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Justin Watson Bio
Justin Watson grew up an Army brat, living in Germany, Alabama, Texas, Korea, Colorado, and Alaska while being fed a steady diet of X-Men, Star Trek, Robert Heinlein, DragonLance, and Babylon 5. While attending West Point, he met his future wife, Michele, on an airplane, and soon began writing in earnest with her encouragement. In 2005, he graduated from West Point and served as a field artillery officer, completing combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and earning the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and the Combat Action Badge. Medically retired from the Army in 2015, Justin settled in Houston with Michele, their four children, and an excessively friendly Old English Sheepdog.
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Unintended Consequences by Peter Grant
Southern Angola, 1986
The four-man Reconnaissance Regiment stick moved slowly and carefully along the half-overgrown footpath through the African bush. Few people still used it after several years of warfare between the Angolan government’s FAPLA forces and their Cuban supporters on the one hand, and UNITA guerrillas and their South African allies on the other. Most of the villagers in or near the fluid, ever-shifting combat zone, with its unpredictable troop movements that could transform an area from tranquil to terrifying without warning, had long since fled.
The point man brushed sweat from his eyebrows yet again, waving away the flies that buzzed around his head, trying to drink it. He began to repeat the gesture, then stopped dead in his tracks and sank to his haunches, making a sign that the others understood. Enemy ahead.
First Lieutenant Viljoen moved up beside him, eyes flickering left and right. The brush ended abruptly ahead of them at the edge of an open area, probably a former cornfield, now covered with low vegetation as the African bush reclaimed it. On the far side were a few broken-down mud huts, between which at least a dozen dark olive Soviet military trucks could be seen. A bulldozer was parked at the edge of an eighty-by two-hundred-foot patch it had cleared and leveled in the field. Well over half of it was already covered with a layer of concrete, two to four inches thick.
“What the hell is FAPLA doing here, Hannes?” the officer murmured to the scout. “This is just a transit route for troops and supplies. They’ve never had a base here—there’s no need for one.”
“Ja, sir, but maybe they’ve changed their minds. There’s a waterhole nearby, and that looks like a foundation slab.”
“It’s not thick enough for that, and there’s no rebar or wire frame—although both might be because it’s a slipshod, half-done job of work, which would be nothing new for Angolans. Whatever it is, the brass will want to know more.”
The patrol took up observation positions along the edge of the field, staying hidden in the thick brush as they observed the Angolan troops. Several of them were unloading cement sacks from the back of a truck, while others worked on the engine of a portable cement-mixer. Idlers lounged around, not making any real effort to maintain security over the area. The smell of cooking rose from a line of fires over to one side, where the evening meal was being prepared.
As the sun dipped towards the horizon, the engine of the cement-mixer finally spluttered to life, and its drum began to revolve. The troops standing around it gave a cheer, then looked towards an officer for instructions. He began to shout orders. Some of the troops began to mix more concrete, while others lined up with wheelbarrows to take it to the next section of the slab to be laid. The officer hurried over there, to ensure that the planks placed around it were still in position, to hold the concrete until it had dried enough to remain in place without support. He summoned a soldier with a can of paint and had him mark a big black X equidistant from the three concrete edges on the finished portion of the pad.
“It’s already late afternoon, but they’re still working. Whatever this is, they’re in a hurry,” a Recce corporal muttered.
“You’re right, Boeta,” the patrol commander agreed. “They don’t usually work this hard or this late.” He thought for a moment. “Remember that intel we got last month, about the helicopters?”
