Larry Bond - Vortex

He glanced south, down the highway to Pretoria.

“In any event, my friends,

I am not at all sure we will survive long enough to worry about such matters.”

Neither Ian nor Emily needed to ask what he meant by that.

Suddenly, Kruger showed his teeth in a lightning-quick grin.

“Still, we shall have a few hours’ head start on the hounds. I plan to make the most of them.”

And with that, he swung away, striding quickly and confidently toward his waiting command vehicle.

In minutes, the trucks and APCs of the 20th Cape Rifles were rolling north along the highway. One by one they turned left onto the tiny dirt road heading west into Bophuthatswana -west toward the Cape Province, the U.S.

intervention force, and safety.

DECEMBER 14-STATE SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER, PRETORIA

Fifteen men, half of them in uniform, crowded around an array of maps spread out on the chamber’s large teakwood table. Small colored flags and numbered blocks of wood represented the ground units and air squadrons locked in combat across South Africa. Their positions were plotted with extreme care since shifts of half an inch in any direction could indicate either a stunning victory or a disastrous defeat.

Marius van der Heijden tried hard to hide both his boredom and his increasing frustration. As always of late, the State Security Council’s morning briefing showed every sign of dragging on into the late afternoon.

He risked a quick, irritated glance at the tall, haggard man bent over the maps. There stood the sole reason for this absurd waste of time.

As the nation’s battlefield situation worsened, Karl Vorster’s interest in military minutiae only grew more pronounced. Not content with the kind of broad overview needed to make vital strategic decisions, he seemed obsessed with comparatively unimportant details-combat reports from individual infantry companies and tank squadrons; fuel and repair states for individual aircraft; even raw, unfiltered data gathered by recon units probing enemy positions or occupied territory.

We don’t have a president anymore, van der Heijden thought sourly, we have just another incompetent brigade commander. He grimaced. While

Vorster fiddled with his maps and wooden blocks, the rest of the government bumbled along on a sort of automatic pilot-hobbled by increasingly bitter personal and departmental rivalries. And all at a time when the wars with Cuba, its allies, and the United States and Great

Britain were strangling what remained of the Republic.

Even in loyalist-held areas, key industries were at a standstill. Basic munitions and armaments production goals weren’t being met. Fuel shortages were crippling both civilian transport and power production.

Outlying rural regions and the black townships were running low on food.

Much as van der Heijden hated to admit it, his own Ministry of Law and

Order reflected the chaos sweeping through South Africa. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his police and Security Branch troops had gone over to rebel forces in the Cape and the Orange Free State. Hundreds more were trapped in enemy-occupied territory-either dead or captured or in hiding.

Communications across the rest of the country were so poor that his surviving police commanders were largely forced to administer their districts on their own initiative, acting more as feudal magnates than as cogs in a smoothly functioning bureaucratic machine.

“What? What do you mean they’ve disappeared? How could such a thing be possible? How can a whole battalion vanish into thin air?”

Van der Heijden looked up sharply as Vorster’s harsh voice snapped his bleak train of thought. What had he missed?

The President stood upright, glaring down the length of

the table at Gen. Adriaan de Wet. One of his powerful hands grasped a single wooden block.

Van der Heijden squinted, trying to read its identifying label. He could just barely make out a sequence of two numbers and two letters. The block represented a unit tagged as the 20CR-whatever that was.

De Wet opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again in evident confusion… or was it fear?

“I have asked you a simple question, General. I expect a simple answer.

At once!” Vorster’s voice rose in volume, climbing steadily toward an enraged bellow.

De Wet turned pale.

“I do not know how to answer you, Mr. President.

Kommandant Kruger and his battalion were ordered to report for duty with the Far North Military Command. But they did not arrive last night as scheduled. Nor have they answered our radio messages asking for their current position and status. ” The general hesitated, clearly afraid to say anything more.

“Go on.”

Vorster’s angry growl shattered de Wet’s reluctance to speak.

“My staff does not believe the Twentieth has fallen victim to enemy action, Mr.

President.”

“Then you believe this Kruger of yours has turned traitor?” Vorster’s tone was dangerously calm. He tightened his grip on the tiny piece of wood representing the 20th Cape Rifles.

De Wet nodded unhappily.

“It is the strongest possibility, Mr. President.

We have had Kruger and his officers under close scrutiny for some time.”

“Clearly not close enough, damn you!” Vorster’s closed fist crashed down on the table, bouncing other wooden blocks and unit flags out of position. Two red-tabbed staff officers scrambled to put their situation maps back in order.

Van der Heijden shivered involuntarily. First his own daughter had betrayed her land and her tribe. And now the man he himself had handpicked as his future son-in-law had followed her into treason. His enemies inside the government would make much of such damning misjudgments if they learned of them. The Minister of Law and Order shivered again. He could not allow that to happen. No one must know that he had once considered Henrik Kruger a friend.

Vorster slowly opened his clenched fist, revealing the piece identified as the 20th Cape Rifles. When he spoke again, his voice was calm and coldly precise.

“Listen to me carefully, General. I want this unit of renegades hunted down and exterminated. I want no survivors left to flaunt their treason in our faces. Is that understood?”

Surprisingly, de Wet shook his head.

“I understand your anger, Mr.

President, but I do not believe it would be wise to waste valuable forces searching for these men. We face far more powerful enemies on several fronts. Six or seven hundred fugitives can do us little real harm.”

Privately, van der Heijden agreed. With the Americans preparing some new amphibious strike at South Africa’s coastline, and the Cubans pressing hard for Pretoria, they could ill afford to scatter needed troops across the countryside in a vengeance hunt.

Vorster disagreed. His voice grew colder still.

“Do not even think to dispute this matter with me, General de Wet. Your pronouncements and predictions have too often been wrong.” He looked sternly around the now-silent circle of officers and cabinet members.

“Never forget, my friends, a rebellion unpunished is a rebellion that will spread. That is why those who would betray our sacred fatherland must pay a heavy price.

And that is why they must be seen to pay a heavy price. “

He laid the wooden block marked 20CR down on the table and pointed to it with a thick, calloused finger.

“I want Kruger and his men killed before their example tempts other cowards and weaklings into disobedience.” He studied de Wet and the other assembled officers for a moment longer. One by one, they dropped their eyes, unable to meet his grim, unyielding gaze.

“One word of warning, General.” Vorster turned back to a white-faced de

Wet.