Vortex

CHAPTER 37 Death Trap

JANUARY 2-44TH PARACHUTE BRIGADE REACTION FORCE, NEAR SKERPIONENPUNT

Maj. Rolf Bekker burrowed farther under the camouflage awning he’d rigged over his foxhole and then lay motionless-imitating other animals he’d seen survive the desert’s bone-dry air and sun-drenched heat. Movement meant sweat. Sweat was lost water. And water was life.

His watch alarm beeped softly. Time for another drink.

He uncapped his third canteen and took a careful swig, swishing the body-temperature liquid around the inside of his mouth before swallowing.

Despite the flat metallic tang imparted by the canteen itself, the water tasted good. And it felt good trickling down his parched throat. He recapped the canteen and hooked it to his web gear.

Still thirsty, Bekker settled back to wait. It was ironic, though a self-imposed irony. While he and his three hundred paratroops rationed their precious water mouthful by mouthful, one of South Africa’s two significant rivers, the Oranje,

lay only eight kilometers away-flowing northwest on its way toward the

Atlantic. Eight kilometers south, that was all. Only a brisk two hours’ walk, perhaps less.

Right now, though, the river might just as well have been on the far side of the moon. His own strict orders kept his men under cover in their fighting positions.

There was a good reason for that. Bekker’s northernmost outposts were already reporting dust rising in the distance. Henrik Kruger’s renegade battalion was coming south down the only road he’d left open and apparently unguarded. In reality, the men of the 20th Cape Rifles were being lured right into a killing zone.

The Afrikaner major studied his handpicked battlefield through slitted eyes. If anything, the brown, barren valley seemed even more suited to his purposes now than it had when he’d ringed it on the map.

Bordered by the rugged foothills of the Langeberg to the east and an only slightly less rugged ridge to the west, the valley sloped gently downhill from the Kalahari Basin before falling away sharply into the Oranje River basin. An unpaved secondary road ran down the eastern edge of the valley flanked by a long, low hill topped only by small patches of brush and three solitary, stunted trees.

Bekker’s two infantry companies were posted along that hill, carefully dispersed in six camouflaged platoon strong points surrounded by thin, hastily em placed minefields. To give his infantry a stronger long-range punch, he’d attached a Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifle team to each platoon. Indirect fire support would come from the two sections of four 81mm, mortars in place behind the hill-their crews crouched ready and waiting in shallow pits scraped out of the dirt and sand. And finally, he had his two Puma gunships on standby several kilometers away.

His battle plan was simple. Use HE from the mortars to kill Kruger’s truck-mounted infantry. Hit the enemy’s APCs with rounds from the Carl

Gustavs. Finish any vehicles left moving with 30mm cannon bursts from his helicopter gunships, and then mop up with his rifle-and machine gun armed paratroops. Bekker smiled to himself. Simple, yes.

And also damned effective. That was what combat experience taught you.

Simple things worked. Complicated plans or weapons usually looked good on paper and then got you killed.

His radio crackled softly.

“Rover Foxtrot One, this is Tango Zebra

Three.” Tango Zebra Three was the call sign for his northernmost observation post.

Corporal de Vries passed the handset across the foxhole.

“Go ahead,

Three.”

“Enemy scouting force in sight. Four Land Rovers ahead of the main column.”

Bekker propped himself up against the lip of the foxhole and raised his field glasses. The lead Land Rover leapt into view-dented, travel stained, and armed with a heavy machine gun on a pivot mount. Four men in South African uniforms rode in the vehicle-a driver, gunner, and two others. He lowered the glasses and pressed the transmit switch.

“Keep your heads down, Three. Let them pass.”

“Roger your last, Rover One. They’re rolling by now. Out. “

Bekker felt himself start to sweat. The next few minutes were critical.

He was gambling that Kruger’s recce units wouldn’t spot his carefully prepared ambush. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have risked it. An alert scout commander would be too likely to send a team up the hill for a look-see.

But Kruger’s men had been on the run for more than two weeks now-traveling for hours on end each day through empty deserts and desolate mountains. And Rolf Bekker was willing to bet that they’d lost some of their edge.

