Vortex

Kruger nodded, not sure that he could easily follow Coetzee’s well-intended advice. Keeping quiet had never been one of his strong points. How long could an honorable man serve a government that treated brave men such as van Rensburg and the others so shabbily? Or carry out national security policies so unlikely to serve the long-term interests of the nation?

General de Wet’s precise, perfectly modulated voice broke into his internal debate.

“I hope all of you have taken the time to page through this operations order.”

Heads nodded around the crowded auditorium.

“Good. Then we can move on to the details.” De Wet flipped to the next page of his prepared text and looked up at his assembled officers.

“I

shall not bother to bore you with the higher strategy behind this decision. I believe that Nimrod’s basic outline is as clear as it is bold.”

The general smiled thinly.

“Indeed, gentlemen, we are fortunate to serve a president and cabinet so versed in military matters and so dedicated to the survival of our nation. “

Kruger noticed with some interest that fewer heads nodded this time.

Evidently, some of the other officers hadn’t been swept up by the prevailing determination to “get along by going along—no matter what the cost and no matter how idiotic the policy. Perhaps there was some hope left for the Army.

Despite his doubts, Kruger paid close attention as de Wet began outlining specific assignments, objectives, and timetables. Coetzee was right.

Whatever he might think of the direction being taken by Vorster’s government, he was still a soldier with a sworn duty to obey legitimate orders issued by South Africa’s legitimate rulers. There would be time enough later to debate the rights or wrongs of this Operation Nimrod. For the next several weeks he and his fellow commanders would have their hands full just trying to make sure their men were ready for battle.

He only hoped that Pretoria’s shortsighted desire for vengeance against little Namibia wouldn’t cost too many of them their lives.

JULY 30-IN THE NORTHERN TRANSVAAL, NEAR

PIETERSBURG

The stars were out in force-shining cold and sharp through the high veld’s dry, thin air.

Torches guttered from metal stands scattered around the brick-lined patio, creating a curiously medieval atmosphere. Acrid tobacco smoke rose from half a dozen burning cigarettes and mingled with the aroma of slowly roasting meat. Small groups of casually dressed middle-aged men clustered around the central barbecue pit. Their low, guttural voices and occasional hard-edged laughter carried far through the still, silent night.

Emily van der Heijden frowned as she leaned over the tiled kitchen countertop, filling glasses with soft drinks and lemon flavored mineral water. Even as a child, she’d thought her father’s friends were a rather dull, coarse, and unthinking bunch. Nothing in the snatches of conversation she heard drifting up from the patio changed that impression.

She’d already heard enough to make her ill. These men, most of them now high-ranking government officials, seemed callous almost beyond belief.

Contemptible words such as kaffir rolled too easily off their tongues as they casually discussed the desirability of “shooting a few thousand more of

the most troublesome black-assed bastards to cow the rest.” All had nodded sagely at the idea. One had even gone so far as to claim that “there’s nothing the black man respects more than a firm hand and a touch of the whip.”

Emily paled with anger and slammed the glass she’d just filled down hard on a circular serving tray. Liquid slopped over the edge and stained her sleeve and white, full-length apron.

“Here now, mevrou. You’d better calm down and wipe that ugly sneer off your face before you embarrass your poor father. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?” Malice edged every word.

Angrier still, Emily turned her head to look at the dour old woman standing beside her at the counter. Tall and stick-thin beneath her shapeless black dress, Beatfix Viljoen had been her father’s devoted housekeeper for as long as Emily could remember. And the two women had been enemies for every hour of every day of that time.

Emily despised the domineering older woman’s ceaseless efforts to make her into a “proper” Afrikaner woman-a woman concerned only with the wishes of her husband, the health of her children, and the written, inflexible word of God. In turn, the housekeeper resented Emily’s ability to go her own way, unbound by convention or propriety.

Their dealings over the years had been a series of cold, calculating, and venomous confrontations-exchanges wholly unmarked by any warmth or friendly feeling. As her widowed father’s only child, Emily had generally come out ahead in these skirmishes.

All that had changed since her frantic phone call to get Ian out of jail and her enforced return home. Marius van der Heijden had been bitterly angry about his daughter’s “sinful” liaison with the American reporter-someone he referred to only as “that godless and immoral