Vortex

CHAPTER 32 Gauntlet

DECEMBER 12-VOORTREKKER HEIGHTS MILITARY CAMP

Commandant Henrik Kruger’s bungalow still showed signs of the damage it had suffered during the American attack on Pelindaba. Rough plaster patches covered cracks in every wall, and sheets of plastic were tacked over empty window frames. His standard-issue furniture hadn’t come through in any better shape. Thick pieces of canvas now covered a small sofa and three high-backed chairs whose upholstery had been torn to pieces by flying glass and steel splinters.

Brig. Deneys Coetzee paused in the doorway and made a show of carefully surveying his surroundings.

“What a pigsty, Henrik! You’d be more comfortable living in a tent or inside your Ratel!”

“Perhaps I would. ” Kruger smiled briefly and then glanced over Coetzee’s shoulder. None of his “trusted” junior officers were in sight. Good. He motioned the older man inside and shut the door behind him.

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.

“You have room up front for another passenger, I trust?”

Ian smiled faintly, still not sure what to make of this man who seemed able to swing so swiftly and easily between cold ferocity and warm companionship. He popped the door open and slid over into the middle of the seat.

“Any time, Kommandant. “

Kruger helped Emily up and stood back as she pulled the door shut. Then he leaned in through the open window.

“Both of you may now move about more freely. I do not think you need fear Pretoria’s informants. Not in this battalion at least.

My men and I are no longer subject to Vorster’s illegal orders. “

“And Matthew Sibena?” Emily asked.

“What of him?”

Kruger looked taken aback for a moment. He’d obviously forgotten all about the young black man.

“He can also come out of hiding.” He paused, apparently searching for the right way to say something.

“However, it would be best if he does not call too much attention to himself. My soldiers may not like what they have seen of the AWB and its fanatics, but that does not make them ‘liberals’ in matters of race. You understand?”

Emily nodded once.

“We understand. And we thank you for all your help,

Henrik.”

Ian felt her warm hand slip into his and relaxed. He studied the other man’s calm, weather-beaten face.

“So I guess we’re not heading north to the Transvaal, then?”

Kruger nodded.

“You guess right, meneer.” He pointed toward the narrow dirt track ahead of his Ratel.

“That road will take us west and then southwest-the beginning of what I am sure will be a long journey to the

Cape.”

They were going to try driving all the way to the Cape Province? Ian whistled softly. A long journey indeed! The last reports he’d seen had claimed the nearest rebel forces were in Beaufort West-more than a thousand kilometers away over unpaved back roads scarcely worthy of being called by that name.

“Assuming we make it, Kommandant, what will you do then?”

“Who can say? Join the new government? Surrender to your newly arrived

American army of occupation? Scatter to our homes?” Kruger shrugged.

“I

truly do not know.”

Ian asked, “And your AWB prisoners? What will happen to them?”

“We will keep them with us for a while. Any of those verdomde traitors would gladly shoot me or you, especially you, Meneer Sheffield. They would also certainly betray the Twentieth’s position to their masters.”

“But are we taking them all the way to Cape Town?” Emily asked.

The kommandant shook his head.

“No, I don’t want those

jackals with us, but I cannot afford to turn them loose. Certainly in a few days our defection will be noted at headquarters. After that, we can discard them at some small town as we pass. We will be commandeering any gasoline we find, and if we cut the telephone lines, they will do us no further harm. 11

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.

“I will not tolerate any further failure. “

The general nodded stiffly.

“You may rely on me, Mr. President. The

Twentieth Cape Rifles will be annihilated.”

He clasped his hands behind his back to hide the fact that they were shaking.

Marius van der Heijden stared down at the map-covered table to conceal his own growing uncertainty. Cuba’s communists and the capitalists of the

West might not have to work very hard to destroy the Afrikaner nation.

Karl Vorster seemed only too willing to do their work for them.

HEADQUARTERS, 44TH PARACHUTE BRIGADE

REACTION FORCE, NEAR VILJOENSDRIF, SOUTH OF

JOHANNESBURG

The setting sun cast long, red-tinted shadows over the orange groves and green, irrigated lawns surrounding Jan Bode’s whitewashed two-story farmhouse. Flocks of bright-plumed birds circled overhead through a cloudless sky before landing along the banks of the nearby Vaal River.

Faint traces of dirty-gray smoke lingered on the western horizon-visible signs of Vanderbij1park’s iron and steel plants and clear proof that not all of South Africa was a pastoral and peaceful land.

But there was more than enough evidence of that closer to hand.

Three hundred South African paratroops in full combat gear lounged beside the sixteen helicopters dotting the farmhouse’s open lawns. Assault rifles, boxes of ammunition, and fuel drums were stacked under the brown-and-green camouflage netting covering each helicopter. Mechanics and air crews in grease-stained overalls clustered around several of the helicopters-performing routine maintenance work on Puma and Super Frelon troop transports.

Maj. Rolf Bekker paused in the farmhouse door, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sunlight. He nodded slowly to himself, glad to see his men seizing every opportunity for both rest and needed repair work. They were all combat veterans, and veterans knew the value of time.

He stepped out onto the lawn, wincing slightly at a momentary twinge in his left leg. The doctors had assured him that he’d made a full recovery from the wounds he’d received during the battle for Keetmanshoop Airfield. Right. Knowit-all bastards.

Bekker spotted the man he’d been looking for and instantly forgot all about the pain from his old wounds.

“Sergeant!”

Staff Sergeant Roost hurried over from the pile of supplies he’d been inspecting.

“Sir?”

“Find Captains Recheck and der Merwe and tell them I want to see them at the farmhouse in fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir. ” The short, wiry noncom turned to go and then turned back.

“Are we going to see some action soon, Major?”

Bekker nodded.

Roost smiled, a fierce, quick grin.

“Do we kill Americans or Cubans this time?”

“Neither, Sergeant. ” He shook his head grimly.

“This time we hunt our own kind.”

If the thought of killing fellow South Africans bothered Roost, he certainly didn’t let it show on his face. Instead, he just touched his hand to his beret in a casual salute and moved off to obey his orders.

Bekker stood motionless for several moments, watching as the sergeant headed away in search of his two company commanders. At least this once, he thought, Pretoria’s orders were clear and concise. The men and helicopters of the Parachute Brigade’s Reaction Force were to find, attack, and destroy

Commandant Kruger and his traitorous 20th Cape Rifle battalion.

And Maj. Rolf Bekker always obeyed his orders.