Larry Bond - Vortex

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Vice President James Malcolm Forrester held his hand cupped over the extension’s mouthpiece and looked across the Oval Office. The President, a tall, lanky man, sat rigid behind his desk, fingers drumming angrily as he spoke. The President’s voice was a far cry from his usual mix of the clipped, nasal New England accent of his boyhood and the lazy drawl adopted later in life. Every word seemed to

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hang in midair, chosen coldly and precisely to convey an impression of tightly controlled wrath.

Forrester listened intently to the voice emerging from the phone-crystal clear despite being scrambled at one end, bounced halfway round the world via satellite, and then unscrambled at the other. Israel’s prime minister sounded embarrassed, unusually meek, and only too well aware that his news wouldn’t win any new friends for his country inside America’s highest policy-making circles.

“I see. Yes, yes, we’ll have people standing by to meet this scientist of yours.” The President stabbed an impatient finger at an aide listening in on the second extension. The man nodded hastily and punched to another phone line to begin making arrangements.

“No, I think that’s all we need discuss for the moment, Mr. Prime

Minister.” The President swiveled round in his chair, stared out the window at the bleak, barren view, and then spun round again.

“Yes, I’ll pass this information on to London as soon as possible. Goodbye, Mr.

Prime Minister.” He put the phone down with slightly more force than was necessary to cut the connection.

Forrester hung up at the same time and moved to a chair across the

President’s desk.

The President rubbed tired eyes.

“Well, what’d you think of our Israeli friend’s little bombshell?”

“That we’ve got even more trouble than we thought we did,” Forrester said evenly.

“CIA estimates have always said it was likely that South Africa had nuclear weapons stored at Pelindaba, so we’d been doing some contingency planning to eliminate them. But now we know for sure that the

South Africans have a real nuclear capability. And we know they’ve got ten twenty-kiloton devices-five or six more than we hoped. “

The President nodded.

“Hell, even one nuke going off would be too damned many.”

He stared grimly off into space for a moment, obviously remembering the pictures he’d seen of the devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So Karl

Vorster and the other madmen in Pretoria controlled ten weapons capable of causing

that kind of destruction. That was bad enough. The fact that a joint

Allied task force was already at sea, steaming toward Cape Town, made the situation even worse.

Forrester coughed lightly, catching his attention. “in a way, though, I’m more worried by Israel’s sudden inability to contact its people at

Pelindaba.”

“Yeah.” The President’s face looked as bleak as the lifeless garden outside his office.

“That kind of a communications blackout could mean .”

Forrester finished it for him.

“That Pretoria’s actually planning to use one of those damned bombs.”

The President picked up his phone for the second time that morning.

“Marge, get me General Hickman, pronto.” He looked at his vice president.

“I hope like hell we’re wrong about this, Jimmy, but we’d better be ready for the worst. “

Forrester nodded in silent agreement. Any situation involving South

Africa seemed to slide inexorably from bad to worse. The U.S. Rangers preparing for a possible assault on Pelindaba were about to get a highlevel hurry-up call.

HEADQUARTERS, I ST BATTALION, 75TH RANGER REGIMENT, HUNTER ARMY

AIRFIELD, GEORGIA

The clatter of helicopter gunships and troop carriers practicing landings and takeoffs filtered into the crowded, smoke-filled briefing room. More than forty Ranger officers lounged on metal folding chairs, their eyes riveted on the black-and-white satellite photos and maps pinned to a chalkboard behind the short, sturdy figure of their temporary commanding officer. Despite their carefully casual poses, no one could miss the tension crackling through the room.

Lt. Col. Robert O’Connell ran his left hand through thick black hair cropped too short to curl, realized what he was doing, and forced it back to his side. This was going to be tricky, he thought.

He’d been brought in to command the I st Battalion because its old

CO,

Lieutenant Colonel Shaw, was still in the hospital, nursing a badly broken leg. Logically, that shouldn’t present a problem for any of the assembled officers. He’d had the full dose of

Ranger training, and he’d commanded a battalion in the 10th Mountain

Division before this. But taking charge of a unit on short notice was always tough-even under peacetime conditions. Those difficulties were compounded by the fact that he’d been asked to lead them on the most dangerous and daring Ranger raid ever conceived. Especially when that operation seemed likely to be a one-way ride for most, if not all, of the men in the room.

Not that he doubted his own ability to lead the battalion into combat.

Far from it. For the O’Connell clan, self-doubt stood right next to sloth on a list of the seven deadly sins. And as the fifth of six children, he’d learned early on that you didn’t get what you wanted by standing around waiting for it to be handed down on a silver platter. You worked hard for it, and you even fought for it when necessary.

The resulting combination of fierce determination, stubborn pride, and considerable talent had earned him an appointment to West Point and pulled him through a miserable plebe year. From there, he’d seen only one logical career path. The Rangers were regarded as the Army’s elite fighting force, and Robert O’Connell had never wanted to be anything less than the best. Now he was being given the chance to prove his real worth.

A slight smile flitted across his face. It would have been nice if the opportunity carried higher odds of survival. On paper, this mission looked impossible. Fly two Ranger battalions and their support units seven thousand miles over the Atlantic Ocean and enemy-held territory without being spotted. Conduct an airborne assault against more than a battalion of crack South African troops. And then hold out long enough to fly every captured nuclear weapon out of the country. Sure.

He buried his doubts deep inside and strode forward to the edge of the fm-bjgh dais.

“It’s official, gentlemen, we have a ‘go’ order for this op.”

Faces around the room tightened.

“Highlevel intelligence sources have now confirmed the existence of these South African nukes. And their location.”

O’Connell nodded toward the mosaic of satellite photos showing a network of military airfields, supply bases, troop barracks, and vehicle parks near Pretoria-a mosaic centered on a single high bluff called Pelindaba.

Red circles drawn in grease pencil ringed identified bunkers and gun positions surrounding both the South African uranium enrichment plant and the suspected bomb storage site.

“The code name for this mission will be Brave Fortune.”

“Looks more likely to wind up as Big Damned Fuckup. ” A twangy Texas drawl lifted from out of the back row, prompting several nervous chuckles.

O’Connell grinned. Trust Lieutenant Colonel Carrerra to say what was on everybody’s mind. The 2nd Ranger Battalion’s commander was a master of ambush, assault, and patrol tactics-skills he’d learned during a career that stretched all the way back to service as an enlisted man in Vietnam and as an officer in both Grenada and Panama. But Mike Carrerra had never been noted for his tact.

Carrerra’s half-joking outburst opened a path for others.