COMMAND RATEL, 20TH CAPE RIFLES, NORTH OF SKERPIONENPUNT

Even with the hatches closed and the air-conditioning going full blast, the Ratel’s crowded interior was still almost unbearably hot. Ian

Sheffield sat across a narrow fold-down map board watching Commandant

Henrik Kruger methodically charting their course. The South African’s calm, cool

appearance made Ian even more conscious of the sweat stains under his own arms and across his back.

The Ratel bucked suddenly, and he grabbed a strap with one hand, hanging on tightly as the APC lurched over a bump in the rock-strewn track the

South Africans called a secondary road. The sight of Kruger’s grease pencil skittering randomly across the plastic map overlay made him feel a little better. Even Emily van der Heijden’s old fiancd could lose his grip from time to time.

Ian’s eyes roved around the crowded Ratel. Emily and Matthew Siberia sat wedged in one corner, next to wall clips holding assault rifles and mesh bags full of canteens and spare rations. He met her eyes and nodded ruefully toward the table. She just smiled slightly and shrugged as though to indicate her exclusion didn’t really matter.

But he knew it did matter-especially to her. By rights, he thought, Emily should be up here with them talking over their next move. But it had become clear that Kruger felt uncomfortable when she tried to take an active part in their conferences.

His gaze moved on around the Ratel, studying his fellow passengers. Three young staff officers occupied the folding seats on their commander’s side of the vehicle. One stood beside a machine gunner in the turret, holding a radio headset pressed to one ear-monitoring reports from the scouts probing ahead of the column. All of them looked tired. Sunlight streamed in through eight small firing ports-four on each side.

Kruger finished his work and sat back. He raised his voice to be heard over the APC’s powerful engine.

“We’re making good time today. ” He tapped a spot on the map.

“We should be across the Oranje by noon.”

Ian nodded.

“What then?”

“Depending on what’s up ahead, we push on to Kenhardt and Brandvlei.

After that?” Kruger shrugged.

“That we must talk about, Ian. “

The South African put his pencil on the tiny town labeled Brandvlei. Ian mentally measured the distance from there to

Cape Town-less than five hundred kilometers. Maybe a two day drive at their present speed.

“What’s the problem?”

“Your country has aircraft based at Cape Town, true?”

Ian nodded. They’d caught bits and pieces of Voice of America news broadcasts en route. Enough to follow major developments in the war. Both the U.S. and Great Britain were still staging troops and air units through the Cape Town area.

Then he realized what was worrying Kruger. What would any red-blooded

U.S. pilot do if he spotted a battalion-sized column of trucks and APCs rolling south toward the city? He’d strafe or bomb the hell out of it, that’s what. Ian looked up.

“Are you saying we run a risk of becoming jet bait?”

“Jet bait?” Kruger hesitated briefly, obviously puzzled. Then his face cleared up as he mentally translated the slang phrase.

“Yes, exactly. We cannot move beyond Brandvlei until we’ve made firm contact with either your nation’s forces or those of the provisional government.

“Well, what’s so hard about-“

The lieutenant manning their radio interrupted.

“Excuse me, sir, but the recce troop reports they have the Oranje in sight! No enemy contacts.”

REACTION FORCE

Maj. Rolf Bekker held his breath as the long column of canvas-sided trucks and wheeled APCs drove straight down the road into his killing zone. De

Vries’s manpack radio lay beside him, with its whip antenna poking above the foxhole’s camouflage awning.

Bekker keyed the mike.

“All units, this is Rover Foxtrot One. Stand by.

Hold fire. Wait for my order.”

The lead Ratel rolled past a cracked and weathered boulder in line with

Bekker’s foxhole. Fifty or so vehicles were strung out behind it at twenty-meter intervals. They were in range.

“Now! Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Two explosions rocked the desert floor-both within meters of the road. Hit by shrapnel, a five-ton truck slewed out of control, slammed into a boulder, and rolled over. Dazed survivors staggered out of the wreck and toppled over, hit repeatedly by rifle and machinegun fire.

Near the tail end of the column, a Buffel APC blew up in a spectacular rolling ball of flame, hit broadside by a single Carl Gustav round. Human torches, men on fire, threw themselves screaming over the sides and then crumpled as the paratroopers put them out of their misery.

