Triumph in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Scattered mountain ranges run north to south, and punctuate the landscapes of the central plateau and southern steppes. Only along the rivers on the northern border with Angola does the jungle grow lush and thick, fed by the waters of the Kunene River on the Angolan border.

  In the northeastern corner of the country, in the Caprivi Strip, there is thick jungle, courtesy of the Okavango, Zambezi, and Kwando Rivers that flow from the north.

  It was here in this hot, humid, sweltering jungle brush that Enger and his men searched for Raines and his elusive 501 Brigade, just north of the Namibian city of Ohopoho.

  In the heat of the jungle, the men in Enger’s Dark Horse Brigade were sweating profusely. Enger had reliable information from Bottger’s Intelligence agents that the dreaded 501 Brigade led by General Ben Raines was to the northwest of him in southern Angola, moving steadily south toward the New World headquarters in Pretoria.

  Someone had to stop them. Enger saw it as his chance for his finest hour as a mercenary for The New World Order—to halt the Rebels and defeat them soundly. He had little faith in the stories the natives had told of what fierce warriors Raines and his men were, putting them down as excuses by the natives for their lack of success against the 501 Brigade, and nothing more.

  “We move northwest right here,” he told Tomo, his chief Zulu leader of mercenaries from Zanzibar, pointing to a river shown on the map running west toward Angola.

  “Send several dozen of your best men to scout the way. Have them fan out on both sides of this river.”

  Tomo spoke English with a British accent. He was huge, very muscular, so dark that his skin looked like black satin while he was sweating. He was a weapons expert, if any Zulu could be called an expert with modern weaponry. He understood the Soviet-made portable rocket launchers, and trained his most trusted men how to use them accurately. And Tomo was a fierce fighter with an AK47 or in hand-to-hand combat. He could be counted on to take a deadly toll in any type of confrontation with soldiers from the Rebel armies.

  His warriors, of the Herero tribes, were traditional allies of the Germans and had been since the 1800’s when the German farmers first colonized Namibia.

  “River be best way,” Tomo said. “It flow north, toward Angolan border. We go slow. Maybe no cross over into Angola if we no find Ben Raines in Namibia.”

  “Why is that?” Enger asked, for Tomo seemed worried about something in Angola.

  “Many die there, get sick in Angola. Bleed from mouth and nose and ears. Die in three or four days. Thousands are dead, rotting in the jungles and villages.”

  “The damn Rebels have let loose some kind of germ agent we don’t know about?”

  “No, Major. It be anthrax. General Field Marshal Bottger order it be dropped from airplanes. Kill all jungle animals, all lions and elephants, all Bantu tribes living in small villages in Angola. My scouts say bodies be everywhere. Nobody alive in Angola but birds and lizards, they say.”

  “We’ve been inoculated against our own anthrax bombs and rockets. It won’t bother us.”

  “I don’t know what this mean . . . inoculated. But all are dead in Angola. Maybe Raines and his men dead, too. I no think my men will go into Angola.”

  “We’re immune to it. The shots they gave us in the butt in the last six months keeps us from contracting anthrax. I heard this from General Ligon himself, so stop worrying.”

  Tomo wagged his head, uncertain. “A Zulu no understand this thing, the needles, how so many people die from anthrax and we do not die because of the needles. Missionaries say same thing about the Slims disease, what you white men call AIDS, but many still die in spite of needles. My men are frightened. They say they no go across into the Angola where everyone die.”

  Enger was frustrated over the Zulu’s ignorance of medicine and germ warfare. Trained by the old East German army specialists in these matters, he had no patience with ignorant savages who were incapable of understanding things even when they were properly explained.

  “Promise your men the shots. The needles make it safe. They will not get sick.”

  “They still be afraid,” Tomo said. “Some refuse to take the needles. They say it be a bad thing. Some say needles cause Slims disease, maybe also cause anthrax.” The big man shrugged, as if to say such things were beyond him.

