Vortex (96 page)

By the time he turned around, the brigadier had already

“7

doffed his peaked officer’s cap and plopped himself down on the closest chair.

“We’re alone?”

“Yes.” Kruger felt it might be better not to mention Ian Sheffield’s presence in the room next door. What Coetzee didn’t know, he couldn’t be forced to reveal if the security forces chose to interrogate him.

As always, the shorter man came straight to the point.

“You’re about to receive new orders-marching orders.”

Kruger nodded. He’d been expecting that for some time now. His battalion hadn’t suffered many casualties during the American air and commando raid-just a few wounded and even fewer dead. True, they were still short of heavy weapons and APCs, but so was almost every other Army unit. And with South Africa being invaded from every direction, keeping a veteran unit such as the 20th Cape Rifles sitting immobile and useless outside

Pretoria made less and less sense with every passing day. If anything, he was surprised that it had taken General de Wet and his incompetent toadies this long to reach that conclusion.

Coetzee looked him straight in the eye.

“You and your men are being sent north tomorrow. To fight the Cubans.”

“I see.” Again, that wasn’t very surprising. He and most of his men had been born and bred in the Cape Province. Even Karl Vorster wasn’t crazy or foolish enough to trust soldiers to put down a rebellion in their own homeland.

Coetzee shook his head sadly.

“No, I don’t think that you do see, Henrik.

You and your battalion are still under suspicion. There are some at the

Ministry who believe your troops failed in their duty during the American attack on Pelindaba. ”

Kruger’s temper flared.

“What in God’s name was I supposed to do? Order my men out into the open so they could be bombed with greater ease? We were under continuous air attack! Would de Wet’s boot lickers be happier if we’d been slaughtered like Peiper and his sixty-first?”

His friend grinned cynically.

“Probably. Don’t forget Peiper is being mourned as a hero of the Afrikaner people. An incompetent hero perhaps, but a blery hero nonetheless.”

“Good Christ.” Kruger fought to regain control over his anger. Weeks and months of frustration and pent-up rage threatened to’ boil over in seconds. He spoke tightly through clenched teeth. “if we are under such suspicion, why are they even willing to trust us in combat against the Cubans?”

“You’re not going to be trusted, man. You’re going to be used.” Coetzee opened his briefcase and handed him two photocopied sets of orders.

“Read those.”

Kruger obeyed. One was addressed to the head of the Far North Military

Command. The other had been sent to the officer commanding the SADF’s

Logistics Branch. Both were signed by Gen. Adriaan de Wet himself. And both contained instructions effectively sentencing his seven hundred officers and men to death.

De Wet wanted the 20th Cape Rifles destroyed-but he wanted to make some use of its destruction. Essentially, Kruger and his men were to be thrown in front of Cuba’s advancing columns as cannon and tank fodder. Brigade commanders along the northern front were supposed to assign them to every possible dirty and dangerous mission—to place them in the most exposed defensive positions and to use them as spearheads for every suicidal counterattack. Even worse in a way, the Rifles were marked as dead last on the list of units slated to receive chemical warfare gear. De Wet wanted protection against Castro’s poisons restricted to battalions and rear-area headquarters of “proven loyalty and dependability. ”

Naturally, exceptions were to be made for a certain number of junior officers and a small scattering of known
AWB
loyalists among the enlisted men. Kruger studied their names with some care. A thin, humorless smile flickered onto his face. It was decent of de Wet to provide him with a ready made list of those who would willingly abandon their comrades to near-certain death.

He waved the documents at Coetzee.

“I can keep these? And show them to men I can trust?”

“Yes. But don’t get caught with them. I have to pay some attention to saving my own skin, eh?” The brigadier snapped his briefcase shut and rose to his feet.

“So what will you do now, Henrik?”

Kruger pondered that for a moment. Even though he’d contemplated rebelling against Vorster’s illegal authority for months, it still felt unnatural. Helping Emily and her friends escape the security police had been a personal decision with solely personal risks. But leading his whole battalion into action against Pretoria might mean dragging several hundred others in front of a firing squad beside him.

