We were making weekly shuttle runs from Ramstein down to Niamey (Niger) with occasional stops along the way. One of our planes broke in Ouagadougou and needed an engine and prop change. Just the week prior, the local sect of Al Qaeda or ISIS or some other fun loving group attacked the French embassy, killing a few people. The good news is the attackers were never caught, and the group was threatening more attacks. So if you're like me, you're probably thinking this is the perfect opportunity to spend a few days downtown while your plane gets fixed.
So my crew and I, along with a group of maintainers, flew down to Ouagadougou on a C-17. We were told when we landed to walk to a certain checkpoint on the airfield, and that a car would be waiting to take us to the hotel. We walked through the checkpoint, which was manned by armed guards who insisted on going through all of our bags. After they had confiscated all of our knives and fleshlights, they allowed us to proceed through to a parking lot, where a man in all black with dark sunglasses on was waiting for us. He was standing next to an idling Land Cruiser that looked like it had recently taken gold at the Burkina Faso demolition derby. I look at my crew, back at this guy, back at the crew, shrug my shoulders, and throw my shit in the back. I figured there was a 50/50 shot I ended up in some hostage video on CNN, but I was going to trust my gut on this one.
The next 30 minutes were some of the most nerve racking of my life. The driver, whom I still wasn't completely convinced was the guy we were supposed to meet, was weaving in and out of traffic like Dale Jr. I was almost sure he was taking us straight to Bin Laden himself. Here we were, 4 white guys in a Land Cruiser with untinted windows, amongst nothing but shit box cabs, mopeds, and bikes, speeding through city streets like we were in a 1-party police pursuit. At one point I was so convinced this guy was taking us to the eventual spot of our beheading that I started coming up with a plan to kill him. But alas, before I had to practice my Rex Kwon Do, we pull up to a building surrounded by a 10' iron fence, surrounded by guards holding AK-47s. This was either the presidential palace or our hotel. It ended up being the latter. I spent the next 3 days drinking cold African beers by the pool while the maintainers fixed our plane. Life of aircrew.