The whining clunk of the aircraft’s gear coming down confirmed Kruger’s statement.
O’Connell sat back in his seat, trying to clear his mind of any thoughts or worries outside this mission. Total concentration on the job helped keep his fears at bay.
Touchdown . Coming in low and fast, the C-130 bounced once on Swartkop’s bomb-damaged runway and braked just enough to stay on the ground-rolling rapidly toward a small group of trucks and other vehicles parked at the far end. Once there, it braked still more, slowing as it swung through a 180-degree turn so that its nose pointed down the runway again.
Still in his seat, O’Connell felt a final shudder as the aircraft came to a complete stop. He unstrapped himself and stood up in a single fluid motion with his assault rifle gripped in his right hand. The men around him were doing the same thing.
A sliver of daylight appeared, growing larger as the C130’s rear ramp whined open. It dropped onto the runway and locked in place. Slinging his rifle, the Ranger officer trotted down the ramp with Kruger by his side.
The assault force followed him in a column of fours-emerging into a whirling chaos of turboprop-blown sand and dust.
Three uniformed Afrikaners stood waiting for them at the foot of the ramp, each holding his peaked cap on his head against the howling, artificial windstorm. Kruger went straight up to the shortest of the three and shook his hand, shouting to be heard over the noise.
“Deneys, man, you’re a sight for blery sore eyes!”
“You expected somebody different, maybe?” Brig. Deneys Coetzee grinned.
At Kruger’s gesture, he turned to 0”Con nell
“You are the American commander?”
O’Connell nodded.
“Good. I have the vehicles you need here.” Coetzee jerked a thumb at the ill-assorted collection of military trucks and jeeps visible behind him.
“I suggest you get your men aboard and we’ll talk later. In some place safer. Right?”
“Definitely.” O’Connell turned and waved his arm toward the waiting convoy. His troops scattered by squads, each jogging toward a different truck.
The group of six officers-the four South Africans, 0”Con nell and
Pryce-trotted after them at a slightly more sedate pace. The American kept his eyes open. The last time he’d seen Swartkop, it had been dark and most of the base had been on fire.
He was glad to see that the airfield still showed signs of the damage inflicted by his Rangers. Swartkop’s control tower stood silent-a burned-out, blackened ruin. Piles of twisted steel girders and warped aluminum siding were all that were left of maintenance hangars and storage sheds. For now, flight operations were being handled out of a small cluster of camouflage-draped tents set up next to a mobile radar van.
O’Connell frowned. Fuel trucks and ground crews were already rolling across the cratered tarmac-heading for the C-130. That was bad. The
Hercules looked fine from a distance. Up close might be a different story. He checked his watch. Three minutes had passed since they’d landed. So where were the F-15Es the Air Force had promised?
They were right on time.
Sirens started wailing, their eerie howling rising and falling all across the air base. In seconds the fuel trucks and ground crews were racing away, heading for cover. A lone South African Air Force officer pounded across the tarmac toward the C-130. “Air raid! Clear the field! Get off the ground! Go! “
The aircraft’s still-spinning props bluffed as it lumbered down the runway, picking up speed fast. With plenty of runway left to spare, the
Hercules roared off the ground and into the air.
Coetzee turned around to see him smiling.
“Your idea, Colonel?”
“Yeah. ” O’Connell trotted ahead and glanced back.
“Keep moving,
Brigadier. Our flyboys won’t be too choosy about what they drop bombs on.”
The South African chuckled and waved him aboard the lead Land Rover. its driver shifted into gear and pulled out onto the airfield’s access road while O’Connell was still struggling into a seat.
As they drove, he felt a mixture of fear and satisfaction. Swartkop was a hive of confusion and activity as its occupants took shelter. He could sense their fear though, and some of it was communicated to him. They had to get off the base quickly.
The sentries at Swartkop’s main gate waved them through without even a cursory glance at their papers. Nobody bothered with formalities under air attack.
As the small column of five-ton trucks, jeeps, and Land Rovers turned north into the capital, explosions rumbled in the distance behind them.
Twin-tailed fighter-bombers flashed across the sky. Smoke and flame boiled up into the air. In all the confusion, Swartkop’s security forces completely forgot the small group of soldiers who’d landed only moments before.
O’Connell and his raiders were past South Africa’s first defenses.
OUTER SECURITY POST, THE UNION BUILDINGS, PRETORIA
They ran into trouble just a few hundred yards short of their objective.
A security checkpoint manned by Brandwag brownshirts blocked the treelined road winding uphill to Pretoria’s massive governmental complex-the Union Buildings.
“Show me your papers … Kaptein.” The cold-eyed Brandwag officer added the honorific only at the last minute and with obvious reluctance.
“Of course.” Henrik Kruger handed over the documents Coetzee had forged for them without any hesitation.
The South African kommandant had taken his apparent demotion in stride.
Now wearing the three stars of a captain,
he sat beside the Land Rover’s driver. O’Connell and a big Ranger sergeant named Nowak occupied the seat behind them, carefully eyeing the five sentries clustered around the guardhouse and barricade. Six canvas-sided trucks and two jeeps packed with Rangers, SAS troopers, and renegade Afrikaners sat idling behind the Land Rover,
One man was missing. They’d dropped Deneys Coetzee off at the Ministry of Defense before driving on to the Union Buildings. The South African brigadier still had work to do to make Quantum pay off.
“These appear to be in order.” The Brandwag lieutenant tapped the papers in his hand and then glanced suspiciously at the line of vehicles stretching down Church Street.
“But why wasn’t I notified of this troop movement? And why would General de Wet add so many men to our guard force here?”
Kruger shrugged.
“How should I know, Lieutenant? Perhaps he’s worried about a possible enemy attack. ” He smiled thinly. Then his smile disappeared.
“In any case, I do not question my orders. “
The other man still looked worried, “I will have to confirm this with my superiors, Captain. “
“Naturally.” Kruger waved him away nonchalantly.
As the Brandwag officer turned around, O’Connell frowned. He didn’t speak
Afrikaans but he could recognize danger when he saw it. He watched the man walk toward the guardhouse and its phone through narrowed eyes.
“Sergeant. “
“Ready.” The big Ranger bent over, reaching for something on the Land
Rover’s floorboards.
“Now.” O’Connell’s silenced 9mm pistol “popped” three times,
The Brandwag officer staggered and then fell facedown on the pavement, hit in midstride. Bright red stains spread quickly across the back of his tunic.
In the same moment, Sergeant Nowak reared upright and opened fire on the rest of the startled guards. His
