Four BRDM-2 scout cars led the column, their turrets spinning continuously from side to side as gunners sought out potential targets. Scouts who grew sloppy and complacent were scouts who were soon dead.
So when the lieutenant commanding the lead BRDM saw movement in a clump of brush just off the road, he didn’t hesitate before screaming a shrill warning. The heavy machine gun in the scout car’s turret was already firing as it slewed on target. And more than a hundred rounds of 14.5mm machinegun ammunition slammed into the patch of brush.
The scout car and its companions swept on past in a swirl of dust and torn vegetation.
Ten minutes later, the first BTR-60 troop carriers thundered by. Cuban infantrymen riding with their hatches open turned curious eyes on the site of the attempted ambush. Two old men dressed in ill-fitting South African uniforms lay bloody and unmoving, entwined around a dull-gray metal tube-an ancient World War II-era bazooka.
The road to the small fanning town of Bodenstein lay open and undefended.
And Cuba’s Third Brigade Tactical Group was just one hundred and seventy kilometers from Johannesburg.
NOVEMBER 21STATE SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER, PRETORIA
Fear has its own peculiar smell-the sour stench of sweat triggered by sheer, gut-twisting panic and not by hard manual labor.
It was an odor Marius van der Heijden knew well. As a young policeman and later a senior security official, he’d smelled fear in dozens of small, sterile interrogation rooms. He’d witnessed the terror of men confined in brutal prisons or awaiting death on a gallows.
But now he caught its unmistakable scent in a room full of South Africa’s self-proclaimed leaders. The men seated around Karl Vorster were, quite plainly, frightened almost out of their wits.
The arrows and lines drawn on the large map at one end of the room explained their growing panic.
“in sum, Mr. President, we face an impossible military situation.” Gen.
Adriaan de Wet looked haggard and worn, aged beyond his years by a series of unprecedented disasters.
“We simply do not have the manpower or equipment to hold Namibia, crush local rebellions, and fend off this
Cuban offensive. It cannot be done.” His hand shook as he tried to hold the map pointer steady.
Van der Heijden listened with a sinking heart. The battalions rushed back from Namibia to face the Cuban columns driving on Pietersburg and
Nelspruit were fighting hard, slowing the enemy’s advance. But they were being destroyed in the process. Reinforcements and replacements sent to them were swallowed up within hours.
Even worse, the SAD IF had almost nothing left to throw at the third Cuban invasion force-now within one hundred and fifty kilometers of
Johannesburg. Many of the Afrikaners who’d rebelled against the government were returning to the fold-willing to bury their own grievances to fight a foreign enemy. But it was all too little and too late, Hastily assembled task forces made up of understrength infantry companies, ill equipped commandos, and outdated artillery pieces had either been smashed to pieces or swallowed whole. South Africa’s back door was wide open.
De Wet finished his grim briefing and stepped away from the situation map.
Every head swiveled toward the dour-faced man seated at the head of the table. But as always of late, Karl Vorster sat silent and unapproachable.
An uncomfortable silence dragged. De Wet shifted his pointer nervously from hand to hand.
Finally, Fredrik Pienaar, the minister of information, waved a thin, bony finger at the map.
“What about the troops garrisoning Voortrekker Heights and other bases? Can’t they be used to defeat this third Cuban force?”
De Wet shook his head.
“Most of those battalions are badly understrength themselves. And they’re needed to defend vital installations in and around
Pretoria against possible guerrilla attack. We can’t afford to fight one fire by leaving our enemies free to set others.”
Heads around the table nodded in hurried agreement. De Wet’s definition of “vital installations” included their own homes and offices.
Pienaar reddened.
“Very well, General. Then what about the rest of our army? What about the troops and tanks you’ve managed to leave dangling uselessly in Namibia?”
De Wet turned red himself, his fear almost submerged by anger.
“We’re shifting forces as quickly as we can, Minister. But our air, rail, and road transport capabilities are stretched to the limit. We simply can’t move soldiers, equipment, or supplies fast enough to matter!”
“And whose fault is-“
“Enough!” Karl Vorster slammed the table with one clenched fist.
“Enough of this childish squabbling!”
He turned angrily on his cabinet.
“Start acting like men, not whimpering schoolboys. Or worse, like cowardly kaffirs! “
The deadly insult stiffened backs throughout the room.
Vorster shoved his chair back and rose to his full height, towering over every other man in the room. He strode over to the situation map, pushing past a startled de Wet.
He turned.
“You look at maps, at scraps of paper, and see the end of the world! ” A contemptuous hand thumped the map, almost toppling it off its stand.
“I look at the same drawings, the same lines of ink and pencil, but I do not see defeat and disaster! I see our final victory!”
Marius van der Heijden shivered. Had the man he’d followed blindly for so many years gone mad? Others around the table stirred uneasily, grappling with the same fear.
Vorster shook his finger at them like a sorrowful father chiding unruly children.
“Come now, my friends. Can’t you see God’s design in all of this?”
His voice dropped, becoming softer and more persuasive. It was less the voice of a politician and more the voice of a preacher.
“Like the ancient
Israelites we stand surrounded by our foes-outmatched and seemingly overpowered. But just as God raised up David to smite Goliath, so God has given us the weapons we need to destroy our enemies. Weapons of awesome power and cleansing fire.”
He turned and pointed to a small dot on the map-a dot just outside
Pretoria.
“Weapons that wait there for our orders, my friends.”
His finger rested on the hill called Pelindaba-the “place of meeting.”
ADMINISTRATION CENTER, PELINDABA RESEARCH
COMPLEX
The atomic research site called Pelindaba sat high on a bluff overlooking a tangle of winding valleys and low hills just south of Pretoria. Lush green lawns and immaculately landscaped rock gardens gave its laboratories, living quarters, and gleaming steel-and-glass administration building the look of a quiet college campus. In such surroundings, the squat, square, windowless bulk of Pelindaba’s uranium-enrichment facility and the tall smokestacks of an adjacent coal-fired power plant seemed alien-obtrusive reminders of the intrusion of a hostile industrial machine into what appeared to be a placid academic world.
Inside the Administration Center, Col. Frans Peiper stared out an upper-floor window to hide his irritation from the young woman receptionist. A face marked by cold gray eyes, a straight, pointed nose, and a tight-lipped mouth scowled back at him. He clasped his hands behind his back to avoid the embarrassment of unconsciously looking at his watch again.
As usual, Pelindaba’s civilian director was late. For a man of great learning, Peiper thought savagely, Dr. Jakobus Schumann had such an imperfect concept of time.
He turned as the rotund, whitehaired administrator came bustling in through the door, an apology already tumbling out through a smiling mouth.
“Terribly sorry for the delay, Colonel. Afraid I got myself tangled up in a small liquefaction problem over at the labs.”