Vortex

Kruger checked his watch. Nimrod was on schedule. He stood straighter.

“Very well, gentlemen. That’s our cue. You may put your companies on the road. Good luck to you all. “

The tent flap be flied open briefly and sagged back as his officers ran toward their waiting commands.

A COMPANY, 2ND BATTALION, 44TH PARACHUTE

BRIGADE, OVER NAMIBIA

The ride was much rougher this time, even though they weren’t flying as low as they had been on the Gawamba raid. There was a reason for that. Air Force manuals said that the big C-160 Transall troop carriers exhibited “poor gust response,” which was an aerudynamic way of saying that turbulence at low altitude made the plane bump and shudder like a truck on a rutted road.

Capt. Rolf Bekker found himself yawning uncontrollably -a yawn that nearly made him bite through his tongue as the Transall bucked upward, caught in yet another air current rising off Namibia’s rugged hills. He forced his mouth shut and frowned. They’d already suffered through two hours of this jarring ride since taking off from the staging airfield near Bloemfontein. How much farther did they have to go, for Christ’s sake?

He shook his head wearily. Fatigue must be muzzling his ability to think.

He knew precisely how much longer they had to fly before reaching the target. And he knew exactly how long it had been since he’d had a decent hour’s sleep.

Bekker was enough of a soldier not to complain about the hour set for their drop, but a dawn landing meant a midnight assembly for a four

A.M.

takeoff. The hectic preparations had been structured to allow him six hours sleep, but last-minute crises and changes had robbed him of all but a brief nap. There was certainly no way he could sleep on this plane, not with its washboard ride on a hard metal seat.

So, Bekker thought, I will start the biggest military operation in my career tired and short on sleep. When he was tired, he got irritable-not entirely a bad thing.

He only wished he had a better view of the ground below. Bekker preferred going into combat in helicopters-at least their open doors usually gave the troops a chance to get oriented before touchdown. Now, though, he had just a single window to look out of, a window about as clear as the bottom of a beer bottle. He and his men would have to jump trusting that the Transall’s pilot could see the drop zone, and trusting in his ability to put them in it.

Bekkcr wriggled around, straining against the seat straps to took out the window. Nothing but dark sky, paling faintly to gray behind them. He couldn’t even see the rest of the battalion, spread out in five other aircraft.

There were supposed to be other planes in the air as, well-Impala 11 ground attack aircraft to provide close air support, and Mirage jet fighters supplying top cover. None were visible through the dirt-streaked window. Nothing but the huge spinning blades of the Transall’s portside turboprop.

Bekker pulled his eyes away from the empty window and scanned the rows of fold-down metal seats lining either side of the plane’s crowded troop compartment. Just over eighty men sat silently, slept, talked, or read as they waited to risk

their lives. He and his troops were dressed in heavy coveralls and padded helmets-gear designed to help absorb some of the shock generated by slamming into the ground at up to twenty-five kilometers an hour. Parachutes increased the bulk of their weapons and packs. They only carried one chute each. At this attitude, there wouldn’t be time for a reserve chute if the first one failed.

The eighty men in this plane represented just half his company. The rest, led by his senior lieutenant, were on another cargo plane-nearby, he hoped.

They’d better be. He’d need every available man to accomplish his mission.

He sighed. At least with a low-altitude drop and static lines, all the troops jumping from this Transall should come down close together. And the

Namibians would be totally surprised.

A bell sounded and a red light over the door came on. The jumpmaster waiting near the door straightened. Holding up his right hand with the fingers extended, he shouted, “Five minutes!”

At last. Bekker hit the strap release and rose from his seat.

“Stand and hook up!”

His men hurried to comply, hurriedly slinging the weapons they’d been checking or stuffing books into already bulging pockets. As they stood, the floor of the plane tilted back sharply as it pulled into a steep climb from a “cruising” altitude of one hundred fifty meters up to three hundred the minimum safe altitude for a static line drop. The engine noise changed, too, building from a loud, humming drone to a teeth-rattling bass roar as the loaded plane clawed for altitude.