Vortex

“Jesus!” Lt, Col. Robert O’Connell yanked his head back below the trench parapet as a sudden burst of machinegun fire ripped past. The goddamned

South Africans were on their frigging toes. Still, he’d seen enough-more than enough.

The enemy had a heavy-caliber Vickers machine gun ensconced in a reinforced concrete bunker barely thirty meters north of the nuclear weapons storage area-covering every possible approach from the western side of the Pelindaba compound. Other bunkers guarded the eastern approaches. Bravo Company’s Third Platoon had found that out the hard way.

Dead Rangers were strewn across the ground between the trench and the barbed wire fence surrounding the storage site. Most lay within a few feet of the trench-mowed down only seconds after they’d climbed out of cover. Some were draped over the wire, butchered as they tried to cut their way through. Several bodies still tangled in bloodsoaked parachutes lay crumpled inside the weapons storage area.

O’Connell felt sick. Many of his best Rangers lay dead out there. A few of Bravo Three’s forty-two men were probably still alive, huddled behind scraps of cover or playing possum in the middle of that murderous field, but the platoon itself had ceased to exist as a viable fighting force.

He gritted his teeth and motioned his officers and senior noncoms over for a quick conference. Regrets could come later. Right now, he and his thirty or so headquarters troops had to find a way to knock that damned machine gun out. Until they did, nobody was going to be able to get inside that storage site, and more importantly, nobody was going to be able to haul the nukes themselves out.

“Well, anybody got any brilliant ideas?” O’Connell looked from face to worried face.

His executive officer, Maj. Peter Klocek, pursed his lips and tilted his helmet back a few inches so he could wipe his sweat-streaked forehead.

“Can we get a Gustav here?”

“No time. ” O’Connell shook his head regretfully. The battalion’s recoilless rifle teams were scattered over a wide area-busy knocking out other enemy bunkers and strong points The Carl Gustav team attached to

Bravo Three had disappeared. They were probably among the dead piled up in the field just beyond the trench.

“What about Navy air? Why not let a couple A-6s pound the shit out of those SOBs?

O’Connell considered that for a second. It was tempting -too tempting.

And too likely to cause them more problems. He shook his head again.

“That bunker’s too close to the storage area. One near miss and we’d have to try digging those nukes out with our bare hands.”

“Then I guess we gotta take our lumps and do it the hard way, Colonel.”

Sergeant Johnson growled, hefting his M 16 in one massive paw. The assault rifle looked small in comparison.

O’Connell’s fingers drummed a brief tattoo on the plastic butt of his own

M 16. Johnson had never been known for either his tact or his fancy tactical footwork. He had both the physique and mental attitude of a bare-knuckle brawler. But basically the sergeant was right. They’d have to throw subtlety out the window.

He grimaced. This was another of the decision points

dreaded by any sane combat commander-the moment when you came face-to-face with an awful and unavoidable truth about battle. Sound tactics and sufficient firepower were vital, but there would always be a time when all options narrowed down to one horrible choice-the decision to put men into a position in which a lot of them were sure to be killed.

O’Connell slid down to squat on his haunches. His officers and NCOs followed suit.

“All right, people, listen up. Here’s how were gonna play this thing.” He quickly traced movements in the dirt, outlining the only plan open to them.

Two minutes later, O’Connell and four of his Rangers crouched below the edge of the slit trench. Two more soldiers stood ready to boost them up and into the killing ground. Another group of six led by Sergeant Johnson waited one hundred meters south along the same trench. The rest of his headquarters troops-thirteen officers and men-were spaced at five-meter intervals between the two assault groups.

A tight-lipped Peter Klocek worked his way up the narrow trench to within whispering distance.

“We’re set, Rob.”

O’Connell nodded. He knew Klocek thought he was crazy to lead this attack himself, but he’d grown tired of sending other men into danger. For too long on this op, he’d been forced to lead like the faith-filled New

Testament Roman centurion, saying to one man, “Go,” and to another,

“Come.” Well, no more.

This suicidal bunker hunt was make or break for Brave Fortune. And that meant his battalion had a right to expect to see him out in front, yelling the infantry-school motto, “Follow me!”

Enough pissing around, he told himself. Every second counted. He took a deep breath and then let it out in a bull voiced roar.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Rifles and machine guns chattered all along the length of the