EN FIN, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, LONDON
Artemis Fowl was almost content. His father would be discharged from Helsinki’s University Hospital any day now. He himself was looking forward to a delicious late lunch at En Fin, a London seafood restaurant, and his business contact should arrive any moment. All according to plan.
His bodyguard, Butler, was not quite so relaxed. But then again he was never truly at ease — one did not become one of the world’s deadliest men by dropping one’s guard. The giant Eurasian flitted between tables in the Knightsbridge bistro, positioning the usual security items and clearing exit routes.
‘Are you wearing the earplugs?’ he asked his employer.
Artemis sighed deeply. ‘Yes, Butler. Though I hardly think we are in danger here. It’s a perfectly legal business meeting in broad daylight, for heaven’s sake.’
The earplugs were actually sonic filter sponges, cannibalized from fairy Lower Elements Police helmets. Butler had obtained the helmets, along with a treasure trove of fairy technology, over a year previously when one of Artemis’s schemes pitted him against a fairy SWAT team.
The sponges were grown in LEP labs, and had tiny porous membranes that sealed automatically when decibel levels surpassed safety standards.
‘Maybe so, Artemis, but the thing about assassins is that they like to catch you unawares.’
‘Perhaps,’ replied Artemis, perusing the menu’s entree section. ‘But who could possibly have a motive to kill us?’
Butler shot one of the half-dozen diners a fierce glare, just in case she was planning something. The woman must have been at least eighty.
‘They might not be after us. Remember, Jon Spiro is a powerful man. He put a lot of companies out of business. We could be caught in a crossfire.
Artemis nodded. As usual, Butler was right, which explained why they were both still alive. Jon Spiro, the American he was meeting, was just the kind of man to attract assassins’ bullets. A successful IT billionaire, with a shady past and alleged mob connections. Rumour had it that his company, Fission Chips, had made it to the top on the back of stolen research. Of course, nothing was ever proved — not that Chicago’s district attorney hadn’t tried. Several times.
A waitress wandered over, giving them a dazzling smile.
‘Hello there, young man. Would you like to see the children’s menu?’
A vein pulsed in Artemis’s temple.
‘No, mademoiselle, I would not like to see the children’s menu. I have no doubt the children’s menu itself tastes better than the meals on it. I would like to order a la carte. Or don’t you serve fish to minors?’
The waitress’s smile shrank by a couple of molars. Artemis’s vocabulary had that effect on most people.
Butler rolled his eyes. And Artemis wondered who would want to kill him. Most of the waiters and tailors in Europe, for a start.
‘Yes, sir,’ stammered the unfortunate waitress. ‘Whatever you like.’
‘What I would like is a medley of shark and swordfish, pan-seared, on a bed of vegetables and new potatoes.’
‘And to drink?’
‘Spring water. Irish, if you have it. And no ice, please, as your ice is no doubt made from tap water, which rather defeats the purpose of spring water.’
The waitress scurried to the kitchen, relieved to escape from the pale youth at table six. She’d seen a vampire movie once. The undead creature had the very same hypnotic stare. Maybe the kid spoke like a grown-up because he was actually five hundred years old.
Artemis smiled in anticipation of his meal, unaware of the consternation he’d caused.
‘You’re going to be a big hit at the school dances,’ Butler commented.
‘Pardon?’
‘That poor girl was almost in tears. It wouldn’t hurt you to be nice occasionally.’
Artemis was surprised. Butler rarely offered opinions on personal matters.
‘I don’t see myself at school dances, Butler.’
‘Dancing isn’t the point. It’s all about communication.’
‘Communication?’ scoffed young Master Fowl. ‘I doubt there is a teenager alive with a vocabulary equal to mine.’
Butler was about to point out the difference between talking and communicating when the restaurant door opened. A small tanned man entered, flanked by a veritable giant. Jon Spiro and his security.
Butler bent low to whisper in his charge’s ear. ‘Be careful, Artemis. I know the big one by reputation.’
Spiro wound through the tables, arms outstretched. He was a middle-aged American, thin as a javelin, and barely taller than Artemis himself. In the eighties, shipping had been his thing; in the nineties he made a killing in stocks and shares. Now, it was communications.
He wore his trademark white linen suit, and there was enough jewellery hanging from his wrists and fingers to gold leaf the Taj Mahal.
Artemis rose to greet his associate. ‘Mister Spiro, welcome.’
‘Hey, little Artemis Fowl. How the hell are you?’
Artemis shook the man’s hand. His jewellery jangled like a rattlesnake’s tail.
‘I am well. Glad you could come.’
Spiro took a chair. ‘Artemis Fowl calls with a proposition: I would’ve walked across broken glass to be here.’
The bodyguards appraised each other openly. Apart from their bulk, the two were polar opposites. Butler was the epitome of understated efficiency. Black suit, shaven head, as inconspicuous as it was possible to be at almost seven feet tall. The newcomer had bleached blond hair, a cut-off T-shirt and silver pirate rings in both ears. This was not a man who wanted to be forgotten, or ignored.
‘Arno Blunt,’ said Butler. ‘I’ve heard about you.’
Blunt took up his position at Jon Spiro’s shoulder.
‘Butler. One of the Butlers,’ he said, in a New Zealand drawl. ‘I hear you guys are the best. That’s what I hear. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.’
Spiro laughed. It sounded like a box of crickets.
‘Arno, please. We are among friends here. This is not a day for threats.’
Butler was not so sure. His soldier’s sense was buzzing like a nest of hornets at the base of his skull. There was danger here.
‘So, my friend. To business,’ said Spiro, fixing Artemis with his close-set dark eyes. ‘I’ve been salivating all the way across the Atlantic. What have you got for me?’
Artemis frowned. He’d hoped business could wait until after lunch.
‘Wouldn’t you like to see a menu?’
‘No. I don’t eat much any more. Pills and liquids mostly. Gut problems.’
‘Very well,’ said Artemis, laying an aluminum briefcase on the table.
‘To business then.’
He flipped the case’s lid, revealing a red cube the size of a minidisc player, nestling in blue foam.
Spiro cleaned his spectacles with the tail end of his tie.
‘What am I seeing here, kid?’
Artemis placed the shining box on the table.
‘The future, Mister Spiro. Ahead of schedule.’
Jon Spiro leaned in, taking a good look.
‘Looks like a paperweight to me.’
Arno Blunt sniggered, his eyes taunting Butler.
‘A demonstration then,’ said Artemis, picking up the metal box. He pressed a button and the gadget purred into life. Sections slid back to reveal speakers and a screen.
‘Cute,’ muttered Spiro. ‘I flew three thousand miles for a micro-TV?’
Artemis nodded. ‘A micro-TV. But also a verbally controlled computer, a mobile phone, a diagnostic aid. This little box can read any information on absolutely any platform, electrical or organic. It can play videos, laserdiscs, DVDs; go online, retrieve e-mail, hack any computer.
It can even scan your chest to see how fast your heart’s beating. Its battery is good for two years and, of course, it’s completely wireless.’
Artemis paused, to let it sink in.
Spiro’s eyes seemed huge behind his spectacles.
‘You mean, this box. .?’
‘Will render all other technology obsolete. Your computer plants will be worthless.’
The American took several deep breaths.
‘But how. . how?’
Artemis flipped the box over. An infrared sensor pulsed gently on the back.
‘This is the secret. An omni-sensor. It can read anything you ask it to. And if the source is programmed in, it can piggyback any satellite you choose.’
Spiro wagged a finger. ‘But that’s illegal, isn’t it?’
‘No, no,’ said Artemis, smiling. ‘There are no laws against something like this. And there won’t be for at least two years after it comes out. Look how long it took to shut down Napster.’
The American rested his face in his hands. It was too much.
‘I don’t understand. This is years, no, decades ahead of anything we have now. You’re nothing but a thirteen-year-old kid. How did you do it?’
Artemis thought for a second. What was he going to say? Sixteen months ago Butler took on a Lower Elements Police Retrieval squad and confiscated their fairy technology? Then he, Artemis, had taken the components and built this wonderful box? Hardly.
‘Let’s just say I’m a very smart boy, Mister Spiro.’
Spiro’s eyes narrowed. ‘Maybe not as smart as you’d like us to think. I want a demonstration.’
‘Fair enough.’ Artemis nodded. ‘Do you have a mobile phone?’
‘Naturally.’ Spiro placed his mobile phone on the table. It was the latest Fission Chips model.
‘Secure, I take it?’
Spiro nodded arrogantly. ‘Five hundred bit encryption. Best in its class. You’re not getting into the Fission 400 without a code.’
‘We shall see.’
Artemis pointed the sensor at the handset. The screen instantly displayed an image of the mobile phone’s workings.
‘Download?’ enquired a metallic voice from the speaker.
‘Confirm.’
In less than a second, the job was done. ‘Download complete,’ said the box, with a hint of smugness.
Spiro was aghast. ‘I don’t believe it. That system cost twenty million dollars.’
‘Worthless,’ said Artemis, showing him the screen. ‘Would you like to call home? Or maybe move some funds around? You really shouldn’t keep your bank account numbers on a sim card.’
The American thought for several moments.
‘It’s a trick,’ he pronounced finally. ‘You must’ve known about my phone. Somehow, don’t ask me how, you got access to it earlier.’
‘That is logical,’ admitted Artemis. ‘It’s what I would suspect. Name your test.’
Spiro cast his eyes around the restaurant, fingers drumming the tabletop.
‘Over there,’ he said, pointing to a video shelf above the bar. ‘Play one of those tapes.’
‘That’s it?’
‘It’ll do, for a start.’
Arno Blunt made a huge show of flicking through the tapes, eventually selecting one without a label. He slapped it down on the table, bouncing the engraved silver cutlery into the air.
Artemis resisted the urge to roll his eyes and placed the red box directly on to the tape’s surface.
An image of the cassette’s innards appeared on the tiny plasma screen.
‘Download?’ asked the box.
Artemis nodded. ‘Download, compensate and play.’
Again, the operation was completed in under a second. An old episode of an English soap crackled into life.
‘DVD quality,’ commented Artemis. ‘Regardless of the input, the C Cube will compensate.’
‘The what?’
‘C Cube,’ repeated Artemis. ‘The name I have given my little box. A tad obvious, I admit. But appropriate. The cube that sees everything.’
Spiro snatched the video cassette. ‘Check it,’ he ordered, tossing the tape to Arno Blunt.
The bleached-blond bodyguard activated the bar’s TV, sliding the video into its slot. Coronation Street flickered across the screen. The same show. Nowhere near the same quality.
‘Convinced?’ asked Artemis.
The American tinkered with one of his many bracelets.
‘Almost. One last test. I have a feeling that the government is monitoring me. Could you check it out?’
Artemis thought for a moment, then addressed the red box again.
‘Cube, do you read any surveillance beams concentrated on this building?’
The machine whirred for a moment. ‘The strongest ion beam is eighty kilometres due west, emanating from US satellite code number ST1132P. Registered to the Central Intelligence Agency. Estimated time of arrival, eight minutes. There are also several LEP probes connected to. .’
Artemis hit the mute button before the Cube could continue.
Obviously the computer’s fairy components could pick up Lower Elements technology too. He would have to remedy that. In the wrong hands that information would be devastating to fairy security.
‘What’s the matter, kid? The box was still talking. Who are the LEP?’
Artemis shrugged. ‘No pay, no play, as you Americans say. One example is enough. The CIA no less.’
‘The CIA,’ breathed Spiro. ‘They suspect me of selling military secrets. They’ve pulled one of their birds out of orbit, just to track me.’
‘Or perhaps me,’ noted Artemis.
‘Perhaps you,’ agreed Spiro. ‘You’re looking more dangerous by the second.’
Arno Blunt chuckled derisively.
Butler ignored it. One of them had to be professional.
Spiro cracked his knuckles, a habit Artemis detested.
‘We’ve got eight minutes, so let’s get down to the nitty gritty, kid. How much for the box?’
Artemis was not paying attention, distracted by the LEP information that the Cube had almost revealed. In a careless moment, he had nearly exposed his subterranean friends to exactly the kind of man who would exploit them.
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’
‘I said, how much for the box?’
‘Firstly, it’s a Cube,’ corrected Artemis. ‘And secondly, it’s not for sale.’
Jon Spiro took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Not for sale? You brought me across the Atlantic to show me something you’re not going to sell me? What’s going on here?’
Butler wrapped his fingers around the handle of a pistol in his waistband. Arno Blunt’s hand disappeared behind his back. The tension cranked up another notch.
Artemis steepled his fingers. ‘Mister Spiro. Jon. I am not a complete idiot. I realize the value of my Cube. There is not enough money in the world to pay for this particular item. Whatever you could give me, it would be worth a thousand per cent more in a week.’
‘So what’s the deal, Fowl?’ asked Spiro, through gritted teeth. ‘What are you offering?’
‘I’m offering you twelve months. For the right price, I’m prepared to keep my Cube off the market for a year.’
Jon Spiro toyed with his ID bracelet. A birthday present to himself.
‘You’ll suppress the technology for a year?’
‘Correct. That should give you ample time to sell your stocks before they crash, and to use the profits to buy into Fowl Industries.’
‘There is no Fowl Industries.’
Artemis smirked. ‘There will be.’
Butler squeezed his employer’s shoulder. It was not a good idea to bait a man like Jon Spiro.
But Spiro hadn’t even noticed the jibe. He was too busy calculating, twisting his bracelet like a string of worry beads.
‘Your price?’ he asked eventually.
‘Gold. One metric ton,’ replied the heir to the Fowl estate.
‘That’s a lot of gold.’
Artemis shrugged. ‘I like gold. It holds its value. And anyway, it’s a pittance compared to what this deal will save you.’
Spiro thought about it. At his shoulder, Arno Blunt continued staring at Butler. The Fowl bodyguard blinked freely: in the event of confrontation, dry eyeballs would only lessen his advantage. Staring matches were for amateurs.
‘Let’s say I don’t like your terms,’ said Jon Spiro. ‘Let’s say I decide to take your little gadget with me right now.’
Arno Blunt’s chest puffed out another centimetre.
‘Even if you could take the Cube,’ said Artemis, smiling, ‘it would be of little use to you. The technology is beyond anything your engineers have ever seen.’
Spiro gave a thin, mirthless smile. ‘Oh, I’m sure they could figure it out. Even if it took a couple of years, it won’t matter to you. Not where you’re going.’
‘If I go anywhere, then the C Cube’s secrets go with me. Its every function is coded to my voice patterns. It’s quite a clever code.’
Butler bent his knees slightly, ready to spring.
‘I bet we could break that code. I got one helluva team assembled in Fission Chips.’
‘Pardon me if I am unimpressed by your “one helluva team”,’ said Artemis. ‘Thus far you have been trailing several years behind Phonetix.’
Spiro jumped to his feet. He did not like the P word. Phonetix was the only communications company whose stock was higher than Fission Chips’s.
‘OK, kid, you’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn. I have to go now,
before the satellite beam gets here. But I’m leaving Mister Blunt behind.’
He patted his bodyguard on the shoulder. ‘You know what you have to do.’
Blunt nodded. He knew. He was looking forward to it.
For the first time since the meeting began, Artemis forgot about his lunch and concentrated completely on the situation at hand. This was not going according to plan.
‘Mister Spiro. You cannot be serious. We are in a public place, surrounded by civilians. Your man cannot hope to compete with Butler. If you persist with these ludicrous threats, I will be forced to withdraw my offer, and will release the C Cube immediately.’
Spiro placed his palms on the table. ‘Listen, kid,’ he whispered. ‘I like you. In a couple of years, you could have been just like me. But did you ever put a gun to somebody’s head and pull the trigger?’
Artemis didn’t reply.
‘No?’ grunted Spiro. ‘I didn’t think so. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Guts. And you don’t have them.’
Artemis was at a loss for words. Something that had only happened twice since his fifth birthday. Butler stepped in to fill the silence. Unveiled threats were more his area.
‘Mister Spiro. Don’t try to bluff us. Blunt may be big, but I can snap him like a twig. Then there’s nobody between me and you. And, take my word for it, you don’t want that.’
Spiro’s smile spread across his nicotine-stained teeth like a smear of treacle.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say there’s nobody between us.’
Butler got that sinking feeling. The one you get when there are a dozen laser sights playing across your chest. They had been set up.
Somehow Spiro had outmanoeuvred Artemis.
‘Hey, Fowl?’ said the American. ‘I wonder how come your lunch is taking so long.’
It was at that moment Artemis realized just how much trouble they were in.
It all happened in a heartbeat. Spiro clicked his fingers and every single customer in En Fin drew a weapon from inside his or her coat. The eighty-year-old lady suddenly looked a lot more threatening with a revolver in her bony fist. Two armed waiters emerged from the kitchen wielding folding-stock machine guns. Butler never even had time to draw breath.
Spiro tipped over the salt cellar. ‘Check and mate. My game, kid.’
Artemis tried to concentrate. There must be a way out. There was always a way out. But it wouldn’t come. He had been hoodwinked.
Perhaps fatally. No human had ever outsmarted Artemis Fowl. Then again, it only had to happen once.
‘I’m going now,’ continued Spiro, pocketing the C Cube, ‘before that satellite beam shows up, and those other ones. The LEP, I’ve never heard of that particular agency. And as soon as I get this gizmo working they’re going to wish they never heard of me. It’s been fun doing business with you.’
On his way to the door, Spiro winked at his bodyguard.
‘You got six minutes, Arno. A dream come true, eh? You get to be the guy who took out the great Butler.’ He turned back to Artemis, unable to resist a final jibe.
‘Oh, and by the way — Artemis, isn’t that a girl’s name?’ And he was gone, into the multicultural throngs of tourists on the high street.
The old lady locked the door behind him. The click echoed around the restaurant.
Artemis decided to take the initiative. ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, trying to avoid staring down the black-eyed gun barrels. ‘I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.’
‘Quiet, Artemis!’
It took a moment for Artemis’s brain to process the fact that Butler had ordered him to be silent. Most impertinently in fact.
‘I beg your pardon. .”
Butler clamped a hand over his employer’s mouth.
‘Quiet, Artemis. These people are professionals, not to be bargained with.’
Blunt rotated his skull, cracking the tendons in his neck.
‘You got that right, Butler. We’re here to kill you. As soon as Mister
Spiro got the call we started sending people in. I can’t believe you fell for it, man. You must be getting old.’
Butler couldn’t believe it either. There was a time when he would have staked out any rendezvous site for a week before giving it the thumbs-up. Maybe he was petting old, but there was an excellent chance he wouldn’t be getting any older.
‘OK, Blunt,’ said Butler, stretching out his empty palms before him.
‘You and me. One on one.’
‘Very noble,’ said Blunt. ‘That’s your Asian code of honour, I suppose. Me, I don’t have a code. If you think I’m going to risk you somehow getting out of here, you’re crazy. This is an uncomplicated deal. I shoot you. You die. No face-off, no duel.’
Blunt reached lazily into his waistband. Why hurry? One move from Butler and a dozen bullets would find their mark.
Artemis’s brain seemed to have shut down. The usual stream of ideas had dried up. I’m going to die, he thought. I don’t believe it.
Butler was saying something. Artemis decided he should listen.
‘Richard of York gave battle in vain,’ said the bodyguard, enunciating clearly.
Blunt was screwing a silencer on to the muzzle of his ceramic pistol.
‘What are you saying? What kind of gibberish is that? Don’t say the great Butler is cracking up! Wait till I tell the guys.’
But the old woman looked thoughtful.
‘Richard of York. . I know that.’
Artemis knew it too. It was virtually the entire verbal detonation code for the fairy sonix grenade magnetized to the underside of the table.
One of Butler’s little security devices. All they needed was one more word and the grenade would explode, sending a solid wall of sound charging through the building, blowing out every window and eardrum. There would be no smoke or flames, but anyone within a ten-metre radius not wearing earplugs had about five seconds before severe pain set in. One more word.
The old lady scratched her head with the revolver’s barrel.
‘Richard of York? I remember now, the nuns taught us that in school. Richard of York gave battle in vain. It’s one of those memory tricks. The colours of the rainbow.’
Rainbow. The final word. Artemis remembered — just in time — to slacken his jaw. If his teeth were clenched, the sonic waves would shatter them like sugar glass.
The grenade detonated in a blast of compressed sound, instantaneously hurling eleven people to the furthest extremities of the room, until they came into contact with various walls. The lucky ones hit partitions and went straight through. The unlucky ones collided with cavity block walls. Things broke. Not the blocks.
Artemis was safe in Butler’s bear-hug. The bodyguard had anchored himself against a solid door frame, folding the flying boy into his arms.
And they had several other advantages over Spiro’s assassins: their teeth were intact, they did not suffer from any compound fractures and the sonic filter sponges had sealed, saving their eardrums from perforation.
Butler surveyed the room. The assassins were all down, clutching their ears. They wouldn’t be uncrossing their eyes for several days. The manservant drew his Sig Sauer pistol from a shoulder holster.
