Vortex (74 page)

It all added up to one thing: Pretoria was going to have to commit an ever-increasing number of its own troops to this front. Troops that would have to be stripped from other parts of South Africa.

Vega smiled grimly. Karl Vorster and his generals were about to learn another painful lesson in logistics, careful planning, applied air power, and deft footwork.

Abruptly the Cuban general turned on his heel and headed back to his command vehicle. Small victories were worth gloating over only if they brought total victory in sight. Time to look at the big picture.

FIRST
BRIGADE
TACTICAL
GROUP
,
NEAR
BANDELIERKOP
,
SOUTH
AFRICA

More than twenty wheeled and tracked Cuban armored vehicles rumbled across the Transvaal countryside-smashing through barbed-wire fences meant to pen in cattle, flattening fields of tall grass, and grinding new-planted wheat and corn into the damp earth. No revealing plumes of dust rose today to mark their passage. A late-spring storm had come and gone earlier in the morning-tearing out of the east in a drumbeat barrage of wind-tossed rain and thunder.

Now a barrage of human making hammered the veld.

Whaamm! Dirt founmined high into the air two hundred meters ahead of the advancing Cuban column, and newly promoted Maj. Victor Mares ducked behind the steel hatch cover of his BTR-60. He clicked the transmit button on his radio mike.

“Any sign of that OP, Lieutenant?”

“Not yet, Comrade Major.” The voice of the advance guard’s scout commander crackled through his earphones.

Mares ducked and swore as another South African shell ploughed into the fields off to the left. Closer this time. Steel splinters whined overhead. The damned Afrikaners had to have somebody with a radio and a map guiding their fire. But where?

“We may have found it, Major!” Excitement made the scout lieutenant sound even younger than he was.

“We’re closing on a stone farmhouse about three kilometers ahead of your position. Will investigate.”

Mares let the mike fall free to dangle on a cord around his neck and raised his binoculars. Low hills. Dark, cloudy sky. Magnified views of vehicles only a few score meters ahead. The sky again. Curse it, the

BTR’s rocking and rolling motion made it almost impossible to focus on anything for more than a fraction of a second. He braced himself and tried to ride with the vehicle as though it were a bucking bronco like those he’d seen in American cowboy movies aired on the officially forbidden and periodically jammed TV Marti.

He steadied his binoculars and looked again. Yes, that was better. The tiny image of a whitewashed, gabled farmhouse leapt into view. Mares scanned left and then back right. The high cylindrical shape of a grain silo rose behind the farmhouse. Two separate barns were set off to one side, surrounded by wire enclosures for cattle or other animals. A row of tall trees planted for shade and as a windbreak lined the eastern edge of the Afrikaner farm. A tidy little place, he thought. Much more prosperous looking than the agricultural cooperatives and collectives back home in Cuba.

He lowered his binoculars a fraction, looking for the squat, four-wheeled shapes of his recon platoon’s BRDM-2 scout cars. They were about five hundred meters from the farmhouse, spread out in a rough wedge formation and moving fast. Maybe too fast.

After all, that farm might house more than just a South

African artillery OP. Its stout stone walls and barns would make a good defensive strongpoint for troops assigned to hold this sector. Too good for any sensible South African commander to pass up, Mares thought.

The first few days of the offensive had been a cakewalk, a lightning drive against scattered opposition by lightly armed Afrikaner commandos.

But that couldn’t continue forever. Pretoria must be going mad trying to redeploy its forces from Namibia.

Another shell burst fifty meters ahead of the column. Mares ducked again and made a quick decision. Where the South Africans had heavy artillery they were also likely to have regulars-regulars armed with their own APCs and armored cars. He lifted his radio mike to order the scouts back.

Too late! A sudden flash from near the farmhouse, followed seconds later by a blinding explosion and a billowing column of oily black smoke. The lead
BRDM
lay canted at an angle, mangled and on fire. Its two companions were frantically wheeling away at high speed.

Mares focused his binoculars hastily. Shit. An Eland armored car armed with a 90mm cannon. He’d been shot at by too many of the damned things in Namibia to make any mistake about that. More than just one, of course.

