Vortex

Takeoff had been clean, and he’d hoped that once away from the confusion at the airfield, he could treat this as just another mission.

He’d been wrong.

The nature of his payload preyed on his mind. Nobody had asked his opinion on whether or not this kind of weapon should be used, or where.

The fact that it was being dropped inside South African territory had raised more than a few eyebrows at the briefing. Still, the nearest inhabited town was more than ten kilometers away from his aim point-and upwind.

Heersfeld shook his head and checked his instruments. Militarily, South

Africa really didn’t have much choice. His squadron alone had lost a third of its planes and pilots, without doing much more than slowing the enemy advance. Rumor said the ground-pounders were being hammered even worse.

So what was left to his people? How would they explain building such weapons and then losing a war because they were too frightened to use them? No, South Africa must use all its weapons, all its strength, in this conflict. Too much was at stake for anything less.

Heersfeld scanned the air behind and beside him again. There, outlined against the star-studded night sky, he could just make out the shape of a Mirage Fl.CZ fighter, this one armed purely with missiles. Another fighter escorted Mulder’s aircraft, a few hundred meters in trail.

The fighters were ready to protect his valuable plane from any air attack, although none was expected. So far, the Cuban Air Force hadn’t shown much taste for night intercepts. Heavy air attacks and fighter sweeps were being launched farther north-all designed to draw off any enemy aircraft capable of attacking them.

Other South African planes had already played a vital role in this attack.

Two precious reconnaissance aircraft from South Africa’s diminishim, fleet had overflown their target earlier in the evening, so pre strike data was good, for a change. And good data allowed the mission planners to calculate both the weapon’s aim point and its release point with special care.

Heersfeld checked his kneeboard once more. There were few landmarks in this part of the country, and fewer still that were visible at night.

Watching the map, he could only steer as well as his aircraft’s

antiquated avionics allowed. No inertial trackers, no moving map displays in this beauty. The arms embargo by the West hadn’t been entirely without effect.

Ten minutes to target. Heersfeld was flying down Route 47, using the road as his compass. He glanced down and saw a pattern of parallel lights leading west. Although the small town of Ventersdorp was normally blacked out against Cuban air attack, security forces there had turned on the streetlights along the main highway to help him verify his position.

He clicked a switch on his microphone.

“Springbok, this is Jericho Lead.

Over initial point.”

Heersfeld tapped a button on his control stick, jettisoning the two now-empty drop tanks. Two heavy clunks, one right after the other, confirmed that the fuel tanks were gone spinning down toward the ground below. Then, after aligning his Mirage carefully on the correct compass heading, he advanced his throttle to maximum. The aircraft kicked forward, accelerating smoothly through calm air.

Two clicks in his earphones told him that Mulder and his escort were turning away, starting a series of long, lazy circles. They wouldn’t come any closer to the target unless something happened to him. And right now the air raid sirens in Ventersdorp and every other town for fifty kilometers around were supposed to be going off-warning civilians to get down and stay down.

He started a shallow climb, calculating the appropriate variables in his head. Both speed and altitude at release were critical. A few practice runs over the veld yesterday had helped build his confidence for this mission, but they’d also convinced him of the importance of precision.

THIRD BRIGADE TACTICAL GROUP

Sgt. Jorge Jimenez stared at the radar scope. He took his job seriously, but he’d been battling sleep all through the second half of this night. He looked forward to dawn, when the column would be moving again. His radar could only be deployed while the vehicle was stationary, so it was then that he slept.

Jimenez kept watch in one of the tactical group’s four “Romb” air defense vehicles. A lightly armored wheeled box, it carried four surface-to-air missiles code-named SA-8 Gecko by NATO, and a search radar NATO called

Land Roll. Each vehicle was a self-contained firing unit, and all four vehicles in the battery were deployed in a flattened diamond that provided complete coverage over the Cuban position.

A blip appeared on the edge of the scope, and despite what it meant, the sergeant was secretly relieved. Finally, something to break up the boredom of a night watch.

He spoke into his intercom.

“Comrade Lieutenant, I have an inbound target at thirty kilometers. No response on IFF. the target appears to be four fighter-sized aircraft.”