  Enger couldn’t have cared less if they lost a few Zulus to anthrax. He held his tongue. Tomo and a few more had agreed to the vaccinations, and his European mercenaries were all inoculated against the anthrax spores. Tomo’s scouts had to find Raines so his location could be pinpointed for aerial strikes. He could not allow them to refuse his orders.

  “Spread them out on both sides of the river until we get to the border into Angola. Maybe Raines and his 501 Brigade have already crossed over into Namibia, if the anthrax didn’t get them. We’ll find him, and call in air support and some armor when we do.”

  Enger wanted to sound very sure of their success, to help convince Tomo and the others to follow orders.

  Tomo turned away from the map, swatting mosquitos away from his fierce looking black face. “I tell my scouts what you say, Major. We go as far as border, but not cross into Angola.”

  Enger watched the giant Zulu walk soundlessly into the tropical forest, gathering his scouts in a small clearing where vines dangled from towering limbs surrounding an open space near the shallow river. The river would be infested with crocs and poisonous snakes. He thought it was best to let men who knew the jungles go ahead of his Special Forces column.

  With over two dozen Russian-made Spider Rocket launchers in the hands of the best trained men in Dark Horse Brigade, Enger felt confident they could handle any sort of engagement with Ben Raines and his Rebel soldiers, even if it came down to close-quarters fighting.

  Enger prided himself on the combat training he’d given his men. Most were armed with razor-sharp bayonets or machetes, sawed-off automatic shotguns, and .45 caliber pistols and grenades. His demolition squad had Trictoff Soviet land mines to lay in Ben Raines’s path if they found his armored machinery moving toward South Africa and New World headquarters.

  And with a heavy rain forest canopy to hide them, Enger and his Dark Horse soldiers would be hidden from detection from the skies. He had ordered all his tanks, cannons, and motorized equipment to hold their positions along the coast to wait for coded instructions sent by radio.

  Tomo led more than a dozen Zulu soldiers across a shallow spot in the river, the water only reaching their waists. A huge croc slithered off one muddy embankment, and in the same instant Tomo shot it in the head with a single round from his Steyer automatic pistol.

  The fifteen-foot croc began twisting, rolling over in the water thrashing its tail, leaving a trail of dark blood in the brown waters flowing toward the Atlantic. These saltwater crocs were the most aggressive of their species and it had happened more than once that a croc hidden below the surface of some river had lunged out to grab a man and pull him under to his death.

  Enger turned to Captain Walter Zahn, an East German, his second in command of the brigade.

  “Let’s move out,” Enger said.

  Columns of men in camouflage uniforms began walking into the dark shadows beneath the forest canopy, AK47s cocked and ready.

  Enger hoped they would find Raines and his 501 Brigade this side of the Angola border, so there wouldn’t be any problem with Tomo’s natives. He hoped Ligon was wrong, and the anthrax wouldn’t kill Raines and his troops. He wanted that pleasure, and the glory that would follow, to be all his.

  Enger was weary after days of slow progress through jungles along the river. Tomo had nothing to report, only empty forest and hundreds of crocs sunning on the riverbank. As the sun set on their third day marching toward the border of Angola, while he was becoming more convinced than ever they would never find the Rebels, the staccato distant machine gun fire startled him into a battle-ready state.

  “Fan out!” he cried, waving his arm to direct his men into the jungle
. Enger knew the sound of the American weapons all too well. Tomo, or one of his scouts, had stumbled into an ambush somewhere upriver.

  Now machine guns began to blast from all directions, accompanied by the occasional explosion of a grenade, their noise filling the rain forest like peals of thunder. Men were screaming in pain and yelling in fear when the thump of a mortar being fired suddenly echoed from a bend in the river, followed by a terrific blast.

  A New World soldier ran into the river shallows, spraying machine gun fire back and forth to the west. He fired until his clip was empty, unaware that a giant croc was swimming toward his splashing sounds, undulating like a snake in the water, using its tail to push it forward.

  Another mortar round boomed in the jungle, fired at Enger’s troops from some position he couldn’t see. He did see the croc leap out of the water to grab his soldier by the leg, jerking him off his feet until he sank out of sight where he’d been standing, below white foam and bubbles.

