Page 46 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Road Kill

“I won’t. But surely you knew that the Jolibanans could use the
electronic gear to spy on your transmissions inside their own country,
didn’t you?”
My eyes went in and out of focus. “You mean—”
“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “They monitor everything that
goes out on the airwaves. Don’t worry, they don’t have the capacity
to crack any of your ciphers—though I would guess somebody in the
Russian embassy routinely decodes all your communiqués with
Washington. They do listen in on the local chatter from time to time,
although the American slang is a bit baffling.”
“And you help them out with that?” I was not amused.
“Oh, relax, Mr. Tate. And please turn right at the next corner. I’m
not a traitor. I have no training in radio repair, no interest in
international affairs, and no use for the gear they issued me but to
stay in touch with my counterpart. As I said, they need my expertise
at crime scenes as well as in the lab; and, as you will see, time is of the
essence. So I have to be in touch, and I have no telephone.”
I wanted to ask her more. This was such a violation of State
Department regulations that I momentarily forgot about the
American girl dead in the road. But then my headlights picked out a
small group of people and vehicles clustered around what had to be
the remains of Sally Furth. We pulled up slowly to one side and
stopped. The radio issue vanished from my mind.
“Let’s get the introductions over with quickly,” said Labelle, as we
got out of the car. “I’ve got a lot of work to do before the physical
evidence is obliterated.”
A short slim man in a beige leisure suit detached himself from the
group and met us. As I have described in earlier chapters, salutations
bear an importance in many non-Western cultures which requires the
unhurried playing out of formulaic greetings and polite inquiries. The
man was introduced by Labelle as Monsieur Coulibaly, chef
d’investigations policiers. He was probably also an officer in the army and
the internal security agency; it was all the same thing in Jolibana. He
and Labelle conversed rapidly in French. I could follow most of it,
except for a string of technical terms. She was asking the questions
and he was answering. I was impressed: to get any kind of respect in
Africa you had to be a male over forty years of age. They had
obviously made a rare exception in her case.

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