Vortex

“After weeks of comparative openness in its dealings with the Western news media, Castro’s army has begun cracking down. Security at Namibia’s busy ports and airfields has been increased.

All front line passes for journalists have been revoked. And the commander of this growing army, Gen. Antonio Vega, has dropped completely out of public view. Sources close to the Namibian government report the general is now at his forward field headquarters-somewhere in the mountains outside this capital city.”

“The reporter pointed toward the Soviet-made tank behind him.

“Other sources report seeing large columns of armored vehicles like this T-62 rolling south on Namibia’s highways or parked in heavily defended staging areas. And everyone in Windhoek has grown used to hearing the constant, day and-night roar of massive Soviet cargo planes ferrying still more men and equipment into this small African nation.”

He faced the camera squarely.

“One thing seems clear: the preparations for Cuba’s long-expected counteroffensive are in their final stages.

Though only Fidel Castro and his generals know the precise day or hour, no one can doubt that their soldiers will soon strike south, trying to drive South Africa out of this battered and bleeding country.”

Vega’s elaborate deception plan was working. The Western news media, like

South Africa’s intelligence services, were seeing exactly what they expected to see.

STAGING AREA ONE, NEAR BRAKWATER, NAMBIA

Staging Area One lay nestled in a broad valley between barren, boulder-strewn hills. Empty cornfields stretched to either side, abandoned by their owners under orders from Cuban security troops. Only a few scrub trees dotted the low hills, each blasted by the heat, and shade was something to think about, not to find. The main highway connecting

Windhoek with Angola ran right past the camp.

A barbed-wire fence two meters high encircled the entire compound, pierced only by one gate where it crossed a side road connecting with the highway. Rows of tents and vehicles were visible beyond the fence.

Col. Josd Suarez, chief of staff of the Cuban Expeditionary Force, strode slowly through the staging area trailed by an array of nervous officers.

He was so tired that he almost had to force himself to take each new step.

He’d been up since five, with only a few hours’ sleep the

night before. Managing the Namibian campaign in Vega’s absence, even while holding along a relatively static front, was more than exhausting.

Battlefield and intelligence reports. Staff conferences. Decision after decision. And inspection tours such as this one. They all drained a man of energy continuously-giving him no chance for any real rest.

Suarez frowned. If this was how he felt after just a week in temporary command, he didn’t see how Vega managed his own, much greater, responsibilities. Where did the older man find such a seemingly inexhaustible source of personal energy? He shook his head, realizing he’d probably never find out. The general, like most good commanders, kept a large part of his inner self unknown and unknowable-even to his closest friends and subordinates.

In the meantime Suarez reminded himself, he had his own work to do. He straightened up, concentrating on his inspection.

The equipment park sprawled over several acres. Row after row of long, angular sand-colored shapes sat motionless, their appearance deceptively real even at this distance. Suarez actually smiled, his mood lightened by seeing such a successful ploy.

He walked closer to inspect what appeared to be a BTR60 armored personnel carrier. It had the right shape and dimensions, but a rap of his knuckles revealed a fiberglass shell instead of an armored hull. Though the decoy lacked brackets and hatches and vision blocks, from a hundred meters away it was arguably a BTR-60.

Its eight wheels were actually painted cement cylinders, designed to keep the rest of the decoy from blowing away in the valley’s ever-present wind.

Suarez continued, striding past rows of fiberglass APCs, T-62 tanks, artillery pieces, and even trucks, all made of fiberglass in local factories. Brought in at night in threes and fours, American intelligence satellites and South African reconnaissance planes recorded what appeared to be a slow and steady buildup of troops and armor just north of Windhoek.

Six other phony staging areas, along with two real ones, cluttered the mountain valleys around Namibia’s capital. Security for all of them was as tight as he could make it with the limited resources at his disposal. The reason for that was obvious. If the South

Africans ever learned that Cuba’s buildup inside Namibia was one part reality to three parts charade, they’d start asking themselves hard questions about where all those tanks, troops, and guns really were.

And that would be disastrous.

Suarez hoped his political masters would make up their minds soon. Every day they delayed gave their enemies more time to realize just how badly they’d been fooled.