The other nodded thoughtfully. Another Recce patrol had spent a week infiltrating the port of Namibe, watching Soviet cargo vessels unloading materials to be ferried to the battlefront hundreds of miles to the east. They’d noted a major transport bottleneck, with warehouses overflowing into immense stacks of supplies exposed to wind and weather. Some ships were forced to wait at anchor in the bay, because there was no room to unload their cargoes. Shortly before they left Namibe, the patrol had reported the arrival of a squadron of Mil Mi-8 transport helicopters, flown by Angolan and Cuban pilots. The squadron had established its base at the rundown airport south of Namibe and had begun flying covering missions for road convoys. However, the Mi-8’s carried no weapons. The Angolans had Mi-24 gunships, so why were they misusing unarmed transports for a job that might well lead to combat?
“Those choppers don’t have the range to ferry supplies all the way from Namibe to the battlefront,” the lieutenant pointed out, “but if they built a refueling point, they could. That cleared area’s the right size, and we’re halfway between Namibe and Cuito Cuanavale—just the right place for it. That big X is a give-away. A second, on the other side of the pad, will make this a two-helicopter landing pad, with plenty of space between them for their rotors to turn.”
“And there’s two fuel tankers in that convoy,” Sergeant Bothma commented, pointing at the vehicles in question. “Thing is, why use concrete? Why not just bare earth?”
“Could be so the rotors will throw up less dust and dirt. That’ll make visibility very poor during landing and takeoff. Also, during the rainy season, the ground gets so muddy it’s like a swamp. I think we should discourage them. I’m going to call this in.”
His encrypted message, sent on a frequency-hopping tropospheric-scatter radio system, caused a flurry of activity in an Operations Center in northern South West Africa. Approval for the patrol’s proposed course of action was transmitted within the hour, along with instructions for a nearby UNITA patrol to rendezvous with the Recces the following day.
* * *
The same evening, an Antonov An-24 twin-engined transport aircraft of the Angolan Air Force landed at the airport south of Namibe. It taxied to the terminal building in the last of the sunlight, where a guard of honor had been hastily assembled. Its members—local levies unfamiliar with drill of any sort, let alone an honor guard—shambled to a ragged semblance of attention and falteringly presented arms as a man disembarked, wearing a major-general’s uniform of the Soviet Union. Tabs identified him as an officer of the Strategic Rocket Forces.
An East German major stood to one side. He came forward, snapped to attention, and saluted stiffly. “Welcome to Namibe, General Shpagin! It is an honor for us to receive a visit from so senior an officer.”
The new arrival peered at his name tag. “Not that much of an honor, Major Brinkerhoff. I was at loose ends between postings. That’s why Moscow sent me to investigate this logistics mess—I just happened to be the most senior officer available. I wasn’t impressed to see stacks of supplies all over the place as we came in to land. Lobito looked no better as we overflew it on the way down here from Luanda. Why haven’t both ports been better organized? Why is it taking so long to clear this bottleneck?”
“I can’t speak with any authority, sir, as I’m not involved in port operations or military logistics. Local officers will brief you in the morning.” He lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. “If you ask me, sir, it’s largely because they’re incompetent and bone idle. In the Warsaw Pact, we’d be shot if we worked this way!”
The general eyed him carefully. Brinkerhoff was a professional like himself. As such, his judgment was probably as accurate as it was damning. “Hmpfh! We’ll see about that. Take me to the visiting officers’ quarters, Major. I need a bath, a good meal, and a night’s sleep.”
His aide followed with the general’s suitcase as his boss strode to a wait
ing utility vehicle.
Next morning, General Shpagin’s invective blistered the hides of the staff as they tried to make excuses for the logistics bottleneck. He pointed out acidly, “The Soviet Union has generously provided thousands of trucks to Angola, free of charge, yet you claim you don’t have enough vehicles to move these supplies. Where are they, then?” As to claims that the roads weren’t good enough, he noted bluntly that South Africa appeared to have few difficulties supplying UNITA rebels with material support over a much greater distance, through terrain that often had no roads at all. “If they can do it, why can’t you? Your inefficiency is causing weeks of delay to valuable ships that are needed elsewhere. This must stop!”
