He opened his eyes wide and faced the man in the seat beside him.
"Well?" he asked.
"It isn't, very," growled the man.
The driver turned, swore in a strange tongue and then turned the car back. The driver's companion picked up a small phone and spoke rapidly into it. The car rounded the block, re-passed the corner long enough to pick up a man dressed as Carroll was.
Halfway down the next block the man got out and took the box of reports. Then the car drove away and, as it pulled away, Carroll felt the jab of a needle in his thigh.
CHAPTER IV
Face to Face
Slowly, the initial thought that filtered through the velvety, comfortable blackness was that he was James Forrest Carroll. That established, the rest came with a swift flow of fact and acceptance in chronological order that brought him to the present date.
It seemed almost instantaneous, this return to reality. Yet in his drugged state, or rather the state of fighting off the last dregs of the potion, Carroll did not recognize the long interim periods of slumber. Actually it took him six hours to return to a full state of wakefulness. He was unaware of the slumber periods and they subtracted from his time-consciousness.