Still, what other choice did he have? Vorster’s government had already tried and convicted his troops-men who were guilty only of being born in the wrong place. Kruger stared down at the orders he held crumpled in his hands and made his decision. He would choose the path that left some of his honor intact. He would lead the 20th Cape Rifles out from under

Vorster’s illegal authority.

Coetzee read the determination in his eyes and nodded his own understanding and agreement.

“You’ll have to move decisively when the time comes, Henrik. No dawdling. No second thoughts. And no coddling for those who’ll try to betray you to the government. 11

“You speak true. As the wise man said, see a snake… kill a snake.”

Kruger’s right hand lingered over the pistol holstered at his hip. He looked up sharply.

“Come with us, Deneys. Get out while you still can.”

Coetzee shook his head.

“Not yet, Henrik. Not just yet.” He cleared his throat.

“You see, I haven’t given up all hope for our country. There are still some of us, a few of us, in the Army who know what is right and what is wrong. We may still be able to salvage something for South Africa from this disaster.”

He took a pen and notepad out of his pocket.

“If you need to reach me for any reason, call one of these two places. ” He jotted down two phone numbers. Both had a Pretoria prefix.

“Neither is tapped, and you can speak freely to those who will answer.”

Kruger took the folded piece of paper from him and carefully stowed it away in his tunic.

“I thank you for all that you have done, Deneys. No man could have a better friend. ”

Coetzee gripped his outstretched hand hard and then stood back.

“I wish you and your troops a good journey, Henrik. ”

Kruger blinked away an uncomfortable feeling of moisture in his eyes.

Officers did not cry. Instead he stiffened slowly to attention and saluted.

Coetzee returned the salute in perfect silence.

Both men knew it would probably be the last time Commandant Henrik Kruger showed his respect for a superior officer of the South African Army.

DECEMBER
13-20TH
CAPE
RIFLES
,
ALONG
THE
NI

MOTOR
ROUTE
,
NORTH
OF
PRETORIA

More than fifty trucks, jeeps, and armored personnel carriers moved steadily northward along the highway-spread single file in a column more than a kilometer long. Machine gunners aboard each Ratel and Buffet
APC
kept both hands clamped firmly to their weapons and both eyes fixed fimly on the sky. They were only forty kilometers beyond Pretoria’s northernmost suburbs, but Cuba’s MiGs ranged far and wide across the Transvaal these days.

Ian Sheffield sat uncomfortably in the cab of a five-ton truck stationed right behind Kruger’s Command Ratel, feeling awkward and all too visible in a crisp, brand-new South African Army uniform. Emily van der Heijden and Matthew Sibena rode out of sight in the back-crammed in among boxes of ammunition, concentrated field rations, and twenty gallon drums of water. So far, the truck driver, a closemouthed sergeant, had pointedly ignored all three of his passengers. Ian wondered how much longer the man would be able to restrain his evident curiosity.

Without thinking, he fingered the single stripe that identified him as a lance corporal-whatever that was. Just what did Kruger have in mind?

Did the Afrikaner officer really believe he could impersonate a South

African soldier for any length of time? Especially in combat against the

Cubans? Because if he did, the whole idea was a nonstarter from the word go.

Ian knew that he’d give himself away as an American the very first time he opened his mouth. Even after spending

almost a year in this country, the odds of his being able to successfully fake any kind of a South African accent could best be summed up as zero.

Kruger must know that, he told himself. So the man had to have some other plan up his sleeve. But what was it?

He remembered the strange late-night meeting the South African had held with his veteran officers. He’d been forced to stay concealed in the bedroom while they slipped into Kruger’s quarters by ones and twos. The assembled officers had spoken only Afrikaans-a rapid-fire, guttural

Afrikaans far beyond his comprehension. But he had been able to sense their shifting emotions. Shocked disbelief at something their colonel had shown them had slowly given way to deep, abiding anger and fierce determination.

