Winston added, "That's your job. I intended to keep you here together, a half day at a time. But this is too important for such considerations, and we haven't a large enough Egyptian staff to handle everything. So I'd like to work you in shifts."
"That's okay," Rick assured him. "When do we start?"
"The object comes up on our horizon shortly after one. Suppose you start then. The first shift can work until five, and the second from five to eleven. One of the Egyptian technicians will take over then until we lose the source below the horizon again."
Hakim Farid took the boys to the tape setup he had established and explained it to them. It was simple enough. The output signal from the receivers was fed into a regular tape-recording circuit. The tapes themselves were on huge reels good for about four hours of recording. It would only be necessary to watch the volume control and to see that all was running smoothly. Changing tapes was only a matter of slapping a new reel into place, dropping the tape into the recording head, and threading it into the empty reel.
"How will we work it?" Scotty asked, while they rechecked the setup and tried out the tape motors.
Rick frowned. "It kind of throws a monkey wrench into our plan, doesn't it?" He and Scotty had worked out a way to recover the Egyptian cat, again with Scotty distracting the guard.
"One of us will have to get it alone," Scotty said.
Rick watched the tape run through and searched his mind for a method. There was only one way he could think of that would get the guard out of the way. "Looks as if that third kitten is going to have a home," he said finally. "I'll wrap it in an old newspaper, then pretend to find it under something. I'll hand it to the guard. With luck, he'll get so excited he'll run for his boss, thinking someone has tried to steal a museum exhibit. Then I'll snaffle kitty off the shelf and hike out."
Scotty rubbed his chin. "Could work," he said finally. "Unless the guard insists that you go with him."
"No speak Arabic," Rick said. "I won't understand. Let's hope the guard speaks no English."