‘Stay here,’ he commanded. ‘I’m going to check the kitchen.’
Artemis settled back into his chair, drawing several shaky breaths.
All around was a chaos of dust and moans. But once again, Butler had saved them. All was not lost. It was even possible that they could catch
Spiro before he left the country. Butler had a contact in Heathrow Security: Sid Commons, an ex-Green Beret he’d served with on bodyguard duty in Monte Carlo.
A large figure came into view, blocking out the sunlight. It was Butler, returned from his reconnoitre. Artemis breathed deeply, feelingly uncharacteristically emotional.
‘Butler,’ he began. ‘We really must talk regarding your salary. .’
But it wasn’t Butler. It was Arno Blunt. He had something in each hand. On his left palm, two tiny cones of yellow foam.
‘Ear plugs,’ he spat through broken teeth. ‘I always wear ‘em before a fire fight. Good thing too, eh?’
In his right hand, Blunt held a silenced pistol.
‘You first,’ he said. ‘Then the ape.’
Arno Blunt cocked the gun, took aim briefly and fired.
HAVEN CITY, THE LOWER ELEMENTS
Though Artemis did not intend it, the Cube’s scan for surveillance beams was to have far-reaching repercussions. The search parameters were so vague that the Cube sent probes into deep space and, of course, deep underground.
Below the surface, the Lower Elements Police were stretched to their limits following the recent goblin revolution. Three months after the attempted goblin takeover, most of the major players were in custody.
But there were still isolated pockets of the B’wa Kell triad loping around Haven’s tunnels with illegal Softnose lasers.
Every available LEP officer had been drafted in to help with Operation Mop-Up before the tourist season got started. The last thing the city Council wanted was tourists spending their leisure gold in Atlantis because Haven’s pedestrianized central plaza was not safe to wander through. Tourism, after all, accounted for eighteen per cent of the capital’s revenue.
Captain Holly Short was on loan from the Reconnaissance squad.
Generally, her job was to fly to the surface on the trail of fairies who had ventured above ground without a visa. If even one renegade fairy got himself captured by the Mud People, then Haven ceased to be a haven.
So until every gang goblin was licking his eyeballs in Howler’s Peak correctional facility, Holly’s duties were the same as every other LEP officer: rapid response to any B’wa Kell alert.
Today she was escorting four rowdy goblin hoods to Police Plaza for processing. They had been found asleep in an insect delicatessen, stomachs distended after a night of gluttony. It was lucky for them that
Holly had arrived when she did, because the deli’s dwarf owner was on the point of lowering the scaly foursome into the deep-fat fryer.
Holly’s ride-along for Operation Mop-Up was Corporal Grub Kelp,
little brother to the famous Captain Trouble Kelp, one of the LEP’s most decorated officers. Grub, however, did not share his brother’s stoic personality.
‘I got a hangnail cuffing that last goblin,’ said the junior officer, chewing on his thumb.
‘Painful,’ said Holly, trying to sound interested.
They were driving along a magnastrip to Police Plaza, with the perpetrators manacled in the rear of their LEP wagon. It wasn’t actually a regulation wagon. The B’wa Kell had managed to burn out so many police vehicles during their short-lived revolution that the LEP had been forced to commandeer anything with an engine and room in the back for a few prisoners. In reality, Holly was piloting a curry van with the LEP acorn symbol spray-painted on the side. The motor-pool gnomes had simply bolted the serving hatch and removed the ovens. A pity they couldn’t remove the smell.
Grub studied his wounded thumb. ‘Those cuffs have sharp edges. I should lodge a complaint.’
Holly concentrated on the road, though the magnastrip did the steering for her. If Grub did lodge a complaint, it wouldn’t be his first, or even his twentieth. Trouble’s little brother found fault with everything, except himself. In this instance he was completely wrong: there were no sharp edges on the perspex vacuum cuffs. If there had been, a goblin might think to poke a hole in the other mitt and allow oxygen to reach his hand, and nobody wanted goblins hurling fireballs in the back of their vehicles.
‘I know it sounds petty to lodge a complaint over hangnails, but no one could accuse me of being petty.’
‘You! Petty! Perish the thought.’
Grub puffed up his chest. ‘After all, I am the only member of LEPretrieval One to have faced down the human, Butler.’
Holly groaned loudly. This, she fervently hoped, would dissuade Grub from telling his Artemis Fowl war story yet again. It grew longer and more fantastical each time. In reality, Butler had let him go, as a fisherman would a minnow.
But Grub was not about to take a hint.
‘I remember it well,’ he began melodramatically. ‘It was a dark night.’
And, as though his very words carried immeasurable magic, every light in the city went out.
Not only that, but the magnastrip’s power failed, leaving them stranded in the middle lane of a frozen highway.
‘I didn’t do that, did I?’ whispered Grub.
Holly didn’t answer, already halfway out of the wagon door.
Overhead, the sun strips that replicated surface light were fading to black.
In the last moments of half-light Holly squinted towards the Northern
Tunnel and, sure enough, the door was sliding down, emergency lights revolving along its lower edge. Sixty metres of solid steel separating Haven from the outside world. Similar doors were dropping at strategic arches all over the city. Lockdown. There were only three reasons why the Council would initiate a city-wide lockdown: flood, quarantine, or discovery by the humans.
Holly looked around her. Nobody was drowning; nobody was sick.
So the Mud People were coming. Finally, every fairy’s worst nightmare was coming true.
Emergency lights flickered on overhead, the sun strips’ soft white glow replaced by an eerie orange. Official vehicles would receive a burst of power from the magnastrip, enough to get them to the nearest depot.
Ordinary citizens were not so lucky; they would have to walk.
Hundreds stumbled from their automobiles, too scared to pro test. That would come later.
‘Captain Short! Holly!’
It was Grub. No doubt he would be lodging a complaint with someone.
‘Corporal,’ she said, turning back to the vehicle. ‘This is no time for panic. We need to set an example. .’
The lecture petered out in her throat when she saw what was happening to the wagon. All LEP vehicles would have by now received the regulation ten-minute burst of power from the magnastrip to get them and their cargo to safety. This power would also keep the perspex cuffs vacuumed. Of course, as they weren’t using an official LEP vehicle they hadn’t been cleared for emergency power — something the goblins obviously realized, because they were trying to burn their way out of the wagon.
Grub stumbled from the cab, his helmet blackened by soot.
‘The cuffs have popped open, so now they’ve started blasting the doors,’ he panted, retreating to a safe distance. Goblins. Evolution’s little joke. Pick the dumbest creatures on the planet and give them the ability to conjure fire. If the goblins didn’t stop blasting the wagon’s reinforced interior they would soon be encased in molten metal. Not a nice way to go, even if you were fireproof. Holly activated the amplifier in her LEP helmet. ‘You there, in the wagon. Cease fire. The vehicle will collapse and you will be trapped.’
For several moments, smoke billowed from the vents. Then the vehicle settled on its axles. A face appeared at the grille, forked tongue slithering through the mesh.
‘You think we’re stupid, elf? We’re gonna burn clean through this pile of junk.’
Holly stepped closer, turning up the speakers. ‘Listen to me, goblin.
You are stupid, let’s just accept that and move on. If you continue to fireball that vehicle, the roof will melt and fall on you like shells from a human gun. You may be fireproof, but are you bulletproof?’ The goblin licked his lidless eyes, thinking it over. ‘You lie, elf! We will blow a hole right through this prison. You will be next.’
The wagon’s panels began to lurch and buckle as the goblins renewed their attack.
‘Not to worry,’ said Grub, from a safe distance. ‘The fire extinguishers will get them.’
‘They would,’ corrected Holly, ‘if the fire extinguishers weren’t connected to the main power grid, which is shut down.’
A mobile food-preparation wagon such as this one would have to adhere to the strictest fire regulations before setting one magna wheel on the strip. In this case, several foam-packed extinguishers, which could submerge the entire interior in flame-retardant foam in a matter of seconds. The nice thing about the flame foam was that it hardened on contact with air, but the not-so-nice thing about flame foam was that the trip switch was connected to the magna strip. No power. No foam.
Holly drew her Neutrino 2000 from its holster. ‘I’ll just have to trip this switch myself.’
Captain Short sealed her helmet and climbed into the wagon’s cab.
She avoided touching metal wherever possible, because even though microfilaments in her LEP jumpsuit were designed to disperse extra heat, microfilaments didn’t always do what they were designed to do.
The goblins were on their backs, pumping fireball after fireball into the roof panels.
‘Knock it off!’ she ordered, pointing her laser’s muzzle through the mesh.
Three of the goblins ignored her. One, possibly the leader, turned his scaly face to the grille. Holly saw that he had eyeball tattoos. This act of supreme stupidity probably would have guaranteed him promotion had the B’wa Kell not been effectively disbanded.
‘You will not be able to get us all, elf,’ he said, smoke leaking from his mouth and slitted nostrils. ‘Then one of us will get you.’
The goblin was right, even if he didn’t realize why. Holly suddenly remembered that she could not fire during a lockdown. Regulations stated that there were to be no unshielded power surges in case Haven was being probed.
Her hesitation was all the proof the goblin needed.
‘I knew it!’ he crowed, tossing a casual fireball at the grille. The mesh glowed red, and sparks cascaded against Holly’s visor. Over the goblins’ heads, the roof sagged dangerously. A few more seconds and it would collapse.
Holly undipped a piton dart from her belt, screwing it into the launcher above the Neutrino’s main barrel. The launcher was spring-loaded, like an old-fashioned spear gun, and would not give off a heat flash: nothing to alarm any sensors.
The goblin was highly amused, as goblins often are just before incarceration, which explains why so many are incarcerated.
‘A dart? You going to prod us all to death, little elf?’
Holly aimed at a clip protruding from the fire-foam nozzle in the rear of the wagon.
‘Would you please be quiet?’ she said, and launched the dart. It flew over the goblin’s head, jamming itself between the rods of the nozzle clip; the piton cord stretched the length of the wagon.
‘Missed me,’ said the goblin, waggling his forked tongue. It was a testament to the goblin’s stupidity that he could be trapped in a melting vehicle during a lockdown with an LEP officer firing at him, and still think he had the upper hand.
‘I told you to be quiet!’ said Holly, pulling sharply on the piton cord and snapping the clip.
Eight hundred kilograms of extinguisher foam blasted from the diffuser nozzle at over two hundred miles per hour. Needless to say, all fireballs went out. The goblins were pinned down by the force of the already hardening foam. The leader was pressed so forcibly against the grille that his tattooed eyes were easily legible. One said ‘Mummy’, the other ‘Duddy’. A misspelling, though he probably didn’t know it.
‘Ow,’ he said. More from disbelief than pain. He didn’t say anything else, because his mouth was full of congealing foam.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Holly. ‘The foam is porous, so you will be able to breathe, but it’s also completely fireproof, so good luck trying to burn your way out.’
Grub was still examining his hangnail when Holly emerged from the van. She removed her helmet, wiping the soot from the visor with the sleeve of her jumpsuit. It was supposed to be non-stick; maybe she should send it in for another coating.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Grub.
‘Yes, Corporal. Everything is all right. No thanks to you.’
Grub had the audacity to look offended. ‘I was securing the perimeter, Captain. We can’t all be action heroes.’
That was typical Grub, an excuse for every occasion. She could deal with him later. Now it was vital that she get to Police Plaza and find out why the Council had shut down the city.
‘I think we should get back to HQ,’ Grub offered. ‘The intelligence boys might want to interview me if the humans are invading.’
‘I think I should get back to HQ,’ said Holly. ‘You stay here and keep an eye on the suspects until the power comes back on. Do you think you can handle that? Or are you too incapacitated with that hangnail?’
Holly’s auburn hair stood in sweat-slicked spikes, and her round hazel eyes dared Grub to argue.
‘No, Holly. . Captain. You leave it to me. Everything is under control.’
I doubt it, thought Holly, setting off at a run towards Police Plaza.
The city was in complete chaos. Every citizen was on the street staring at his or her dead appliance in disbelief. For some of the younger fairies, the loss of their mobile phones was too much to bear. They sank to the streets, sobbing gently.
Police Plaza was mobbed by enquiring minds, like moths drawn to a light. In this case, one of the only lights in town. Hospitals and emergency vehicles would still have juice but, otherwise, the LEP headquarters was the only government building still functioning.
Holly forced her way through the crowd, into the lobby area. The public service queues ran down the steps and out the door. Today everyone was asking the same question: What’s happened to the power?
The same question was on Holly’s lips as she burst into the Situations booth, but she kept it to herself. The room was already packed with the force’s complement of captains, along with the three regional commanders and all seven Council members.
‘Aaah,’ said Chairman Cahartez. ‘The last captain.’
‘I didn’t get my emergency juice,’ explained Holly. ‘Non-regulation vehicle.’
Cahartez adjusted his official conical hat. ‘No time for excuses, Captain, Mister Foaly has been holding off on his briefing until you got here.’
Holly took her seat at the captain’s table, beside Trouble Kelp.
‘Grub OK?’ he whispered.
‘He got a hangnail.’
Trouble rolled his eyes. ‘No doubt he’ll make a complaint.’
The centaur Foaly trotted through the doors, clutching armfuls of disks. Foaly was the LEP’s technical genius, and his security innovations were the main reason why humans had not yet discovered the subterranean fairy hideaway. Maybe that was about to change.
The centaur expertly loaded the disks on to the operating system, opening several windows on a wall-size plasma screen. Various complicated-looking algorithms and wave patterns appeared on the screen.
He cleared his throat noisily. ‘I advised Chairman Cahartez to initiate lockdown on the basis of these readings.’
Recon’s Commander Root sucked on an unlit fungus cigar. ‘I think I’m speaking for the whole room here, Foaly, when I say that all I see is lines and squiggles. Doubtless it makes sense to a smart pony like yourself, but the rest of us are going to need some plain Gnommish.’
Foaly sighed. ‘Simply put. Really simply. We got pinged. Is that plain enough?’
It was. The room resonated with stunned silence. Pinged was an old naval term from back in the days when sonar was the preferred method of detection.
Getting pinged was slang for being detected. Someone knew the fairy folk were down here.
Root was the first to recover his voice. ‘Pinged. Who pinged us?’
Foaly shrugged. ‘Don’t know. It only lasted a few seconds. There was no recognizable signature, and it was untraceable.’
‘What did they get?’
‘Quite a bit. Everything North European. Scopes, Sentinel. All our cam-cams. Downloaded information on every one of them.’
This was catastrophic news. Someone or something knew all about fairy surveillance in Northern Europe, after only a few seconds.
‘Was it human,’ asked Holly, ‘or alien?’
Foaly pointed to a digital representation of the beam. ‘I can’t say for certain. If it is human, it’s something brand new. This came out of nowhere. No one has been developing technology like this as far as I know. Whatever it is, it read us like an open book. My security encryptions folded like they weren’t even there.’
Cahartez took off his official hat, no longer concerned with protocol.
‘What does this mean for the People?’
‘It’s difficult to say. There are best and worst case scenarios. Our mysterious guest could learn all about us whenever he wishes and do with our civilization what he will.’
‘And the best case scenario?’ asked Trouble.
Foaly took a breath. ‘That was the best case scenario.’
Commander Root called Holly into his office. The room stank of cigar smoke in spite of the purifier built into the desk. Foaly was already there, his fingers a blur over the commander’s keyboard.
‘The signal originated in London somewhere,’ said the centaur. ‘We only know that because I happened to be looking at the monitor at the time.’ He leaned back from the keyboard, shaking his head. ‘This is incredible. It’s some kind of hybrid technology. Almost like our ion systems, but not quite — just a hair’s breadth away.’
‘The how is not important now,’ said Root. ‘It’s the who I’m worried about.’
‘What can I do, sir?’ asked Holly.
Root stood and walked to a map of London on the wall plasma screen.
‘I need you to sign out a surveillance pack, go topside and wait. If we get pinged again, I want someone on site, ready to go. We can’t record this thing, but we can certainly get a visual on the signal. As soon as it shows up on the screen we’ll feed you the coordinates and you can investigate.’
Holly nodded. ‘When is the next hotshot?’
Hotshot was LEP-speak for the magma flares that Recon officers ride to the surface in titanium eggs. Pod pilots referred to this seat-of-the-pants procedure as ‘Riding the Hotshots’.
‘No such luck,’ replied Foaly. ‘Nothing in the pipes for the next two days. You’ll have to take a shuttle.’
‘What about the lockdown?’
‘I’ve restored power to Stonehenge and our satellite arrays. We’ll have to risk it; you need to get above ground and we need to stay in contact. The future of our civilization could depend on it.’
Holly felt the weight of responsibility settle on her shoulders. This future of our civilization thing was happening more and more lately.
EN FIN, KNIGHTSBRIDGE
The sonic blast from Butler’s grenade had crashed through the kitchen door, sweeping aside stainless-steel implements like stalks of grass. The aquarium had shattered, leaving the flagstones slick with water, perspex and surprised lobsters. They skittered through the debris, claws raised. The restaurant staff were on the floor, bound and saturated,
but alive. Butler did not untie them. He did not need hysteria right now.
Time enough to deal with them once all threats had been neutralized.
An assassin stirred, suspended halfway through a dividing wall. The manservant checked her eyes. They were crossed and unfocused. No threat there. Butler pocketed the old lady’s weapon just the same. You couldn’t be too careful — something he was learning all over again. If
Madame Ko could have seen this afternoon’s display, she would have had his graduation tattoo lasered for sure.
The room was clear, but still something was bothering the bodyguard. His soldier’s sense grated like two broken bones. Once again
Butler flashed back to Madame Ko, his sensei from the Academy. The bodyguard’s primary Junction is to protect his principal. The principal cannot be shot if you are standing in front of him. Madame Ko always referred to employers as principals. One did not become involved with principals.
Butler wondered why this particular maxim had occurred to him.
Out of the hundreds Madame Ko had drummed into his skull, why this one? It was obvious really. He had broken the first rule of personal protection by leaving his principal unguarded. The second rule: Do not develop an emotional attachment to the principal was pretty much in smithereens too. Butler had become so attached to Artemis that it was obviously beginning to affect his judgement.
He could see Madame Ko before him, nondescript in her khaki suit,
for all the world an ordinary Japanese housewife. But how many housewives of any nationality could strike so quickly that the air hissed?
You are a disgrace, Butler. A disgrace to your name. It would better suit your talents to get a job mending shoes. Your principal has already been neutralized.
Butler moved as though in a dream. The very air seemed to hold him back as he raced for the kitchen doors. He knew what would have happened. Arno Blunt was a professional. Vain perhaps — a cardinal sin among bodyguards — but a professional nevertheless. Professionals always inserted earplugs if there was any danger of gunfire.
The tiles were slick beneath his feet, but Butler compensated by leaning forward and digging his rubber-soled toes into the surface. His intact eardrums picked up irregular vibrations from the restaurant.
Conversation. Artemis was speaking with someone. Arno Blunt, no doubt.
It was already too late.
Butler came through the service door at a speed that would have shamed an Olympian. His brain began calculating odds the moment pictures arrived from his retinas: Blunt was in the act of firing. Nothing could be done about that now. There was only one option. Without hesitation, Butler took it.
In his right hand, Blunt held a silenced pistol.
‘You first,’ he said. ‘Then the ape.’
Arno Blunt cocked the gun, took aim briefly and fired.
Butler came from nowhere. He seemed to fill the entire room, flinging himself in the bullet’s path. From a greater distance, the Kevlar in his bulletproof vest might have held, but at point-blank range, the Teflon-coated bullet drilled through the waistcoat like a hot poker through snow.
It entered Butler’s chest a centimetre below the heart. It was a fatal wound. And this time Captain Short was not around to save him with her fairy magic.
The bodyguard’s own momentum, combined with the force of the bullet, sent Butler crashing into Artemis, pinning him to the dessert trolley. Nothing of the boy was visible, save one Armani loafer.
Butler’s breathing was shallow and his vision gone, but he was not dead yet. His brain’s electricity was rapidly running out, but the bodyguard held on to a single thought: protect the principal.
Arno Blunt drew a surprised breath, and Butler fired six shots at the sound. He would have been disappointed with the spread had he been able to see it. But one of the bullets found its mark, clipping Blunt’s temple. Unconsciousness was immediate, concussion inevitable. Arno
Blunt joined the rest of his team, on the floor.
Butler ignored the pain squashing his torso like a giant fist. Instead he listened for movement. There was nothing locally, just the scratch of lobster claws on the tiles. And if one of the lobsters decided to attack,
Artemis was on his own.
Nothing more could be done. Either Artemis was safe, or he was not. If not, Butler was in no condition to fulfil the terms of his contract.
This realization brought tremendous calm. No more responsibility. Just his own life to live, for a few seconds at any rate. And anyway, Artemis wasn’t just a principal. He was part of the bodyguard’s life. His only true friend. Madame Ko might not like this attitude, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now. There wasn’t much anybody could do.