  One of Tomo’s Zulus staggered out of the forest with blood pouring from his belly. Half of his face was missing, so that when he turned his head one side of a grinning bloody skull was showing. The Zulu fell to his knees, shrieking in agony as blood pooled around him.

  Another of Tomo’s scouts came back downriver in a limping run with a bloodstain darkening the leg of his fatigues. He ran a few steps more and toppled over in jungle undergrowth, but now the sounds of battle raged up and down the river, and one man’s cry was lost in the thunder of guns, mortars, and exploding grenades.

  Enger turned to his radio engineer. “Call for air support. Give them our coordinates. And tell the bastards to get it here fast.”

  “Yes, sir,” stammered a Belgian mercenary named Klaus, taking his radio out to begin transmission to Pretoria, where most of the HIND M24 helicopter gunships were stationed in the south. They would then check their maps to find the nearest M24s to Enger’s position and relay the coordinates.

  Enger prayed they weren’t too far off, for they were in a desperate situation here. Only a chopper could maneuver along this twisting river to get any firepower directed at the enemy positions.

  “Black Horse Brigade calling HQ. Send in the HINDs at—” His coordinates were drowned out by a mortar blast ripping trees and vines apart in front of Enger.

  A rocket hissed from far upriver, following the river’s course from a hand-held launcher. The Rebels’ Dragon rockets were unusually accurate for short distances. However, they needed heat to sense a target, and Enger wondered why the rocket had been fired when they had no tanks or aircraft to attract them to a hit.

  Very quickly he saw the Dragon explode at a site where his men set up a mortar. The concussion of such a powerful explosion shook leaves and vines above Enger’s head.

  “Make sure they understand we’re under fire!” Enger shouted to Klaus. “Tell them to get their asses in the air right now or we’ll be shot all to hell. And warn them these Rebels have rockets!”

  Another thudding blast made the ground under Enger’s boots tremble. Upriver, men screamed at a spot where trees were blown out of the ground by the roots.

  “Damn,” he whispered. Tomo was one of the best African scouts in The New World Army and he’d been fooled, tricked into an ambush.

  Machine gun and small automatic weapons fire crackled all over the jungle, from all directions, nonstop. With his forces surrounded, Enger knew they had encountered a very large Rebel force, and he was puzzled how Tomo had missed some indication that they were there, setting a trap for them.

  A grenade launcher sent a ball of fiery death into a squad of Enger’s riflemen, blowing them out of their hiding places. Bits and pieces of bodies, uniforms, weapons, boots, and caps came flying into the air.

  “How the hell?” Enger asked himself, listening to Klaus radio instructions to someone at Pretoria. The gunships would arrive too late.

  A wall of muzzle flashes lit up the forests on both sides of the river as the Rebels advanced toward Enger and his troops. It seemed nothing could stop so many guns firing in unison.

  “Pull back!” he cried when it was clear he and his brigade could not hold their position without taking huge numbers of casualties.

  A Zulu tribesman ran headlong into the forest, retreating as fast as his legs could carry him until a bullet struck him in the back. The front of his camouflage shirt disintegrated in a splash of blood and tissue and fabric when the high velocity slug passed through him.

  “Ayiii!” he cried as blood bubbled from his throat after the bullet ripped open his lung. The Zulu fell in mid-stride, disappearing into the undergrowth.

  Enger wheeled around, for now bullets were whizzing past his head, shredding palm leaves, striking the bark on rubber trees with a resounding crack.

  Major Jerry Enger took off, running for his life, leaving his men to fend for themselves, ignoring the cries and pleas for help coming from his embattled soldiers.

  Apparently, quite by accident and without Tomo being aware of it until it was too late, they had run headlong into the Rebel 501 Brigade and General Ben Raines.

  Gone from Enger’s mind were all thoughts of glory and victory . . . now all he was concerned with was survival, getting away from Raines and his men, who did indeed fight like the devils the natives said they were.

  NINETEEN

  Captain Boris Dahn flew the coordinates relayed by radio from Pretoria, checking his instruments. Luckily, his squadron of HIND helicopters had been bivouacked in the Namibian city of Ohopoho, and didn’t have far to fly.

