Vortex

Done! The catch snapped open and he shrugged out of his harness. He got to his knees to get a better view of what was going on.

Most of the compound was in darkness, but enough light remained to make out the pitch-black outlines of a slit trench only twenty yards away. Good. The trench was ready-made cover if he could get to it without being shot. It also ran from north to south, separating the nuclear weapons storage area from the rest of Pelindaba.

More men were coming down all around him-slamming into the ground with teeth-rattling force. Automatic weapons fire rattled from somewhere close by, kicking up a spray of bullet-torn grass and dirt. Two Rangers who’d just scrambled out of their chutes screamed and folded in on themselves.

O’Connell threw himself flat. Too many of the damned South Africans were wide awake and ready for a fight. His troops needed protection-any kind of protection-or they were going to be slaughtered while still landing.

He yanked a smoke grenade off his combat webbing, pulled the pin, and lobbed it toward a half-seen bunker. Others around him were doing the same thing. Wargames played during the planning for Brave Fortune had shown that the immediate use of smoke might save a few lives. That was why every

Ranger in the assault force had been briefed to throw a smoke grenade as soon as possible after landing. The more smoke in the air, the more confusion. And the more confusion, the better.

White tendrils of smoke started to swirl and billow, spreading in the wind to form a light haze that grew thicker as more and more grenades were thrown. South African machine guns and assault rifles chattered from bunkers around the perimeter, stabbing through the haphazard smoke screen. More Rangers were hit and thrown back-dead or badly wounded.

“Goddamnit!” O’Connell unslung his M16 and started belly-crawling toward the South African slit trench. The soldiers who’d landed near him followed, some dragging injured comrades. From all appearances, his battalion was being cut to pieces before it could even get organized.

COMMAND BUNKER, 61 ST TRANSVAAL RIFLES

Peiper stared through the narrow firing slits of his headquarters bunker, trying to piece together some idea of just what the devil was going on.

If this was an air raid, where were the bombs? And if it wasn’t, what were his troops firing at?

Then he saw the first wisps of white and gray smoke rising from the open ground beyond Pelindaba’s science labs and uranium enrichment plant.

Peiper expected to be attacked by the Cubans. He expected the Cubans to use chemical weapons as part of that attack. And now he saw what could only be the first nightmarish tendrils of nerve gas drifting toward his bunker.

He staggered back and grabbed a young lieutenant who still looked half-asleep.

“Sound the gas alarm!”

“Colonel?”

Peiper shoved the officer aside and ran for the alarm control panel himself. He chopped down at the right button and then whirled to find his own chemical gear.

The wailing rise and fall of Pelindaba’s air raid sirens faded-replaced instantly by the high-pitched warbling of its poison gas alert.

In wooden barracks buildings all around the compound, several hundred newly wakened South African soldiers who’d been grabbing rifles and helmets dropped them and started fumbling for gas masks, gauntlets, and chemical protection suits instead. Two or three extra minutes would pass before they could hope to join the bloody battle now raging throughout the camp perimeter.

Col. Frans Peiper had just given the U. S . Rangers the time they so desperately needed.

HEADQUARTERS COMPANY, 1/75TH RANGERS

O’Connell crouched just below the lip of the slit trench and stared at the wide-eyed, panting men clustered around him. More of his headquarters troops and officers had survived the landing then he’d first thought possible. Even Professor Levi had come through unwounded, although the

Israeli scientist now sat huddled on the trench floor, nursing an ankle he’d sprained on impact.

“Weisman!”

His radioman pushed through the crowd. O’Connell took the handset he offered.

“Sierra One Zero, this is Rover One One. Atlas. I say again,

Atlas.” The MC-141 still orbiting somewhere overhead would relay the news that the Rangers were on the ground and attacking. And men waiting in the

Pentagon and the White House could push new pins in their maps.

He passed the handset back and stood listening to the noise of the battle. M 16s, M60 machine guns, and squad automatic weapons were being fired in greater numbers, their distinctive crackle and chatter beginning to blend with the heavier sounds made by South African rifles and machine guns. The Rangers were starting to fight back.

RADAR CONTROL VEHICLE, CACTUS SAM BATTERY, PELINDABA

Panicked by the gas alert siren, the lone corporal manning the Cactus battery’s jammed and useless fire-control radar tore his headphones off and scrambled out of his chair. He’d left his chemical suit back in the barracks. He moved toward the vehicle’s rear hatch.