Bekker’s men had spent most of the preceding day zeroing in their weapons. Now their hard work was paying off.

“Papa Charlie One, this is

Rover One. On target! Fire for effect!”

In seconds, eight more mortar bombs burst near the road -spraying fragments up and down the line of trucks and personnel carriers. Several vehicles were on fire, some while still moving. Other lay canted at odd angles, their drivers dead or disabled.

Bekker showed his teeth in a quick, wolfish smile. Kruger’s traitorous battalion was being cut to pieces by his textbook perfect ambush.

COMMAND RATEL

A nearby explosion rocked the Ratel, sending maps, pencils, and loose gear flying. Fragments rattled off its side armor.

“Christ!” Henrik Kruger staggered forward through the confusion and grabbed the radio headset from the pale, frightened lieutenant. Panicked, garbled voices poured over the airwaves.

“Taking fire from the hill … Arrie’s hit! My God, I’m hit! .. . Got to get out …. Estimate four, maybe five guns…

Another shell slammed into the road just ahead of them. Kruger heard his driver swearing as he swerved off onto the shoulder to avoid ramming a truck stopped dead and on fire. As they roared by the blazing vehicle, a single sheet of furnace-hot fl arne washed over the turret and commander’s cupola. Then they were past.

He swung round in a quick circle, trying to see what was happening to his battalion through his cupola’s narrow vision slits. Burning vehicles and sprawled corpses littered the barren landscape in every direction. They were being massacred.

Kruger squeezed the transmit button.

“This is Kruger. Wheel left and pop smoke! Pop smoke!”

The Ratel slewed over in a hard left turn. As it spun around to face the enemy-held hill, the machine gunner beside him triggered the APC’s four turret-mounted smoke dischargers. They coughed in sequence, firing four smoke grenades out through a fifty-meter-wide arc.

Other Ratels were doing the same thing, creating an instant smoke screen to hide themselves from the heavy weapons on the hill above them. Sand and dirt sprayed high near the APC’s right flank as another shell ploughed into the ground.

Kruger grimaced. The smoke gave them a temporary respite from direct fire, but those damned mortars didn’t need to see their targets to hit them. They only had to pour bombs onto preregistered firing points to be sure of killing something.

Conscious of precious seconds slipping by, he scanned the terrain behind them. Nothing. No cover at all. Just flat, bare rock, packed dirt, and tufts of dead grass. They’d have to break this ambush the hard way. He clicked his mike again.

“All units. Attack! Attack immediately! Our objective is the hill!

“

As the Ratel bounced forward, accelerating through its own smoke screen, acknowledgments flowed in from his surviving company and platoon leaders.

The men and vehicles of the 20th Cape Rifles surged ahead, charging uphill toward their enemies.

REACTION FORCE

Bekker scowled at the puffs of dense white smoke dotting the ground below the hill. His Carl Gustav teams were having trouble finding targets in all that muck. Another mortar bomb salvo landed-bright flashes rippling through the thickening

haze of smoke and dust. Directed by forward observers, his gunners were walking their fire back and forth along the road, pounding the enemy’s stalled vehicles and dismounted infantry.

“Major!” De Vries grabbed his shoulder and pointed downhill. Shapes were emerging from the smoke. Turreted Ratels, open-topped Buffels, and even trucks were advancing on his positions at high speed.

For a second, Bekker’s confidence slipped. Kruger was doing exactly what he himself would have done under the same circumstances. And he was doing it fast.

Clang. Hit by a Carl Gustav round, one of the oncoming APCs shuddered once and stopped moving. Flames spewed out of the gigantic hole punched through its thin front armor. Nobody got through its buckled hatches.

But the recoilless rifle’s backblast hovered over its firing position like a billboard advertising its existence. Bekker caught a last glimpse of the Carl Gustav’s two-man crew hurriedly reloading before two Ratel turrets whined round and fired repeatedly-pumping 20mm cannon shells into the foxhole until it vanished in a spray of sand and dirt.

More vehicles were hit and burning, but the rest were still coming on-their guns chattering wildly, traversing right and left to lay down a curtain of suppressive fire across the hilltop.