Artemis had never liked desserts. And yet, he found himself submersed in eclairs, cheesecake and pavlova. His suit would be absolutely destroyed. Of course, Artemis’s brain was only throwing up these facts so he could avoid thinking about what had happened. But a ninety-kilogram deadweight is a hard thing to ignore.
Luckily for Artemis, Butler’s impact had actually driven him through to the trolley’s second shelf, while the bodyguard remained on the ice-cream ledge above. As far as Artemis could tell, the Black Forest gateau had cushioned his impact sufficiently to avoid serious internal injury. Still, he had no doubt that a visit to the chiropractor would be called for.
Possibly for Butler too, though the man had the constitution of a troll.
Artemis struggled out from underneath his manservant. With each movement, malignant cream horns exploded in his direction.
‘Really, Butler,’ grumbled the teenager. ‘I must begin choosing my business associates more carefully. Hardly a day goes by when we aren’t the victims of some plot.’
Artemis was relieved to see Arno Blunt unconscious on the restaurant floor.
‘Another villain dispatched. Good shooting, Butler, as usual. And one more thing, I have decided to wear a bulletproof vest to all future meetings. That should make your job somewhat easier, eh?’
It was at this point that Artemis noticed Butler’s shirt. The sight knocked the air from his chest like an invisible mallet. Not the hole in the material, but the blood leaking from it.
‘Butler, you’re injured. Shot. But the Kevlar?’
The bodyguard didn’t reply, nor did he have to. Artemis knew science better than most nuclear physicists. Truth be told, he often posted lectures on the Internet under the pseudonym Emmsey Squire. Obviously the bullet’s momentum had been too great for the jacket to withstand. It had possibly been coated with Teflon for extra penetration.
A large part of Artemis wanted to drape his arms across the bodyguard’s frame and cry as he would for a brother. But Artemis repressed that instinct. Now was the time for quick thinking.
Butler interrupted his train of thought.
‘Artemis. . is that you?’ he said, the words coming in short gasps.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ answered Artemis, his voice trembling.
‘Don’t worry. Juliet will protect you. You’ll be fine.’
‘Don’t talk, Butler. Lie still. The wound is not serious.’
Butler spluttered. It was as close as he could get to a laugh.
‘Very well, it is serious. But I will think of something. Just stay still.’
With his last vestige of strength, Butler raised a hand.
‘Goodbye, Artemis,’ he said. ‘My friend.’
Artemis caught the hand. The tears were streaming now.
Unchecked.
‘Goodbye, Butler.’
The Eurasian’s sightless eyes were calm. ‘Artemis, call me — Domovoi.’
The name told Artemis two things. Firstly, his lifelong ally had been named after a Slavic guardian spirit. Secondly, graduates of the Madame Ko Academy were instructed never to reveal first names to their principals. It helped to keep things clinical. Butler would never have broken this rule. . unless it no longer mattered.
‘Goodbye, Domovoi,’ sobbed the boy. ‘Goodbye, my friend.’
The hand dropped. Butler was gone.
‘No!’ shouted Artemis, staggering backwards.
This wasn’t right. This was not the way things should end. For some reason, he had always imagined that they would die together — facing insurmountable odds, in some exotic location. On the lip of a reactivated Vesuvius perhaps, or on the banks of the mighty Ganges. But together, as friends. After all they had been through, Butler simply could not be defeated at the hands of some grandstanding second-rate muscleman.
Butler had almost died before. The year before last, he had been mauled by a troll from the deep tunnels below Haven City. Holly Short had saved him then, using her fairy magic. But now there were no fairies around to save the bodyguard. Time was the enemy here. If Artemis had more of it, he could figure out how to contact the LEP and persuade Holly to use her magic once again. But time was running out. Butler had perhaps four minutes before his brain shut down. Not long enough, even for an intellect such as Artemis’s — he needed to buy some more time. Or steal some.
Think, boy, think. Use what the situation provides. Artemis shut off the wellspring of tears. He was in a restaurant, a fish restaurant. Useless!
Worthless! Perhaps in a medical facility he could do something. But here?
What was here? An oven, sinks, utensils. Even if he did have the proper tools, he had not yet completed his medical studies. It was too late for conventional surgery at any rate — unless there was a method of heart transplant that took less than four minutes.
The seconds were ticking by. Artemis was growing angry with himself. Time was against them. Time was the enemy. Time needed to be stopped. The idea sparked in Artemis’s brain in a flash of neurons.
Perhaps he couldn’t stop time, but he could halt Butler’s passage through it.
The process was risky, certainly, but it was the only chance they had.
Artemis popped the dessert trolley’s brake with his foot, and began hauling the contraption towards the kitchen. He had to pause several times to drag moaning assassins from the vehicle’s path.
Emergency vehicles were approaching, making their way down Knightsbridge. Obviously the sonic grenade’s detonation would have attracted attention. There were only moments left before he would have to fabricate some plausible story for the authorities. . Better not to be there. . Fingerprints wouldn’t be a problem, as the restaurant would have had dozens of customers. All he had to do was get out of there before London’s finest arrived.
The kitchen was forged from stainless steel. Hobs, hoods and work surfaces were littered with fallout from the sonic grenade. Fish flapped in the sink, crustaceans clicked across the tiles and beluga dripped from the ceiling.
There! At the back, a line of freezers, essential in any seafood bistro. Artemis put his shoulder against the trolley, steering it to the rear of the kitchen.
The largest of the freezers was of the custom-built pull-out variety, often found in large restaurants. Artemis hauled open the drawer, quickly evicting the salmon, sea bass and hake that were encrusted in the ice shavings.
Cryogenics. It was their only chance. The science of freezing a body until medicine had evolved sufficiently to revive it. Generally dismissed by the medical community, it nevertheless made millions each year from the estates of rich eccentrics who needed more than one lifetime to spend their money. Cryogenic chambers were generally built to very exact specifications, but there was no time for Artemis’s usual standards now.
This freezer would have to do as a temporary solution. It was imperative that Butler’s head be cooled to preserve the brain cells. So long as his brain functions were intact, he could theoretically be revived, even if there were no heartbeat.
Artemis manoeuvred the trolley until it overhung the open freezer; then, with the help of a silver platter, he levered Butler’s body into the steaming ice. It was tight, but the bodyguard fitted with barely a bend of the legs. Artemis heaped loose ice on top of his fallen comrade, and then adjusted the thermostat to four below zero to avoid tissue damage.
Butler’s blank face was just visible through a layer of ice.
‘I’ll be back,’ the boy said. ‘Sleep well.’
The sirens were close now. Artemis heard the screech of tyres.
‘Hold on, Domovoi,’ whispered Artemis, closing the freezer drawer.
Artemis left through the back door, mingling with the crowds of locals and sightseers. The police would have someone photographing the crowd, so he did not linger at the cordon, or even glance back towards the restaurant. Instead, he made his way to Harrods and found himself a table at the gallery cafe.
Once he had assured the waitress that he was not looking for his mummy, and produced sufficient cash to pay for his pot of Earl Grey tea,
Artemis pulled out his mobile, selecting a number from the speed-dial menu.
A man answered on the second ring.
‘Hello. Make it quick, whoever you are. I’m very busy at the moment.’
The man was Detective Inspector Justin Barre of New Scotland
Yard. Barre’s gravelly tones were caused by a hunting knife across the gullet during a bar fight in the nineties. If Butler hadn’t been on hand to stop the bleeding, Justin Barre would never have risen beyond Sergeant.
It was time to call in the debt.
‘Detective Inspector Barre. This is Artemis Fowl.’
‘Artemis, how are you? And how’s my old partner, Butler?’
Artemis kneaded his forehead. ‘Not well at all, I’m afraid. He needs a favour.’
‘Anything for the big man. What can I do?’
‘Did you hear something about a disturbance in Knightsbridge?’
There was a pause. Artemis heard paper rip as a fax was torn off the roll.
‘Yes, it just came in. A couple of windows were shattered in some restaurant. Nothing major. Some tourists are a bit shell-shocked.
Preliminary reports say it was some kind of localized earthquake, if you can believe that. We’ve got two cars there right now. Don’t tell me Butler was behind it?’
Artemis took a breath. ‘I need you to keep your men away from the freezers.’
‘That’s a strange request, Artemis. What’s in the freezers that I shouldn’t see?’
‘Nothing illegal,’ promised Artemis. ‘Believe me when I say this is life or death for Butler.’
Barre didn’t hesitate. ‘This is not exactly in my jurisdiction, but consider it done. Do you need to get whatever I’m not supposed to see out of the freezers?’
The officer had read his mind. ‘As soon as possible. Two minutes are all I need.’
Barre chewed it over. ‘OK. Let’s synchronize schedules. The forensics team is going to be in there for a couple of hours. Nothing I can do about that. But at six-thirty precisely, I can guarantee there won’t be anyone on duty. You have five minutes.’
‘That will be more than sufficient.’
‘Good. And tell the big man that we’re quits.’
Artemis kept his voice even. ‘Yes, Detective Inspector. I’ll tell him.’
If I get the opportunity, he thought.
ICE AGE CRYOGENICS INSTITUTE, OFF HARLEY STREET, LONDON
The Ice Age Cryogenics Institute was not actually on London’s Harley Street. Technically, it was tucked away in Dickens Lane, a side alley on the famous medical boulevard’s southern end. But this did not stop the facility’s MD, one Doctor Constance Lane, from putting Harley Street on all Ice Age stationery. You couldn’t buy credibility like that.
When the upper classes saw those magic words on a business card they fell over themselves to have their frail frames frozen.
Artemis Fowl was not so easily impressed. But then he had little choice; Ice Age was one of three cryogenic centres in the city, and the only one with free units. Though Artemis did consider the neon sign a bit much: ‘Pods to Rent’. Honestly.
The building itself was enough to make Artemis squirm. The facade was lined with brushed aluminium, obviously designed to resemble a spaceship, and the doors were of the whoosh Star Trek variety. Where was culture? Where was art? How did a monstrosity like this get planning permission in historic London?
A nurse, complete with white uniform and three-pointed hat, was manning the reception. Artemis doubted she was an actual nurse — something about the cigarette between her false nails.
‘Excuse me, miss?’
The nurse barely glanced up from her gossip magazine.
‘Yes? Are you looking for someone?’
Artemis clenched his fists behind his back.
‘Yes, I would like to see Doctor Lane. She is the surgeon, is she not?’
The nurse ground out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.
‘This is not another school project, is it? Doctor Lane says no more projects.’
‘No. Not another school project.’
‘You’re not a lawyer, are you?’ asked the nurse suspiciously. ‘One of those geniuses who gets a degree while they’re still in nappies?’
Artemis sighed. ‘A genius, yes. A lawyer, hardly. I am, mademoiselle, a customer.’
And suddenly the nurse was all charm.
‘Oh, a customer! Why didn’t you say so? I’ll show you right in.
Would sir care for tea, coffee or perhaps something stronger?’
‘I am thirteen years old, mademoiselle.’
‘A juice?’
‘Tea would be fine. Earl Grey if you have it. No sugar, obviously; it might make me hyperactive.’
The nurse was quite prepared to accept sarcasm from an actual paying customer, and directed Artemis to a lounge where the style was, again, space age. Plenty of shining velour and eternity mirrors.
Artemis had half finished a cup of something that was most definitely not Earl Grey when Doctor Lane’s door swung open.
‘Do come in,’ said a tall woman uncertainly.
‘Shall I walk?’ asked Artemis. ‘Or will you beam me up?’
The office walls were lined with frames. Along one side were the doctor’s degrees and certificates. Artemis suspected that many of these certificates could be obtained over the weekend. Along the wall were several photographic portraits. Above these read the legend ‘Love Lies Sleeping’. Artemis almost left then, but he was desperate.
Doctor Lane sat behind her desk. She was a very glamorous woman, with flowing red hair and the tapered fingers of an artist. Her smock was Dior. Even Constance Lane’s smile was perfect too perfect.
Artemis looked closer and realized that her entire face was the handiwork of a plastic surgeon. Obviously, this woman’s life was all about cheating time. He had come to the right place.
‘Now, young man, Tracy says you wish to become a customer?’ The doctor tried to smile, but the stretching made her face shine like a balloon.
‘Not personally, no,’ replied Artemis. ‘But I do wish to rent one of your units. Short term.’
Constance Lane pulled a company pamphlet from the drawer, ringing some figures in red.
‘Our rates are quite steep.’
Artemis did not even glance at the numbers.
‘Money is no object. We can set up a wire transfer right now from my Swiss bank. In five minutes you can have a hundred thousand pounds sitting in your personal account. All I need is a unit for a single night.’
The figure was impressive. Constance thought of all the nips and tucks it would buy. But she was still reluctant. .
‘Generally minors are not allowed to commit relatives to our chambers. It’s the law actually.’
Artemis leaned forward.
‘Doctor Lane. Constance. What I’m doing here is not exactly legal, but no one is being hurt either. One night and you’re a rich woman. This time tomorrow and I was never here. No bodies, no complaints.’
The doctor’s hand fingered her jaw line.
‘One night?’
‘Just one. You won’t even know we’re here.’
Constance took a hand mirror from her desk drawer, studying her reflection closely.
‘Call your bank,’ she said.
STONEHEHGE, WILTSHIRE
Two LEP chutes emerged in the south of England. One in London itself, but that was closed to the public due to the fact that Chelsea Football Club had built their grounds five hundred metres above the shuttle port.
The other port was in Wiltshire, beside what humans referred to as
Stonehenge. Mud People had several theories as to the origins of the structure. These ranged from spaceship landing port to pagan centre of worship. The truth was far less glamorous. Stonehenge had actually been an outlet for a flat-bread-based food. Or, in human terms, a pizza parlour.
A gnome called Bog had realized how many tourists forgot their sandwiches on above-ground jaunts, and so had set up shop beside the terminal. It was a smooth operation. You drove up to one of the windows, named your toppings, and ten minutes later you were stuffing your face.
Of course, Bog had to shift his operation below ground once humans began talking in full sentences. And anyway, all that cheese was making the ground soggy. A couple of the service windows had even collapsed.
It was difficult for fairy civilians to get visas to visit Stonehenge because of the constant activity on the surface. Then again, hippies saw fairies every day and it never made the front page. As a police officer,
Holly didn’t have a visa problem; one flash of the Recon badge opened a hole right through to the surface.
But being a Recon officer didn’t help if there was no magma flare scheduled. And the Stonehenge chute had been dormant for over three centuries. Not a spark. In the absence of a hotshot to ride, Holly was forced to travel aboard a commercial shuttle.
The first available shuttle was heavily booked, but luckily there was a late cancellation so Holly wasn’t forced to bump a passenger.
The shuttle was a fifty-seater luxury cruiser. It had been commissioned especially by the Brotherhood of Bog to visit their patron’s site. These fairies, mostly gnomes, dedicated their lives to pizza and every year on the anniversary of Bog’s first day in business, they chartered a shuttle and took a picnic above ground. The picnic consisted of pizza, tuber beer and pizza-flavoured ice cream. Needless to say, they did not remove their rubber pizza bonnets for the entire day.
So, for sixty-seven minutes, Holly sat wedged between two beer-swilling gnomes singing the pizza song:
There were a hundred and fourteen verses. And it didn’t get any better. Holly had never been happier to see the Stonehenge landing lights.
The actual terminal was pretty comprehensive, boasting a three-lane visa clearance booth, entertainment complex and duty-free shopping. The current souvenir craze was a Mud Man hippy doll that said,
‘Peace, man,’ when you pressed its tummy.
Holly badged her way through the customs queue, taking a security elevator to the surface. Stonehenge had become easier to exit recently, because the Mud People had put up fencing. The humans were protecting their heritage, or so they thought. Strange that Mud People seemed more concerned about the past than the present.
Holly strapped on her wings, and once the control booth had given her the go-ahead, she cleared the airlock, soaring to a height of seven thousand feet. There was plenty of cloud cover, but nevertheless she activated her shield. Nothing could spot her now; she was invisible to human and mechanical eyes. Only rats and two species of monkey could see through a fairy shield.
Holly switched on the on-board navigator in the wings’ computer and let the rig do the steering for her. It was nice to be above ground again, and at sunset too. Her favourite time of day. A slow smile spread across her face. In spite of the situation, she was content. This was what she was born to do. Recon. With the wind against her visor and a challenge between her teeth.
KNIGHTSBRIDGE, LONDON
It had been almost two hours since Butler had been shot. Generally the grace period between heart failure and brain damage is about four minutes, but that period can be extended if the patient’s body temperature is lowered sufficiently. Drowning victims, for example, can be resuscitated for up to an hour after their apparent death. Artemis could only pray that his makeshift cryogenic chamber could hold Butler in stasis until he could be transferred to one of Ice Age’s pods.
Ice Age Cryogenics had a mobile unit for transporting clients from the private clinics where they expired. The van was equipped with its own generator and full surgery. Even if cryogenics was considered crackpot medicine by many physicians, the vehicle itself would meet the strictest standards of equipment and hygiene.
‘These units cost almost a million pounds apiece,’ Doctor Constance
Lane informed Artemis, as they sat in the stark white surgery. A cylindrical cryo pod was strapped to a trolley between them.
‘The vans are custom-made in Munich, specially armoured too. This thing could drive over a landmine and come out smiling.’
For once, Artemis was not interested in gathering information.
‘That’s very nice, Doctor, but can it go any faster? My associate’s time is running out. It has already been one hundred and twenty seven-minutes.’
Constance Lane tried to frown, but there wasn’t enough slack skin across her brow.
‘Two hours. Nobody has ever been revived after that long. Then again, no one has ever been revived from a cryogenic chamber.’
The Knightsbridge traffic was, as usual, chaotic. Harrods was running a one-day sale, and the block was crowded with droves of tired customers on their way home. It took a further seventeen minutes to reach En Fin’s delivery entrance and, as promised, there were no policemen present, except one. Detective Inspector Justin Barre himself was standing sentry at the rear door. The man was huge, a descendant of the Zulu nation, according to Butler. It was not difficult to imagine him at Butler’s side in some faraway land.
Incredibly, they found a parking space, and Artemis climbed down from the van.
‘Cryogenics,’ said Barre, noting the vehicle’s inscription. ‘Do you think you can do anything for him?’
‘You looked in the freezer then?’ said Artemis.
The officer nodded. ‘How could I resist? Curiosity is my business.
I’m sorry I checked now; he was a good man.’
‘Is a good man,’ insisted Artemis. ‘I am not ready to give up on him yet.’
Barre stood aside to admit two uniformed Ice Age paramedics.
‘According to my men, a group of armed bandits attempted to rob the establishment, but they were interrupted by an earthquake. And if that’s what really happened, I’ll eat my badge. I don’t suppose you can throw any light on the situation?’
‘A competitor of mine disagreed with a business strategy. It was a violent disagreement.’
‘Who pulled the trigger?’
‘Arno Blunt. A New Zealander. Bleached hair, rings in his ears,
tattoos on his body and neck. Most of his teeth are missing.’
Barre took a note. ‘I’ll circulate the description to the airports. You never know, we might catch him.’
Artemis rubbed his eyes.
‘Butler saved my life. The bullet was meant for me.’
‘That’s Butler all right,’ said Barre, nodding. ‘If there’s anything I can do. .?’
‘You’ll be the first to know,’ said Artemis. ‘Did your officers find anyone on the scene?’
Barre consulted his notebook. ‘Some customers and staff. They all checked out, so we let them go. The thieves escaped before we arrived.’
‘No matter. Better I deal with the culprits myself.’
Barre made a concerted effort to ignore the activity in the kitchen behind him.
‘Artemis, can you guarantee this is not going to come back to haunt me? Technically, we’re looking at a homicide.’
Artemis looked Barre in the eye, which was quite an effort.
‘Detective Inspector, no body, no case. And I guarantee that by tomorrow Butler will be alive and kicking. I shall instruct him to call you, if that would set your mind at rest.’
‘It would.’
The paramedics rolled Butler past on a trolley. A frosting of ice covered his face. Tissue damage was already turning his fingers blue.
‘Any surgeon who could fix this would have to be a real magician!’
Artemis glanced downwards.
‘That’s the plan, Detective Inspector. That’s the plan.’
Doctor Lane administered glucose injections in the van.
‘These are to stop the cells collapsing,’ she informed Artemis, massaging Butler’s chest to circulate the medication. ‘Otherwise the water in his blood will freeze in spikes and puncture the cell walls.’
Butler was lying in an open cryo unit, with its own gyroscopes. He had been dressed in a special silver freezer suit, and cold packs were heaped on his body like sachets of sugar in a bowl.
Constance was unaccustomed to people actually paying attention when she explained the process, but this pale youth absorbed facts faster than she could present them.
‘Won’t the water freeze anyway? Glucose can’t prevent that.’
Constance was impressed. ‘Why, yes it will. But in small pieces, so it can float safely between cells.’
Artemis jotted a note in his hand-held computer. ‘Small pieces, I understand.’
‘The glucose is only a temporary measure,’ continued the doctor.
