Vortex

“Even if it were possible, we cannot use another such weapon!” Tiny, wasp-wasted Fredrik Pienaar, the minister of information, lifted a haunted face. He’d seen pictures showing the results of Cuba’s nerve-gas attack.

“Castro would only retaliate… perhaps against our cities this time.

“

Propaganda and boastful proclamations of imminent victory were proving no match for hard reality.

Vorster snorted.

“What of it? Let the communists spray their poisons on cities full of kaffirs, coolies, and rooinek traitors! Our people are spread across the veld, made safe by distance and dispersion.” He shrugged.

“And if some should die, so be it. We fight for the survival of our whole nation -not for a few individuals.”

He rose from his chair and stood facing de Wet, grim and utterly implacable.

“I give you three days, General, to select suitable targets for our remaining weapons. If you cannot find them in South Africa, then

I suggest you look elsewhere. If we cannot strike our enemies in the face, then we must cut them off at the knees. ” He moved closer to the situation map and pointed to the port at Maputo, Mozambique’s capital,

and the airfields around Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city.

The men seated around the table turned pale. Maputo’s piers were crowded with Soviet merchant shipping, and Soviet cargo aircraft jammed Bulawayo’s runways. Dropping an atomic bomb on either would mean killing hundreds of

Russians along with thousands or tens of thousands of blacks.

Vorster silenced them with a single stern look.

“We strike again on the thirtieth. Two weapons this time. And four more on the day after that.” He scowled.

“We will hammer these communists until they either flee outside our beloved fatherland or until they are reduced to mere grains of radioactive dust, scattered across our soil.”

NOVEMBER 27-WDEAWAKE AIRFIELD, ASCENSION ISLAND

Prof. Esher Levi emerged blinking from the darkened interior of an American

C-141 Starlifter into bright sunshine. He stared for a moment at the barren, alien landscape in front of him before walking stiffly and awkwardly out onto the tarmac. His first impressions from the air had been accurate-Ascension Island was a thirty-four-square-mile piece of hell planted smack in the middle of the vast South Atlantic.

The whole island was a jagged assembly of black and gray, sharp-edged volcanic rock and mounded ash. The only touch of living color came from a small tropical rain forest atop a mountain above the airfield. A murmuring, muted roar echoed everywhere-the constant thunder of long, rolling, gray green South Atlantic waves breaking on a rugged shore.

Then a manmade roar drowned out the sound of the surf.

L.evi turned and watched as another C-141 lumbered in out of the sky, touched down in a puff of black wheel smoke, and rolled on past-all four engines screaming as it braked. The Starlifter turned ponderously off the runway and parked close by its nine companions.

Work crews, a mobile staircase, and fuel trucks were already on their way to meet the transport aircraft. Ascension Island’s sole military asset-Wideawake Airfield’s 11,000foot runway-had again proven its value. The island had served as a vital staging area for the British during their 1982 campaign to retake the Falklands. Now it would play the same role for U.S. Rangers preparing for a raid into South Africa.

“

“Scuse me, Prof. Hot stuff coming through.”

Levi moved aside as a file of heavily laden Rangers started thumping down the stairs onto the tarmac and then across to the hangar apparently selected as temporary quarters for the battalion. Under their distinctive black berets, the soldiers looked more like pack mules than men-each piled high with his personal weapons, extra rifle ammunition, grenades, spare ammo belts for machine guns, mortar and recoilless rifle rounds, canteens, medical supplies, and anything else the battalion quartermasters thought might be needed.

The Rangers, already tired from days and nights of backbreaking practice and drill, were exhausted-worn-out by a grueling ten-hour plane flight in cramped conditions. Looking at their weary faces, Levi began to understand

O’Connell’s and Carrerra’s absolute insistence that their battalions spend at least a full day on Ascension to rest, recuperate, and make final preparations.

The Israeli scientist’s own aching muscles and bruises were a constant reminder of the last two hectic days. The Ranger battalion’s jumpmasters had driven him hard, almost mercilessly, through an accelerated course of classroom instruction and drill-everything except a real parachute drop from a real plane. O’Connell had vetoed this final step because he did not want to risk Levi’s suffering a jump-related injury. Even a sprain would scratch him from the mission.

Levi shuddered. Jumping out of a perfectly sound airplane in broad daylight had sounded bad enough. Jumping out of one into pitch darkness, without any practice, seemed utterly insane.

His teachers hadn’t been the least bit sympathetic.