| Vortex | |
|---|---|
First edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Larry Bond, Patrick Larkin |
| Cover artist | Peter Thorpe (design/illustration) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Thriller, War novel |
| Publisher | Little, Brown & Warner Books |
| Publication date | June 1991 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 909 pp (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-446-51566-3 (first edition, hardback) & ISBN 0-446-36304-9 (Paperback edition) |
| OCLC Number | 23286496 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.54 20 |
| LC Classification | PS3552.O59725 V6 1991 |
Vortex is a 1991 war novel by Larry Bond and Patrick Larkin.
Contents |
In a tense, hypothetical 1990s apartheid South Africa, the ruling National Party and its new state president prepare to end decades of racial injustice and conflict by entering into negotiations with African National Congress officials for sweeping democratic reforms. However, beneath the surface progress has been slow, with the Soviet Union and its rivals in the West attempting to play both sides and internal pressure mounting. The ANC refuses to properly disarm and cease planning terrorist operations, while for their part even white moderates refuse to permit a total system of "one man, one vote". To complicate matters, South African commandos conducting a clandestine raid into Zimbabwe uncover a conspiracy by ANC guerrilla fighters to assassinate the reformist government.
After learning of the plot, Afrikaner National Resistance fanatic and Minister for Internal Security Karl Vorster seeks to manipulate the situation for his personal gain, allowing the plan to proceed despite advance knowledge of its details. Hardline elements of the regime, led by its staunchest supporters of apartheid, intend to let the ANC terrorists murder their political opponents, leaving the field clear for them to seize power.
With most of South Africa’s moderate ministers dead, Vorster becomes president and declares martial law. The security forces begin brutal crackdowns on anti-apartheid organizations, and those suspected of having ties to ANC affiliates are executed or moved to isolated internment camps. Suppression, torture, and state-sponsored killings became commonplace, while the South African Defence Force is ordered to invade newly independent South West Africa (Namibia) to re-establish apartheid in that territory. Cuban military personnel present in Communist-controlled Angola, worried about their allies in Namibian government, then advance into Namibia and halt Vorster’s invasion short of Windhoek.
As a bloody stalemate emerges and the South African blitz is bogged down, conditions at home continue to worsen. Armed police indiscriminately massacre hundreds of white students protesting conscription at the University of the Witwatersrand, while a minority of Afrikaners, disgusted at Vorster’s abuses in power, launch secessionist movements in Transvaal and the Orange Free State. To make matters worse, the white government is faced with full-fledged tribal revolts after they expel a Zulu chieftain from the country for condemning apartheid. Attempts to suppress dissension with firepower and brute military force only leads to greater unrest, such as a violent uprising by Durban’s Indian population. Seeing a perfect opportunity to take advantage of South Africa’s internal chaos, the Cuban leadership, aided by direct military assistance from friendly African states such as Libya and Mozambique, launches an invasion of the country with logistical backing from Moscow.
While Cuban tank divisions rapidly close on Pretoria, sweeping aside the feeble resistance offered by snipers, untrained reservists, and local Afrikaner militias, Karl Vorster orders the deployment of nuclear weapons in a desperate attempt to save the city. His air force subsequently uses one such device to destroy an armoured column, resulting in the deaths of nearly three thousand Libyan and Cuban troops. The ensuing radiation storm goes on to contaminate much of the Transvaal province, affecting enemy soldiers and South African civilians alike. Cuban forces retaliate by using chemical weapons to destroy SADF positions, although the hundreds of innocents also killed in the barrage prompts horrified ANC leaders to desert their Communist allies. Havana goes on to authorize the use of live civilians as human shields, intending to reduce the threat posed by South Africa’s nuclear arsenal.
Meanwhile, anti-Vorster factions seize Cape Town, dealing a mortal blow to the nation’s economic structure. When the skyrocketing price of precious metals begins to dampen the world economy, the U.S. and Great Britain make a hard decision to authorize direct military intervention in South Africa. A combined British and American task force, backed by both air and naval support, makes headway and manages to overrun the apartheid regime’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. With this threat removed, the race for Pretoria results in victory for the U.S. after a team of Rangers and South African rebels arrest Karl Vorster and his supporters.
American air strikes demoralize the battered Cuban Army and force their withdrawal; in exasperation a humiliated Soviet leadership vows never to waste another ruble on the continent. During the following months the fall of Vorster’s illegal government is completed as allied units finish routing surviving pockets of pro-apartheid diehards. The ANC and Afrikaner secessionists remain on the run, afraid of their homeland’s new masters. Apartheid is formally abolished and a conglomerate of various political parties brought to the table for the construction of a new republic, eventually coming to an agreement which provides for multiracial democracy. All South Africans, weary of war, are finally united in rebuilding a fractured South Africa.