The phone chimed. Boyd flipped up the mike and eyed the screen balefully. "Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said crisply. "Who the hell are you?"
A voice on the other end said, "What?" before the image on the screen cleared.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Boyd said in a perfectly innocent voice. "Boyd speaking."
"Oh," a voice said. It was a very calm, quiet voice. "Hello, Boyd."
The image cleared. Boyd was facing the picture of a man in his middle thirties, a brown-haired man with large, gentle brown eyes and an expression that somehow managed to look both sad and confident. "Hello, Dr. Leibowitz," Boyd said.
"Is Mr. Malone in?" Leibowitz said. "I really wanted to talk to him."
"Sure," Boyd said. "Just a second."
He motioned to Malone, who came around and sat at Boyd's desk as Boyd got up. He nodded to Leibowitz, and the electronics engineer nodded back.
"How's everything coming, Dr. Leibowitz?" Malone said.
Leibowitz shrugged meaningfully. "All right," he said. "I called you to tell you about that, by the way. We've managed to cut the per-car time down somewhat."