Vortex (70 page)

“Lieutenant Bankkop, reporting for duty. ”

“Where the devil have you come from, then?” asked Bergen as he returned the pilot’s salute and then held out his hand.

Bankkop smiled ruefully.

“Normally I’m the shuttle pilot for VIPs, but the brigadier thought you might be able to use me today. ”

Bergen nodded emphatically.

“He thought right, for once. You’re all the reconnaissance I’m going to get forward of my own positions. Understand?”

The pilot nodded back.

“Good, then get aloft and head east along the highway. See if you can locate the enemy column. I need to know how much time I have.”

Bankkop paused just long enough to agree on radio frequencies and to pick up a map before sprinting back to his machine. Less than a minute later, the Alouette was aloft, nose down and engine screaming as it gathered speed. It raced east just above the ground, darting around or over obstacles like some giant insect.

Bergen climbed into the back of the command truck and found a spot where he could sit and listen to the radio without getting in the way. A wise commander doesn’t disrupt his headquarters staff unnecessarily.

Nevertheless, he wanted to hear Bankkop’s radio reports for himself-the instant they came in. It was vital that he know the Cuban column’s exact position and approximate strength. In the meantime, he could rest.

He leaned back against the truck’s canvas wall and closed his eyes.

At two hundred kilometers an hour, the little helicopter should reach the

Cuban column’s last reported position in minutes at most. But every minute Bankkop flew east was another twenty minutes of preparation for his men.

Far too soon, the lieutenant’s voice came over the radio.

“I can see a group of scout vehicles. Roughly ten klicks from your position. I don’t think they’ve seen me. Continuing east. Out. ”

Bergen kept his eyes closed, but his mind was racing at high speed. The

Cuban scouts were probably several kilometers ahead of their main force.

Given that, he tried to calculate when he could next expect to hear from the dapper young helicopter pilot. Even at cruising speed, it shouldn’t be more than a few seconds.

Then he remembered that the Alouette wouldn’t fly a straight-line course along the road. Like any scout advancing in hostile territory, Bankkop would move from cover to cover, searching carefully from a protected position before darting forward.

The speaker crackled with static: signs of… no fire… forward.

” Bergen frowned. Broken, static-laced transmissions were a common problem during low-altitude flight. Hills, trees, even the curvature of the earth itself could block a short-range radio signal.

Now they’d have to wait for the helo’s return before they got any information.

Suddenly it felt hot and stuffy inside the canvas-topped truck. Bergen stepped outside for a smoke. As he lit up, he scanned the hills to the east again. He heard a shout, saw one of the lieutenants pointing, and raised his binoculars.

There. A wisp of dust floating above the railroad line, half obscured by the raised embankment the tracks rested on. Searching slowly, he saw another, about fifty meters back. The Cuban scout cars Bankkop had spotted earlier were arriving.

But what else had the Alouette pilot seen?

Bergen quickly scanned his positions. His engineers were out in the open, still frantically building obstacles across the highway-They’d probably be under fire in another five or ten minutes. Were a few more mines and barricades in place worth risking their lives for? He shook his head and ordered them back in cover.

Someone shouted from the command truck. -Kommandant!” He ran the few steps back and quickly climbed inside.

Bankkop’s voice was on the speaker again, loud and clear, but hurried:

“.. . overcome interference, am at medium altitude. Main column coordinates Romeo three six, Yankee one five. Thirty plus tanks, large number APCs, self-propelled artillery, and SAMs in support.” The engine noise underlying Bankkop’s voice stepped up in pitch and he paused for a moment.

“Enemy aircraft in the area. Returning to your position now.

Out.”

Bergen silently thanked the pilot for the information, and for his bravery. By climbing he’d restored radio contract, but he’d undoubtedly also drawn unwelcome attention to himself.

The Kommandant, along with most of his staff, went outside.

He knew it would be only moments before the helicopter arrived back over his position. He could hear his operations officer relaying the order for all platoons to hold their fire.

They waited, and word quickly filtered down through the men until everyone watched the eastern sky.

