We had been in Africa 10 hours when we got the call we had to leave the country ASAP with our Principal. Ideally, we would have liked to have used the airport in a city about 15 minutes away, but reports had come back it was crawling with around 100 troops who did not like our principal and they had lots of guns...Plan B was a jungle airstrip about an hour away and the only way to it was an elephant path and according to our local guide, it was frequented by bandits who liked to cut the arms off of white folks and make soup out of them...after discussing it, both options sucked, but Plan B was the one we chose.
Ten minutes into the elephant path, we came across a roadblock. It was a jeep with 4 bandit types, all with AK's and from the looks of their glassy eyes they had been chewing on khat (or cot) (a stimulant weed similar to the cocoa plant) all day and were amped out of their minds. Our total compliment was 4 shooters, our guide (translator) and principal. Immediately our translator disembarked and started chatting, I could tell by the tone, these guys were in a pissy mood and were of the mind to rob the white devils. Our guide started by offering them money, then his watch and rings..this appeased one of them, but now the other three wanted some...I knew if they approached the vehicle and saw the small armory of weapons we had stashed throughout the truck things would go south..we decided quickly, 2 of us would stay with the Principal and 2 would go out and try to negotiate these morons out of our way. If anything went down, the truck shooters (with the principal) would be base of fire.
Me and Ian got out, my G30SF in a AIWB with a Tropical shirt over it and a Push Knife horizontal on my belt. I pulled out a gangster roll of Franklins in a rubber band and waved it like a magic tailsman, smiling..Ian did the same, between us, we had around $2K in operating cash. They greedily snatched it our of our hands, all the while I was thinking if they try to search us, things will have get ugly quicker than I wanted it too. The AK Barrel was down but not pointing at me, I could see the safety was off and his finger in the trigger guard, however, he had the gun slung around his body. After some more banter with our guide, it seemed they were appeased, and then I saw them turn their eyes to the truck. I could not allow them to approach that truck, as high and twitchy as they guys were, as soon as they saw guns and our principal, it could go bad QUICK... I quickly glanced at Ian and he nodded to agree with what I was thinking.
A quick sketch of how things were layed out: on both sides of this elephant trail was a natural rain ditch about 3 ft by 3 ft, the lip of the road making a natural defilade, that was where we were heading when things popped off, it would draw fire away from the vehicle. The bandit jeep with 2 shooters sitting in the front seats was about 12 yards from our truck, the other 2 bandits were standing about 5 ft away from me and Ian and we were are about 6 ft away from the front of our truck. My plan was to shoot this guy in front of me and then try to hit the guy in the drivers's seat in the jeep, I only hope Ian could do the same with his guy and the other shooter in the jeep. All the while, I was hoping we would be getting some cover fire as were hauling ass for that ditch, I also considered once the shooting started, what would come rolling down that road? We would have to cross that bridge when it came, we had plenty of firepower to deal with it in the truck. All of this processed in my CPU as I was thinking about my wife and babies at home right now, them probally getting ready for bed right now--funny things run through your mind when you have the prospect of death!
The #1 Bandit yelled something back at his buddies in the jeep and his other partner in front of Ian as he set his eyes on our truck, for some reason he kept his AK at low ready (slung around his body) and started walking toward our truck..at this point I was about 4 ft from him, slightly offset to his left facing me. When he made his first step toward the truck, in one motion, I made a huge step forward and at the same time grabbing the AK by the barrel and gas tube pushing it away from me, since he was attached to the gun by the sling, it swung him away from me at the same time, he was a rather small dude, around 150 lbs, so he literally swung)..during all of this I was accessing my G30 and clearing it with one hand, which was a chore, since I could not use my other hand to lift the shirt, luckily, I was wearing a Woolrich CCW Shirt which had velcro for the bottom so it opened up easily. I remember clearly once the gun was out, it was naturally pointed at this guy's hip/groin area..I worked the trigger, firing two shots, which seemed to crumple his legs. All the time, I still had a grip on that AK and by reflex, he started working the full auto trigger on the AK, the vibration and heat off the AK was a shock, but I kept a grip on it, not wanting that barrel to come my way. I gathered my senses long enough to bring the Glock up and at 2 ft I fired into his face. Once I realized he was down, my attention focused to the jeep bandit, which to my surprise had already been riddled with rounds from our truck shooters..scanning the entire area, I realized all the BG's were down and I had not heard any of the gunfire except my own. We had taken no wounded or casualties, and had 4 EKIA. It had all happened in a span of time that is hard to explain to this day. All in All, I came out with some minor burns on my hands and we had to clean the seats of the truck from our Principals bowels running away on him during the incident. From there on out the Principal earned the nickname "Mr. Maalox".