Bekker dove for the bottom of his hole as a machinegun burst tore through the air all around him. Corporal de Vries wasn’t fast enough. A 12.7mm bullet caught him at the base of the throat and ripped his head off. The radioman’s decapitated corpse fell backward against the lip of the foxhole, still spouting bright-red arterial blood.

The major grabbed his R4 and snapped its safety off. Damn it. Where were his gunships? The helicopters were his ace in the hole.

PUMA GUNSHIP LEAD

Capt. Harry Kersten brought his helicopter up out of the Oranje River basin and then dropped its nose to gain speed for forward flight. Rotors clattering, the Puma surged ahead-closing on the battlefield at eighty knots. He squinted through the haze, looking for targets.

Pillars of black smoke curled skyward above burning trucks and armored personnel carriers. Others lay tilted over, evidently abandoned. All the signs of a successful and bloody ambush. Then he saw boxy shapes moving up the side of the hill and frowned. The renegade battalion’s vehicles were almost right on top of Bekker’s infantry. Target selection was going to be a bitch.

Kersten spoke over the intercom.

“You with me back there, Roef?”

“Sure, Captain.” His door gunner had to shout over the noise of the slipstream howling in through his open door.

“Good. Now listen up. We’re going in now-nice and low so you can see who you’re shooting, right? And you only shoot the vehicles, okay?”

“Understood.”

“Great.” Kersten half-turned his head to catch a glimpse of the other Puma pacing them just off the desert floor.

“You copy that, Hennie?”

His wingman acknowledged.

Kersten took a quick breath and brought the helicopter around in a gentle, curving arc. They’d cross the battle area at an angle to bring their door-mounted 30mm cannons to bear. He came out of the turn and dropped the

Puma’s nose again. Airspeed crept up slowly-climbing from eighty knots to one hundred and twenty. The other gunship settled into formation behind him.

Now they were hurtling straight for the hill, two helicopters flashing past isolated clumps of brush and jagged boulders, one right after the other.

The battlefield seemed to leap closer in seconds. Distant specks expanded suddenly into individual vehicles. Ratels with their distinctive turrets.

Open-topped Buffels crammed with white faces staring up at him from under helmets. Land Rovers weaving over the ground at fantastic speed. Even a few trucks, which seemed sadly out of place among the fighting vehicles.

The Puma’s 30mm gun opened up with a rattling, jackhammer roar.

Kersten pulled the gunship’s nose up sharply, following the rising terrain. He and his crew were blind for an instant as the Puma clattered through the thick, oily smoke billowing from a burning vehicle, and it shuddered violently-caught in a sudden upsurge of superheated air. Then they were through and on the other side of the hill, howling away at high speed.

“Two of them! I got two of the bastards!” his door gunner shouted over the intercom, caught up in a wild mix of ecstasy and relief.

“They fire balled I got them, Captain.”

“Great, Roef. ” Kersten yanked the Puma around in a tight, spiraling turn. ” Look sharp now. We’re going in again.”

The two South African gunships flew south and west in an arc that would bring them back over the hilltop battlefield.

RATEL ONE SIX

LCpI. Mike Villiers ducked as a mortar round exploded several dozen meters behind his APC. Spent fragments and pieces of dirt pattered down over its deck armor and off his helmet. He raised his head and gripped his ring-mounted light machine gun even tighter. Christ. He hated riding facing backward like this, and he hated standing in an open hatch with half his body exposed outside the Ratel’s armor. Still, somebody had to do it. Kruger’s decimated battalion needed whatever antiaircraft defenses it could muster.

The three burning vehicles to his left were proof of that. They’d been shredded from end to end by 30mm cannon shells-gutted like fish.

Smoldering corpses hung half in and half out of hatches. Villiers had no desire to end up dead like those poor sods, so he watched the sky with renewed intensity.

A fastmoving blur near the horizon caught his eye.

“Here they come!

Three o’clock low!”

He squeezed the trigger convulsively, feeling the machine gun kick back against his upper arm and watching his glowing tracers reaching out for the incoming blur. Other tracer streams were rising from nearby Ratels, all aimed at the lead helicopter flying barely a hundred feet off the ground.

Trying to hit a target moving at more than one hundred miles an hour while riding a bucking, lurching platform moving at nearly twenty miles an hour itself would ordinarily seem an almost impossible task. Even a machine gun’s ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute merely lowers the odds against success from the astronomical to the wildly improbable. But sometimes you get lucky.

