The jumpmaster nodded, and the captain swung forward to stand in the opening, hands gripping the door’s edge on either side.
Bekker looked out and down on a brown and hilly landscape. One dry riverbed to the south was marked by a dotted pale-green line of stunted trees and brush. Rocky hills rose farther to the southeast, with a single road paralleling them to one side, leading straight to their target,
Keetmanshoop.
The town of Keetmanshoop had no industry. There weren’t any diamond or uranium mines nearby, and only enough farms to feed the local population of some fifteen thousand souls. But Keetmanshoop was worth its weight in gold to the South African invasion force.
From his perch, Bekker could see the town laid out in a precise, right-angled grid below him. Columns of smoke from burning buildings showed where Air Force Impalas had bombed and strafed identified Namibian army barracks and
command centers just moments before. He could also see what did make
Keetmanshoop so valuable-the meta led two lane roads leading to it like a spiderweb, and the rail lines arcing out to the east, north, and south.
And most important of all, the airport.
Just a single two-thousand-foot strip, it was the logistical anchor on which Operation Nimrod rested. Without that small runway, South Africa wouldn’t be able to move men and supplies into Namibia quickly enough to sustain its offensive. With it, they could just squeak by.
One small burden disappeared as he scanned the runway. The field seemed undamaged, and there weren’t any Namibian military aircraft parked on the tarmac. Even better, he couldn’t see any fire rising from the two or three sandbagged antiaircraft positions clustered around the airport’s small redbrick terminal.
The bell rang again, and the light over the cargo door flashed from red to green. The Jumpmaster slapped his shoulder. Now!
First in line, without thinking or feeling, Bekker simply stepped out the open door and into space. A blast of cold air punched into his lungs. He dropped earthward in a split second of gut-wrenching free-fall before he felt the static line tug.
The parachute streamered out of its pack and snapped open-slamming him painfully against his harness in sudden deceleration. He glanced up and saw the billowing, sand colored canopy that meant he could add another successful jump to his logbook. Now high overhead, the huge Transall lumbered on, still spewing out men and weapons canisters. Other transports followed, each laying its own drifting trail of slowly failing parachutes.
Bekker looked down and felt adrenaline surging through his veins. Fifty meters. Thirty. Twenty. This was what he lived for-being in the front of the assault wave, leading the attack.
The ground rushed up to meet him, and he bent his legs and rolled as he hit.
CUBAN EMBASSY, RUA KARL MAM LUANDA,
ANGOLA
The sun, rising in a cloudless early-mo ming sky, bathed Luanda’s government ministries, shops, and dense-packed shanties in a pitilessly clear light-revealing layers of dirt and spray-painted political slogans coating once-whitewashed walls. The capital city of the People’s Republic of Angola had grown shabbier with each passing year of bloody civil war and Marxist central planning.
Luanda’s government offices were still shut, their outer doors padlocked and windows dark. The bureaucratic workday never began till long after sunup.
Angola’s socialist ally and military protector evidently had a somewhat different attitude toward time. Lights were already winking on all across the fortified Cuban embassy compound on Rua Karl Marx-Karl Marx Street.
Gen. Antonio Vega was still dressing when Corporal Gomez knocked on the door and without waiting burst into the room.
“Comrade General, our embassy in Windhoek is on the phone. They’re saying that someone just attacked the city with aircraft! The Vega a tall, slender man with a stern, narrow face and gray-streaked black hair, stood facing a small mirror propped up on his nightstand. At the moment, he was only half clothed one bare shoulder showing the delicate tracery of scar tissue left by fragments from an exploding mortar round. It was a scar he’d earned more than thirty years before while leading one of Fidel Castro’s guerrilla units against the old
Batista government.
Visibly annoyed at being interrupted, Vega snorted.
“What? Ridiculous.
Those idiots must be seeing things.” He continued pulling on his uniform shirt, though with slightly more speed than usual.
“It would be straining their military expertise to recognize an air raid, even if one did occur.”
Gomez blushed. Vega had a razor-sharp tongue-a tongue that matched his wits. It was said that even Castro felt the edge of the general’s icy sarcasm from time to time. The
corporal doubted that. Senior military men who angered Fidel Castro once never lived long enough to anger him a second time.
Gomez, waiting with noticeable impatience near the door, did not agree or disagree, but instead volunteered, “The ambassador was on the phone to
Windhoek when I was sent to find you, sir.”
Vega finished buttoning his shirt and grabbed his uniform coat. He strode quickly out the door, not bothering to close it or order Gomez to follow.
The corporal did both without being told and raced after him down the carpeted hall toward the embassy’s Command Center.
Cuba’s ambassador to Angola, Carlos Luiz Tejeda, stood surrounded by a small crowd of wildly gesticulating aides and officers. He had one ear pressed hard against a red telephone, trying to listen amid the increasingly frantic din.
Vega slowed to a walk.
The noise level dropped abruptly as all of the officers and most of the political aides in the Command Center stopped talking and moved to the sides of the room. The general’s contempt for unnecessary chatter was well-known.
Tejeda saw Vega and nodded gravely, but continued talking on the phone. A chair materialized near the general and he sat down.
Tejeda ended his phone conversation by asking for hourly updates and hung up. He stood silent for a moment. Then he took off his gold-rimmed glasses before wearily rubbing one hand over his face.
Vega realized with some surprise that Tejeda was unshaven and dressed only in slacks and a half-buttoned dress shirt. In all the years they’d worked together, he’d never seen the man so unkempt. The ambassador was ordinarily something of a dandy. Things must be serious.
Tejeda’s next words confirmed that.
“General, I have grave news. We now have confirmation that South African forces have invaded Namibian territory. “
Vega sat quietly as the ambassador outlined the situation -at least as far as it could be determined from the first sketchy reports. An air raid on
Windhoek. Airborne landings in Keetmanshoop. And unconfirmed sightings of South African armored columns pouring across Namibia’s southern border.
“Widespread attacks,” Vega commented.
“This isn’t just a simple cross-border raid, Comrade Ambassador.”
Tejeda put his glasses back on.
“Agreed. I’ve already put a call through to
Havana. I expect to hear from the foreign minister himself in half an hour or so.”
Surprised, Vega checked his watch. It was past midnight in Cuba, an ungodly hour even in a godless country. The foreign policy apparatus wasn’t usually so quick off the mark.
Tejeda nodded.
“Yes, Havana is greatly concerned. That is why I shall need to give the minister your assessment of the current military situation in
Namibia. And he will also expect our joint recommendations for reaction to this South African aggression.”
“Our what?” Vega was nonplussed.