Carl Andretti slammed his fist down hard in the middle of the coffee table, sending a spidery pattern of cracks through the glass. He half rose from his chair, weaving, spit flying from his lips as he screamed at the speaker, “Just you wait one goddamn minute! You send some Russian thugs to grab me and rough me up and threaten to cut my nuts off for no goddamn reason and then they leave me in the middle of a goddamn swamp, and here you got the balls to come at us screaming about some cover-up? We ain’t hidin’ nothin’. You know everything. If you don’t believe me, Daddy Warbucks, then you can take OptiMarx and the Stock Exchange and the whole goddamn thing and shove it up your ass.”

Stern didn’t hesitate. He fired right back, “What the hell are you talking about, you fat dumb-ass? What ‘Russian thugs’? I don’t know anything about any Russians and I sure as hell don’t know what you are talking about, you drunken—”

Smythe had to shout to make himself heard above the pair of enraged bulls. His words came out as high-pitched squeaks, but they still served to shut up the two angry, screaming men.

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Please. Shrieking at each other is not going to help us get to the bottom of this. Listen to me. If you will stop calling each other vile names for a moment and think, we might be able to figure out what’s going on. I’m starting to see a pattern develop.” Andretti was back in his chair now, sprawling precariously, on the verge of sliding right out onto the floor. Stern’s raspy breathing could be heard over the speaker, but he, too, seemed yelled out. “Let’s look at what we know, both the facts and the claims. Let’s do it calmly, like the reasonable businessmen we all three are.”

“’Kay,” Andretti muttered, but his face was still crimson. Stern was silent except for his breathing. Smythe leaned forward, waving his spectacles, as if he were making a sales pitch for some major new deal.

“First, we know for a fact that Carl was kidnapped and roughed up this morning. Carl thinks his abductors were Russian. God knows we have enough of the bastards around here that he would recognize the accent when he hears it. Still, it could have been anyone with an Eastern European accent. The abduction and the threats are a fact. Mark, you maintain that you didn’t have anything to do with it, that you weren’t just reinforcing your little performance you gave for me the other day?”

“Damn straight I am, although I have to admit that it sounds like a good idea right now. Believe me when I tell you that I can make something like that happen with one phone call. Don’t you sons of bitches ever forget it.”