LCpI. Mike Villiers got lucky.

PUMA GUNSHIP LEAD

Four 7.62mm rounds hit the Puma. Three simply tore inconsequential holes in its fuselage and hurtled onward, tumbling through empty air. The fourth did catastrophic damage.

It ripped into the Puma’s starboard engine at an angle that took it straight through a fuel line and into the turbine blades. One blade shattered instantly-spewing white-hot fragments in every direction. The turbine engine seized up, died, and then erupted in flame.

Capt. Harry Kersten barely had time to notice the glowing red fire-warning light before his helicopter lost power, dipped too low, and slammed nose first into the hill. The Puma flipped end over end twice and then exploded-spraying burning fuel and sharp-edged fragments over hundreds of meters.

The second gunship veered wildly away from the rising fireball and vanished over the hill. It reappeared moments later, flying southeast-away from the battle. With Kersten dead and their potential targets already in among the defending strong points the second Puma’s crew saw little reason to stay and fight.

Maj. Rolf Bekker had just lost his ace in the hole.

REACTION FORCE

The 44th Parachute Brigade’s paratroopers were dying hard. They were taking their enemies with them, but they were dying. Rifles and machine guns were no match for armored personnel carriers mounting 20mm cannon and coaxial machine guns. A well-placed Carl Gustav round could turn any APC into a shattered wreck, but most of their recoilless rifle teams were only getting off one or two shots before being spotted and knocked out.

Burning APCs and trucks dotted the hillside, but enough made it through unscathed to overrun Bekker’s platoon strength strong points And once

Kruger’s men were inside each defensive ring, the paratroops were wiped out foxhole by foxhole-killed by soldiers firing from inside their Ratels, by point-blank cannon shots, or by dismounted infantry charging forward behind a barrage of grenades and automatic weapons fire.

COMMAND RATEL

Ian Sheffield hung to his seat strap for dear life as the Ratel canted upward, grinding uphill at more than twenty miles an hour. His ears were numb-deafened by the constant chatter of the APC’s heavy machine gun and by bullets spanging off its armor. Smoking, spent shell casings rolled back down the metal floor toward the rear.

Kruger’s staff officers crouched behind the vehicle’s firing ports, ready to open fire with their R4 assault rifles the moment they had targets.

Emily and Sibena were still in their seats, though only just barely. They both looked almost as scared as he felt.

The front end of the Ratel dropped downward as it roared over the crest.

And then the world blew up.

At first Ian was only aware of the blinding white flash that started outside the driver’s compartment and then rippled backward down the length of the Ratel. Then a shock wave punched the air out of his lungs and threw him out of his seat. The sound came last-a tremendous clanging, discordant thunderclap that tore conscious, coherent thought to shreds. As he blacked out, he felt the Ratel being lifted upward, twisting sideways in midair.

He came to on his knees, tangled in fallen gear and still hot shell casings. The Ratel lay tilted on its left side, no longer moving.

Foul-smelling smoke eddied in from the outside. Coughing and groaning men lay in heaps all around him.

Emily! Ian shook his head to clear it and regretted it right away. He must have slammed into something hard and unforgiving when the APC tipped over. He staggered upright and looked around.

There she was. Emily sat upright in a loose pile of canteens, medical kits, and assault rifle magazines. She seemed dazed but unhurt. His heart started beating again.

“You are wounded?” Kruger had to scream it into his ear to be heard. The

Afrikaner officer had a ragged, bleeding cut over one cheekbone, but no other apparent injuries.

“No!” Ian shouted back.

“What happened?”

“We hit a mine.” Kruger coughed as a thicker tendril of smoke curled in through the viewslits in his commander’s cupola. It smelled very much like burning oil. His eyes widened.

“We must get out! We’re on fire!”

Oh, shit. Ian whirled and lurched through the debris toward Emily. Sibena scrambled to his feet beside her. Behind him, he could hear Kruger rousing the rest of his crew and staff.

” Ian, thank God . She clutched at his arm as he helped her up.

“Yeah.” He turned to Sibena.