Suddenly, Bankkop’s gnat-sized helicopter popped over a hill several kilometers away. It was moving fast, adding the speed from a shallow dive to that from its overworked engine.

Two specks appeared close behind the Alouette, weaving from side to side in what looked like a lethal dance. Then, as Bergen and the rest of his men watched in horror, a puff of white smoke appeared under one of the specks and stabbed out toward the fleeing South African helicopter.

He raised his binoculars in time to see the missile pass clear of the

Alouette. Christ, that was a near-run thing!

Bergen swept his binoculars back to the two enemy helos closing in on the South African scout. They were Mi-24 Hind gunships. His heart sank. Smaller, slower, and unarmed, the Alouette was completely outclassed. Bankkop dove right, racing for cover behind a grove of orange trees.

Two more missiles flashed out from under stubby wings of each Hind. They closed the narrow gap in seconds. One missed the violently maneuvering

Alouette-arcing aimlessly off into thin air. The other guided, though, homing in on the South African scout craft’s hot exhaust. It detonated in a short, sharp ball of orange flame, and the explosion blew the tiny helicopter’s tail boom clear of the shattered airframe.

The Alouette’s cabin section, boom, and blades all spiraled to earth separately, taking only seconds for the short trip. Then, without even decelerating, the two Soviet-made gunships gracefully turned away, careful to stay well out of machinegun range.

As they disappeared behind the railroad embankment, Bergen heard a roaring, whooshing sound arcing down out of the sky. Oh, shit.

“Down!”

He dove for cover in a slit trench next to the parked truck.

Artillery started to land all over the place, churning the earth in a rapid fire succession of enormous explosions. Big stuff, one fifty-twos and one twenty-twos, he thought.

“That meant at least two batteries supporting the Cuban brigade, more, probably three, with one moving forward while the other two fired.

At least half the shells were fuzed to airburst, exploding overhead and showering lethal fragments down on his men. Since only part of them had found the time to construct overhead protection, most were going to take a heavy beating.

He could see enemy aircraft, loitering off to the east. Once this barrage lifted, they’d come roaring in with cannon and rockets. He’d heard about what Frogfoots and Hinds could do, and he knew that his piddling light machine guns stood one chance in a hundred of piercing their armor.

And after that, he could expect a ground attack by at least one battalion of Cuban tanks, with infantry in support.

He didn’t stand a chance.

SECURITY
CHECKPOINT
36, ON
NATIONAL
ROUTE
1,
NEAR
VENTERS
BURG

Floodlights lit the highway from one side to the other, revealing cars and trucks backed up in both directions-their engines idling as drivers waited for their turn at the security checkpoint up ahead. Two canvas-sided trucks, a command jeep, and a wheeled Hippo personnel carrier were parked off to the left side of the highway. Soldiers in full combat gear stood chatting in small groups near their vehicles-utterly bored with what seemed a completely routine job.

Few of them paid much attention to the flashy red Astra stopped right in front of their barricade.

Commandant Willem Metje was sweating again. He was tired, hungry, and scared. Even nearly three hundred kilometers south of Pretoria, he still felt too close to both the Cuban offensive and his own government’s brown shirted enforcers, the Brandwag. He’d already bluffed his way past two other checkpoints by using a combination of rank, his
AWB
pin, and an overbearing manner. But doing that had left him a physical and mental wreck. He was not a good actor.

And in this case, the third time was most definitely not proving to be a charm.

He stared through his rolled-down window at the thin, sour looking officer who’d refused to let him through the checkpoint without seeing either a travel authorization or an identity card.

“Look, Lieutenant, we’re both busy men. After all, this is wartime. We have to expect these small irregularities to crop up occasionally. Just let me pass, and I’ll make sure your paperwork’s brought up-to-date as soon as I can. Right?”

The younger man’s face darkened in anger, and Metje winced inwardly, aware that he’d blundered badly. He’d meant to use his most cordial senior-officer-to-junior-officer tone. Instead, he’d sounded more like a smarmy, whining panhandler.

