"Okay," Malone said. "Now we have to go downstairs."
"You mean outside?" Boyd said. "Into all that noise?" He winced.
"Bite the bullet," Malone said cheerfully. "Keep a stiff upper lip."
"Nonsense," Boyd said, hunting for his coat with a doleful air. "Have you ever seen anybody with a loose upper lip?"
Malone, busy with his own coat, didn't bother with a reply. He managed somehow to get Boyd downstairs and bundled into a cab. They headed for 69th Street. There he made several phone calls. The first, of course, was to Burris in Washington. After that he got the New York Police Commissioner on the wire and, finding that he needed still more authority, he called the mayor and then, by long-distance to Albany, the governor.
But by noon he had everything straightened out. He had a plan fully worked out in his mind, and he had the authority to go ahead with it. Now, he could make his final call.
"They're completely trustworthy," Burris had told him. "Not only that, but they have a clearance for this kind of special work—we've needed them before."
"Good," Malone said.
"Not only that," Burris told him. "They're damned good men. Maybe among the best in their field."
So Malone made his last call, to the firm of Leibowitz and Hardin,
Electronic Engineers.