Alien Affairs

Some women kindled a fire and others brought the strangers bowls of millet with peanuts. Eddy could not stop leering at the young girls whose shiny black skin stretched tautly over their nubile breasts. When the fire had grown robust a dozen apparitions materialized from the darkness. Bright blue and orange fringe covered their bodies and they wore bizarre masks with a geometric wooden apparatus on top.

“Why do they have goal posts on their heads?” Eddy asked Abdule.

“They be Kananga Masks. They dance to venerate the dead.”

“Great. Is there audience participation?”

“We can hope not,” Paul injected.

“Maybe we can kype the canister while everybody is dancing.”

“You’d never get away with it. As soon as you start moving toward his shrine old Hogon will be on your ass,” Paul said.

Abdule had seemed to listen disinterestedly. Then he interrupted. “You not touch their sacred object. They not be harmless.”

“I believe it,” Eddy said. “Anybody who would walk around with those things on his head can’t be completely stable.”

Eddy thought the dance would never end—he hoped it was the girls’ turn next. He was disappointed and the entertainment ended abruptly. Someone came to talk with Abdule who then led them to a vacant house where they were told to spend the night.

Eddy said, “I’ll be along in a minute. I gotta take a leak.” At the margin of the dying fire he found a piece of charcoal that had cooled and he put it in his pocket. Then he slipped into the shadows and watched the dancers wandering to their mud brick homes. After a lengthy wait, one previously costumed man emerged from his house wearing tattered shorts. He headed in the direction of the community latrine. Eddy darted into the house praying it was empty, it was, and he promptly stole the Kananga suit. After rubbing his naked body with charcoal and tying the colorful fringes onto his arms, legs and torso, he donned the ridiculous mask.

As casually as he could, he strolled through the village to the shrine, made sure no one was paying him any attention, then he removed the ornately carved door and set it aside. He didn’t even need a light to find the alien sphere. It sat on a dais in the center of the small space. With sweating palms he tested its weight and saw that he could manage it, so he set it on the ground and replaced the door. His heart was racing as he took a few seconds to smear the shiny globe with charcoal. Then he carried it as inconspicuously as possible to the house where Paul and Abdule had settled for the night.

“Wake up, gentlemen. It’s time to go,” he whispered.

“Holy shit,” Paul said, “how did you do that?”

“Look at me. I blended in with the faithful. Now, let’s get out of here.”

Abdule raised himself to one elbow. “Cannot travel at night. The roads not be safe.”

“This place won’t be safe either if they find out their gadget is gone,” Eddy said.

“He’s right,” Paul said. “Either you come with us, Abdule, or you’re walking.”

“If I remain here they kill me when they find what you did.”

“Now, you’re talking sense. Let’s go.”

They went together to the car—Eddy still wearing his headdress. Opening the doors as quietly as they could, they held them ajar until Abdule started the engine and put it in gear. If there were any pursuit, they never knew it.

When they reached the highway, Abdule said, “We find a place to stay until daylight.”

Paul said, “This is still Dogon country, isn’t it?”

“Oui.”

“Then drive.”

It was between the towns of Son and Segou that two battered pickup trucks blocked the road. Abdule slowed the car. Ditches too deep to cross prevented an end run. Half a dozen men with rifles stood around the trucks. Eddy turned and pulled his overnight bag from the rear deck. Simultaneously lowering a window he withdrew a pistol and opened fire. The robbers dived for cover.

“Turn around. Get us out of here,” Paul shouted.

“Look,” Abdule pointed at the rearview mirror.

He looked out the back windshield and saw headlights. “All right then, floor it.”

Abdule didn’t argue. The two trucks were parked tail to tail and the comparatively light truck beds parted with the impact but the Range Rover lost both headlights. Robbers recovered from Eddy’s assault and fired at the fleeing car shattering the rear glass and aiming for the tires. The third truck scraped between the other two pickups and kept coming. Eddy rammed another clip into his Glock but didn’t fire.

Paul met his eyes questioningly. “Last clip,” Eddy said.

“Can’t see the road,” Abdule whined.

The truck was closing with them but there was no firing coming from it, yet. Eddy crawled over the seatback and tapped a larger hole in the shattered glass. “Slow down a little. Let them get close,” he said. The truck driver was attempting to nudge their rear quarter panel when Eddy fired two rounds at his head and emptied the clip into the radiator. “Go, go, go,” he shouted.

By the light of its own headlights they saw the truck plunge into the ditch.

“Other two trucks gonna come for us,” Abdule said.

“Abdule, you worry too much. Just drive,” Paul said. And then to Eddy, “Make sure the damn virus ball didn’t get punctured.”

Eddy said, “Oh, shit,” and felt all around it. “It seems okay.”

There was no further pursuit or roadblocks but when they reached the outskirts of Segou, Abdule said, “There be policeman in town. He stop us for no headlights and take the car.”

“We’ll deal with that when it happens. Don’t go down the main street.” Paul looked at Eddy still in his Kananga suit. “Don’t you have some clothes in that bag?”

“I was beginning to like the look.”

“If we get stopped by a cop I don’t want you to get popped for impersonating a Dogon.”

Abdule’s prediction came true. They made it all the way across town, but a police car waited on the highway at the outskirts. He turned on his lights. Abdule pulled off the road.

“What are you doing,” Paul yelled.

“Stopping.”

“We outran killers. This is only a cop.”

“He radio ahead for a roadblock.”

By then the cop was at the driver’s window with a two-foot long flashlight. He shined it all around the interior and stopped on Eddy’s blackened face. He began speaking with Abdule who offered his drivers’ license and the car’s diplomatic registration. The conversation continued at length.

Finally, Eddy said, “What’s he saying?”

“He want us all to get out of the car and see your passports.”

When he had Paul and Eddy’s passports he began to search the car. He paid a great deal of attention to the alien canister and the Kananga costume. Eddy’s pistol brought a halt to his examination. He again questioned Abdule who said, “He want to know why you have illegal weapon and why it be recent fired.”

Paul was wondering if he had enough cash to buy him when Eddy jumped on his back. In his struggle to reach his gun he dropped the flashlight which Paul snatched and clubbed him on the head. He fell with Eddy on top of him. Abdule looked near to fainting.

“Find something to tie him,” Paul said taking his gun.

“Allah preserve me! You be madmen.”

“Find something to tie him, dammit. We can’t leave him here to report us.”

Eddy found an electrical cord in the trunk of the police car. It was enough to bind his hands and Paul used his belt to tie his feet. Eddy did the best he could with a Kananga fringe to brush shards of glass from the rear deck before they hoisted the supine policeman onto it.

“He’s coming to,” Paul said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Eddy said, “Boy is Turnbull going to be pissed.”

The sun rose and people beginning their day stopped to stare at the battered vehicle that, even by Malian standards, was decrepit enough to draw attention. Fortunately no one noticed a bound policeman in the back. In the embassy compound the Robert Vaughn lookalike took the damage to the Range Rover as a sort of badge of honor, but the abducted cop was a different matter.

“You boys must have had quite an adventure,” he said. “My suggestion is to get the hell out of Dodge fast. Maybe you should take Abdule with you.”

“Oh, no,” Abdule said, “I not be going anywhere else with them. They crazy men.”

Eddy begged enough time to grab a quick shower and they phoned when they were in the air to tell the CIA agent that it was safe to release the policeman.