Vortex (novel)

Infobox Book |
name = Vortex


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Larry Bond, Patrick Larkin
cover_artist = Peter Thorpe (design/illustration)
country = United States
language = English
genre = Thriller, War novel
publisher = Little, Brown & Warner Books
release_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)

"Vortex" is the 1991 war novel by Larry Bond and Patrick Larkin.

Plot summary

In a tense, hypothetical 1990s apartheid South Africa, a reformist president and his cabinet are killed after their train is destroyed by a special ANC guerrilla team. Hardline elements within the government, led by the Minister for Internal Security, Karl Vorster, had advance knowledge of the attack, allowed it to continue, and even prevented an ANC attempt to cancel the attack. They planned to let the ANC kill their political opponents and then take over the government.

Vorster becomes president, declares a state of emergency and declares martial law. He then orders his army to invade recently independent Namibia. Cuban forces in neighboring communist-controlled Angola and Mozambique move into Namibia and prevent the South Africans from overrunning the country. The Cuban leadership then plans an invasion of South Africa from Angola and Mozambique, withlogistical assistance from the Soviet Union.

When the rising price of precious metals begins to dampen the world economy and when the two sides begin deploying chemical and nuclear weapons, the US and the UK get involved, sending a task force to capture South Africa before the Cubans do. These forces, which probably could no longer be mustered in this post-Cold War era, reunite with the anti-Vorster South Africans who hold Cape Town. The book then progresses quite swiftly to an expected conclusion, but one which could go either way.

Characters in "Vortex"

South Africans
* Karl Vorster – the Minister for Internal Security, and later State President of South Africa
* Commandant Henrik Kruger, SADF – Commanding officer of the 20th Cape Rifles Battalion
* Marius van der Heijden – Deputy Minister for Internal Security
* Emily van der Heijden – Journalist and daughter of Marius van der Heijden
* Erik Muller – Director for Special Operations in the Directorate of Military Intelligence
* Matthew Sibena – Driver and police informant
* Brigadier Deneys Coetzee, SADF – Senior officer assigned to the South African Defence Ministry
* General Adriaan de Wet, SADF – Chief of Staff of the South African Defence Force
* Captain (later Major) Rolf Bekker, SADF – Commanding Officer of the Reaction Force of the 44 Parachute Brigade
* Frederick Haymans – State President of South Africa

Americans
* Ian Sherfield – Network journalist stationed in South Africa
* Sam Knowles – Cameraman assigned to Ian Sherfield
* Lieutenant General Jerry Craig, USMC – Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in South Africa
* Lieutenant Colonel Robert O'Connell, US Army – Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment
* Edward Hurley – Deputy Secretary of State for Africa

Cubans
* General Antonio Vega – Supreme Commander of the Cuban Forces in South Africa
* Colonel José Suárez – General Vega's Chief of Staff