He could see another ugly, snouted turret poking out from behind one of the barns. Small figures scurried into position in windows and doors and in hurriedly dug foxholes.

A second sun-bright flash erupted from the first Eland’s main gun. Mud sprayed high beside one of the fleeing scout cars, and both took wild evasive action, twisting and turning sharply as they raced north.

Mares stood high in his commander’s hatch, studying the approaches to the

South African-held farmhouse. It didn’t look good. The farm occupied a commanding position, perched precisely at the crest of a low rise and surrounded by open fields. No orchards. No convenient hillocks offering cover and concealment. No sunken roads. Nothing but the wide open space of a ready-made killing ground.

He swore softly to himself. If the South Africans held that farmhouse and its outbuildings in force, he and his men were in for a bloody and protracted fight. And his brigade commander would not be pleased. Well, the sooner they started, the sooner they’d finish.

Mares dropped down through the hatch into the BTR’s crowded interior. He stabbed a finger at the young corporal strapped to a seat in front of the radio.

“Get me Brigade HQ! ”

The radioman nodded and started changing frequencies on his bulky,

Soviet-made set.

Mares whirled to the rest of his staff-a captain, two babyfaced lieutenants, and a tough, competent-looking sergeant.

“We’re going to have to dig the bastards out. Order the column to reform in line abreast.

And remind everyone to keep at least fifty meters between vehicles. I don’t want any idiots bunching up like cowardly sheep.”

Another near-miss rocked the
BTR
from side to side, pounding his point home.

They nodded seriously. Dispersing your vehicles under artillery bombardment was only common sense. Every meter of extra open space dramatically complicated an enemy’s attempts to adjust his fire and reduced his odds of scoring a direct hit. Unfortunately, too many soldiers under heavy fire abandoned common sense in favor of the age-old pack instinct that screamed out, “When in danger, join together. 11

“I have Brigade on the line, Major.”

He took the offered handset.

“Tango Golf One, this is Alpha Two Three.”

“Go ahead, Two Three.” Mares recognized the dry, academic tones of the

Brigade’s operations officer. Good. The man wasn’t very personable, but he did his job damned well.

The major outlined his situation in a few terse sentences.

“And your recommendation?”

Mares thumbed the transmit button.

“I can attack in twenty minutes, but we’ll need an air strike to soften the place up first. ”

“Impossible.” The operations officer didn’t bother sounding apologetic.

Facts were facts, and courtesy couldn’t change

them.

“The Air Force reports a new storm front moving in. They expect all their attack aircraft to be grounded from now until sunrise tomorrow.

”

Damn it. Mares wished that Cuba had all-weather bombers like those available to the United States. He hunted for an alternative.

“What about artillery?”

The dry, matter-of-fact voice doused that hope as well.

“Our batteries won’t be up for another three hours. Can you try a hasty attack?”

“Negative, Tango One.” Mares shuddered inwardly at the thought. Charging across that killing zone out there without air or artillery cover would only lead to disaster-a sure and certain harvest of wrecked and blazing personnel carriers and dead and maimed men. He took the map offered by his staff sergeant.

“We’ll look for an alternate route, but I don’t think we’ll find one. This country’s too open. We may need that artillery deployed yet. ”

“Understood, Two Three. Tango Golf One, out.”

Mares got busy with his map. He couldn’t see any way for his two remaining BRDMs to pick their way around the farmhouse strongpoint without being spotted. The South Africans had too good a view from their commanding hilltop. And he wasn’t sure that he had enough men and vehicles to take that strongpoint-even with artillery support. He might need help from the heavy tank and infantry units lumbering along with the main column.

In fact, he was sure of only one thing. The First Brigade Tactical

Group’s easy romp through the northern Transvaal was over.

They’d pay in blood for every kilometer gained from here all the way to

Pretoria.

NOVEMBER
19-
SECOND
BRIGADE
TACTICAL
GROUP
,
NEAR
THE
MPAGEN1
PASS
,

SOUTH

AFRICA

he rattle of heavy rifle and machinegun fire echoed oddly through the night air, bouncing off high rock walls and mingling with the whispering rush of water tumbling downstream. With a screaming hiss and a soft pop, a parachute flare burst into incandescent splendor a thousand meters over the pass and began drifting slowly downwind.

