Vortex

First Tactical Group had ground to a halt along a high ridge just south of the mining town of Potgietersrus.

Gen. Antonio Vega stood off by himself, scanning the lowlands to the south through a pair of field glasses. Vasquez and his other aides waited nervously near a small convoy of BTR-60 command vehicles and GAZ-69 jeeps. He heard their worried mutterings, and smiled. What they saw as their general pigheaded insistence on seeing things for himself never ceased to trouble them. Fears that he might be killed by a South African sniper while touring the front had already caused several ulcers among his staff.

But Vega liked to visit the front lines. His troops needed the lift they got from seeing their general sharing the same difficulties and dangers.

He, in turn, needed firsthand knowledge of how his troops and tanks were standing up to the rigors of the campaign-not abstract reports filed by self serving unit commanders.

What he saw so far was reassuring. Despite heavy losses and growing fatigue, his men were still confident, still sure they were nearing a final victory over an increasingly desperate Afrikaner foe. Few had the time or information needed to worry about the West’s imperialist intervention in the conflict. Fewer still worried about the fading support for Cuba’s “liberation” force among South Africa’s black population. With Pretoria scarcely more than two hundred kilometers away, they were ready to attack again.

Vega adjusted the focus on his binoculars, sweeping his gaze southward across a landscape of sparse, scattered trees, open grazing lands, and green tobacco fields. The savannah looked empty, as though it had been utterly abandoned by its human inhabitants. That was almost literally true, he knew -Cuban reconnaissance units had been probing ahead for the past several days. Except for a few small artillery observation posts,

Vorster’s northern field commanders had pulled their troops back to defend the vital road junction at Naboomspruit -a prosperous farming and mining community fifty kilometers south of Potgietersrus.

He lifted his binoculars, seeking the far horizon. There it was-Naboomspruit. A purplish smudge at the very limits of his vision. By any reasonable military standard, the town was the last easily defended choke point on the road to Pretoria, Johannesburg, and the almost unimaginable mineral wealth of the Witwatersrand.

Vega frowned. Naboomspruit would be a tough nut to crack.

A drowned morass of swamps and bogs ran just east of

the highway all the way south from Potgietersrus to the Afrikaner-held town. The swamps blocked any possible flank attack to the cast by his tanks and armored vehicles.

If anything, the terrain north and west of Naboomspruit offered even fewer alternatives for bold maneuver. The Waterberg Mountains rose sharply there-climbing high in a sweeping panorama of vertical cliffs and rugged pillars of rock. That was bad enough. Worse yet, Boer infantry companies and artillery batteries were reported dug in on Naboomspruit

Mountain, only a few kilometers west of troops entrenched in the town itself. Together, they served as interlocking parts of a much stronger defense.

It all added up to another bloody and bruising head-on assault against prepared Afrikaner defenses. To take Naboomspruit, Vega’s tank and infantry units would have to come down off their own high ground, cross the open savannah, and then charge straight down the highway.

He shook his head. Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa’s political, economic, and industrial centers, were within his grasp. But many more of his soldiers were sure to die before he could close his fist around them.

“Comrade General!”

Vega turned to face Vasquez.

“What is it?”

The colonel held out a notepad.

“Radio intercepts confirm that the

Americans have landed! At Durban, as we expected! “

Vega fought to control two conflicting emotions. While they were busy trying to pacify Cape Town, the capitalists hadn’t represented any immediate threat to his plans. Allied troops on the Natal coast were another matter entirely They would be fighting toward the same objectives-fighting for prizes only one side could win.

On the other hand, the threat of another Allied amphibious invasion had already forced Vorster’s generals to shift battalions to Natal-troops, tanks, and guns that would otherwise have been facing his two surviving

Tactical Groups. Now the Afrikaners would have to redeploy even more forces in an effort to contain the American and British Marines pouring ashore at Durban.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, one corner of Vega’s mouth lifted in a thin smile. He’d spent the past two weeks preparing for just such an opportunity. With South Africa’s intelligence services and remaining reconnaissance aircraft focused almost entirely on the approaching invasion fleet, he’d quietly stripped his Second Tactical

Group-transferring armor, infantry, and artillery units northward to reinforce the First Tactical Group.