  His radar showed nothing and yet he was close to the reported site of the Rebel attack in the jungle areas along the Kunene River. The throb of the twin turbines on his HIND M24 forcing the blades through the air filled his ears. His heat sensors showed nothing other than scattered jungle wildlife. It was as if the battle had never taken place.

  “Red Leader One. Nothing on my screen.”

  Boris led a squadron of five, Russian-built helicopter gunships. His pilots were experienced, seasoned veterans of close jungle air wars, and they understood conditions in Africa and the terrain. Equipped with HUDs—Heads Up Displays—for targeting an enemy, the M24s were good airships capable of quick maneuvers and heavy firepower.

  They had twin mounted machine guns and dual forty millimeter cannons, but their real power came from side-mount, heat-seeking rocket launchers capable of destroying even a heavily armored Abrams tank.

  “Red Leader,” a voice crackled back over his headset. “No sign of anything, and I am already at the river.”

  Eric Strauss was a top gunship pilot, Dahn’s best helicopter marksman, the most experienced flyer in the squadron.

  “Check back with air control in Pretoria about those coordinates. I may be mistaken, or my readings may be off. I can see the river and no sign of anything.”

  “I don’t see a damn thing, either. I’ll change frequencies and verify.”

  Boris trusted his instruments. The HIND choppers were as good as any modified Apache gunship. An M24 was reliable as hell, instrument accuracy beyond anything the Soviets had ever built. But when they had parts failures it was virtually impossible to repair them . . . General Bottger was having more and more trouble securing parts.

  “Red Leader One. This is Red Five. I see smoke. Look to the west, where the river turns.”

  Boris did see smoke curling from a part of the rain forest north of the river.

  “That’s it. Zero in. Watch for anti-aircraft fire. I’ve got nothing on my screens.” He reset his HUD and touched the zoom button.

  He was concerned about his ships being easy targets for the hand-held rockets Enger had reported the Rebels had. Boris’s ships were painted in brown and sand earth-tone colors, perfect camouflage for the desert and savanna terrain that made up ninety percent of Namibia. Who would have thought they’d be called to provide air support over the only small jungle area in the whole damned country?

  The thump of rotors changed when Boris swung toward th
e smoke. Something was wrong. No Rebel brigade would push through this jungle without air support. His intuition was quivering, telling him to beware, so he kept an eye on his radar screen, looking for dark blips representing airborne Apaches or fighter planes.

  “I’ve still got nothing,” he said, pressing the radio transmit control button with his thumb while keeping the stick and throttles in proper position.

  “My screen is blank,” Red Five reported.

  “Nothing here, either,” Red Two radioed. “Not so much as a blip on any of my displays. Maybe we got here too late. It may be over for Dark Horse.”

  “There has to be something, “Boris assured the others. “I can’t believe we don’t see any air traffic.”

  “They may be down low. They can do that, so the trees block them from our radar.”

  Boris knew all too well how low an Apache gunship could hover and not show up on a radar screen. In numerous battles in the skies he’d seen them appear as if out of nowhere. Apaches had a smaller rotor span, allowing them to hide in tiny open spots in the jungles.

  “Keep on looking,” he said, growing nervous.

  A Rebel force wouldn’t be moving toward Pretoria without air support of some kind, unless this was a small, recon group scouting the way for an armored battalion. The lack of air support made him wonder. Dark Horse had radioed they were under heavy attack. So where the hell was the Rebel army?

  “Red One!” a voice cried, Eric’s voice. “I’ve got a hot spot on my scope. They’ve got something with infrared trained on us . . . targeting me!”

  “Drop down!” Boris said.

  The vapor trail of a GTA missile left a thick sector of the forest canopy. “Watch out! Avoid! Make a ninety west turn!”

  The ground-to-air rocket struck Eric Strauss’s HIND and the aircraft exploded, an expanding fireball ripping the helicopter gunship apart at less than a thousand feet of altitude, showering the forest below with burning fuel and shredded metal.