Ian sat up straighter. This morning’s frantic rush to get ready and on the road hadn’t left him much time to think about that meeting, but it had pretty clearly been important. Kruger and his officers had obviously made a crucial decision of some sort. But about what? He held his breath as the first inkling of what they must be planning flashed across his brain. My God, maybe they were going to…

Squealing brakes broke his train of thought. He looked up through the front windshield. The lead Ratel had pulled off onto the left shoulder-an action being imitated by every other vehicle in the battalion column.

Dust plumes rose as tires left the asphalt road and rolled over dirt and loose gravel.

The sergeant brought the truck to a complete stop just a few feet behind

Kruger’s command vehicle and switched off. Then he unrolled his window, looked briefly at his perplexed passenger, and then looked away again.

His expression was as unreadable as ever.

Ian shook his head. Why were they stopping now? The battalion had only been on the move for a little more than an hour. And why stop here? He studied the flat countryside surrounding the long line of trucks and APCs without finding any answers. Empty grazing lands stretched to either side for as far as the eye could see. Two or three hundred meters farther on, a narrow, unpaved track crossed the motor route, winding west toward nominally independent Bophuthat swana. The main highway itself ran north, passing straight through the open savannah of the Bushveld Basin until it vanished in a wall of shimmering heat waves.

Up ahead, a boyish-looking lieutenant swung himself out of the Command

Ratel, dropped lightly to the ground, and moved down the length of the stalled column shouting, “Orders group! All platoon and company officers report for an orders group in ten minutes!”

Kruger himself clambered out of the command vehicle a minute or so later, followed by a tall, bearded officer Ian recognized as Capt. Pieter

Meiring, the battalion’s secondin-command. Both men looked tense.

Slowly, other officers joined them. Soon Ian realized that he could sort the arriving captains and lieutenants into two distinct groups. Most greeted Kruger with friendly informality and wore comfortable-looking uniforms wrinkled and creased by long service in the bush. But a sizable minority, mostly young and mostly sour faced, seemed insistent on exchanging rigid parade-ground salutes with their commander and each other. Their pressed, immaculate uniforms showed the same insistence on punctilious formality. Ian disliked them on sight.

Kruger dropped to one knee and unfolded a large map. His officers grouped themselves into a semicircle around him apparently intent on whatever he was saying. Ian frowned suddenly. That was odd. Each of the battalion’s veteran officers seemed to have stationed himself next to one of the younger men.

He leaned forward, trying to get a better view through the dust-smeared windshield. Maybe he could see more outside the truck “Please stay put, Meneer Sheffield. Kommandant’s orders. ” The sergeant sitting beside him didn’t even turn in his direction. One of the man’s hands still rested on the truck’s steering wheel, but the other lay conspicuously near the assault rifle clipped to his door.

Ian sat back, stunned. The man knew who he was! Was Kruger turning them over to the security police despite all his promises to Emily?

The sergeant saw his surprise and grinned. He patted the rifle.

“Don’t worry, meneer. This is not for you. We have enemies somewhat closer at hand. You see?” He gestured through the windshield.

Ian followed his pointing hand and stared in shock. Kruger had risen to his feet and now stood with a grim, cold expression on his face, watching with folded arms as his veterans roughly disarmed their younger counterparts. More soldiers were coming down the line of trucks and APCs, herding several of their onetime comrades ahead of them at bayonet point.

The sergeant nodded in satisfaction.

“A good clean sweep of all the
AWB
trash. That’s what the kommandant said he wanted. And that’s what we’re giving him.”

No kidding, Ian thought, still amazed by the speed of Kruger’s move to rid himself of Vorster’s toadies and spies. As he watched, the prisoners were stripped of all their weapons and rank insignia and crammed into three of the battalion’s troop trucks. R4-armed guards scrambled atop

Ratels stationed to the front and rear-perched there to deter any escape attempts. The rest of the battalion’s junior officers and staff were already scattering-trotting toward their own APCs and trucks.

Engines roared to life from one end of the column to the other. The men and vehicles of the 20th Cape Rifles were ready to move again.

Kruger appeared at the open window on Ian’s side of the truck with Emily beside him, her eyes blinking rapidly against the harsh light of the bright sun.