‘The next step is surgery; we need to completely wash out his veins, and replace the blood with a preservative. Then we can lower the patient’s temperature to minus thirty degrees. We’ll have to do that back at the institute.’
Artemis shut down his computer. ‘No need for that. I just need him held in stasis for a few hours. After that it won’t make any difference.’
‘I don’t think you understand, young man,’ said Doctor Lane.
‘Current medical practices have not evolved to the point where this kind of injury can be healed. If I don’t do a complete blood substitution soon, there will be severe tissue damage.’
The van jolted as a wheel crashed into one of London’s numerous potholes. Butler’s arm jerked and, for a moment, Artemis could pretend he was alive.
‘Don’t worry about that, Doctor.’
‘But. .’
‘A hundred thousand pounds, Constance. Just keep repeating that figure to yourself. Park the mobile unit outside and forget all about us. In the morning we’ll be gone. Both of us.’
Doctor Lane was surprised.
‘Park outside?You don’t even want to come in?’
‘No, Butler stays outside,’ said Artemis. ‘My. . ah. . surgeon, has a problem with dwellings. But may I enter for a moment to use your phone? I need to make a rather special phone call.’
LONDON AIRSPACE
The lights of London were spread out below Holly like the stars of some turbulent galaxy. England’s capital was generally a no-fly area for Recon officers, because of the four airports feeding planes into the sky.
Five years ago, Captain Trouble Kelp had narrowly missed being impaled by a Heathrow-JFK airbus. Since then, all flight plans involving airport cities had to be cleared personally by Foaly.
Holly spoke into her helmet mike.
‘Foaly. Any flights coming in I should know about?’
‘Let me just bring up the radar. OK, let’s see. I’d drop down to five hundred feet if I were you. There’s a 747 coming in from Malaga in a couple of minutes. It won’t hit you, but your helmet computer could interfere with its navigation systems.’
Holly dipped her flaps until she was at the correct altitude.
Overhead, the giant jet screamed across the sky. If it hadn’t been for Holly’s sonic filter sponges, both her eardrums would have popped.
‘OK. One jet full of tourists successfully avoided. What now?’
‘Now we wait. I won’t call again unless it’s important.’
They didn’t have to wait long. Less than five minutes later Foaly broke radio silence.
‘Holly. We got something.’
‘Another probe?’
‘No. Something from Sentinel. Hold on, I’m sending the file to your helmet.’
A sound file appeared in Holly’s visor. Its wave resembled a seismograph’s readout.
‘What is it, a phone tap?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Foaly. ‘It’s one of a billion throwaway files that
Sentinel sends us every day.’
The Sentinel system was a series of monitoring units that Foaly had piggybacked to obsolete US and Russian satellites. Their function was to monitor all human telecommunications. Obviously, it would be impossible to review every phone call made each day. So the computer was programmed to pick up on certain key words. If, for example, the words ‘fairy’, ‘haven’ and ‘underground’ appeared in a conversation, the computer would flag the call. The more People-related phrases that appeared, the more urgent the rating.
‘This call was made in London minutes ago. It’s loaded with keywords. I’ve never heard anything like it.’
‘Play,’ said Holly clearly, using voice command. A vertical line cursor began scrolling across the sound wave.
‘People,’ said a voice, hazy with distortion. ‘LEP, magic, Haven, shuttle ports, sprites, B’wa Kell, trolls, time-stop, Recon, Atlantis.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s not enough? Whoever made that call could be writing our biography.’
‘But it’s just a string of words. It makes no sense.’
‘Hey, there’s no point arguing with me,’ said the centaur. ‘I just collect information. But there has to be a connection to the probe. Two things like this don’t just happen on the same day.’
‘OK. Do we have an exact location?’
‘The call came from a cryogenics institute in London. Sentinel quality is not enough to run a voice-recognition scan. We just know it came from inside the building.’
‘Who was our mystery Mud Man calling?’
‘Strange thing. He was calling The Times newspaper crossword hotline.’
‘Maybe those words were the answers to today’s crossword?’ said Holly hopefully.
‘No. I checked the correct solution. Not a fairy-related word in sight.’
Holly set her wings to manual. ‘OK. Time to find out what our caller is up to. Send me the institute’s coordinates.’
Holly suspected that it was a false alarm. Hundreds of these calls came in every year. Foaly was so paranoid that he believed the Mud
People were invading every time someone mentioned the word ‘magic’ on a phone line. And with the recent trend for human fantasy movies and video games, magical phrases cropped up quite a lot. Thousands of police hours were wasted staking out the dwellings of residents where these phone calls originated, and it usually turned out to be some kid playing on his PC.
More than likely this phantom phone call was the result of a crossed line, or some Hollywood hack pitching a screenplay, or even an undercover LEP operative trying to phone home. But then, today of all days, everything had to be checked.
Holly kicked up her legs behind her, dropping into a steep dive.
Diving was against Recon regulations. All approaches were supposed to be controlled and gradual, but what was the point of flying if you couldn’t feel the slipstream tugging at your toes?
ICE AGE CRYOGENICS INSTITUTE, LONDON
Artemis leaned against the cryogenics mobile unit’s rear bumper. It was funny how quickly a person’s priorities could change. This morning he had been worried about which loafers to wear with his suit, and now all he could think about was the fact that his dearest friend’s life hung in the balance. And the balance was rapidly shifting.
Artemis wiped a coating of frost from the spectacles he’d retrieved from his bodyguard’s jacket. These were no ordinary spectacles. Butler had 20/20 vision. These particular eye glasses had been specially tooled to accommodate filters taken from an LEP helmet. Anti-shield filters.
Butler had carried them since Holly Short almost got the jump on him at Fowl Manor.
‘You never know,’ he’d said. ‘We’re a threat to LEP security, and some day Commander Root could be replaced with someone who isn’t quite so fond of us.’
Artemis wasn’t convinced. The fairies were, by and large, a peaceful people. He couldn’t believe they would harm anyone, even a Mud Person, on the basis of past crimes. After all, they had parted friends. Or, at least, not enemies.
Artemis presumed the call would work — there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t: several government security agencies monitored phone lines using the key word system, recording conversations that could compromise national security. And if humans were doing it, it was a safe bet that Foaly was two steps ahead.
Artemis donned the glasses, climbing into the vehicle’s cabin. He had placed the call ten minutes ago. Presuming Foaly got working on a trace straight away, it could still be another two hours before the LEP could get an operative on the surface. That would make it almost five hours since Butler’s heart had stopped. The record for a revival was two hours and fifty minutes for an Alpine skier frozen in an avalanche. There had never been a revival after three hours. Maybe there shouldn’t be.
Artemis glanced at the tray of food sent out by Doctor Lane. Any other day he would have complained about virtually everything on the plate, but now the meal was simply sustenance to keep him awake until the cavalry arrived. Artemis took a long drink from a polystyrene cup of tea. It sloshed audibly around his empty stomach. Behind him, in the van’s surgery, Butler’s cryo unit hummed like a common household freezer. Occasionally the computer emitted electronic beeps and whirrs as the machine ran self-diagnostics. Artemis was reminded of the weeks spent in Helsinki waiting for his father to regain consciousness. Waiting to see what the fairy magic would do to him. .
EXCERPT FROM ARTEMIS FOWL’S DIARY DISK 2 ENCRYPTED
Today my father spoke to me. For the first time in over two years I heard his voice, and it is exactly as I remembered it. But not everything was the same.
It had been over two months since Holly Short used her healing magic on his battered body, and still he lay in his Helsinki hospital bed.
Immobile, unresponsive. The doctors could not understand it.
‘He should be awake,’ they informed me. ‘His brainwaves are strong, exceptionally so. And his heart beats like a horse. It is incredible; this man should be at death’s door, yet he has the muscle tone of a twenty-year-old.’
Of course, it is no mystery to me. Holly’s magic has overhauled my father’s entire being, with the exception of his left leg, which was lost when his ship went down off the coast of Murmansk. He has received an infusion of life, body and mind.
The effect of the magic on his body does not worry me, but I cannot help but wonder what effect this positive energy will have on my father’s mind. For my father, a change like this could be traumatic. He is the Fowl patriarch, and his life revolves around moneymaking.
For sixteen days we sat in my father’s hospital room, waiting for some sign of life. I had, by then, learned to read the instruments and noticed immediately the morning that my father’s brainwaves began spiking. My diagnosis was that he would soon regain consciousness, and so I called the nurse.
We were ushered from the room to admit a medical team of at least a dozen. Two heart specialists, an anaesthetist, a brain surgeon, a psychologist and several nurses.
In fact, my father had no need of medical attention. He simply sat up, rubbed his eyes and uttered one word: ‘Angeline’.
Mother was admitted. Butler, Juliet and I were forced to wait for several more agonizing minutes until she reappeared at the door.
‘Come in, everyone,’ she said. ‘He wants to see you.’
And suddenly I was afraid. My father, the man whose shoes I had been trying to fill for two years, was awake. Would he still live up to my expectations? Would I live up to his?
I entered hesitantly. Artemis Fowl the First was propped up by several pillows. The first thing that I noticed was his face. Not the scar traces — which were already almost completely healed, but the expression. My father’s brow, usually a thunderhead of moody contemplation, was smooth and carefree.
After such a long time apart, I didn’t know what to say.
My father had no such doubts.
‘Arty,’ he cried, stretching his arms towards me. ‘You’re a man now. A young man.’
I ran into his embrace, and while he held me close all plots and schemes were forgotten. I had a father again.
ICE AGE CRYOGENICS INSTITUTE, LONDON
Artemis’s memories were interrupted by a sly movement on the wall above. He peered out the rear window and fixed his gaze on the spot, watching through filtered eyes. There was a fairy crouching on a third-storey window sill: a Recon officer, complete with wings and helmet. After only fifteen minutes! His ruse had worked. Foaly had intercepted the call and sent someone to investigate. Now all that remained was to hope this particular fairy was full to the brim with magic and willing to help.
This had to be handled sensitively. The last thing he wanted to do was spook the Recon officer. One wrong move and he’d wake up in six hours, with absolutely no recollection of the day’s events. And that would be fatal for Butler.
Artemis opened the van door slowly, stepping down into the yard.
The fairy cocked its head, following his movements. To his dismay, Artemis saw the creature draw a platinum handgun.
‘Don’t shoot,’ said Artemis, raising his hands. ‘I am unarmed. And I need your help.’
The fairy activated its wings, descending slowly until its visor was level with Artemis’s eyes.
‘Do not be alarmed,’ continued Artemis. ‘I am a friend to the People. I helped to defeat the B’wa Kell. My name is —’
The fairy unshielded, her opaque visor sliding up. ‘I know what your name is, Artemis,’ said Captain Holly Short.
‘Holly,’ said Artemis, grasping her by the shoulders. ‘It's you.’
Holly shrugged off the human’s hands. ‘I know it’s me. What’s going on here? I presume you made the call?’
‘Yes, yes. No time for that now. I can explain later.’
Holly opened the throttle on her wings, rising to a height of four metres.
‘No, Artemis. I want an explanation now. If you needed help, why didn’t you call on your own phone?’
Artemis forced himself to answer the question.
‘You told me that Foaly had pulled surveillance on my communications, and anyway I wasn’t sure you’d come.’
Holly considered it.
‘OK. Maybe I wouldn’t have.’ Then she noticed. ‘Where’s Butler? Watching our backs as usual, I suppose.’
Artemis didn’t answer, but his expression told Holly exactly why the Mud Boy had summoned her.
Artemis pressed a button, and a pneumatic pump opened the cryo pod’s lid. Butler lay inside, encased in a centimetre of ice.
‘Oh no,’ sighed Holly. ‘What happened?’
‘He stopped a bullet that was meant for me,’ replied Artemis.
‘When are you going to learn, Mud Boy?’ snapped the fairy. ‘Your little schemes have a tendency to get people hurt. Usually the people who care about you.’
Artemis didn’t answer. The truth was the truth after all.
Holly peeled away a cold pack from the bodyguard’s chest.
‘How long?’
Artemis consulted the clock on his mobile phone.
‘Three hours. Give or take a few minutes.’
Captain Short wiped away the ice, laying her hand flat on Butler’s chest.
‘Three hours. I don’t know, Artemis. There’s nothing here. Not a flicker.’
Artemis faced her across the cryo pod.
‘Can you do it, Holly? Can you heal him?’
Holly stepped back. ‘Me? I can’t heal him. We need a professional warlock to even attempt something like this.’
‘But you healed my father.’
‘That was different. Your father wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even critical. I hate to say it, but Butler is gone. Long gone.’
Artemis pulled a gold medallion from a leather thong around his neck. The disc was perforated by a single circular hole. Dead centre.
‘Remember this? You gave it to me for ensuring your trigger finger got reattached to your hand. You said it would remind me of the spark of decency inside me. I’m trying to do something decent now, Captain.’
‘It’s not a question of decency. It just can’t be done.’
Artemis drummed his fingers on the trolley. Thinking.
‘I want to talk to Foaly,’ he said finally.
‘I speak for the People, Fowl,’ said Holly testily. ‘We don’t take orders from humans.’
‘Please, Holly,’ said Artemis. ‘I can’t just let him go. It’s Butler.’
Holly couldn’t help herself. After all, Butler had saved all their hides on more than one occasion.
‘Very well,’ she said, fishing a spare com set from her belt. ‘But he’s not going to have any good news for you.’
Artemis hooked the speaker over one ear, adjusting the mike stem so it wound across his mouth.
‘Foaly? Are you listening?’
‘Are you kidding?’ came the reply. ‘This is better than human soap operas.’
Artemis composed himself. He would have to present a convincing case or Butler’s last chance was gone.
‘All I want is a healing. I accept that it may not work, but what does it cost to try?’
‘It’s not that straightforward, Mud Boy,’ replied the centaur. ‘Healing isn’t a simple process. It requires talent and concentration. Holly is pretty good, I grant you, but for something like this we need a trained team of warlocks.’
‘There’s no time,’ snapped Artemis. ‘Butler has already been under too long. This has to be done now, before the glucose is absorbed into his bloodstream. There is already tissue damage to the fingers.’
‘Maybe his brain too?’ suggested the centaur.
‘No. I got his temperature down in minutes. The cranium has been frozen since the incident.’
‘Are you sure about that? We don’t want to bring Butler’s body back and not his mind.’
‘I’m sure. The brain is fine.’
Foaly didn’t speak for several moments.
‘Artemis, if we agree to try this, I have no idea what the results would be. The effect on Butler’s body could be catastrophic, not to mention his mind. An operation of this kind has never been attempted on a human.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you, Artemis? Do you really? Are you prepared to accept the consequences of this healing? There could be any number of unforeseeable problems. Whatever emerges from this pod is yours to care for. Will you accept this responsibility?’
‘I will,’ said Artemis, without hesitation.
‘Very well, then it’s Holly’s decision. Nobody can force her to use her magic — it’s up to her.’
Artemis lowered his eyes. He could not bring himself to look at the LEP elf.
‘Well, Holly. Will you do it? Will you try?’
Holly brushed the ice from Butler’s brow. He had been a good friend to the People.
‘I’ll try,’ she said. ‘No guarantees, but I’ll do what I can.’
Artemis’s knees almost buckled with relief. Then he was in control again. Time enough for weak knees later.
‘Thank you, Captain. I realize this could not be an easy decision to take. Now, what can I do?’
Holly pointed to the rear doors. ‘You can get out. I need a sterile environment. I’ll come and get you when it’s over. And whatever happens, whatever you hear, don’t come in until I call.’
Holly unclipped her helmet camera, suspending it from the cryo pod’s lid to give Foaly a better view of the patient.
‘How’s that?’
‘Good,’ replied Foaly. ‘I can see the whole upper body. Cryogenics.
That Fowl is a genius, for a human. Do you realize that he had less than a minute to come up with this plan? That’s one smart Mud Boy.’
Holly scrubbed her hands thoroughly in the medi-sink.
‘Not smart enough to keep himself out of trouble. I can’t believe I’m doing this. A three-hour healing. This has got to be a first.’
‘Technically it’s only a two-minute healing, if he got the brain down to below zero straight away. But. .”
‘But what?’ asked Holly, rubbing her fingers briskly with a towel.
‘But the freezing interferes with the body’s own bio-rhythms and magnetic fields — things even the People don’t understand fully. There’s more than skin and bone at stake here. We have no idea what a trauma like this could do to Butler.’
Holly stuck her head under the camera.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea, Foaly?’
‘I wish we had time for discussion, Holly, but every second costs our old friend a couple of brain cells. I’m going to talk you through it. The first thing we need to do is to take a look at the wound.’
Holly peeled off several cold packs, unzipping the foil suit. The entry wound was small and black, hidden in the centre of a pool of blood, like a flower’s bud.
‘He never had a chance. Right under the heart. I’m going to zoom in.’
Holly closed her visor, using the helmet’s filters to magnify Butler’s wound.
‘There are fibres trapped in there. Kevlar, I’d say.’
Foaly groaned over the speakers. ‘That’s all we need. Complications.’
‘What difference do fibres make? And this really is not the time for jargon. I need plain Gnommish.’
‘OK. Surgery for morons it is. If you poke your fingers into that wound, the magic will reproduce Butler’s cells, complete with their new strands of Kevlar. He’ll be dead, but completely bulletproof.’
Holly could feel the tension creeping up her back.
‘So, I need to do what?’
‘You need to make a new wound, and let the magic spread from there.’
Oh great, thought Holly, a new wound. Just slice open an old friend.
‘But he’s as hard as rock.’
‘Well then, you’re going to have to melt him down a little. Use your Neutrino 2000, low setting, but not too much. If that brain wakes up before we want it to, he’s finished.’
Holly drew her Neutrino, adjusting the output to minimum.
‘Where do you suggest I melt?’
‘The other pectoral. Be ready to heal; that heat is going to spread rapidly. Butler needs to be healed before oxygen gets to his brain.’
Holly pointed the laser at the bodyguard’s chest.
‘Just say the word.’
‘In a bit closer. Fifteen centimetres approximately. A two-second burst.’
Holly raised her visor, taking several deep breaths. A Neutrino 2000 being used as a medical instrument. Who would have thought it?
Holly pulled her trigger to the first click. One more click would activate the laser. ‘Two seconds.’ ‘OK. Go.’
Click. An orange beam of concentrated heat spilled from the
Neutrino’s snout, blossoming across Butler’s chest. Had the bodyguard been awake, he would have been knocked unconscious. A neat circle of ice evaporated, rising to condense on the surgery’s ceiling.
‘Now,’ said Foaly, his voice high-pitched with urgency. ‘Narrow the beam and focus it.’
Holly manipulated the gun controls expertly with her thumb.
Narrowing the beam would intensify its power, but the laser would have to be focused at a certain range to avoid slicing right through Butler’s body. ‘I’m setting it for fifteen centimetres.’ ‘Good, but hurry; that heat is spreading.’ The colour had returned to Butler’s chest and the ice was melting across his body. Holly pulled the trigger again, this time carving a crescent-shaped slit in Butler’s flesh. A single drop of blood oozed from between the wound’s edges.
‘No steady flow,’ said Foaly. ‘That’s good.’ Holly bolstered her weapon. ‘Now what?’ ‘Now get your hands in deep, and give it every drop of magic you’ve got. Don’t just let it flow; push the magic out.’
Holly grimaced. She never liked this bit. No matter how many healings she performed, she could never get used to sticking her fingers into other people’s insides. She lined her thumbs up, back to back, and slid them into the incision.
‘Heal,’ she breathed, and the magic scurried down her fingers. Blue sparks hovered over Butler’s wound, then disappeared inside, like shooting stars diving behind the horizon.
‘More, Holly,’ urged Foaly. ‘Another shot.’
Holly pushed again, harder. The flow was thick at first, a roiling mass of blue streaks; then, as her magic ebbed, the flow grew weaker.
‘That’s it,’ she panted. ‘I have barely enough left to shield on the way home.’
‘Well then,’ said Foaly, ‘stand back until I tell you, because all hell is about to break loose.’
Holly backed up to the wall. Nothing much happened for several moments, then Butler’s back arched, throwing his chest into the air. Holly heard a couple of vertebrae groaning.
‘That’s the heart started,’ noted Foaly. ‘The easy bit.’
Butler flopped back into the pod, blood flowing from his most recent wound. The magical sparks knitted together, forming a vibrating lattice over the bodyguard’s torso. Butler bounced on the trolley, like a bead in a rattle, as the magic reshaped his atoms. His pores vented mist as toxins were expelled from his system. The coating of ice around him dissolved instantly, causing clouds of steam and then rain, as the water particles condensed on the metal ceiling. Cold packs popped like balloons, sending crystals ricocheting around the surgery. It was like being in the centre of a multicoloured storm.
‘You need to get in there now!’ said Foaly in Holly’s ear.
‘What?’
‘Get in there. The magic is spreading up his spinal column. Hold his head still for the healing, or any damaged cells could be replicated. And once something’s been healed, we can’t undo it.’
