Vortex

What had been a distant rumbling became a nearby thunderstorm and then a cascade of explosions that Vega thought would tear the bunker open. The sound grew still more, into a nauseating concussion that threw him away from the wall, and finally to a single, continuous, deafening roar.

At first, the inside of the command bunker filled with airborne dust, all of it created by the vibrations from the bombs dropping outside. Loose gear started to rattle and fall over, but the men inside hung on as they looked at the ceiling and hoped it would hold.

In seconds, the crescendo of sound and vibration rendered thought impossible, and those unable to hold on literally flew across the room, slamming into anything in their way.

Vega was literally bounced out of his corner, and he collided with the switchboard operator, who either from duty or confusion had stayed seated at his panel. Now the equipment lay in a jumble of wires, and only the cabling that attached it to the wall kept it from flying around as well.

The lights went out, and Vega could hear yells and thuds as people and equipment collided in a room that seemed more and more mobile. For one moment, he thought the entire bunker had somehow become detached and was tumbling end over end, but he knew that the concrete-block walls could never survive that.

In the confusion of the tumbling men and darkness, Vega hardly noticed that the explosions had stopped. Coughing in the murky, dust-choked air, he fumbled to stand upright. Succeeding, he bumped his head on the ceiling.

Crouching as he rubbed the sore spot on his skull, the general remembered being able to stand upright in the bunker.

They had to get out, and quickly. Where was the door? The dust was so thick that it was impossible even to see the walls, but in the darkness, Vega could see a glow and stumbled toward it.

The wooden door was off its hinges, broken, then crushed when the frame surrounding it buckled. A concealing pile of lumber had been blown clear, and the general climbed up the ramp and out into the open.

The air outside was only a little better than that inside. Trying to breathe, he almost choked and bent over in a spasm of coughing.

It had to be a little clearer, though, since he could see some distance, almost a hundred meters. The town looked fairly intact, and he had begun to have some hope before he turned around and looked over where the 25the battalion should have been located.

Vega’s bunker was on the outskirts of Warmbad, on the northern side. He had deployed his battalions in a circle

around the town, each of the four occupying a ninety-degree sector. Dug in on the flat, treeless landscape, the battalion should have been seen only as series of low mounds, and the turrets of its dug-in armored vehicles.

Instead, the uneven, churned-up earth showed no sign of plant or animal life, or anything of human construction. The smoke and dust cleared a little more, and Vega could see the individual craters made by the bombs.

They were huge, each almost a dozen meters across. More disturbingly, in the near distance he could see the shattered remains of an AK-47.

Vega heard voices behind him-exclamations, gasps, a few shouted orders.

His staff was also emerging from their barely adequate bomb shelter.

Ignoring them, he started to walk toward the 25this command post, a few hundred meters away.

A mild breeze was moving the dust, clearing the air. As it did so, the outlines of the landscape became harsher, and more details, all of them horrible, were visible.

Vega had taken no more than a few steps past the shattered weapon when he found a leg, half-buried in the dirt. The exposed hip joint was covered with dust. Moving forward more slowly, the general found more body parts, whether from the same man or another it was impossible to tell.

Vega had to pick his way carefully. A layer of loose earth, perhaps half a meter deep, covered everything. He remembered walking in freshly plowed fields back home, and this dirt had the same consistency.

He stepped and felt something solid under the surface. A rock, a man, or some piece of equipment, it was impossible to tell. Carefully picking his way in the uncertain footing, he almost bumped into the metal side of what had been an armored personnel carrier.

The vehicle was fairly intact, but was nearly covered with loose dirt.

Lying on its side, it was at least fifty or a hundred meters from the nearest spot APCs could have been em placed

Vega reached for a hatch, intending to check the crew, then dropped his hand. There was no point.

His staff found him there five minutes later. Looking out to the west, he made no move to turn to face them as they approached. When they stopped, sharing his silence, he said, “Send a messenger to the South

Africans.”

He turned to face them.

“We’re going home.”

CHAPTER

Retreat

JANUARY 14-CLOSE-UP FLIGHT, OVER NATIONAL ROUTE I