“Matt! Hit those clips!” He pointed to the metal locking bars holding the rear hatch shut.

“Right.” Sibena spun them up and away. Ian put his hand on the hatch handle and then felt someone grab his shoulder in a strong grip. He turned to see Kruger.

The South African had an assault rifle slung over his own

shoulder. His staff officers and vehicle crew crowded behind him with their own weapons.

“Let my men go first. We have enemies out there. “

“You got it.” Ian, Emily, and Matt squeezed to one side of the battered

Ratel-allowing the six men by.

The soldiers shoved the hatch open and threw themselves through the narrow opening one after the other. Staying low, they fanned out in a semicircle around the wrecked APC. A lieutenant stayed by the door to help the others out. Smoke and blowing sand cut visibility to meters at best.

Ian’s hearing was coming back. He wasn’t sure what sounded more dangerous-the staccato rattle of automatic weapons fire outside or the steady crackle of the flames now engulfing the Ratel driver’s compartment.

The young officer standing outside signaled him frantically.

“Come on, man.

Pass her through. I’ll get her to cover.”

Ian guided Emily through the hatch and turned to motion Sibena forward And an assault rifle opened up from somewhere close by, spraying rounds at full automatic. Several punched into the hatch door and howled off into the surrounding smoke.

Ian whirled round in horror. His vision darkened and then cleared. Emily and the lieutenant lay tangled together on the ground, bright blood staining the sand around them.

“No!” Without thinking Ian dived through the hatch.

She was still alive, though bleeding badly from one shoulder. The staff officer was dead. He’d taken most of the burst.

Ian scrabbled through the dead man’s gear looking for his medical kit. He needed bandages to stop the bleeding. He never even thought to look up.

Ten meters away, Staff Sgt. Gerrit Roost rose from his foxhole, cradling his R4 assault rifle. He yanked out the empty thirty-five-round clip and shoved in a full magazine. This one would be an easy kill. He started to raise his weapon, sighting straight at the kneeling civilian’s chest.

Three separate hammer blows knocked him off his feet. Astonished, Roost strained to raise his head and saw the ugly,

red-rimmed holes torn in his chest and stomach. Then he saw the man who’d shot him. His mouth dropped open. A kaffir! He’d been killed by a damned black!

The Afrikaner sergeant died with that look of shocked, unbelieving surprise frozen on his face.

Matthew Siberia let go of the trigger he’d squeezed and held down, threw the dead lieutenant’s rifle from him as far as it would go, and ran to help Ian.

EMERGENCY AID STATION, ON THE HILL NEAR SKERPIONENPUNT

Henrik Kruger stood looking at a scene straight out of his worst nightmares. Wrecked trucks and armored personnel carriers were strewn up and down the road and across the hillside in almost every direction. Most were still on fire, sending greasy plumes of smoke billowing up to stain the sky. Bodies sprawled beside the vehicles, some in heaps, others alone.

Others littered the hilltop.

Stretcher parties wandered through the carnage, looking for wounded they could carry up to the aid station behind him. He smiled bitterly. Aid station. That was an impressive sounding name for what was only a patch of bare rock and sand covered by a hastily rigged tarp.

Dozens of seriously injured men lay in rows behind him. His lone surviving surgeon and handful of corpsmen were completely swamped by sheer numbers. As it was, they were still frantically engaged in triage-the gruesome, though essential, task of sorting those who were sure to die from those who might be saved with the limited gear and supplies on hand.

Kruger clasped his hands tightly behind his back, trying hard not to hear the low, sobbing moans rising from the rows of wounded. Tears rolled slowly down his face, stinging as they dripped into his torn cheek. This isn’t a battlefield, he thought. This is a butcher’s yard. For both sides.

“Wommandant!”

Several of his men waved him over to a foxhole not far from his wrecked

Ratel. He sighed, wiped his face roughly, and moved in that direction.

They’d found the paratroop commander. Maj. Rolf Bekker lay crumpled near the bottom of his foxhole-wounded and only semiconscious, but still alive. Kruger stared down at the man. From the look of things, the paratrooper had taken a faceful of grenade fragments, been shot, and then left for dead when Kruger’s infantry overran this part of the hill.