The flare cast strange shadows among the giant ferns and tall yellowwood trees crowding the valley floor, and it lit small, shaggy clumps of aloe and thorn scrub dotting the rugged cliffs above. A troop of wild baboons, already frightened by the gunfire and sickly sweet odor of high explosives, scurried frantically up the cliffs-seeking shelter from this eerie, horribly bright sun rising where there should be only welcome, restful darkness.

Five hundred meters farther down the winding road, men trying desperately to sleep beside camouflaged T-62 tanks,
BTR
personnel carriers, and towed artillery pieces stumbled out of their bedrolls and stared west toward the slowly falling flare. Did the small-arms fire and illumination round signal an unexpected South African counterattack? Some, less experienced than their comrades, groped for assault rifles or swung themselves into their vehicles. Others, older and wiser in the ways of war, noted the conspicuous lack of franfic activity around the Brigade Group’s lantern-lit command term swore bitterly, and settled back to snatch a few hours of needed rest.

“Acknowledged, Captain. Keep me posted. Out.” Col. Raoul Valladares slipped the headset off and tossed it back to a yawning radioman.

“Well?” Gen. Carlos Herrera glared at his trim, dapper subordinate while he struggled into his jacket and strained to button his tunic collar.

Unfortunately, not even the most creative military tailor could design a uniform that made the general look anything less than grossly overweight. Spiky tufts of black hair sticking straight up offered clear proof that Heffera had been sound asleep when the shooting started.

“Nothing more than an outpost skirmish, Comrade General.” Valladares ran lean fingers through his own tousled hair.

“One of our sentries thought he saw movement and opened fire.”

Herrera grunted sourly and left his collar hanging open. He moved closer to the situation map and stood frowning at the portrait it painted.

Valladares understood his commander’s irritation. In the first four days of Vega’s offensive, the Second Brigade Tactical Group had driven deep into the eastern Transvaalplowing forward more than one hundred kilometers through the low veld’s orange groves and banana plantations.

But the past day’s progress had been painfully slow and costly as the brigade’s tanks and infantry fought their way up steep hills and across rugged river gorges on a front sometimes only one road wide.

The colonel shook his head wearily. They’d planned to punch through the two-thousand-foot-high escarpment separating the low veld from the high veld before the South Africans could mount an effective defense.

Crystal-clear hindsight showed how wildly optimistic they’d been. Even a small number of determined defenders can delay an attacker advancing through rough country. And the South Africans were nothing if not determined.

They’d probed and harassed the oncoming Cuban column at every opportunity. An ambush here. A stoutly defended roadblock there. No major engagements. No set-piece battles that would allow the brigade to use its superior firepower. Just a never-ending series of skirmishes that left one or two men dead, several others wounded, one or more vehicles in flames, and slowed the Cuban advance to an anemic crawl.

Not that General Vega was displeased, Valladares knew. Even though its daily gains were now measured in kilometers instead of tens of kilometers, the Second Brigade Tactical Group was still advancing-still drawing South African troops away other fronts. His eye fell on a red arrow designating the third of Vega’s attacking columns. Transshipped by rail the long way round through neutral Botswana, the Third Brigade had shot its way onto South African territory three days after its two counterparts.

This third Cuban column was driving hard-advancing east rapidly against weak opposition. Confronted by two more immediate threats to its vital northern and eastern Transvaal mining complexes, Pretoria had stripped its border with Botswana of almost every trained man able to bear arms.

Exactly as Vega had planned.

NOVEMBER
20-
THIRD
BRIGADE
TACTICAL
GROUP
,
NEAR
BODENSTEIN
,
SOUTH

AFRICA

Dozens of Cuban armored cars, APCs, and self-propelled guns rolled steadily eastward along a two-lane paved highway. The sun stood high overhead, beating down mercilessly on grasslands just starting to turn from yellow-brown to a lush, rich green. Wisps of dark cloud on the far horizon hinted at the possibility of more rain later in the day or evening.