Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/71

 when you're doing business in a republic that's built on bullets you've got to watch where you're walking. It means that you've got to keep your ear to the ground; see that your governments are stable, I mean; and your marionettes in their nice little red and gold uniforms running smooth and true. That's why they retain a big man like Varrel for their information bureau—just to know who's poking a finger into the political pie down there, and to be ready for trouble when it blows up."

It was all obvious enough to the listening operator.

"Well, I'm here acting for Varrel and the Consolidated Fruit people. The Locombian charge d'affaires at Washington tipped our office off some five weeks ago about trouble ahead in Guariqui."

"Where's Guariqui?" quietly asked McKinnon.

"Guariqui's their capital—the capital of Locombia. Since we've heard that, of course, we've been co-operating with the department at Washington, keeping an eye on any Locombian likely to be interested in the Guariqui mix-up."

McKinnon confessed that he had known of detectives engaged in the sole pursuit of shadowing Latin-American exiles.