Great, thought Holly. Hold Butler still. No problem. She battled her way through the debris, cold-pack crystals impacting against her visor.
The human’s frame continued thrashing in the cryo pod, shrouded by a cloud of steam.
Holly clamped a hand on either side of Butler’s head. The vibrations travelled the length of her arms and through her body.
‘Hold him, Holly. Hold him!’
Holly leaned across the pod, placing the weight of her body on the manservant’s head. In all the confusion, she couldn’t tell if her efforts were having any effect whatsoever.
‘Here it comes!’ said Foaly in her ear. ‘Brace yourself!’
The magical lattice spread along Butler’s neck and across his face.
Blue sparks targeted the eyes, travelling along the optic nerve, into the brain itself. Butler’s eyes flew open, rolling in their sockets. His mouth was reactivated too, spewing out long strings of words in various languages, none of which made any sense.
‘His brain is running tests,’ said Foaly. ‘Just to check everything’s working.’
Each muscle and joint was tested to its limit, rolling, swivelling and stretching. Hair follicles grew at an accelerated rate, covering Butler’s normally shaven dome with a thick growth of hair. Nails shot out of his fingers like tiger claws, and a raggedy beard snaked from his chin.
Holly could only hang on. She imagined that this was how it must feel to be a rodeo cowboy straddling a particularly bad-tempered bull.
Eventually the sparks dissipated, spiralling into the air like embers on a breeze. Butler calmed and settled, his body sinking into fifteen centimetres of water and coolant. His breathing was slow and deep.
‘We did it,’ said Holly, sliding off the pod on to her knees. ‘He’s alive.’
‘Don’t start celebrating just yet,’ said Foaly. ‘There’s still a long way to go. He won’t regain consciousness for a couple of days at least, and even then who knows what shape his mind will be in. And, of course, there’s the obvious problem.’
Holly raised her visor. ‘What obvious problem?’
‘See for yourself.’
Captain Short was almost afraid to look at whatever lay in the pod.
Grotesque images crowded her imagination. What kind of misshapen mutant human had they created?
The first thing she noticed was Butler’s chest. The bullet hole itself had completely disappeared, but the skin had darkened, with a red line amongst the black. It looked like a capital T.
‘Kevlar,’ explained Foaly. ‘Some of it must have replicated. Not enough to kill him, thankfully, but enough to slow down his breathing. Butler won’t be running any marathons with those fibres clinging to his ribs.’
‘What’s the red line?’
‘At a guess, I’d say dye. There must have been writing on the original bulletproof jacket.’
Holly glanced around the surgery. Butler’s vest lay discarded in a corner. The letters ‘FBI’ were printed in red across the chest. There was a small hole in the centre of the’I’.
‘Ah well,’ said the centaur. ‘It’s a small price to pay for his life. He can pretend it’s a tattoo. They’re very popular among the Mud People these days.’
Holly had been hoping the Kevlar-reinforced skin was the ‘obvious problem’ to which Foaly had been referring. But there was something else. The something else became immediately apparent when her gaze landed on the bodyguard’s face. Or, more accurately, the hair sprouting from his face.
‘Oh gods,’ she breathed. ‘Artemis is not going to like this.’
Artemis paced the yard while his bodyguard underwent magical surgery. Now that his plan was actually in progress, doubts began to chew at the edges of his mind, like slugs on a leaf. Was this the right thing to do? What if Butler wasn’t himself? After all, his father had been undeniably different on the day he had finally come back to them. He would never forget that first conversation. .
EXCERPT FROM ARTEMIS FOWL’S DIARY DISK 2 ENCRYPTED
The doctors in Helsinki were determined that they should pump my father full of vitamin supplements. He was just as determined that they shouldn’t. And a determined Fowl usually gets his way.
‘I am perfectly fine,’ he insisted. ‘Please allow me some time to reacquaint myself with my family.’
The doctors withdrew, disarmed by his personality. I was surprised by this approach. Charm had never been my father’s weapon of choice.
He had previously achieved his aims by bulldozing over anybody stupid enough to stand in his way.
Father was sitting in the hospital room’s only armchair, his shortened leg resting on a footstool. My mother was perched on the armrest, resplendent in white faux fur.
Father caught me looking at his leg.
‘Don’t worry, Arty,’ he said. ‘I’m being measured for a prosthetic tomorrow. Doctor Hermann Gruber is being flown in from Dortmund.’
I had heard of Gruber. He worked with the German Paralympics squad. The best.
‘I’m going to ask for something sporty. Maybe with speed stripes.’
A joke. That wasn’t like my father.
My mother ruffled my father’s hair.
‘Stop teasing, darling. This is difficult for Arty, you know. He was only a baby when you left!
‘Hardly a baby, Mother,’ I said. ‘I was eleven, after all.’
My father smiled at me fondly. Perhaps now would be an appropriate time for us to talk, before his good mood wore off to be replaced by the usual gruffness?
‘Father, things have changed since your disappearance. I have changed!
Father nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, you are right. We need to talk about the business!
Ah yes. Back to business. This was the father I remembered.
‘I think you will find that the family bank accounts are healthy, and
I trust you will approve of the stocks portfolio. It has yielded an eighteen per cent dividend in the past financial year. Eighteen per cent is quite exemplary in the current market; I haven’t failed you!
‘I have failed you, son,’ said Artemis Senior, ‘if you think bank accounts and stocks are all that’s important. You must have learned that from me! He pulled me close to him. ‘I haven’t been the perfect father,
Arty, far from it. Too busy with the family business. I was always taught that it was my duty to manage the Fowl empire. A criminal empire, as we both know. If any good has come out of my abduction, it’s that I have reassessed my priorities. I want a new life for us all.’
I could not believe what I was hearing. One of my most persistent memories was of Father repeatedly quoting the family motto, ‘aurum potestas est’ — ‘Gold is power’. And now, here he was, turning his back on Fowl principles. What had the magic done to him?
‘Gold isn’t all-important, Arty,’ he continued. ‘Neither is power. We have everything we need right here. The three of us!
I was utterly surprised. But not unpleasantly so.
‘But, Father. You have always said. . This isn’t you. You’re a new man!’
Mother joined the conversation. ‘No, Arty. Not a new man. An old one. The one I fell in love with and married, before the Fowl empire took over. And now I have him back; we’re a family again.’
I looked at my parents — how happy they were together. A family?
Was it possible that the Fowls could be a normal family?
Artemis was yanked back to the present by a commotion from inside the Ice Ape mobile unit. The vehicle began to rock on its axles, blue light crackling from beneath the door.
Artemis did not panic. He had seen healings before. Last year, when
Holly reattached her index finger, the magical fallout had shattered half a ton of ice — and that was for one little finger. Imagine the damage
Butler’s system could do repairing a critical injury.
The pandemonium continued for several minutes, popping two of the van’s tyres, and completely wrecking the suspension. Luckily the institute was locked up for the night or Doctor Lane would certainly be adding automobile repairs to her bill.
Eventually the magical storm subsided, and the vehicle settled like a rollercoaster car after the ride. Holly opened the rear door, leaning heavily against the frame. She was exhausted, drained. A sickly pallor glowed through her coffee complexion.
‘Well?’ demanded Artemis. ‘Is he alive?’
Holly didn’t answer. A strenuous healing often resulted in nausea and fatigue. Captain Short took several deep breaths, resting on the rear bumper.
‘Is he alive?’ repeated the youth.
Holly nodded. ‘Alive. Yes, he’s alive. But. .’
‘But what, Holly? Tell me!’
Holly tugged off her helmet. It slipped from her fingers, rolling across the yard.
‘I’m sorry, Artemis. I did the best I could.’
It was possibly the worst thing she could have said.
Artemis climbed into the van. The floor was slick with water and coloured crystals. Smoke leaked from the fractured grille of the air-conditioning system, and the overhead neon strip flickered like lightning in a bottle.
The cryo pod lay off-kilter in one corner, its gyroscopes leaking fluid. One of Butler’s arms flopped over the unit’s edge, throwing a monster shadow on the wall.
The cryo pod’s instruments panel was still operating. Artemis was relieved to see the heartbeat icon blipping gently in the display. Butler was alive! Holly had done it again! But something had been worrying the fairy captain. There was a problem.
As soon as Artemis looked inside the pod it became immediately apparent what that problem was. The manservant’s newly grown hair was heavily streaked with grey: Butler had gone into the cryo chamber forty years of age; the man before Artemis now was at least fifty. Possibly older. In the space of just over three hours Butler had grown old.
Holly appeared at Artemis’s shoulder.
‘He’s alive at least,’ said the fairy.
Artemis nodded. ‘When will he wake up?’
‘A couple of days. Maybe.’
‘How did this happen?’ asked the boy, brushing a lock of hair from Butler’s brow.
Holly shrugged. ‘I’m not exactly sure. That’s Foaly’s area.’
Artemis took the spare com set from his pocket, hooking the speaker wire over his ear. ‘Any theories, Foaly?’
‘I can’t be sure,’ the centaur replied. ‘But I’m guessing that Holly’s magic wasn’t enough. Some of Butler’s own life force was needed for the healing. About fifteen years’ worth by the looks of it.’
‘Can anything be done?’
‘Afraid not. A healing can’t be undone. If it’s any consolation, he’ll probably live longer than he would have done naturally. But there’s no reclaiming his youth and, what’s more, we can’t be sure about the state of his mind. The healing could have wiped his brain cleaner than a magnetized disk.’
Artemis sighed deeply. ‘What have I done to you, old friend?’
‘No time for that,’ said Holly briskly. ‘You should both get out of here. I’m sure all the commotion will have attracted attention. Do you have transport?’
‘No. We flew over on a public flight. Then took a taxi from Heathrow.’
Holly shrugged. ‘I’d like to help, Artemis, but I’ve already given up enough time here. I’m on a mission. An extremely important mission and I have to get back to it.’
Artemis stepped away from the cryo unit.
‘Holly, about your mission. .’
Captain Short turned slowly.
‘Artemis. .’
‘You were probed, weren’t you? Something got past Foaly’s defences?’
Holly pulled a large sheet of camouflage foil from her surveillance backpack.
‘We need to go somewhere to talk. Somewhere private.’
The following forty-five minutes were something of a blur for Artemis. Holly wrapped both humans in the camouflage foil and clipped them on to her Moonbelt. The belt effectively reduced their weight to one fifth of the Earth’s norm.
Even then it was a struggle for her mechanical wings to hoist the three of them into the night sky. Holly had to open the throttle wide just to bring them five hundred feet above sea level.
‘I’m going to shield now,’ she said into her mike. ‘Try not to thrash about too much. I don’t want to have to cut one of you loose.’
Then she was gone, and in her place hovered a slightly shimmering,
Holly-shaped patch of stars. The vibrations rattled through the belt links, shaking Artemis’s teeth in his head. He felt like a bug in a cocoon, trussed up in foil, with only his face exposed to the night air. Initially, the experience was almost enjoyable, riding high above the city, watching the cars flicker along the motorways. Then Holly picked up a westerly wind and threw them into the air currents over the sea.
Suddenly Artemis’s universe was a maelstrom of cutting winds, buffeting passengers and startled birds. Beside him, Butler hung limply in his makeshift foil truss. The foil absorbed the local colours, reflecting the dominant hues. It was by no means a perfect recreation of the surroundings, but certainly good enough for a night flight over the sea to Ireland.
‘Is this foil invisible to radar?’ said Artemis into the headset. ‘I don’t want to be mistaken for a UFO by some eager Harrier jump-jet pilot.’
Holly considered it. ‘You’re right. Maybe I should take us down a bit, just in case.’
Two seconds later, Artemis deeply regretted breaking radio silence:
Holly tilted her wing rig into a steep dive, sending the three of them hurtling towards the midnight waves below. She pulled up at the last moment, when Artemis could have sworn the skin was about to peel away from his face.
‘Low enough for you?’ asked Holly, with the barest hint of humour in her voice.
They skimmed the wave tops, spray sparking against the camouflage foil. The ocean was rough that night, and Holly followed the water patterns, dipping and climbing to match the swell’s curve. A school of humpbacked whales sensed their presence and broke through the storm foam, leaping fully thirty metres across a trough before disappearing beneath the black water. There were no dolphins. The small mammals were taking shelter from the elements in the inlets and coves along the Irish coast.
Holly skirted the hull of a passenger ferry, flying close enough to feel the engine’s pulse. On deck, scores of passengers vomited over the railings, narrowly missing the invisible travellers below.
‘Charming,’ muttered Artemis.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Holly’s voice, out of thin air. ‘Almost there.’
They passed Rosslare’s ferry terminal, following the coastline northwards, over the Wicklow mountains. Even in his disorientated state,
Artemis could not help but marvel at their speed. Those wings were a fantastic invention. Imagine the money that could be made for a patent like that. Artemis stopped himself. Selling fairy technology was what had got Butler hurt in the first place.
They slowed sufficiently for Artemis to make out individual landmarks. Dublin squatted to the east, an aura of yellow light buzzing over its highway system. Holly skirted the city, heading for the less populated north of the county. In the centre of a large dark patch sat a single building, painted white by external spotlights: Artemis’s ancestral home, Fowl Manor.
FOWL MANOR, DUBLIN, IRELAND
‘Now, explain yourself,’ said Holly, once they had floated Butler safely to bed.
She sat on the great stairway’s bottom step. Generations of Fowls glared down at her from oil portraits on the walls. The LEP captain activated her helmet mike and switched it to loudspeaker.
‘Foaly, record this, would you? I have a feeling we’re going to want to hear it again.’
‘This entire incident began at a business meeting this afternoon,’ began Artemis. ‘Go on.’
‘I was meeting Jon Spiro, an American industrialist.’ Holly heard keys being tapped in her ear. Undoubtedly Foaly was running a background check on this Spiro character.
‘Jon Spiro,’ said the centaur, almost immediately. ‘A shady character, even by human standards. Mud Man security agencies have been trying to put this guy away for thirty years. His companies are eco-disasters. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg: industrial espionage, abduction, blackmail, mob connections. You name it, he’s gotten away with it.’
‘That’s the chap,’ said Artemis. ‘So, I set up a rendezvous with Mister Spiro.’
‘What were you selling?’ interrupted Foaly. ‘A man like Spiro doesn’t cross the Atlantic for tea and muffins.’
Artemis frowned. ‘I wasn’t actually selling him anything. But I did offer to suppress some revolutionary technology, for a price, of course.’
Foaly’s voice was cold: ‘What revolutionary technology?’
Artemis hesitated for a beat. ‘Do you remember those helmets Butler took from the Retrieval squad?’
Holly groaned. ‘Oh no.’
‘I deactivated the helmets’ auto-destruct mechanisms and constructed a cube from the sensors and chips: the C Cube, a mini-computer. It was a simple matter to install a fibre-optic blocker so that you couldn’t take control of the Cube if you detected it.’
‘You gave fairy technology to a man like Jon Spiro?’
‘I quite obviously didn’t give it to him,’ snapped Artemis. ‘He took it.’
Holly pointed a finger at the youth. ‘Don’t bother playing the victim, Artemis. It doesn’t suit you. What did you think? That Jon Spiro was going to walk away from technology that could make him the richest man on the face of the planet?’
‘So it was your computer that pinged us?’ said Foaly.
‘Yes,’ admitted Artemis. ‘Unintentionally. Spiro asked for a surveillance scan, and the Cube’s fairy circuits picked up LEP satellite beams.’
‘Can’t we block any future probes?’ asked the LEP captain.
‘Haven’s deflectors will be useless against our own technology.
Sooner or later, Spiro will find out about the People. And if that happens, I can’t see a man like him just allowing us to live in harmony.’
Holly glared pointedly at Artemis.
‘Remind you of anyone?’
‘I am nothing like Jon Spiro,’ objected the boy. ‘He’s a cold-blooded killer!’
‘Give yourself a few years,’ said Holly. ‘You’ll get there.’
Foaly sighed. Put Artemis Fowl and Holly Short together in a room and sooner or later there was bound to be a row.
‘OK, Holly,’ said the centaur. ‘Let’s try to act like professionals. Step one is to call off the lockdown. Our next priority is to retrieve the Cube before Spiro can unlock its secrets.’
‘We do have some time,’ said Artemis. ‘The Cube is encrypted.’
‘How encrypted?’
‘I built an Eternity Code into its hard drive.’
‘An Eternity Code,’ said Foaly. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘It wasn’t that difficult. I invented an entirely new base language, so Spiro will have no frame of reference.’
Holly was feeling a bit left out. ‘And how long will it take to crack this Eternity Code?’
Artemis couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow.
‘Eternity,’ he said. ‘In theory, but with Spiro’s resources, quite a bit less.’
Holly ignored the tone. ‘OK then, we’re safe. No need to go hunting Spiro if all he has is a box of useless circuits.’
‘Far from useless,’ countered Artemis. ‘The chip design alone will lead his research and development team in interesting directions. But you are right about one thing, Holly, there is no need to go hunting Spiro.
Once he realizes that I am still alive, he will come looking for me. After all, I am the only one who can unlock the full potential of the C Cube.’
Holly dropped her head into her hands. ‘So, any moment now a team of hit men could come blasting in here, looking for the key to your Eternity Code. It’s at times like these we could do with someone like Butler.’
Artemis plucked the wall phone from its cradle.
‘There’s more than one Butler in the family,’ he said.
SFAX, TUNISIA, NORTH AFRICA
For her eighteenth birthday, Juliet Butler asked for, and received, a ribbed Judo crash vest, two weighted throwing knives and a World Wrestling Grudge Match video — items that did not generally feature on the average teenage girl’s wish list. Then again, Juliet Butler was not the average teenage girl.
Juliet was extraordinary in many ways. For one thing, she could hit a moving target with any weapon you cared to name and, for another, she could throw most people a lot further than she trusted them.
Of course, she didn’t learn all of this watching wrestling videos.
Juliet’s training began at age four. After kindergarten each day, Domovoi Butler would escort his little sister to the Fowl Estate dojo, where he instructed her in the various forms of martial arts. By the time she was eight, Juliet was a third dan black belt in seven disciplines. By eleven years of age, she was beyond belts.
Traditionally, all Butler males enrolled in Madame Ko’s Personal Protection Academy on their tenth birthday, spending six months of every year learning the bodyguard’s craft, and the other six guarding a low-risk principal. The female Butlers generally went into the service of various wealthy families around the world. However, Juliet decided she would combine both roles, spending half the year with Angeline Fowl, and the other half honing her martial arts skills in Madame Ko’s camp. She was the first Butler female to enrol in the Academy, and only the fifth female ever to make it past the physical exam. The camp was never located in the same country for more than five years. Butler had done his training in Switzerland and Israel, but his younger sister received her instruction in the Utsukushigahara Highlands in Japan.
Madame Ko’s dormitory was a far cry from the luxurious accommodation in Fowl Manor. In Japan, Juliet slept on a straw mat, owned nothing apart from two rough cotton robes, and consumed only rice, fish and protein shakes.
The day began at five thirty when Juliet and the other acolytes ran four miles to the nearest stream, catching fish with their bare hands.
Having cooked and presented the fish to their sensei, the acolytes strapped empty twenty-gallon barrels to their backs and climbed to the snowline. When their barrel was filled with snow the acolyte would roll it back to base camp, and then pound the snow with bare feet until it melted and could be used by the sensei to bathe. Then the day’s training could begin.
Lessons included Cos Ta’pa, a martial art developed by Madame Ko herself, specially tailored for bodyguards, whose primary aim was not self-defence, but defence of the principal. Acolytes also studied advanced weaponry, information technology, vehicular maintenance and hostage-negotiation techniques.
By her eighteenth birthday, Juliet could break down and reassemble ninety per cent of the world’s production weapons blindfolded, operate any vehicle, do her makeup in under four minutes and, in spite of her stunning Asian and European gene mix, blend into any crowd like a native. Her big brother was very proud.
The final step in her training was a field simulation in a foreign environment. If she passed this test, Madame Ko would have Juliet’s shoulder marked with a blue diamond tattoo. The tattoo, identical to the one on Butler’s shoulder, symbolized not only the graduate’s toughness, but also the multifaceted nature of his or her training. In personal protection circles, a bodyguard bearing the blue diamond needed no further reference.
Madame Ko had chosen the city of Sfax in Tunisia for Juliet’s final assessment. Her mission was to guide the principal through the city’s tumultuous market or medina. Generally, a bodyguard would advise his principal against venturing into such a densely populated area, but
Madame Ko pointed out that principals rarely listened to advice, and it was best to be prepared for every eventuality. And, as if Juliet wasn’t under enough pressure, Madame Ko herself decided to act as surrogate principal.
It was exceptionally hot in North Africa. Juliet squinted through her wraparound sunglasses, concentrating on following the diminutive figure bobbing through the crowd before her.
‘Hurry,’ snapped Madame Ko. ‘You will lose me.’
