Sitting at meat later that day, the two brothers flanking the Archbishop and Ita-Eibhlin beside her grandfather, the old regulus explained, “Seanair tarbh. Your Grace of York, means Grandfather Bull. Before she was stolen from us, it was her chief pet name for me, as it had been her poor young murdered brother’s before her. It was only some eight or nine years ago she was taken, and we of the Mac Dhomhnuill ilk are noted for our memories. I wore today those clothes I wore when last she saw me … or as close to them as I could find, hoping that her Mac Dhomhnuill memory might cause her to recall them and recognize me. And, as you all saw and heard this day, she did. She can be naught save what I proclaimed here before my clansmen, Eibhlin Mac Dhomnhnuill. Princess of the Isles, her husband to be the sire of the next chief and regulus.”
Livid with rage, Kogh Ademian. president and chairman of the board of the Ademian Enterprises conglomerate— the ultrasensitive nature of the defense equipment manufactured by some of the companies within that conglomerate giving him a great deal of power with certain governmental agencies and persons—glared at the three men standing before his monstrous desk and snarled, “And I say, bullshit, damn you! It ain’t no way on God’s green earth that none you fuckin’ college boys can get me to believe that my oldest son. my own fuckin’ older brother, two of my nephews, and nine other people can just flat, poof, disappear off a fuckin’ lawn of a fuckin’ lit-up river place with a half a hundred fuckin’ Ay-rabs watchin’ them! It’s just fuckin’ impossible, and if you three fuckers can’t see that, then you all of you is got shit for brains. Hear me?”
State Police Lieutenant Marty Gear, who had come along to see the big-shot Armenian at the request of the two federal agents who had come up just as dry as had he and his investigative staff in the search for even a trace of the missing musicians and dancers, had not liked the loud, arrogant, and abusive swell from first meeting, and he liked him even less now. He had never taken kindly to being cussed at and called dirty names by anybody—man or woman or punk kid, black or white or whatnot, rich or poor, American or foreigner. When the two federals said not a word, looking down at their Corfam shoes and moving not a muscle. Gear decided it was up to him.
Clearing his throat, he asked, “Mr. Ademian, has it been any letters or calls you’ve got from anybody as might’ve snatched your kinfolks and the rest?”
“Well, thank God for good old-fashioned honest-to-pete cops.” snorted Kogh Ademian. “Lootenant, that’s the least dumb-ass thing I’ve heard since you three stooges come in here. Naw, it ain’t been a fuckin’ word from no fucknY body. I done put feelers out all over the whole fuckin’ world, checkin’ up on anybody we can think of might of had a reason or thought they had a reason for to try and hold my fuckin’ feet to the fire for somethin’—the goddam Russkies, of course, them and the Chinks and that fucker Castro. Then too, we got feelers out at all the damn fuckin’ nitwit groups—the PLO, the IRA, all them fuckin’ Commie nigger groups in Africa, the SDS and SNCC and CORE and RAM, them bomb-happy Basques with the ETA, the TPLA, and I don’t know whatall. I even got a fucker checkin’ out the fuckin’ Cosa Nostra. fer God’s sake! I’ve done ever’ last thing I can. Now what’re you three fuckers doin’, huh?”
Lieutenant Gear held his piece this time, figuring that it was now the turn of the feds in the barrel. But neither of them spoke for long moments.
“Goddam you, you dumb cocksuckers, I asked you a fuckin’ question!” Ademian urgently prompted. “Is one of you gonna answer me or have I gotta start makin’ fuckin’ phone calls to some fuckers who will make you answer me?”
The senior of the two agents took the ball and tried to run with it. “Mr. Ademian, sir, every square centimeter of that estate on the Potomac has been gone over extensively and repeatedly by different teams, each one starting out from scratch, and nothing of any value or significance has been turned up. All the servants, the caterer and all his people, every man, woman, and child who was a guest at that party has been questioned exhaustively, most of them more than once, and exactly the same story has been gotten from all of them.”
“Exhaustively?” growled Kogh Ademian. “Until who was exhausted, you or them Ay-rab fuckers? And what the fuckin’ shit you bastards expect them to say? That they had my boy and my brother and my nephews and all them took off by somebody?
“Shit, you candy-ass motherfuckers sound dumber and dumber ever’ time you open your friggin’ mouths! Them Ay-rabs ain’t gonna tell you what really went down out there long as you all is nice and polite to them. Ay-rabs and Turks, they got no respect for folks what’s polite. What you gotta do is take them fuckers down in a basement someplace and beat the holy livin’ shit out of them till they comes to tell you the fuckin’ truth. You ain’t got the guts to do it, I got some men that will! Just give me the word.”
“Mr. Ademian,” said the senior agent in evident alarm, “what you, ahhh . . . suggest is completely illegal by federal statutes and by those of every state. We cannot and would not ever perpetrate such horrible interrogative practices. As for you and your men, you were well advised to leave well enough alone. Some of those people have diplomatic immunity, you know, and I think—”
“You think’.” snapped Kogh scornfully. “Mr. shithead, you don’t know how to think nothin’s not in a fuckin’ lawbook somewheres. So, okay, I won’t take my men Ay-rab huntin’ … for a while, yet. But you take diplomatic immunity and shove it straight up your fuckin’ asshole, mister. You get the truth out them fuckin’ Ay-rabs fuckin’-A quick, or you all gonna be out panhandlin’ down around the bus depot in D.C. after your fuckin’ unemployment has run out. And mister, you ask anybody knows Kogh Ademian and they’ll tell you I don’t threaten nuthin’ I ain’t prepared to fuckin’ do!
“You find out what happened to my boy, Arsen, and my brother, Rupen, and all and you find out goddam fast or I’ll nail your fuckin’ hides to the fuckin’ wall. Now, get the fuck out of my office and get to work!”