The South African felt a cold rage building up inside him as he looked at Bekker. This was the bastard who’d murdered his battalion. The man whose soldiers had shot Emily. Kruger’s fingers brushed the 9mm pistol at his side. Revenge would be so simple. So easy. Too easy. He shook his head. There’d been enough killing.

He straightened up.

“Take him to the aid station and have him patched up.

I want this bastard to live.”

The kommandant turned and walked away, heading for the small cluster of officers awaiting their next orders. Orders? What orders could he give?

Ian Sheffield intercepted him. The tall American looked gaunt and completely exhausted.

“Henrik, I need one of your Land Rovers and a driver.”

Kruger stared at him for a moment, taken aback by the sudden request.

Then he sighed and nodded.

“I understand, Ian. With luck, you and Emily can still reach Cape Town.” He motioned to the wreckage strewn around them.

“I gather it’s pretty clear that the rest of us have come as far as we can. I’ll arrange for extra supplies and cans of petrol. “

“No, you don’t understand.” Ian shook his head in exasperation and smiled tightly.

“I just want a ride into the nearest town with a phone. I think it’s time we tried to scare up some help.”

The American’s thin smile faded as a high-pitched scream rose from the aid station.

“God only knows, Henrik, but I think we could sure use some right now.”

OPERATIONS CENTER, D. F. MALAN AIRPORT, CAPE TOWN

More than a dozen U.S. Air Force technicians and radar consoles crowded the darkened room. Calm, quiet voices rose and fell as they controlled the movements of incoming and outgoing C-5s and C-141s crammed with troops, equipment, and supplies.

“MajorT I

Irritated at the interruption, the Operations Center duty officer glanced up from the argument he’d been having over the availability of JP-4 and

JP-5 fuel stocks.

“Yeah. What is it?”

The enlisted man manning their phone line held up the receiver.

“I’ve got kind of a strange call here, sir. Some reporter named Sheffield wants to talk to whoever’s in charge. “

Another reporter. Swell. The major snorted and said, “Look, turn the bozo over to Public Affairs… ” He stopped in mid-sentence. Sheffield? Why did that name ring a bell?

Then he remembered. Sheffield was the TV reporter whose reports had helped break this mess wide open. The guy who was missing. The major whistled softly.

“Well, I’ll be a sorry son of a bitch.” He moved toward the man.

“Gimme that phone. Now!”

JANUARY 3-EVACUATION POINT, ON ROUTE 64, NEAR THE ORANJE RIVER

Emily van der Heijden and Ian Sheffield stood close together, watching as a lumbering C-130 Hercules dropped out of the sky, touched down precisely on the centerline of the road, and rolled past them with its props howling and brakes screaming. Two more turboprop transports were visible orbiting slowly in the distance-waiting for their turn on the improvised runway.

The C-130 taxied to a stop and several uniformed officers

emerged, blinking in the bright sun. They moved to meet Henrik Kruger as he stood rigid by the side of the road.

Despite her obvious pain and a shoulder swathed in bandages, Emily refused to lie down.

“I can walk perfectly well, and you know it, Ian.

” Her stern gaze softened.

“Besides, there are too many others who must be carried. So many others who have been so terribly hurt.”

Ian gave up.

“Okay, but at least let me help you down. As a sop to my manly pride. Deal?”

She smiled at that.

“Deal.” She looked up.

“Henrik wants

US. I I

Kruger had insisted on meeting the Americans by himself first. He wants to end his part in this war with honor, she realized sadly. Even though he had rebelled against Pretoria, this was still a form of surrender for him. She hoped he could live with that.

They moved downhill toward the tiny knot of South African and U.S. Air

Force officers. With a tightly controlled, emotionless voice, Kruger introduced them to the ranking officer, a Lieutenant Colonel Packard.

Packard stepped forward with an outstretched hand and a broad, toothy smile.

“Mr. Sheffield, I’m damned glad to meet you!” He lowered his voice to a level slightly below a booming shout.

“I hope you don’t mind, but we’ve arranged a small press conference for your arrival at the airfield.

I guess I don’t have to tell you this is gonna be big news back in the

States!”

Emily hid a sudden smile of her own as Ian leaned in close and whispered in her car, “Oh, my God. A press conference. Now I know we’re in trouble.”