‘In your dreams, Madame,’ replied Juliet, unperturbed. Madame Ko was simply trying to distract her with conversation. And there were already enough distractions in the local environment. Gold hung in shimmering ropes from a dozen stalls; Tunisian rugs flapped from wooden frames, the perfect cover for an assassin. Locals pressed uncomfortably close, eager for a look at this attractive female, and the terrain was treacherous — one false step could lead to a twisted ankle and failure.
Juliet processed all this information automatically, factoring it into every move. She placed a firm hand on the chest of a teenager grinning at her, skipped over an oily puddle reflecting rainbow patterns and followed Madame Ko down yet another alley in the medina’s endless maze.
Suddenly there was a man in her face. One of the market traders.
‘I have good carpets,’ he said in broken French. ‘You come with me.
I show you!’
Madame Ko kept going. Juliet attempted to follow her, but the man blocked her path.
‘No, thank you. I am so not interested. I live outdoors.’
‘Very funny, mademoiselle. You make good joke. Now come and see Ahmed’s carpets.’
The crowd began to take notice, swirling to face her, like the tendrils of a giant organism. Madame Ko was moving further away. She was losing the principal.
‘I said no. Now back off, Mister Carpet Man. Don’t make me break a nail.’
The Tunisian was unaccustomed to taking orders from a female, and now his friends were watching.
‘I give good bargain,’ he persisted, pointing at his stall. ‘Best rugs in Sfax.’
Juliet dodged to one side, but the crowd moved to cut her off.
It was at this point that Ahmed lost any sympathy that Juliet might have had for him. Up to now, he had simply been an innocent local in the wrong place at the wrong time. But now. .
‘Let’s go,’ said the Tunisian, wrapping an arm around the blonde girl’s waist. Not an idea that would make it on to his top ten of good ideas.
‘Oh, bad move, Carpet Man!’
Faster than the eye could blink, Ahmed was wrapped in the folds of a nearby carpet and Juliet was gone. Nobody had a clue what had happened until they replayed the incident on the screen of Kamal the chicken man’s camcorder. In slo-mo, the traders saw the Eurasian girl hoist Ahmed by the throat and belt, and lob him bodily into a carpet stall.
It was a move that one of the gold merchants recognized as a Slingshot, a manoeuvre made popular by the American wrestler Papa Hog. The traders laughed so much that several of them became dehydrated. It was the funniest thing to happen all year. The clip even won a prize on
Tunisia’s version of the World’s Funniest Videos. Three weeks later, Ahmed moved to Egypt.
Back to Juliet. The bodyguard-in-training ran like a sprinter out of the blocks, dodging around stunned merchants and hanging a hard right down an alley. Madame Ko couldn’t have gone far. She could still complete her assignment.
Juliet was furious with herself. This was exactly the kind of stunt her brother had warned her about.
‘Watch out for Madame Ko,’ Butler had advised. ‘You never know what she’ll cook up for a field assignment. I heard that she once stampeded a herd of elephants in Calcutta, just to distract an acolyte.’
The trouble was that you couldn’t be sure. That carpet merchant might have been in Madame Ko’s employ, or he might have been an innocent civilian, who happened to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong.
The alley narrowed so that the human traffic ran single file.
Makeshift clothes lines zigzagged at head height; gutras and abayas hung limp and steaming in the heat. Juliet ducked below the laundry, dodging around dawdling shoppers. Startled turkeys hopped as far out of the way as their string leads would allow.
And suddenly she was in a clearing. A dim square surrounded by three-storey houses. Men lounged on the upper balconies, puffing on fruit-flavoured water pipes. Underfoot was a priceless chipped mosaic, depicting a Roman bath scene.
In the centre of the square, lying with her knees hugged to her chest, was Madame Ko. She was being assaulted by three men. These were no local traders. All three wore special-forces black, and attacked with the assurance and accuracy of trained professionals. This was no test. These men were actually trying to kill her sensei.
Juliet was unarmed; this was one of the rules. To smuggle arms into the African country would automatically mean life imprisonment. Luckily, it seemed as though her adversaries were also without weapons, though hands and feet would certainly be sufficient for the job they had in mind.
Improvization was the key to survival here. There was no point in attempting a straight assault. If these three had subdued Madame Ko, then they would be more than a match for her in regular combat. Time to try something a bit unorthodox.
Juliet leaped on the run, snagging a clothes line on her way past.
The ring resisted for a second, then popped out of the dried plaster. The cable played out behind her, sagging with its load of rugs and headscarves. Juliet veered left as far as the line’s other anchor would allow, and then swung round towards the men.
‘Hey, boys!’ she yelled, not from bravado, but because this would work better head on.
The men looked up just in time to get a faceful of sopping camel hair. The heavy rugs and garments wrapped themselves around their flailing limbs, and the nylon cable caught them below the chins. In under a second the three were down. And Juliet made certain they stayed down with pinches to the nerve clusters at the base of their necks.
‘Madame Ko!’ she cried, searching the laundry for her sensei. The old woman lay shuddering in an olive dress, a plain headscarf covering her face.
Juliet helped the woman to her feet.
‘Did you see that move, Madame? I totally decked those morons. I bet they never saw anything like that before. Improvization. Butler always says it’s the key. You know, I think my eyeshadow distracted them.
Glitter green. Never fails. .’
Juliet stopped talking because there was a knife at her throat. The knife was wielded by Madame Ko herself, who was in fact not Madame Ko, but some other tiny Oriental lady in an olive dress. A decoy.
‘You are dead,’ said the lady.
‘Yes,’ agreed Madame Ko, stepping from the shadows. ‘And if you are dead, then the principal is dead. And you have failed.’
Juliet bowed low, joining her hands.
‘That was a sly trick, Madame,’ she said, trying to sound respectful.
Her sensei laughed. ‘Of course. That is the way of life. What did you expect?’
‘But those assassins; I completely kicked their b—; I defeated them comprehensively.’
Madame Ko dismissed the claim with a wave. ‘Luck. Fortunately for you, these were not assassins, but three graduates of the Academy. What was that nonsense with the wire?’
‘It’s a wrestling trick,’ said Juliet. ‘It’s called the Clothes Line.’
‘Unreliable,’ said the Japanese lady. ‘You succeeded because fortune was with you. Fortune is not enough in our business.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ protested Juliet. ‘There was this guy in the market. Totally in my face. I had to put him asleep for a while.’
Madame Ko tapped Juliet between the eyes. ‘Quiet, girl. Think for once. What should you have done?’
Juliet bowed an inch lower. ‘I should have incapacitated the merchant immediately.’
‘Exactly. His life means nothing. Insignificant compared to the principal’s safety.’
‘I can’t just kill innocent people,’ protested Juliet.
Madame Ko sighed. ‘I know, child. And that is why you are not ready. You have all the skill, but you lack focus and resolve. Perhaps next year.’
Juliet’s heart plummeted. Her brother had earned the blue diamond at eighteen years of age. The youngest graduate in the Academy’s history. She had been hoping to equal that feat. Now she would have to try again in twelve months. It was pointless to object any further.
Madame Ko never reversed a decision.
A young woman in acolyte’s robes emerged from the alley, holding a small briefcase.
‘Madame,’ she said, bowing. ‘There is a call for you on the satellite phone.’
Madame Ko took the offered handset and listened intently for several moments.
‘A message from Artemis Fowl,’ she said eventually.
Juliet itched to straighten from her bow, but it would be an unforgivable breach of protocol.
‘Yes, Madame?’
‘The message is: Domovoi needs you.’
Juliet frowned. ‘You mean Butler needs me.’
‘No,’ said Madame Ko, without a trace of emotion. ‘I mean Domovoi needs you. I am just repeating what was told to me.’
And suddenly Juliet could feel the sun pounding on her neck, and she could hear the mosquitoes whining in her ears like dentist drills, and all she wanted to do was straighten up and run all the way to the airport.
Butler would never have revealed his name to Artemis. Not unless. .
No, she couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t even allow herself to think it.
Madame Ko tapped her chin thoughtfully. ‘You are not ready. I should not let you leave. You are too emotionally involved to be an effective bodyguard.’
‘Please, Madame,’ said Juliet.
Her sensei considered it for two long minutes.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Go.’
Juliet was gone before the word finished echoing around the square, and heaven help any carpet merchant who blocked her path.
THE SPIRO NEEDLE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA
Jon Spiro took the Concorde from Heathrow to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. A stretch limousine ferried him downtown to the Spiro Needle, a sliver of steel and glass rising eighty-six storeys above the Chicago skyline. Spiro Industries was located on floors fifty through to eighty-five. The eighty-sixth floor was Spiro’s personal residence, accessible either by private lift or helipad.
Jon Spiro hadn’t slept for the entire journey, too excited by the little cube sitting in his briefcase. The head of his technical staff was equally excited when Spiro informed him what this harmless-looking box was capable of, and immediately scurried off to unravel the C Cube’s secrets.
Six hours later he scurried back to the conference room for a meeting.
‘It’s useless,’ said the scientist, whose name was Doctor Pearson.
Spiro swirled an olive in his martini glass.
‘I don’t think so, Pearson,’ he said. ‘In fact, I know that little gizmo is anything but useless. I think that maybe you’re the useless one in this equation.’
Spiro was in a terrible mood. Arno Blunt had just called to inform him of Fowl’s survival. When Spiro was in a dark mood people had been known to disappear off the face of the earth, if they were lucky.
Pearson could feel the stare of the conference room’s third occupant bouncing off his head. This was not a woman you wanted angry with you: Pearson knew that if Jon Spiro decided to have him thrown out the window, this particular individual would have no problem signing an affidavit swearing that he had jumped.
Pearson chose his words carefully. ‘This device — ’
‘The C Cube. That’s what it’s called. I told you that, so use the name.’
‘This C Cube undoubtedly has enormous potential. But it’s encrypted.’
Spiro threw the olive at his head scientist. It was a humiliating experience for a Nobel Prize winner.
‘So break the encryption. What do I pay you guys for?’
Pearson could feel his heart rate speeding up. ‘It’s not that simple. This code. It’s unbreakable.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ said Spiro, leaning back in his ox-blood leather chair. ‘I’m putting two hundred million a year into your department, and you can’t break one lousy code, set up by a kid?’
Pearson was trying not to think about the sound his body would make hitting the pavement. His next sentence would save him or damn him.
‘The Cube is voice-activated, and coded to Artemis Fowl’s voice patterns. Nobody can break the code. It’s not possible.’
Spiro did not respond; it was a signal to continue.
‘I’ve heard of something like this. We scientists theorize about it. An Eternity Code, it’s called. The code has millions of possible permutations and, not only that, it’s based on an unknown language. It seems as though this boy has created a language that is spoken only by him. We don’t even know how it corresponds to English. A code like this is not even supposed to exist. If Fowl is dead, then I’m sorry to say, Mister Spiro, the C Cube died with him.’
Jon Spiro stuck a cigar into the corner of his mouth. He did not light it. His doctors had forbidden it. Politely.
‘And if Fowl were alive?’
Pearson knew a lifeline when it was being thrown to him.
‘If Fowl were alive, he would be a lot easier to break than an Eternity Code.’
‘OK, Doc,’ said Spiro. ‘You’re dismissed. You don’t want to hear what’s coming next.’
Pearson gathered his notes and hurried for the door. He tried not to look at the face of the woman at the table. If he didn’t hear what came next, he could kid himself that his conscience was clear. And if he didn’t actually see the woman at the conference table, then he couldn’t pick her out of a line-up.
‘It looks like we have a problem,’ said Spiro to the woman in the dark suit.
The woman nodded. Everything she wore was black. Black power suit, black blouse, black stilettos. Even the Rado watch on her wrist was jet black.
‘Yes. But it’s my kind of problem.’
Carla Frazetti was god-daughter to Spatz Antonelli, who ran the downtown section of the Antonelli crime family. Carla operated as liaison between Spiro and Antonelli, possibly the two most powerful men in
Chicago. Spiro had learned early in his career that businesses allied to the Mob tended to flourish.
Carla checked her manicured nails.
‘It seems to me that you only have one option: you nab the Fowl kid and squeeze him for this code.’
Spiro sucked on his unlit cigar, thinking about it.
‘It’s not that straightforward. The kid runs a tight operation. Fowl Manor is like a fortress.’
Carla smiled. ‘This is a thirteen-year-old kid we’re talking about, right?’
‘He’ll be fourteen in six months,’ said Spiro defensively. ‘Anyway, there are complications.’
‘Such as?’
‘Arno is injured. Somehow Fowl blew his teeth out.’
‘Ouch,’ said Carla, wincing.
‘He can’t even stand in a breeze, never mind head up an operation.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘In fact, the kid incapacitated all my best people. They’re on a dental plan too. It’s going to cost me a fortune. No, I need some outside help on this one.’
‘You want to contract the job to us?’
‘Exactly. But it’s got to be the right people. Ireland is an old-world kind of place. Wise guys are going to stick out a mile. I need guys who blend in and can persuade a kid to accompany them back here. Easy money.’
Carla winked. ‘I read you, Mister Spiro.’
‘So, you got guys like that? Guys who can take care of business without drawing attention to themselves?’
‘The way I see it, you need a metal man and a monkey?’
Spiro nodded, familiar with Mob slang. A metal man carried the gun, and a monkey got into hard-to-reach places.
‘We have two such men on our books. I can guarantee they won’t attract the wrong kind of attention in Ireland. But it won’t be cheap.’
‘Are they good?’ asked Spiro.
Carla smiled. One of her incisors was inset with a tiny ruby.
‘Oh, they’re good,’ she replied. ‘These guys are the best.’
THE METAL MAN
THE INK BLOT TATTOO PARLOUR,
DOWNTOWN CHICAGO
Loafers McGuire was having a tattoo done. A skull’s head in the shape of the ace of spades. It was his own design and he was very proud of it. So proud, in fact, that he’d wanted the tattoo on his neck. Inky
Burton, the tattooist, managed to change Loafers’ mind, arguing that neck tattoos were better than a name tag when the cops wanted to ID a suspect. Loafers relented. ‘OK,’ he’d said. ‘Put it on my forearm.’
Loafers had a tattoo done after every job. There wasn’t much skin left on his body that still retained its original colour. That was how good
Loafers McGuire was at his job.
Loafers’ real name was Aloysius, and he hailed from the Irish town of Kilkenny. He’d come up with the nickname Loafers himself, because he thought it sounded more Mob-like than Aloysius. All his life, Loafers had wanted to be a mobster, just like in the movies. When his efforts to start a Celtic mafia had failed Loafers came to Chicago.
The Chicago Mob welcomed him with open arms. Actually, one of their enforcers grabbed him in a bear-hug. Loafers sent the man and six of his buddies to the Mother of Mercy Hospital. Not bad for a guy five feet tall. Eight hours after stepping off the plane, Loafers was on the payroll.
And here he was, two years and several jobs later, already the organization’s top metal man. His specialities were robbery and debt collection. Not the usual line of work for five-footers. But then, Loafers was not the usual five-footer.
Loafers leaned back in the tattooist’s adjustable chair.
‘You like the shoes, Inky?’
Inky blinked sweat from his eyes. You had to be careful with Loafers. Even the most innocent question could be a trap. One wrong answer and you could find yourself making your excuses to Saint Peter.
‘Yeah. I like ‘em. What are they called?’
‘Loafers!’ snapped the tiny gangster. ‘Loafers, idiot. They’re my trademark.’
‘Oh yeah, loafers. I forgot. Cool, havin’ a trademark.’
Loafers checked the progress on his arm.
‘You ready with that needle yet?’
‘Just ready,’ replied Inky. ‘I’m finished painting on the guidelines. I just gotta put in a fresh needle.’
‘It’s not gonna hurt, is it?’
Of course it is, moron, thought Inky. I’m sticking a needle in your arm.
But out loud he said, ‘Not too much. I gave your arm a swab of anaesthetic.’
‘It better not hurt,’ warned Loafers. ‘Or you’ll be hurting shortly afterwards.’
Nobody threatened Inky except Loafers McGuire. Inky did all the Mob’s tattoo work. He was the best in the state.
Carla Frazetti pushed through the door. Her black-suited elegance seemed out of place in the dingy establishment.
‘Hello, boys,’ she said.
‘Hello, Miss Carla,’ said Inky, blushing deeply. You didn’t get too many ladies in the Ink Blot.
Loafers jumped to his feet. Even he respected the boss’s god-daughter.
‘Miss Frazetti. You could have beeped me. No need for you to come down to this dump.’
‘No time for that. This is urgent. You leave straight away.’
‘I’m leaving? Where am I going?’
‘Ireland. Your Uncle Pat is sick.’
Loafers frowned.
‘Uncle Pat? I don’t have an Uncle Pat.’
Carla tapped the toe of one stiletto. ‘He’s sick, Loafers. Real sick, if you catch my drift.’
Loafers finally caught on. ‘Oh, I get it. So I gotta pay him a visit.’
‘That’s it. That’s exactly how sick he is.’
Loafers used a rag to clean the ink off his arm. ‘OK, I’m ready. Are we going straight to the airport?’ Carla linked the tiny gangster.
‘Soon, Loafers. But first we need to pick up your brother.’
‘I don’t have a brother,’ protested Loafers.
‘Of course you do. The one with the keys to Uncle Pat’s house. He’s a regular little monkey.’
‘Oh,’ said Loafers. ‘That brother.’
Loafers and Carla took the limo out to the East Side. Loafers was still in awe of the sheer size of American buildings. In Kilkenny there was nothing over five storeys, and Loafers himself had lived all his life in a suburban bungalow. Not that he would ever admit that to his Mob friends.
For their benefit he had reinvented himself as an orphan, who spent his youth in and out of various remand homes.
‘Who’s the monkey?’ he asked.
Carla Frazetti was fixing her jet-black hair in a compact mirror. It was short and slicked back.
‘A new guy. Mo Digence. He’s Irish, like you. It makes things very convenient. No visas, no papers, no elaborate cover story. Just two short guys home for the holidays.’
Loafers bristled.
‘What do you mean two short guys?’
Carla snapped the compact shut.
‘Who are you talking to, McGuire? Because you couldn’t be talking to me. Not in that tone.’
Loafers paled, his life flashing before him.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Frazetti. It’s just the short thing. I’ve been listening to it my whole life.’
‘What do you want people to call you? Lofty? You’re short, Loafers.
Get over it. That’s what gives you your edge. My godfather always says there’s nothing more dangerous than a short guy with something to prove. That’s why you’ve got a job.’
‘I suppose.’
Carla patted him on the shoulder.
‘Cheer up, Loafers. Compared to this guy, you’re a regular giant.’
Loafers perked up considerably. ‘Really? Just how short is Mo Digence?’
‘He’s short,’ said Carla. ‘I don’t know the exact centimetres, but any shorter and I’d be changing his diaper and stuffing him in a stroller.’
Loafers grinned. He was going to enjoy this job.
THE MONKEY
Mo Digence had seen better days. Less than four months ago he had been living it up in a Los Angeles penthouse with over a million dollars in the bank. But now his funds had been frozen by the Criminal
Assets Bureau and he was working for the Chicago Mob on a commission basis. Spatz Antonelli was not known for the generosity of his commissions. Of course, Mo could always leave Chicago and go back to
LA, but there was a police task force there with his name on it, just waiting for him to return to the scene of the crime. In fact, there was no safe haven for Mo above ground or below it, because Mo Digence was actually Mulch Diggums, kleptomaniac dwarf and fugitive from the LEP.
Mulch was a tunnel dwarf, who decided that a life in the mines was not for him and put his mining talents to another use: namely, relieving Mud People of their valuables and selling them on the fairy black market.
Of course, entering another’s dwelling without permission meant forfeiting your magic, but Mulch didn’t care. Dwarfs didn’t have much power anyway, and casting spells had always made him nauseous.
Dwarfs have several physical features that make them ideal burglars. They can dislocate their jaws, ingesting several kilos of soil a second. It is stripped of any beneficial minerals, then ejected at the other end. They have also developed the ability to drink through their pores, an attribute that can be very handy during cave-ins. It also transforms the pores into living suction cups, a convenient tool in any burglar’s arsenal.
Finally, dwarf hair is actually a network of living antennae, similar to feline whiskers, which can do everything from trap beetles to bounce sonar waves off a tunnel wall.
Mulch had been a rising star in the fairy underworld — until Commander Julius Root got hold of his file. Since then, he had spent over three hundred years in and out of prison. He was currently on the run for stealing several gold bars from the Holly Short ransom fund. There was no safe haven below ground any more, even among his own kind. So Mulch was forced to pass himself off as human, and take whatever work he could get from the Chicago Mob.
There were hazards associated with impersonating a human. Of course, his size drew attention from everyone who happened to glance downwards. But Mulch quickly discovered that Mud People could find a reason to distrust almost anyone. Height, weight, skin colour, religion. It was almost safer to be different in some way.
The sun was a bigger problem. Dwarfs are extremely photosensitive, with a burn time of less than three minutes. Luckily,
Mulch’s job generally involved night work, but when he was forced to venture abroad in daylight hours the dwarf made certain that every centimetre of exposed skin was covered with long-lasting sun block.
