Vortex (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

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 Resistance Movement 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 murder their political opponents, leaving the field clear for them to seize power.

With most of South Africa's existing leadership dead, Vorster establishes himself as state 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, however, push south from neighbouring Angola in support of their Namibian allies, halting Vorster’s invasion short of Windhoek.

As the South African blitz stalls, conditions at home begin 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 the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The regime is also confronted with full-fledged tribal revolts after a Zulu chieftain is denaturalised for condemning apartheid. Attempts to suppress dissension with brute force only leads to greater unrest, such as a violent uprising by Durban’s Indian population. Hoping to take direct 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, brushing aside the feeble resistance offered by 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 projectile to strafe an armoured column, eliminating three thousand Cuban and Libyan soldiers. The ensuing radiation storm goes on to contaminate much of the Transvaal, affecting combatant and civilian alike. Cuba retaliates by using chemical weapons against SADF positions, although the hundreds of innocents also killed in indiscriminate barrages prompts the ANC 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-regime factions seize Cape Town, dealing a mortal blow to their nation’s economic structure. When the skyrocketing price of precious metals begins to dampen the world economy, the U.S. and Great Britain authorize direct military intervention in South Africa. Despite suffering heavy casualties, a joint American and British task force, backed by both overwhelming air and naval support, make headway and overrun Vorster's stockpile of nuclear weapons. With this threat removed, the race for Pretoria is narrowly concluded after rebel-backed Rangers capture the unhinged strongman 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, although ANC units and Afrikaner secessionists remain at large, hostile towards their homeland's new masters. Apartheid is formally abolished and a conglomerate of various political parties brought to the table for establishing a new, multiracial, South Africa.