"That shouldn't be hard," said Maddox, looking around. Kingston nodded, regarding his wrist watch.
"It is near-morning in New Mexico," he said. "Where we are now is midnight."
"It's also cold—and that lettering on the window is Russian. We are in eastern Siberia."
Kingston made some calculations. "We're lucky at that," he said. "So long as morning comes in Washington before morning comes here we are in no great danger. The fact is," he added, regarding his watch once more, "that the monitors will be taking up their regular duty in a few minutes. Otherwise we might have no end of trouble."
Maddox shrugged. A pajama-clad man has little dignity and very little authority. To be trapped in a foreign country—one whose politics differ from your own—under highly suspicious circumstances might well result in a long period of enforced inactivity. Bronson had been in a hurry when he had performed the shipping operation. Had he taken time to think it over, Bronson would have sent them to some place where their arrival would have brought them instant apprehension.
But Bronson had been in a hurry and his only desire was to ship them to some spot not fitted with instant means of escape. He would have preferred some place where no space-resonant element existed but that was impossible since the technique demanded a focal mass.
"So," said Kingston, showing Maddox the silvery-metal band on his wrist, "as soon as the monitors take over and locate me, we'll—"
He disappeared in mid-sentence and Maddox followed a few seconds later. The guards vanished at regular intervals, leaving the Russian store vacant once again.
Minutes later Kingston and Maddox emerged from a standard transmission building not far from the site of the laboratory. Maddox was puzzling openly. "Bronson has probably ripped the tuning circuit from my receiver," he said. "But what would that gain him?"