Vortex

Negative sighting reports crackled over his headphones, rolling in from the platoon commanders stationed left to right along his line. Nobody could see through the smoke or hear anything over the deafening noise of the mortar barrage.

Crack!

Mares jumped. That wasn’t a mortar round exploding. It was the sound made by a high-velocity cannon.

Whaamm! A BTR near the middle of his line blew up in a sudden, orange-red fireball, blindingly bright even through the obscuring smoke screen. Greasy black smoke from burning diesel fuel boiled into the air.

“Here they come!” Panicked shouts poured through his headphones as South

African Rooikat and Eland armored cars surged out of the smoke at high speed with all guns blazing. Three more BTRs exploded, gutted by 76 and 90mm cannon shells that tore through thin armor intended only to stop fragments. Machinegun fire raked the nearby thickets and boulder fields-slicing through brush, ricocheting off rocks, and puncturing flesh.

Cuban soldiers screamed and toppled over, some still twitching, others already dead.

Helmeted South African infantrymen were visible now, advancing in short rushes, firing assault rifles and light machine guns from the hip. Squat, boxy shapes trundled out of the concealing smoke behind them-armored person el carriers armed with machine guns and 20mm semiautomatic cannon.

Mares stood motionless, shocked by the ferocity of the South African assault. His troops were being cut to pieces right before his eyes.

A BTR roared past him, sand spraying from under spinning tires. Hatches left open by its disembarked and abandoned infantry squad clanged to and fro. Other vehicles followed, fleeing the carnage spreading up and down the

Cuban front line.

The 8th Motor Rifle Battalion was collapsing.

FORWARD HEADQUARTERS, 20TH CAPE RIFLES

Henrik Kruger’s Ratel command vehicle lurched abruptly as its front wheels bounced over a rock the driver hadn’t seen. He braced himself against the open turret hatch and kept scanning the steep, brush-choked slope stretching before him.

Three Ratels were moving a hundred meters out in front

-spread wide in a wedge formation. More APCs were farther ahead, already down on the valley floor and vanishing into the smoky haze. Incandescent, split-second flashes from inside the smoke screen showed where vehicles were firing. Flickering, molten-orange glows marked the smoldering funeral pyres of their victims.

A blurred, static-distorted voice crackled over the radio

Kruger took one hand off the hatch coaming to press his headset closer.

The constant din created by barking tank cannon, chattering machine guns, mortars, and screaming men made it difficult to hear-let alone think.

“Say again, Echo Four. “

“The bastards are running, Tango Oscar One! Repeat, we have them running!” Maj. Daan Visser’s wild exhilaration came clearly over the airwaves.

“Am pursuing at full speed!”

What? Kruger suddenly felt cold. At full speed, Visser’s armored vehicles would soon outpace the rest of the battalion. And that meant his infantry companies wouldn’t have the armored support they needed. It would also leave the Rooikats; and Elands moving blind through enemy-held territory.

He squeezed the transmit switch on his mike.

“Negative, Echo Four. Wait for the infantry. Do not, repeat, do not pursue on your own!” He released the switch, listening for a reply.

He never got one.

ROOIKAT 101, ATTACHED RECON SQUADRON, 20TH CAPE RIFLES

Diesel engine roaring, the eight-wheeled Rooikat AFV bounced up and over the lip of a narrow gulley at high speed. Small trees and thorn bushes lining the gulley were either knocked aside or flattened and crushed by its big radial tires.

Maj. Daan Visser stood high in the Rooikat’s open commander’s cupola.

Dark, tinted goggles and a fluttering orange scarf protected his eyes and his mouth from the sand and acrid smoke. The long barrel of a cupola-mounted machine gun bounced and rolled beside him.

For the moment, Visser and his crew were effectively alone on the battlefield. Swirling smoke and dust had so cut visibility that the seven other Rooikats and Elands of his two troops were out of sight and out of command. And they’d left the supporting infantry far behind. From the sounds echoing through the haze, the foot sloggers were still busy mopping up scattered resistance.

Visser grinned beneath his scarf. Let Kruger’s poor, cautious sods worry about routing out every last sniper. He and his lads would show them the right way to win this war. Smash a hole in the Swapo lines, pour through, and then run the survivors into the ground. That was the road to victory.

And to glory.

Forty meters ahead, a fleeing BTR-60 blundered out of the smoke into the

Rooikat’s path.

“Gunner, target at one o’clock! “

The AFV’s overlarge turret whined, spinning thirty degrees to the right.

“Acquired!” The gunner’s voice reflected Visser’s own exultation. Nothing was easier than shooting at people unable or unwilling to shoot back.