Vortex

“You’ll have it.” Kruger snapped open his map case, looking for a chart showing the terrain beyond the ridge. It wasn’t the best place he’d ever seen for a battle. Pockets of dense brush and small trees, ravines, boulder fields, and rugged hills all offered good cover and concealment for a defending force. He didn’t relish making a frontal assault against people holding ground like that, but there wasn’t any realistic alternative-not in the time available. Taking the only other southern route onto the Windhoek plateau would involve backtracking nearly sixty kilometers and then making another approach march over more than three hundred kilometers of mountainous, unpaved road.

Kruger shook his head wearily. He was out of bloodless options. The battalion would simply have to grind its way through the Namibian-held valley beyond Bergland-trusting in superior training, morale, and firepower to produce a victory.

He turned to the young lieutenant at his side.

“Radio all company commanders to meet me here in fifteen minutes.”

Operation Nimrod was about to escalate.

FORWARD HEADQUARTERS, 8TH MOTOR RIFLE BATTALION, CUBAN EXPEDITIONARY

FORCE, NORTH OF BERG LAND

Senior Capt. Victor Mares crouched beneath the tan-and brown camouflage netting rigged to cover his wheeled BTR60 APC. He shook his head slowly from side to side, not wanting to believe what he’d just heard through his earphones. He clicked the transmit button on his radio mike.

“Repeat that please, Comrade Colonel.”

The bland, cultured voice of his battalion commander took on a harder edge.

“You heard me quite well the first time, Captain. You are to hold your current position. No withdrawal is authorized. I repeat, no withdrawal is authorized. Our socialist brothers are depending on us.

Remember that. Out.

The transmission ended in a burst of static.

Mares pulled the earphones off and handed them back to his radioman. Had his colonel gone mad? Did the idiot really expect two companies of infantry, a few antitank missile teams, and a small section of 73mm recoilless antitank guns to hold off the entire oncoming South African column? It was insane.

The lean, clean-shaven Cuban officer ducked under the camouflage netting and moved forward to the edge of the small clump of trees occupied by his command group. Helmeted infantrymen squatting behind rocks or trees glanced nervously in his direction. Most carried AKM assault rifles, but a small number carried RPK light machine guns or clutched RPG-7s.

Fifteen other BTR-60s and infantry squads were scattered in a thin line about three hundred meters closer to the South African-held ridge-concealed where possible in brush, behind boulders, or in shallow ravines. The foot soldiers hadn’t even had time to dig in. Everywhere weak, nowhere strong, the captain thought in disgust.

Mares and his men had been rushed south from Windhoek in time to block the highway above Bergland, but not fast enough to seize the ridge just north of the village. In his judgment, that made the position completely untenable. The ridge blocked his companies’ lines of sight and lines of fire -allowing the South Africans to mass their forces in safety and secrecy. They could attack his overextended line at any point without warning.

And now his politically correct, but combat-wary commander had refused permission to retreat to more defensible positions closer to Windhoek.

All apparently to impress the Narnibians with Cuban courage and determination.

Wonderful. He and his troops were going to be sacrificed to make a political point. Madness, indeed.

“Captain!” A call from farther down the line. With one hand on his helmet to keep it from flying off, Mares dashed over to where one of his junior lieutenants crouched-scanning the ridge through a pair of binoculars.

“I see movement up there, Captain. Men on foot, in those rocks.” The lieutenant pointed.

Mares lifted his own binoculars. Uniformed figures, antlike despite the magnification, came into focus. South African infantry or forward observers deploying into cover. He slapped the lieutenant on the shoulder.

“Good eyes, Miguel. Keep looking.”

The young officer smiled shyly.

Mares rose and raced back to his command vehicle, breathing hard. The

South Africans might have all the advantages in this fight, but he still had a few surprises up his sleeve. A few high-explosive surprises.

The Cuban captain slid to a stop beside the camouflaged BTR-60 and grabbed the radio mike.

“Headquarters, I have a fire mission! HE! Grid coordinates three five four eight nine nine two five!”

B COMPANY, 20TH CAPE RIFLES

High on the ridge overlooking the road to Windhoek, Capt. Robey Riekert squatted behind a large rock, watching as his lead platoon filtered through the boulder field looking for good observation points and clear fields of fire. His senior sergeant and a radioman crouched nearby.

Engine noises wafted up from behind the ridge where two troops of Major