Larry Bond - Vortex

Northwest toward war.

AUGUST 18-20TH CAPE RIFLES’ FORWARD ASSEMBLY AREA, NEAR THE NAMIBIAN BORDER.

Very little of the light provided by the small, battery-powered lamp leaked out through the edges of the command tent’s tightly closed flap.

But even those thin slivers of light seemed bright against the ink-black night sky outside. With the moon already down and dawn still an hour away, the battalion’s ranked APCs and armored cars were almost invisible-dark rectangles against darker boulders and tangled patches of thorn bushes, tall grass, and thistles. Their squat, camouflaged shapes blended easily with the rough, rocky scrubland marking this southern edge of the Kalahari

Desert.

An eerie silence hung over the rows of parked vehicles. No radios crackled or hissed. Voicess were hushed, and orders normally bellowed were now given in swift, harsh whispers. Only the occasional crunch of boots on loose rock marked the passage of sentries patrolling ceaselessly around the battalion’s perimeter. The men of the 20th Cape Rifles were on a war footing.

Inside the command tent, Commandant Henrik Kruger looked round the circle of grimly determined faces caught in the lamp’s pale, unwavering light. He knew that many of the battalion’s officers shared his unspoken misgivings about this operation’s political wisdom. If anything, those misgivings had grown stronger since General de Wet’s preliminary briefing nearly a month before.

But none of them, himself included, would disobey orders. Once soldiers started picking and choosing which commands they would obey and which they would ignore, you had anarchy or worse. Black Africa’s assortment of fragile, coup ridden and corrupt governments showed that all too clearly.

South Africa was different. A civilized nation. A nation of law. Or so he hoped.

Kruger shook himself and looked down at the heavily annotated map before him. His company commanders followed suit.

He tapped the thick black line showing their planned axis of advance.

“Speed! That’s the whole key to this op, gentlemen. If we move fast from the start, we win fast and easy. The Swapo bastards won’t know what hit them. But if we move slow at first, we’ll get bogged down and move even slower later. And that’s something we can’t afford.”

The other men nodded their understanding. Intelligence reports portrayed the new Namibian Army as inexperienced and under equipped Its officers and men were still trying to cope with the difficult transition from being an often-hunted, often-harried guerrilla army to being a conventional defense force. South Africa’s powerful airborne, armored, and motorized forces should have little trouble crushing them.

Conquering Namibia itself was entirely another matter.

The country stretched more than one thousand kilometers from south to north-most of it an unpopulated, and wasteland. Windhoek, its capital city, the diamond and uranium mines, and everything else of any value Jay far to the west and north, spread across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of rugged, inhospitable terrain.

Just supplying food, fuel, ammo, and water to the brigades and battalions slated for this invasion would absorb almost

all of South Africa’s military air transport and a good deal of its ground transport. Every extra day they took to achieve their objectives would increase the strain on the Republic’s economy. A quick war meant fewer casualties, lower costs, and less international outrage. A quick war was vital.

Kruger slid the map aside with an abrupt, impatient gesture.

“Our march order reflects this need for a rapid advance.”

He turned to the short, dark-haired major commanding the battalion’s attached reconnaissance squadron.

“Your boys will lead off, Daan. You’ll be moving about six to seven klicks ahead of the main column-probing for strong points and smashing anyone else trying to resist. Clear?”

Maj. Daan Visser nodded vigorously. His fast, powerfully gunned Rookiat and Eland armored fighting vehicles were perfectly suited to the job they were being given. They had the speed and firepower needed to blast open a hole in whatever hasty defenses the Narnibians managed to assemble.

The mission was probably Visser’s idea of heaven, Kruger reflected. The major had always prided himself on being the perfect hell-for-leather, death-or-glory cavalryman. It was an attitude reflected in everything he did, said, and even wore -right down to the bright orange scarf tucked into his camouflaged battle dress, in place of the regulation necktie, and the black beret rakishly perched above his right eye.

Kruger admired the man’s proven bravery. He just hoped Visser had the common sense to go with his guts.

“And the rest of the battalion, Kommandant?” Major Forbes, his executive officer, prompted.

Kruger noted the XO’s careful use of Afrikaans and bit back a frustrated sigh. It was evidence of the one continuing weakness in his battalion and in the South African Army as a whole-the deep and abiding mistrust between those of Afrikaner heritage and those of English descent.

Forbes was a good example of the price paid for that mistrust. He was a first-class soldier and a fine officer, but some of the battalion’s

Afrikaner diehards were still unwilling to accept him as an equal.

Despite the fact that his family had lived in Cape Town for nearly a century, they labeled him as nothing more than an interfering, toffee-nosed rooinek and outsider.

Forbes, aware of their feelings, had tried everything he could think of to blend in with the Cape Rifles’ Afrikaner majority-even to the extent of speaking accentless Afrikaans every chance he got. All to no avail.

Kruger came back to the present. He had more immediate problems to confront. Besides, once the shooting started, the first man who showed disrespect for the XO or who disobeyed one of his orders would swiftly discover that Henrik Kruger valued competence far more than a common ancestry.

“The infantry will follow Major Visser’s squadron. Companies A, B, and then C. ” A scarred finger stabbed the portable, folding table three times, emphasizing each unit’s position in the main column.

“You’ll move in road march formation, but I want flank guards out and alert.”

He smiled thinly.

“Ratel APCs are expensive, gentlemen. Lose one to a lucky shot from some Swapo RPG and I’ll see that it’s docked from your pay.”

Nervous laughter showed that his warning had hit close to home. Ratels offered good protection against bullets and shell fragments, but rocket-propelled grenades could turn them into flaming death traps. The only way to deal with an enemy soldier carrying an RPG was to see him and kill him before he could fire.

Kruger turned to the tall, burly, towheaded officer on his right.

“D

Company will bring up the rear. No offense, Hennie, but I hope we won’t have too much work for your boys on this jaunt.”

Hennie Mulder, the captain commanding his heavy weapons company, nodded soberly. His truck-carried 8 1 mm mortars and Vickers heavy machine guns represented a large part of the battalion’s firepower, but they were also relatively immobile and required time to deploy. The battalion would only need D Company’s weapons teams if it met strong resistance-and that, in turn, would mean Nimrod was going badly.

“Wommandant?”

Kruger looked toward the hesitant voice. Robey Riekert,

his youngest and least experienced company commander, had a hand half-raised.

“Yes, Robey?”

“What about artillery support, sir? Do we have any guns on call?”

Kruger shook his head.

“Not deployed. With luck, we’ll be pushing ahead too fast. But there’ll be two batteries of SP guns attached to the column behind us. So if we run into any real opposition, we’ll be able to give the