Mulch had rented a basement apartment in an early twentieth-century brownstone. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, but this suited the dwarf just fine. He stripped out the floorboards in the bedroom, dumping two tons of topsoil and fertilizer on to the rotten foundations. Mould and damp already clung to the walls, so no need to remodel anything there. In a matter of hours, insect life was thriving in the room. Mulch would lie back in his pit and snag cockroaches with his beard hair. Home sweet home. Not only was the apartment beginning to resemble a tunnel cave, but if the LEP came a callin’, he could be fifty metres below ground in the blink of an eye.
In the coming days, Mulch would come to regret not taking that route as soon as he heard the knock at the door.
There was a knock at the door. Mulch crawled out of his tunnel bed and checked the video buzzer. Carla Frazetti was checking her hair in the brass knocker.
The boss’s god-daughter? In person. This must be a big job.
Perhaps the commission would be enough to set him up in another state.
He’d been in Chicago for nearly three months now, and it was only a matter of time before the LEP picked up his trail. He would never leave the US though. If you had to live above ground, it might as well be somewhere with cable TV and a lot of rich people to steal from.
Mulch pressed the intercom panel.
‘Just a minute, Miss Frazetti, I’m getting dressed.’
‘Hurry it up, Mo,’ snapped Carla, her voice crackly through the cheap speakers. ‘I’m getting old here.’
Mulch threw on a robe he had fashioned from old potato sacks. He found the texture of the cloth, reminiscent of Haven Penitentiary pyjamas, to be weirdly comforting. He gave his beard a quick comb to dislodge any straggling beetles, and answered the door.
Carla Frazetti swept past him into the lounge, settling into the room’s only armchair. There was another person on the doorstep, hidden beneath the camera’s field. Mulch made a mental note. Redirect the CCTV lens. A fairy could sneak right in under it, even if he or she wasn’t shielded.
The man gave Mulch a dangerous squint. Typical Mob behaviour.
Just because these people were murdering gangsters, didn’t mean they had to be rude.
‘Don’t you have another chair?’ asked the small human, following Miss Frazetti into the lounge.
Mulch closed the door. ‘I don’t get many visitors. Actually, you’re the first. Usually Bruno beeps me and I come into the chop shop.’
Bruno the Cheese was the Mob’s local supervisor. He ran his business from a local hot-car warehouse. Legend had it that he hadn’t been out from behind his desk during work hours in fifteen years.
‘Quite a look you’ve got going here,’ said Loafers sarcastically.
‘Mould and woodlice. I like it.’
Mulch ran a fond finger along a green strip of damp. ‘That mould was just sitting behind the wallpaper when I moved in. Amazing what people cover up.’
Carla Frazetti took a bottle of White Petals perfume from her bag and sprayed the air around her person.
‘OK, enough conversation. I have a special job for you, Mo.’
Mulch forced himself to stay calm. This was his big chance. Maybe he could find a nice damp hell hole and settle down for a while.
‘Is this the kind of job where there’s a big pay-off if you do it right?’
‘No,’ replied Carla. ‘This is the kind of job where there’s a painful pay-off if you do it wrong.’
Mulch sighed. Didn’t anyone talk nicely any more?
‘So why me?’ he asked.
Carla Frazetti smiled, her ruby winking in the gloom.
‘I’m going to answer that question, Mo. Even though I’m not used to explaining myself to the hired help. Especially not a monkey like yourself.’
Mulch swallowed. Sometimes he forgot how ruthless these people were. Never for long.
‘You’ve been chosen for this assignment, Mo, because of the outstanding job you did with that Van Gogh.’
Mulch smiled modestly. The museum alarm had been child’s play.
There hadn’t even been any dogs.
‘But also because you have an Irish passport.’
A gnome fugitive hiding out in NYC had run him up some Irish papers on a stolen LEP copier. The Irish had always been Mulch’s favourite humans, so he had decided to be one. He should have known it would lead to trouble.
‘This particular job is in Ireland, which might be a problem, generally. But for you two it’ll be like a paid holiday.’
Mulch nodded at Loafers. ‘Who’s the mutt?’
Loafers’ squint narrowed. Mulch knew that if Miss Frazetti gave the word, the man would kill him on the spot.
‘The mutt is Loafers McGuire, your partner. He’s a metal man. It’s a two-tiered job. You open the doors. Loafers escorts the mark back here.’
Escorting the mark. Mulch understood what that term meant, and he didn’t want any part of it. Robbery was one thing, but kidnapping was another. Mulch knew that he couldn’t actually turn down this assignment.
What he could do was ditch the metal man at the first opportunity and head to one of the southern states. Apparently Florida had some lovely swamps.
‘So, who’s the mark?’ said Mulch, pretending that it mattered.
‘That’s need-to-know information,’ said Loafers.
‘And let me guess, I don’t need to know.’
Carla Frazetti pulled a photograph from her coat pocket.
‘The less you know, the less you have to feel guilty about. This is all you need. The house. This photograph is all we have for the moment; you can case the joint when you get there.’
Mulch took the photo. What he saw on the paper hit him like a gas attack. It was Fowl Manor. Therefore Artemis was the target. This little psychopath was being sent to kidnap Artemis.
Frazetti sensed his discomfort. ‘Something wrong, Mo?’
Don’t let it show on your face, thought Mulch. Don’t let them see.
‘No. It’s. . eh. . That’s quite a set-up. I can see alarm boxes and outdoor spots. It’s not going to be easy.’
‘If it was easy, I’d do it myself,’ said Carla.
Loafers took a step forward, looking down at Mulch. What’s the matter, little man? Too tough for you?’
Mulch was forced to think on his feet. If Carla Frazetti thought he wasn’t up to the job, then they would send somebody else. Somebody with no qualms about leading the Mob to Artemis’s door. Mulch was surprised to realize that he couldn’t let that happen. The Irish boy had saved his life during the goblin rebellion, and was the closest thing he had to a friend — which was pretty pathetic when you thought about it. He had to take the job, if only to make sure that it didn’t go according to plan.
‘Hey, don’t worry about me. A building hasn’t been built that Mo Digence can’t crack. I just hope Loafers is man enough for the job.’
Loafers grabbed the dwarf by the lapels. ‘What’s that supposed to mean, Digence?’
Mulch generally avoided insulting people who were likely to kill him, but it might be useful to establish Loafers as a hothead now. Especially if he was going to blame him for things going wrong later.
‘It’s one thing being a midget monkey, but a midget metal man?
How good can you be at close quarters?’
Loafers dropped the dwarf and ripped open his shirt to reveal a chest rippling with a tapestry of tattoos.
‘That’s how good I am, Digence. Count the tattoos. Count ‘em.’
Mulch shot Miss Frazetti a loaded look. The look said: You’re going to trust this guy?
‘That’s enough!’ said Carla. ‘The testosterone in here is starting to stink worse than the walls. This is a very important job. If you two can’t handle it, I’ll bring in another team.’
Loafers buttoned his shirt. ‘OK, Miss Frazetti. We can handle it. This job is as good as done.’
Carla stood, brushing a couple of centipedes from the hem of her jacket. The insects didn’t bother her unduly. She’d seen a lot worse in her twenty-five years.
‘Glad to hear it. Mo, put some clothes on and grab your monkey kit.
We’ll wait in the limo.’
Loafers poked Mulch in the chest. ‘Five minutes. Then we’re coming in to get you.’
Mulch watched them go. This was his last chance to duck out. He could chew through the bedroom foundations and be on a southbound train before Carla Frazetti knew he was gone.
Mulch thought about it seriously. This kind of thing was totally against his nature. It wasn’t that he was a bad fairy, it was simply that he wasn’t accustomed to helping other people. Not unless there was something in it for him. Deciding to help Artemis Fowl was a completely selfless act. Mulch shuddered. A conscience was the last thing he needed right now. Next thing you knew, he’d be selling cookies for the Girl right now. Next thing you knew, he’d be selling cookies for the Girl Guides.
EXCERPT FROM ARTEMIS FOWL’S DIARY DISK 2 ENCRYPTED
My father had finally regained consciousness. I was, of course, relieved, but his last words to me that day were chasing themselves around in my mind.
‘Gold isn’t all-important, Arty’ he had said. ‘Neither is power. We have everything we need right here. The three of us.’
Was it possible that the magic had transformed my father? I had to know. I needed to speak to him alone. So, at 3 a.m. the following morning, I had Butler bring me back to Helsinki’s University Hospital in the rented Mercedes.
Father was still awake, reading War and Peace by lamplight. ‘Not many laughs’ he commented. More jokes. I tried to smile, but my face just wasn’t in the mood.
Father closed the book. ‘I’ve been expecting you, Arty. We need to talk. There are a few things we have to straighten out.’ I stood stiffly at the foot of the bed. ‘Yes, Father. I agree.’ Father’s smile was tinged with sadness. ‘So formal. I remember being the same with my own father. I sometimes think that he didn’t know me at all, and I worry that the same thing will happen to us. So I want us to talk, son, not about bank accounts. Not stocks and shares. Not corporate takeovers. I don’t want to talk business, I want to talk about you.’
I had been afraid of this. ‘Me? You are the priority here, Father.’
‘Perhaps, but I cannot be happy until your mother’s mind is put at rest.’
‘At rest?’ I asked, as though I didn’t know where this was going.
‘Don’t play the innocent, Artemis. I’ve called a few of my law-enforcement contacts around Europe. Apparently you have been active in my absence. Very active.’
I shrugged, unsure whether I was being scolded or praised.
‘Not so long ago I would have been very impressed by your antics.
Such audacity and still a minor. But now, speaking as a father, things have to change, Arty. You must reclaim your childhood. It is my wish, and your mother’s, that you return to school after the holidays and leave the family’s business to me.’
‘But, Father!’
‘Trust me, Arty. I’ve been in business a lot longer than you. I have promised your mother that the Fowls are on the straight and narrow from now on. All of the Fowls. I have another chance, and I will not waste it on greed. We are a family now. A proper one. From now on the Fowl name will be associated with honour and honesty. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ I said, clasping his hand.
But what of my meeting with Chicago’s Jon Spiro? I decided to proceed as planned. One last adventure — then the Fowls could be a proper family. After all, Butler would accompany me. What could go wrong?
FOWL MANOR
Butler opened his eyes. He was home. Artemis was asleep in the armchair beside the bed. The boy looked a hundred years old. It wasn’t surprising after all he’d been through. That life was over now though. All of it.
‘Anybody home?’ said the manservant.
Artemis was instantly alert.
‘Butler, you’ve come back to us.’
Butler struggled on to his elbows. It was quite an effort.
‘It’s a surprise to me. I never expected to see you, or anyone, ever again.’
Artemis poured a glass of water from the bedside jug.
‘Here, old friend. Just rest.’
Butler drank slowly. He was tired, but it was more than that. He had felt battle fatigue before, but this went deeper.
‘Artemis, what has happened? I shouldn’t be alive at all. And if I accept that I am alive, then I should be experiencing massive amounts of pain right about now.’
Artemis crossed to the window, looking out over the estate.
‘Blunt shot you. It was a fatal wound, and Holly wasn’t around to help, so I froze you until she arrived.’
Butler shook his head. ‘Cryogenics? Only Artemis Fowl. You used the fish freezers, I suppose?’
Artemis nodded.
‘I trust I am not part freshwater trout now, eh?’
When Artemis turned to face his friend, he was not smiling.
‘There were complications.’
‘Complications?’
Artemis took a breath. ‘It was a difficult healing — no way to predict the outcome. Foaly warned that it might be too much for your system, but I insisted we press on.’
Butler sat up. ‘Artemis. It’s all right. I’m alive. Anything is better than the alternative.’
Artemis was not reassured. He took a pearl-handled mirror from the locker.
‘Prepare yourself, and take a look.’
Butler took a deep breath and looked. He stretched his jaw and pinched the bags beneath his eyes.
‘Just how long was I out?’ he asked.
TRANSATLANTIC BOEING 747
Mulch had decided that the best way to undermine the mission was to antagonize Loafers until he went crazy. Driving people crazy was a talent of his, and one that he did not get to exercise often enough.
The two diminutive individuals were seated side by side in a 747, watching the clouds shoot past below. First class: one of the perks of working for the Antonellis.
Mulch sipped delicately from a champagne flute.
‘So, Slippers. .’
‘That’s Loafers.’
‘Oh yes, Loafers. What’s the story behind all the tattoos?’
Loafers rolled up his sleeve, revealing a turquoise snake with drops of blood for eyes. Another of his own designs.
‘I get one done after every job.’
‘Oh,’ said Mulch. ‘So if you paint a kitchen, then you get a tattoo?’
‘Not that kind of job, stupid.’
‘What kind of job then?’
Loafers ground his teeth. ‘Do I have to spell it out for you?’
Mulch pinched some peanuts from a passing tray.
‘No point. I never got no schoolin’. Plain English will be fine.’
‘You can’t be this stupid! Spatz Antonelli doesn’t hire morons.’
Mulch gave a smarmy wink. ‘You sure about that?’
Loafers patted his shirt, hoping to find a weapon of some kind.
‘You wait until this is over, smart alec. Me and you will settle our differences.’
‘You keep telling yourself that, Boots.’
‘Loafers!’
‘Whatever.’
Mulch hid behind the airline magazine. This was too easy. The mobster was half-crazed already. A few more hours in Mulch’s company should be enough to have Loafers McGuire foaming at the mouth.
DUBLIN AIRPORT, IRELAND
Mulch and Loafers passed through Irish customs without incident.
After all, they were simply citizens returning home for the holidays. It wasn’t as if they were a Mob team up to no good. How could they be?
Whoever heard of little people being involved in organized crime? Nobody.
But maybe that was because they were very good at it.
Passport control provided Mulch with another opportunity to infuriate his partner.
The officer was doing his best not to notice Mulch’s height, or lack of it.
‘So, Mister Digence, home to visit the family?’
Mulch nodded. ‘That’s right. My mother’s folks are from Killarney.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘O’Reilly, actually. But what’s a vowel between friends?’
‘Very good. You should be on the stage.’ ‘It’s funny you should mention that — The passport officer groaned. Ten more minutes and his shift would have been over.
‘I was being sarcastic actually. .’ he muttered. - because my friend Mister McGuire and I are also doing a stint in the Christmas pantomime. It’s Snow White. I’m Doc, and he’s Dopey.’
The passport officer forced a smile. ‘Very good. Next.’ Mulch spoke for the entire queue to hear. ‘Of course, Mister McGuire there was born to play Dopey, if you catch my drift.’
Loafers lost it right there in the terminal. ‘You little freak!’ he screamed. ‘I’ll kill you! You’ll be my next tattoo. You’ll be my next tattoo!’
Mulch tutted as Loafers disappeared beneath half a dozen security guards.
‘Actors,’ he said. ‘Highly strung.’
They released Loafers three hours later after a full search and several phone calls to the parish priest in his home town. Mulch was waiting in the pre-ordered rental car, a specially modified model with elevated accelerator and brake pedals.
‘Your temper is seriously jeopardizing this operation,’ commented the dwarf, straight-faced. ‘I’ll have to phone Miss Frazetti if you can’t control yourself.’
‘Drive,’ said the metal man hoarsely. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
‘OK then. But you’re on your very last chance. One more episode like that and I’m going to have to crush your head between my teeth.’
Loafers noticed his partner’s teeth for the first time. They were tombstone-shaped blocks of enamel, and there seemed to be an awful lot of them for just one mouth. Was it possible that Digence could actually do what he threatened? No, Loafers decided. He was just a bit spooked after the customs interrogation. Still, there was something about the dwarf’s smile. A glint that spoke of hidden and frightening talents. Talents that the metal man would prefer to stay hidden.
Mulch took care of the driving while Loafers made a couple of calls on his mobile phone. It was a simple matter for him to contact a few old associates and arrange for a weapon, a silencer and two headsets to be left in a duffel bag behind the motorway exit sign for Fowl Manor. Loafers’ associates even took credit cards, so there was no need for the usual macho trade-off that generally accompanied black-market transactions.
Loafers checked the weapon’s action and sights in the car. He felt in control again.
‘So, Mo,’ said Loafers, chuckling as if that simple rhyme was the funniest joke he had ever made. And sadly, it was. ‘Have you put together a plan yet?’
Mulch didn’t take his eyes from the road. ‘Nope. I thought you were the head honcho here. Plans are your department. I just break and enter.’
‘That’s right. I am the head honcho, and believe me Master Fowl is going to realize that too when I’m finished talking to him.’
‘Master Fowl?’ said Mulch innocently. ‘We’re here for some kid?’
‘Not just some kid,’ revealed Loafers, against orders. ‘Artemis Fowl.
Heir to the Fowl criminal empire. He has something in his head that Miss Frazetti wants. So we’re supposed to impress upon the little brat how important it is that he come with us and spill the beans.’
Mulch’s grip tightened on the wheel. He should have made his move before now. But the trick was not to incapacitate Loafers, it was persuading Carla Frazetti not to send another team.
Artemis would know what to do. He had to get to the boy before Loafers did. A mobile phone and a visit to the bathroom were all he needed. A pity he had never bothered purchasing a phone, but there had never been anybody to call before. Besides, you could never be too careful with Foaly. That centaur could triangulate a chirping cricket.
‘We better stop for supplies,’ said Loafers. ‘It could take days to check this place out.’
‘No need. I know the layout. I burgled it before, in my youth. Piece of cake.’
‘And you didn’t mention this before because Mulch made a rude gesture at a lorry driver hogging both lanes.
‘You know the way it is. I work on commission. The commission is calculated on a hardship basis. The second I say I turned this place over before, ten grand is cut off my fee.’
Loafers didn’t argue. It was true. You always exaggerated the difficulty of the job. Anything to squeeze a few more bucks out of your employer.
‘So, you can get us in there?’
‘I can get me in there. Then I come back out for you.’
Loafers was suspicious. ‘Why don’t I just come with you? It would be a lot easier than hanging around in broad daylight.’
‘Firstly, I’m not going in until after dark. And secondly, sure you can come with me, if you don’t mind crawling through the septic tank and up nine metres of effluent pipe.’
Loafers had to open a window at the thought of it.
‘OK. You come get me. But we stay in contact over the headsets.
Anything goes wrong and you let me know.’
‘Yes, sir, boss,’ said Mulch, screwing the earpiece into a hairy ear and clipping the mike to his jacket. ‘Wouldn’t want you to miss your appointment intimidating a kid.’
The sarcasm made a slight whistling noise as it flew over Loafer’s head.
‘That’s right,’ said the Kilkenny man. ‘I am the boss. And you don’t want to make me late for my appointment.’
Mulch had to concentrate to stop his beard hair curling. Dwarf hair is very mood-sensitive, especially to hostility, and it was flowing out of this man’s every pore. Mulch’s bristles had never been wrong yet. This little partnership was not going to end well.
Mulch parked in the shadow of the Fowl Estate’s boundary wall.
‘You certain this is the place?’ asked Loafers.
Mulch pointed a stubby finger at the ornate iron gate.
‘You see there where it says Fowl Manor?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d say this was probably the place.’
Even Loafers couldn’t miss a direct jibe like that.
‘You better get me in there, Digence, or. .’
Mulch showed him the teeth. ‘Or what?’
‘Or Miss Frazetti will be extremely annoyed,’ completed Loafers lamely, well aware that he was losing the hard-man-banter battle. Loafers resolved to teach Mo Digence a lesson as soon as possible.
‘We wouldn’t want to annoy Miss Frazetti,’ said Mulch. He climbed down from the elevated seat and reclaimed his gear bag from the trunk.
There were certain unorthodox burglary tools in the bag, supplied by his fairy contact in New York. Hopefully none of them would be needed. Not the way he intended gaining entrance to the manor.
Mulch rapped on the passenger window. Loafers buzzed it open.
‘What?’
‘Remember, you stay here until I come and get you.’
‘That sounds like an order, Digence. Are you giving me orders now?’
‘Me?’ said Mulch, revealing the full expanse of his teeth. ‘Giving orders? I wouldn’t dream of it.’
Loafers buzzed the window back up.
‘You better not be,’ he said as soon as there was a layer of toughened glass between him and those teeth.
Inside Fowl Manor, Butler had just finished clipping and shaving. He was beginning to look like his old self again. His older self.
‘Kevlar, you say?’ he repeated, examining the darkened tissue on his chest.
Artemis nodded. ‘Apparently some fibres were trapped in the wound. The magic replicated them. According to Foaly, the new tissue will restrict your breathing, but it isn’t dense enough to be bulletproof, except for a small-calibre bullet.’
Butler buttoned his shirt. ‘Everything is different, Artemis. I can’t guard you any more.’
‘I won’t need guarding. Holly was right. My grand schemes generally lead to people getting hurt. As soon as we have dealt with Spiro I intend to concentrate on my education.’
