 12.7mm machinegun bullets. Dust and dirt billowed high into the air, hiding a scene of sheer butchery.

Sgt. Uwe Boshof and his men were cut to pieces before they could figure out how to shoot down armored gunships with weapons meant only for infantry combat.

ADVANCE
HEADQUARTERS
,
CUBAN
EXPEDITIONARY
FORCE
,
NORTH
OF
MESSINA
,

SOUTH

AFRICA

Two bridges spanned the rugged Limpopo River gorge, soaring high above a vista of sheer rock walls, foam-flecked rapids, and mist-cloaked waterfalls.

One, a steel-girder railroad bridge, was empty. In sharp contrast, the highway crossing next to it was full-choked by bumper-to-bumper columns of

Cuban tanks, APCs, and trucks streaming endlessly south along South Africa’s

National Route 1.

Dozens of
SAM
launchers and turreted ZSU-23-4 antiaircraft guns were parked on both sides of the gorge, their radars ceaselessly scanning the sky for signs of South African air craft. To the north, sunlight winked off the sleek, missile studded wings of

MiG-29s orbiting in slow, fuel-conserving racetrack patrol patterns.

Gen. Antonio Vega stood watching his First Brigade Tactical Group wend its way deeper into enemy territory. From time to time, he turned to study the southern horizon. Pillars of black smoke rising there marked several burning buildings on the outskirts of the copper mining town of

Messina-fruits of the brief and hopeless resistance put up by a mixed force of South African reservists and policemen.

“A glorious day, isn’t it, Comrade General?”

Vega turned toward the shorter black man standing at his side.

“Indeed it is, Colonel.”

He carefully controlled his irritation at the other man’s appearance. Col.

Sese Luthuli, commander of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, wore camouflaged battle dress, a blue beret, a polished leather pistol belt, and a bayonet-tipped AK-47 slung over his shoulder. It all struck Vega as being ridiculously theatrical.

Luthuli’s presence was also a reminder of unwelcome political constraints imposed on him by Havana and Moscow. Leaders in the two capitals were eager that Cuba’s invading armies should be seen as liberators by both the black

South Africans themselves and by the larger world public. As a result, they’d insisted that each of his three attack columns be accompanied by
ANC
guerrilla units.

Vega frowned at the memory. Most of the
ANC
troops he’d inspected seemed poorly disciplined, badly led, and ill prepared for full-scale conventional warfare. Even worse, they filled trucks and personnel carriers he desperately needed for more effective units and supplies.

Luthuli missed the frown and grinned.

“I’m looking forward to leading my men into battle beside your troops, Comrade. Together, I’m sure that we can crush these white fascists once and for all.”

With their engines howling, two shark-nosed Su-25 attack aircraft flashed past at low altitude, sparing Vega the need to reply through suddenly clenched teeth. Fifty meters away,

the long columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers kept clattering south along the highway-moving steadily past the tall, grim-faced figure of their commander.

ADVANCED
GUARD
,
FIRST
BRIGADE
TACTICAL
GROUP
, ON
NATIONAL
ROUTE
1,

SOUTH
OF

MESSINA

Senior Capt. Victor Mares leaned far forward in the hatch of his BTR-60 as though he could somehow urge the wheeled command carrier to go faster.

Although his men were already advancing at a tremendous pace, at this moment, even a jet aircraft would have seemed much too slow.

Sooner or later, he knew, those buffoons in Pretoria were going to wake up.

So far their stupidity had cost them more than twenty kilometers of their territory. With any luck, it would cost them far more than that by the time this day was through. Still, this joyride was bound to end sooner or later.

And Victor Mares wanted to be deep inside South Africa when that happened.

“Scouts report men working on the road five kilometers ahead. ” His radio operator poked his head out of a top hatch, grateful for the excuse to get some air.

“They may be setting up a roadblock.”

Mares calculated rapidly. His
BRDM
scout cars were only lightly armed, and he didn’t know what kind of weapons the South Africans up ahead possessed.

It might be more sensible to call his scouts back and advance with the BTRs and BMPs.

No. It would take at least half an hour to deploy his lead company for a hasty-very hasty-attack. By that time, those bastards might have finished their defensive preparations. In any case, time was too precious. Even slowing long enough to deploy his troops would give the South Africans a minor victory. Certainly, if Vega heard about it, he would have his ears.

“Pass control of Axe and Dagger flights to the scouts. Have them attack as soon as the Su-25s have finished one pass. And tell the Hinds to back them up. Clear?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain.” The radio operator nodded his understanding and ducked back inside.

Two minutes later, two Frogfoot attack jets screamed down the length of his column, headed for the reported enemy position, waggling their wings as they passed.

“Damn show-offs, ” Mares muttered. He could put up with a little aviator strutting, though, if they could blast the Afrikaners loose before they took root.

He scanned the horizon with his binoculars-eager to see signs that his advance units were going into action.

A prolonged, rattling boom filled the air, the sound rising above the growling roar made by his BTR’s noisy diesel engine. The Frogfoots were already at work plastering the enemy force. Rippling cracks and explosions echoed over the treeless veld.

“Scouts are attacking, sir. They report heavy resistance.”