Ping acknowledged grudgingly that for a country like Benin with vast expanses of land where warlords and other thugs could roam, it wasn’t a bad idea. But did Ted really have to give her one for her birthday?
Anyway, the dirigible had videoed a number of roadblocks set up by small groups of entrepreneurial bandits to extort money and worse from unwary travelers.
Jam pointed ahead. “There’s the first one now.”
Half a dozen young men in disheveled military fatigues, casually carrying AK-47s as if they were golf clubs, appeared before them, lounging around a pair of trucks parked sideways across the road. A couple of the hooligans knelt and pointed their guns more or less in the direction of the Jeep.
Ping slammed on the breaks and skidded sideways to a halt. The apparent leader of the ba
