you can set up. As long as the Western media is singing our song, let’s help them sing it. It’s nice to have them on our side for a change.”
Vega finished his calculations and made a series of rapid notations on one of the maps. Then he stood up, stretched, and started to clear the camp desk.
“Now, get my aide in here. I want to be on the next plane to
Karibib. “
Forty minutes later, the Frenchman and his film crew boarded an Angolan
TAAG airlines An-26, a Russian-built transport aircraft that was also used as a civil airliner. No amount of bright paint could hide its military origins. The rear loading ramp was 4 dead giveaway, as were the seats that folded up against the cabin sides.
As the An-26 took off and climbed high above the barren Namibian landscape, its pilot turned a little farther to the east than normal.
This ensured that the plane passed well out of sight of the small town of Karibib-140 kilometers northwest of Windhoek, as the transport flies.
It was 180 kilometers by what passed for a road.
Gen. Antonio Vega’s plane, a Cuban Air Force An-26 in a drab sand-and-green paint scheme, followed ten minutes behind-closely escorted by two MiG-29s. But instead of continuing north toward Luanda, the large twin turboprop slid west-on course for Karibib.
KARIBIB AIRHEAD, NAMIBIA
Twenty minutes out of Windhoek, Vega’s An-26 orbited, circling low over
Karibib’s single, unpaved runway. The traffic pattern over the small airstrip was jammed with military aircraft of all sizes and types.
For once, Vega had refused the privileges associated with his rank, content to wait his turn in the landing pattern. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with this operation especially not meaningless and time-wasting ceremony.
As the plane circled, he watched the frantic loading and unloading process going on below him. Huge 11-76, smaller
Antonov aircraft like his own, and even Ilyushin airliners from Air Cuba, all had to land, unload, and fuel simultaneously, then turn round for an immediate takeoff. Karibib’s airfield only had room for three aircraft on the field at once.
Fighters circled higher, constantly on watch for snooping South African reconnaissance planes.
In the distance, Vega saw a small tent city and rows of parked vehicles.
There should have been more of them. But at this range from their bases, even the USSR’s big 11-76s could only carry two armored personnel carriers. As a result, it had taken more than thirty sorties over the past three days just to ferry in the equipment for a reinforced motorized rifle battalion.
Vega frowned. So small a force for such an important mission. He would have preferred sending a regiment-sized tactical group, but time was short and the opportunity he saw was bound to be fleeting. With calculation and a little luck, the gamble he planned to take would pay off. And in a pinch, he could skip the calculation.
” Antonov One One, you are cleared to land.” The controller’s voice sounded bone tired, reflecting nearly seventy two hours of nonstop flight operations directed from a small trailer parked off to one side of
Karibib’s dirt runway.
“Acknowledged, Control. On final, now.”
Vega slid forward against his seat belt as the transport dropped steeply and all but dove for the strip. He felt his stomach churn and swallowed hard, fighting to keep a placid appearance. Senior commanders in the
Cuban Army did not get airsick in front of their subordinates. He knew what was happening; it was only his stomach that hadn’t been informed.
The pilot’s combat landing was rough, but acceptable, and as soon as they had taxied to what passed for a tarmac, ground crewmen chocked the wheels and started to refuel the Antonov’s tanks from fuel bladders and a portable pump.
The plane’s rear ramp whined open before its propellers had even stopped spinning.
Col. Carlos Pellervo was waiting, breathless, with the rest of the battalion staff as Vega’s command group left the plane. He braced and saluted as the general approached.
Vega returned the salute, and both men dropped their hands. Pellervo remained at rigid attention.
Still feeling queasy from the flight, Vega sourly noted the man’s harried expression and partially unbuttoned tunic. Though politically well-connected, Pellervo hadn’t been his first choice for this post.
Unfortunately, the man’s battalion had been the first unit that could be spared from the buildup around Windhoek.
Vega frowned. He wasn’t a stickler for spit and polish, but there were certain standards to be maintained.
“Good afternoon, Colonel.” His voice grew harsher.
“I assume you received word of my intention to inspect your troops? I know for a fact that a message was sent more than two hours ago.
Have I interrupted a siesta or some other form of recreation?”
Pellervo blanched.
“No, Comrade General!” He hurried on, practically stammering.
“I was called away a short time ago to resolve a problem with our ammunition storage. It has just been corrected. “
Vega looked him up and down.
“Comrade Colonel, you should not let one crisis upset your plans or cause you to rush. I need officers who can remain calm in confusion, who can improvise and overcome difficulties. Is that clear?”
Pellervo nodded several times, his face pale beneath a desert-acquired tan.
Vega changed tack, satisfied that his reprimand had hit home.
“Are your preparations on schedule?”
“Si, Comrade General, everything is going according to plan.” Pellervo waved a chubby hand toward the busy airfield, obviously relieved to be out of the spotlight.
“Excellent. ” Vega turned away, hands clasped behind his back.
The attack slated to begin in just five hours was still risky, but he couldn’t see any reasonable alternative. Soviet air transports could ferry in enough men and gear to hold Namibia’s northern regions against South
Africa’s invasion force, but they couldn’t carry large numbers of heavier weapons and armor. The tanks and heavy artillery he needed to mount a successful counteroffensive could only come by ship.
And just one port on the Namibian coast was large enough to accommodate the Soviet-owned freighters and troop transports already at sea. Just one.
Vega stared southwest, away from Karibib’s busy airport, his eyes scanning the barren Namibian desert. South Africa’s high command was about to learn that two could play this game of strategic hide-and-seek and misdirection.
AUGUST 25-5TH MECHANIZED INFANTRY, SEVENTY
FIVE KILOMETERS WEST OF WINDHOEK, ON ROUTE 52
The eastern sky had brightened from pitch-black to a much lighter, pink-tinged gray-a sure sign that sunrise wasn’t far off. Sunrise and the start of another day of war.
he hulls of dozens of South African armored vehicles stood out against the vast sand wastes of the Namib Desert. To the south, the rocky, rugged slopes of the Gamsberg rose twenty-three hundred meters into the cloudless sky, punching up out of the desert floor like a giant humpback whale coming up for air. Other mountains rose beyond it, all shimmering a faint rosy red in the growing light, and all leading generally east toward the Namibian capital of Windhoek.
Col. George von Brandis sat atop his Ratel command vehicle studying his map. Von Brandis, a tall, slender, balding officer, was not happy. Not with the position of his battalion. Not with his mission. And not with his orders.
He and his men had been driving steadily eastward since leaving Walvis
Bay, South Africa’s coastal enclave, before dawn on the eighteenth-crushing a few minor border posts and a company-sized Namibian garrison holding the Rossing uranium mine in the process. Since then, they’d met little resistance and made tremendous progress.