Nor would he give credence to claims of the mass destruction of transport vehicles by South African forces. “We know beyond doubt, through satellite reconnaissance and other intelligence sources, that South Africa currently has only a few hundred troops north of the South West African border. You have thousands of Cuban troops, fighting alongside tens of thousands of Angolan soldiers—far more than enough to defend against such a small number, no matter how skilled or well-equipped they may be.”
A timid Angolan Air Force officer offered what he hoped would be good news. “S-sir, our new helicopter route will open within a day or two. We’re building a refueling pad halfway between here and Cuito Cuanavale, so that Mi-8’s can fly there with a full four-ton cargo of urgently needed materials. If Moscow gives us the heavy-lift Mi-26’s we have asked for, we will be able to lift twenty tons on every flight!”
Shpagin’s eyebrows rose. “That will help, although it’ll be much more expensive than road transport. When’s the first mission?”
“In three days’ time, sir.”
“Book seats on it for myself and my aide. I want to see this refueling pad for myself, and inspect the cargo handling facilities at Cuito Cuanavale too.”
That evening over supper, his aide tried to remonstrate. “But, sir, the Defense Ministry’s instructions were clear. You were not to enter the combat zone or expose yourself to danger.”
“Pshaw! They sent me here to investigate a problem and solve it. The only way I can do that properly is to see everything for myself. UNITA and the South Africans don’t know I’m here, and they can’t possibly be aware of the new helicopter route. It hasn’t even been used yet! As for the combat zone, there’s no major fighting going on right now. All anyone’s doing is local patrolling. I don’t think there’ll be any risk.”
* * *
As the two Soviet officers finished their meal, Lieutenant Viljoen welcomed a UNITA officer to the camp the patrol had set up, half a mile from the Angolan work site. The two shook hands, and got down to business without preamble.
“The signal said to deliver to you all our explosives,” the UNITA man began. “We have four TM-46 anti-vehicle land mines.”
“That’s great! Just what we need. Here, let me show you what’s going on.” The South African officer drew a quick map in the dirt using a stick. “The enemy is here. On a circle surrounding their positions, we’re here. I’d like you to place your patrol in an arc behind their positions, a third of the way around the circle from where we are. That way we won’t shoot at each other through them. I’m guessing the helicopter pad will be ready in the next two days—the first half is already dry. As soon as it’s complete, I reckon they’ll send out a proving mission, to make sure everything’s as it should be. I want to hit them when they come in.”
“How can you be sure they’ll land on the mines? The pressure plates won’t work unless they have enough weight on them.”
“We’ll make sure they go off. I want your people to stay quiet until they blow, then shoot the hell out of the Angolan vehicles and positions for two minutes, no more. As soon as two minutes are up, get out of here. The main convoy route isn’t far away, so the Angolans may be able to get a reaction force here quickly. We aren’t strong enough to take them on.”
“All right. You head south and we’ll head east, to divide any enemy attempt to follow us.”
“Agreed. Use anti-tracking, too, to make it as difficult as possible for them.”
The twenty-man UNITA patrol headed into the bush to work their way around the enemy’s position. The lieutenant laid out the four big steel landmines in a row, and started removing their pressure plates.
“What’s the idea, sir?” Sergeant Piet Bothma asked as he knelt down to help.
“We have to make sure these blow, even if the chopper doesn’t land right on top of them,” the officer explained. “We’re going to replace their pressure plates with plastic explosive and a command detonator. We’ll connect them all to a firing position at the edge of the bush, and let the enemy lay concrete over them.”
“Will they have enough blast to take out a chopper through concrete, sir?” another asked.
“Four TM-46’s have as much explosive between them as a couple of 155mm artillery shells. I think that’ll be more than enough.”
The questioner winced. “That’s headache city all right!”