“And once again, Kommandant, I have my own orders. I cannot allow you to proceed without verifying your identity. ”

The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed and he stepped back a pace from the car door.

“Give me your ID card, sir… please.”

Metje saw the man’s hand drifting toward his holstered pistol. His heart fluttered once, then twice, and the sweat running down his back felt ice-cold. A loud clicking noise told him that one of the other soldiers at the barricade had just taken the safety off his assault rifle.

He folded. With his hand shaking uncontrollably, Metje passed the card through the Astra’s open window.

“Thank you, Kommandant.” The lieutenant slid the ID card into his shirt pocket.

“Park over there, off the road, while I call this in. Sir.”

Thoroughly cowed, Metje obeyed. He reversed the Astra and pulled off onto the highway’s gravel shoulder-stopping just ahead of the mammoth Hippo. His heart sank as he watched the officer walk over to his radio-equipped jeep and pick up a microphone, standing with his back to Metje.

His mind raced through the options left open to him, raising and discarding them in almost the same instant. Doing nothing was not an option.

“The

Defense Ministry was sure to have an alert out with his name on it by now.

Resisting arrest seemed even more absurd-pitting his poor pistol marksmanship against a squad of rifle-armed soldiers would be simple suicide.

And escape…

MetJe thought about that. The Astra was a fast car. If he could swerve around the single Army truck parked ahead, he might gain a large enough lead to evade any pursuit. It seemed worth trying. He reached for the ignition key with trembling fingers.

He glanced at his rearview miff or The young lieutenant had just spun round, his face a mask of anger. Oh, God. He knew.

Metje gunned the engine and felt his tires spin wildly in the loose gravel.

Come on! The Astra shot forward in a cloud of dust and thrown gravel, accelerating rapidly. For a millisecond, he felt a wild surge of exhilaration. He’d done it….

Flames stabbed out of the darkness-muzzle flashes from rifles firing at point-blank range. The Astra’s front windshield

starred and then shattered, shot out by the same bursts that shredded its front and rear tires.

Metje felt himself thrown forward against the steering column as his car skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust, torn rubber, and exhaust.

He was still recovering from the abortive ride when the car door slammed open. Rough hands yanked him out of his seat and out onto the road. Two grim-faced soldiers grabbed his arms, while a third quickly pulled his pistol from its holster.

As his hands were cuffed behind him, the lieutenant strode up, finally stopping with his face only centimeters away from Metje’s. The normal deference shown by a junior officer toward his superiors had vanished entirely.

“I checked with my headquarters, Kommandant Metje. They informed me that you are charged with dereliction of duty and desertion!

Those charges have been confirmed by General de Wet himself!”

Metje tried to protest, but the younger officer’s outraged voice rode roughshod over his words.

“Save your lies, man! It’s too late.”

The lieutenant jerked a thumb toward the darkness.

“Take him away.”

With a burly soldier pulling on each arm and his hands secured behind him, Metje was led, stumbling, toward the Hippo. As he walked, he tried vainly to put his shattered mind back in some kind of order. He’d have to get his story straight for the court-martial.

But the two soldiers led him straight past the personnel carrier and out to a small tree twenty meters away. Metje looked around, suddenly unsure of what was happening. The lieutenant and another two men were following along right behind him.

They dragged Metje over to the tree and roughly turned him around to face the parked
APC
. They took the handcuffs off just long enough to pull his hands around its slender trunk, then snapped them shut again. Oh, my God .

The lieutenant waved his men back and walked over to where Metje writhed, straining futilely against his bonds.

“We don’t have time for the pointless formality of a court martial. In any event, I’ve received direct orders as to the disposition of your case. Sentence will be carried out immediately. ”

He turned to leave, stopped, and whirled back to face the shaking, white-faced officer. Wordlessly, he reached out and ripped the
AWB
pin from

Metje’s uniform. Then he strode over to where the four soldiers stood in a group.

Without even bothering to form them in a straight rank, the lieutenant barked, “Ready!”

Four assault rifles snapped up, aimed directly at Metje.