After midnight, when all the Angolan soldiers were asleep—including the sentries, because what possible threat could there be so deep in the bush, and so far from the battlefront?—the South Africans crept out into the cleared area. The lieutenant estimated where the second X marker for a landing helicopter would most likely be painted, then dug holes for the four mines close together around that point. The others covered them, then led the detonator wire to and beyond the edge of the cleared area, burying it. They patted down and smoothed the disturbed earth, then brushed it with leafy branches as they withdrew, removing all signs that they’d been there.
As the sun rose and the Angolans began to pour more concrete, covering the mines, the Recces settled down to wait.
* * *
Antennae all over the operational area, and up and down the coast, fed their intercepted harvest to the South African electronic warfare station at Rooikop, near Walvis Bay in South West Africa, eight hundred miles to the south. In the underground operations center, the signals were analyzed, decrypted if possible, then forwarded to interested parties for further action.
Late the following night, an operator called the Officer of the Watch to come to his station. “Sir, a visiting general is making life difficult at Namibe. The Angolans are complaining to their HQ in Luanda that he’s ‘insensitive to the difficulties of operating in a war zone.’”
“Awww, my heart bleeds for them,” the OOW joked as he began to read the signal. “Hey, that’s not a Cuban or East German name. ‘Shpagin’—that sounds Russian. Have we seen it before?”
“Nothing in the database, sir.”
“Then let’s get this off to the Ops Room at Defense HQ in Pretoria. They may know who he is.”
They didn’t, but the Operations Room knew who would. By early the following morning, the CIA in Langley, Virginia confirmed to their representative in the United States Embassy in Pretoria that a major-general in the Soviet Union’s Strategic Rocket Forces bore the same name. What would a man of that rank and importance be doing in an out-of-the-way place like Angola? Questions flashed from Langley to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, but the answers didn’t satisfy anyone.
“Why the hell would they send a senior strategic missile commander to untangle logistics snarl-ups in the third world?” an American analyst demanded. “That makes no sense. They’ve got to be up to something!”
South African Defense HQ duly ordered Rooikop and other facilities to be on the lookout for any further mention of Shpagin’s name and mission, while interested eyes in America sharpened their focus on southern Africa. Cuba was the main Soviet surrogate in the region, after all, and Angola’s ally. Could the general’s visit be the first move in a new Cuban missile crisis, more than two decades after the last one?
* * *
The day of the first helicopter resupply mission dawned fine and clear. General Shpagin dressed carefully, the rows of award ribbons on his
chest making a colorful display. He inspected his boots with displeasure, and insisted that his Angolan servant polish them again.
“Wouldn’t it be better to wear battledress, like the Cuban officers do, sir?” his aide asked.
Shpagin shook his head disapprovingly. “They’re playing at being fighting soldiers. They aren’t even in the combat zone, yet they all look casual and sloppy. Let’s show them what it means to be proud of one’s uniform!”
“As you say, sir.”
Sighing inwardly, the aide resigned himself to another day of tugging at his tight collar, while sweating buckets beneath his heavy jacket.
Why is it, he wondered, that generals can go through the whole day looking as fresh as a daisy, while their underlings wilt? Must go with the rank.
A utility vehicle took them to two Mi-8 helicopters parked on the airport hardstand. They were already loaded with urgently needed supplies, strapped down in their cabins. An officer motioned the general and his aide towards the first helicopter, but Shpagin held up a hand.
“Captain, you go in the second helicopter. Nothing’s likely to happen, but let’s travel separately, just in case. If anything goes wrong, one of us must survive to submit a report to Moscow, and you already know what I plan to say to them.”
“Yes, sir.”
The crew chief pulled down a folding chair against the bulkhead. General Shpagin strapped himself into it, frowning at the memory of many uncomfortable hours spent in similar transports. At least, here in the southern African heat, he wouldn’t freeze his ass off.
“What’s our flight time?” he asked the crew chief.
“Two hours, ten minutes to the refueling point, sir, then another two hours, twenty minutes to Cuito Cuanavale.”
Trouble in the Wind Page 40