‘As soon as we have dealt with Spiro? You make it sound like a foregone conclusion. Jon Spiro is a dangerous man, Artemis. I thought you would have learned that.’
‘I have, old friend. Believe me, I won’t underestimate him again. I have already begun to formulate a plan. We should be able to retrieve the C Cube and neutralize Mister Spiro, providing Holly agrees to help.’
‘Where is Holly? I need to thank her. Again.’ Artemis glanced out of the window. ‘She has gone to complete the Ritual. You can guess where.’
Butler nodded. They had first encountered Holly at a sacred fairy site in the south-east while she was conducting the power-restoring Ritual. Although ‘encountered’ was not the term Holly used. ‘Abducted’ was closer to the truth.
‘She should be back within the hour. I suggest you rest until then.’
Butler shook his head. ‘I can rest later. Right now, I have to check the grounds. It’s unlikely that Spiro could put a team together so quickly. But you never know.’
The bodyguard crossed to a wall panel that linked his room to the security-system control booth. Artemis could see that each step was an effort. With Butler’s new chest tissue, just climbing the stairs would seem like a marathon.
Butler split-screened his monitor so he could view all the CCTVs simultaneously. One of the screens interested him more than the others, so he punched it up on the monitor.
‘Well, well,’ he chuckled. ‘Look who’s dropped in to say hello.’
Artemis crossed to the security panel. There was a very small individual making rude gestures at the kitchen-door camera.
‘Mulch Diggums,’ said Artemis. ‘Just the dwarf I wanted to see.’
Butler transferred Mulch’s image to the main screen.
‘Perhaps. But why does he want to see you?’
Melodramatic as always, the dwarf insisted on a sandwich before explaining the situation. Unfortunately for Mulch, it was Artemis who volunteered to prepare it for him. He emerged from the pantry with what resembled nothing more than an explosion on a plate.
‘It’s more difficult than it looks,’ explained the boy.
Mulch cranked open his massive jaws, pouring the whole pile down in one swallow. After several minutes’ chewing, he reached an entire hand into his mouth and dislodged a chunk of roast turkey.
‘Next time more mustard,’ he said, brushing some crumbs from his shirt and, in the process, inadvertently switching on the mike clipped there.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Artemis.
‘You should be thanking me, Mud Boy,’ said Mulch. ‘I came all the way from Chicago to save your life. Surely that’s worth one lousy sandwich? And when I say sandwich I mean it in the loosest sense of the word.’
‘Chicago? Jon Spiro sent you?’
The dwarf shook his head. ‘Possibly, but not directly. I work for the Antonelli family. Of course, they have no idea that I am an actual fairy dwarf; they think I’m simply the best cat burglar in the business.’
‘Chicago’s district attorney has linked the Antonellis to Spiro in the past. Or rather, he’s tried to.’
‘Whatever. Anyway, the plan is that I break in here, and then my partner encourages you to accompany us to Chicago.’
Butler was leaning against the table. ‘Where is your partner now, Mulch?’
‘Outside the gate. He’s the small angry one. Glad to see you’re alive by the way, big man. There was a rumour going around the underworld that you were dead.’
‘I was,’ said Butler, heading for the security booth. ‘But I’m better now.’
Loafers took a small spiral pad from his breast pocket. In it he had recorded any quips that he felt had really worked in dangerous situations.
Snappy dialogue, that was the trademark of a good gangster — according to the movies at any rate. He flicked through the pages, smiling fondly.
‘It’s time to close your account. Permanently.’ — Larry Ferrigamo.
Bent banker. 9th August.
‘I’m afraid your hard drive has just been wiped.’ — David Spinski.
Computer hacker. 23rd September.
‘I’m doing this ‘cause I knead the dough.’ — Morty the Baker. 17th July.
It was good material. Maybe he would write his memoirs some day.
Loafers was still chuckling when he heard Mo talking in his earpiece.
At first he thought the monkey was speaking to him, but then he realized that his so-called partner was spilling the beans to their pigeon.
‘You should be thanking me, Mud Boy,’ said Digence. ‘I came all the way from Chicago to save your life.’
To save his life! Mo was working for the other side and the little idiot had forgotten about his mike.
Loafers climbed out of the car, being careful to lock it. He would lose the deposit if the rental was stolen, and Miss Frazetti would take it out of his commission. There was a small pedestrian entrance in the wall beside the main gate. Mo Digence had left it open. Loafers slipped through and hurried down the avenue, careful to stay in the shadow of the trees.
In his ear, Mo kept rabbiting on. He laid out their entire plan to the Fowl kid without so much as the threat of torture. It was completely voluntary. Digence had somehow been working for the Irish kid all along.
And what’s more, Mo was not Mo, he was Mulch. What kind of a name was that? Mulch, who was apparently a fairy dwarf. This was getting weirder and weirder. Maybe the fairy dwarfs were some kind of gang.
Although it wasn’t much of a gang name. The fairy dwarfs were hardly going to strike terror into the hearts of the competition.
Loafers trotted up the avenue, past a line of elegant silver birches and an honest-to-God croquet pitch. Two peacocks strutted around the edge of a water feature. Loafers snorted. Water feature! In the days before TV gardeners it would have been called a pond.
Loafers was wondering where the delivery entrance was when he saw the sign: ‘Deliveries at rear’. Thank you very much. He checked his silencer and load one more time, and tiptoed across the gravel driveway.
Artemis sniffed the air. ‘What’s that smell?’
Mulch poked his head round the refrigerator door.
‘Me, I’m afraid,’ he mumbled, an unfeasible amount of food revolving inside his mouth. ‘Sunblock. Disgusting, I know, but I’d smell a whole lot worse without it. Think bacon strips on a flat rock in Death Valley.’
‘A charming image.’
‘Dwarfs are subterranean creatures,’ explained Mulch. ‘Even during the Frond Dynasty we lived underground. .’
Frond was the first elfin king. During his reign, fairies and humans had shared the earth’s surface.
‘. . Being photosensitive makes it difficult to exist among humans.
To be honest, I’m a bit fed up of this life.’
‘Your wish is my command,’ said a voice. It was Loafers. He was standing at the kitchen door, brandishing a very large gun.
In fairness to Mulch, he recovered well.
‘I thought I told you to wait outside.’
‘It’s true, you did. But I decided to come in anyway. And guess what? No septic tank, no effluent pipe. The back door is wide open.’
Mulch tended to grind his teeth when he thought. It sounded like nails being scraped down a chalkboard.
‘Ah. . yes. A stroke of luck there. I took advantage of it, but unfortunately I was interrupted by the boy. I had just gained his confidence when you burst in.’
‘Don’t bother,’ said Loafers. ‘Your mike is on. I heard the whole thing, Mo. Or should I say Mulch, the fairy dwarf?’
Mulch swallowed the half-chewed mass of food. Once again his big mouth had got him into trouble — maybe it could get him out of trouble too. It was just possible that he could unhinge his jaw and swallow the little hit man. He’d eaten bigger. A quick burst of dwarf gas should be enough to propel him across the room. He’d just have to hope that the gun didn’t go off before he could pass it.
Loafers caught the look in Mulch’s eye. ‘That’s right, little man,’ he said, cocking his pistol. ‘You go for it. See how far you get.’
Artemis was thinking too. He knew that he was safe for the moment. The newcomer would not harm him against orders. But Mulch’s time was running out and there was no one to save him. Butler was too weak to intervene even if he had been here. Holly was away completing the Ritual. And Artemis himself was not the best in physical situations. He would have to negotiate.
‘I know what you’re here for,’ he began. ‘The Cube’s secrets. I’ll tell you, but not if you harm my friend.’ Loafers waved the gun barrel. ‘You’ll do whatever I ask, when I ask. Possibly you’ll cry like a girl too. Sometimes that happens.’
‘Very well. I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just don’t shoot anyone.’
Loafers swallowed a grin. ‘Sure. That’s fine. You just come with me, nice and quiet, and I won’t hurt a soul. You have my word.’
Butler entered the kitchen. His face was slick with perspiration and his breath came in short gasps.
‘I checked the monitor,’ he said. ‘The car is empty, the other man must be. .’
‘Here,’ completed Loafers. ‘Old news to everyone except you, Grandad. Now, no sudden moves and you might not have a heart attack.’
Artemis saw Butler’s eyes flitting around the room. He was searching for an angle. Some way to save them. Maybe yesterday’s Butler could have done it, but today’s Butler was fifteen years older and not yet fully recovered from magical surgery. The situation was desperate.
‘You could tie the others up,’ ventured Artemis. Then we could leave together.’
Loafers smacked his own head. ‘What a great idea! Then maybe I could agree to some other delaying tactic, on account of me being a complete amateur.’
Loafers felt a shadow fall across his back. He spun round to see a girl standing in the doorway. Another witness. Carla Frazetti would be getting the bill for all these sundries. This whole job had been misrepresented from the start.
‘OK, miss,’ said Loafers. ‘Go join the others. And don’t do anything stupid.’
The girl at the door flicked her hair over one shoulder, blinking her glittering green eyelids.
‘I don’t do stupid things,’ she said. Then her hand flicked out, brushing against Loafer’s weapon. She grabbed the pistol’s slide and deftly twisted it from the stock. The gun was now completely useless, except for hammering nails.
Loafers jerked backwards. ‘Hey, hey. Watch it. I don’t want to wound you by accident. This gun could go off.’ That’s what he thought.
Loafers continued brandishing his piece of harmless metal.
‘Back off, little girl. I won’t say it again.’
Juliet dangled the slide under his nose. ‘Or what? You’ll shoot me with this?’
Loafers stared cross-eyed at the piece of metal.
‘Hey, that looks just like Then Juliet hit him in the chest so hard he crashed through the breakfast bar.
Mulch stared over at the unconscious mobster, then at the girl in the doorway.
‘Hey, Butler. Just a shot in the dark here, but I’d say that’s your sister.’
‘You’re right,’ said the manservant, hugging Juliet tightly. ‘How on earth did you guess?
FOWL MANOR
It was time for consultation. That night, the group sat in the manor’s conference room, facing two monitors that Juliet had brought down from the security booth. Foaly had hijacked the monitors’ frequency and was broadcasting live images of Commander Root and himself.
Much to his own annoyance, Mulch was still present. He had been attempting to weasel some kind of reward from Artemis when Holly returned and cuffed him to a chair.
Root’s cigar smoke was hazing the screen. ‘Looks like the gang’s all here,’ he said, using the fairy gift of tongues to speak English. ‘And guess what. I don’t like gangs.’
Holly had placed her headset in the centre of the conference table, so all the room’s occupants could be picked up.
‘I can explain, Commander.’
‘Oh, I’ll just bet you can. But, strangely, I have a premonition that your explanation is going to cut no ice with me whatsoever, and I will have your badge in my drawer by the end of this shift.’
Artemis tried to intervene. ‘Really, Commander. Holly — Captain Short — is only here because I tricked her.’
‘Is that a fact? And then, pray tell, why is she still there? Doing lunch, are we?’
‘This is no time for sarcasm, Commander. We have a serious situation here. Potentially disastrous.’
Root exhaled a cloud of greenish smoke. ‘What you humans do to each other is your own affair. We are not your personal police force, Fowl.’
Foaly cleared his throat. ‘We’re involved whether we like it or not:
Artemis was the one who pinged us. And that’s not the worst of it, Julius.’
Root glanced across at the centaur. Foaly had called him by his first name. Things must be serious.
‘Very well, Captain,’ he said. ‘Continue with your briefing.’
Holly opened a report on her hand-held computer.
‘Yesterday I responded to a recording from the Sentinel warning system. The call was sent by Artemis Fowl, a Mud Man well known to the LEP for his part in the B’wa Kell uprising. Fowl’s associate Butler had been mortally injured on the orders of another Mud Man, Jon Spiro, and he requested my assistance with a healing.’
‘Which you refused, and then requested technical back-up to perform a mind wipe, as per regulations.’
Holly could have sworn the screen was heating up.
‘No. Taking into account Butler’s considerable assistance during the goblin revolution, I performed the healing and transported Butler and Fowl back to their domicile.’
‘Tell me you didn’t fly them. .?’ ‘There was no alternative. They were wrapped in cam foil.’
Root rubbed his temples. ‘One foot. If there was so much as one foot sticking out, we could be all over the Internet by tomorrow. Holly, why do you do this to me?’
Holly didn’t reply. What could she say?
‘There’s more. We have detained one of Spiro’s employees. A nasty piece of work.’
‘Did he see you?’
‘No. But he heard Mulch say that he was a fairy dwarf.’
‘No problem,’ said Foaly. ‘Do a block mind wipe and send him home.’
‘It’s not that simple. The man is an assassin. He could be sent back to finish the job. I think we need to relocate him. Believe me. He won’t be missed here.’
‘OK,’ said Foaly. ‘Sedate him, do the wipe and get rid of anything that might trigger his memories. Then send him somewhere he can’t do any harm.’
The commander took several long puffs to calm himself.
‘OK. Tell me about the probe. And if Fowl is responsible, is the alert over?’
‘No. The human businessman Jon Spiro stole the fairy technology from Artemis.’
‘Which Artemis stole from us,’ noted Foaly.
‘This Spiro character is determined to acquire the technology’s secret and he’s not particular how he gets it,’ continued Holly.
‘And who knows the secret?’ asked Root.
‘Artemis is the only one who can operate the C Cube.’
‘Do I want to know what a C Cube is?’
Foaly took up the narrative. ‘Artemis cobbled together a microcomputer from old LEP technology. Most of it is obsolete below ground but, by human standards, it’s approximately fifty years ahead of their developmental schedule.’
‘And therefore worth a fortune,’ concluded the commander.
‘And therefore worth an absolute fortune,’ agreed Foaly.
Suddenly Mulch was listening. ‘A fortune? Exactly how much of a fortune?’
Root was relieved to have someone to shout at. ‘Shut your mouth, convict! This doesn’t concern you. You just concentrate on enjoying your last few breaths of free air. This time tomorrow you’ll be shaking hands with your cell mate, and I hope he’s a troll.’
Mulch was unbowed. ‘Give me a break, Julius. Every time there’s a Fowl situation I’m the one who saves your sorry hide. I have no doubt that whatever plan Artemis concocts will feature yours truly. Probably in some ridiculously dangerous capacity.’
Root’s complexion went from rose to full-bodied red. ‘Well, Artemis? Do you plan on using the convict?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether or not you give me Holly.’
Root’s head disappeared behind a fog of cigar smoke. With the red tip glowing, he looked like a steam train coming out of a tunnel. Some of the smoke drifted across to Foaly’s screen.
‘It doesn’t look good,’ commented the centaur.
Eventually Root calmed down sufficiently to talk.
‘Give you Holly? Gods, give me patience. Have you any idea the amount of red tape I’m ignoring just for this conference?’
‘Quite a lot, I’d imagine.’
‘A mountain of the stuff, Artemis. A mountain. I wouldn’t be talking to you at all if it weren’t for the B’wa Kell thing. If this ever leaked out, I’d end up directing sewage-treatment subs in Atlantis.’
Mulch winked at the screen. ‘I probably shouldn’t have heard that.’
The commander ignored him. ‘You have thirty seconds, Artemis. Sell it to me.’
Artemis rose, standing directly before the screen.
‘Spiro has fairy technology. It is unlikely that he will be able to use it, but it will put his scientists on to ion technology. The man is a megalomaniac, with no respect for life or the environment. Who knows what ghastly machine he will construct from fairy technology? There is also the definite chance that his new technology will lead him to discover Haven itself and, if that happens, the life of every creature on the planet, and under it, is at risk.’
Root wheeled his chair off-camera, reappearing in Foaly’s monitor.
He leaned close to the centaur’s ear, whispering in low tones.
‘It doesn’t look good,’ said Holly. ‘I could be on the next shuttle home.’
Artemis drummed his fingers on the table. It was difficult to see how he could take on Spiro without fairy assistance.
After several moments, the commander reappeared in his own screen.
‘This is serious. We cannot afford to risk that this Spiro person will activate another probe. However small the possibility, there’s still a chance. I will have to put together an insertion team. The works: a fully tooled-up Retrieval team.’
‘A full team?’ protested Holly. ‘In an urban area? Commander, you know what Retrieval is like. This could turn into a disaster. Let me take a crack at it.’
Root considered it. ‘It will take forty-eight hours to clear an operation, so that’s what you have. I can cover for you for a couple of days. I can’t let you have Foaly. He’ll have enough to do putting this operation together. But Diggums can help if he wants; it’s his choice. I might drop a couple of the burglary charges, but he’s still facing five to ten for the bullion robbery. That’s all I can do. If you fail, then the Retrieval team is waiting in the wings.’ Artemis thought about it. ‘Very well.’ Root took a breath. ‘There is a condition.’ ‘I thought as much,’ said Artemis. ‘You want a mind wipe. Correct?’
‘That’s right, Artemis. You are becoming a severe liability to the People. If we are to assist you in this matter, then you and your staff would have to submit to mind wipes.’
‘And if we don’t?’
‘Then we go straight to plan B, and you get wiped anyway.’
‘No offence, Commander, but this is a technical matter. .,’ Foaly stepped in. ‘There are two kinds of mind wipe. A block wipe, which takes out everything in the chosen period. Holly could do that with the equipment in her bag. And a fine-tune wipe, which only deletes certain memories. This is a more specialized procedure, but there is less danger of a drop in IQ. We do a fine-tune wipe on all of you. I detonate a data charge in your computer system that automatically deletes any fairy-related files. Also, I will need your permission to do a sweep of your house just in case there is any fairy memorabilia lying around. In practical terms, you will wake up the day after this operation with absolutely no record or memory of the fairy People.’
‘You’re talking about nearly two years of memories.’
‘You won’t miss them. Your brain will invent some new ones to fill the gaps.’
It was a tough decision. On the one hand, his knowledge of the People was now a large part of Artemis’s psychological make-up. On the other, he could no longer put people’s lives at risk.
‘Very well,’ said the teenager. ‘I accept your offer.’
Root tossed the cigar into a nearby incinerator. ‘OK then. We have a deal. Captain Short, keep a channel open at all times.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Holly.’
‘Commander?’
‘Be careful on this one. Your career won’t survive another blow.’
‘Understood, sir,’ said Holly.
‘Oh, and, convict?’
Mulch sighed. ‘You mean me, I suppose, Julius?’
Root scowled. ‘It’s over, Mulch. You won’t escape again, so get your brain ready for cold food and hard walls.’
Mulch stood, presenting his back to the screen. Somehow the bum-flap on his specially adapted tunnelling trousers flopped open, presenting the commander with a lovely view of his rear end. In the dwarf world, presenting your behind was the ultimate insult, as it is in most cultures.
Commander Root terminated the link. After all, there was no come-back from an affront like that.
WEST OF WAJIR, KENYA, EAST AFRICA
Loafers McGuire woke up with a debilitating headache. It was so painful that he felt obliged to come up with some imagery, in case he had to describe it later. His head felt, he decided, like there was an angry porcupine crawling around inside his cranium. Not bad, he thought. I should put that in the book.
Then he thought, what’s a book? His next thought was, who am I?
Shoes, something to do with shoes.
It is always this way when memory-implant subjects first regain consciousness. The old identity hangs around for a few moments, trying to assert itself, until outside stimuli wash it away.
Loafers sat up and the porcupine went crazy, jamming needles into every square inch of his soft brain tissue.
‘Oh,’ groaned Loafers, cradling his aching skull. What did all this mean? Where was he? And how did he get here?
Loafers looked at his arms. For a second, his brain projected tattoos on to the skin, but the images quickly disappeared. His skin was unblemished. Sunlight rolled across his forearms like white lightning.
All around him was scrubland. Terracotta earth stretched away to indigo hills in the distance. A golden disc of sun blasted cracks in the shimmering earth. Two figures ran through the heatwaves, elegant as cheetahs.
The men were giants, easily seven feet tall. Each carried an oval hide shield, a thin spear and a mobile phone. Their hair, necks and ears were adorned with multicoloured beads.
Loafers jumped to his feet. Feet which, he noticed, were clad in leather sandals. The men were wearing Nikes.
‘Help,’he cried.’Help me!’
The men altered their course, jogging across to the confused mobster.
‘Jambo, brother. Are you lost?’ asked one.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Loafers, in perfect Swahili. ‘I don’t speak Swahili.’
The man glanced at his partner. ‘I see. And what is you name?’
‘Loafers,’ said Loafers’ brain. ‘Nuru,’ said his mouth.
‘Well, Nuru. Unatoka wapi? Where are you from?’ The words were out before Loafers could do anything about it.
‘I don’t know where I’m from, but I want to go with you. To your village. That’s where I should be.’
The Kenyan warriors stared down at the little stranger. He was the wrong colour, true, but he seemed sane enough.
The taller of the two unhooked a mobile phone from his leopard-skin belt. He punched in the village chieftain’s number.
‘Jambo, Chief, this is Bobby. The earth spirits have left us another one.’
Bobby laughed, looking Loafers up and down.
‘Yes, he’s tiny, but he looks strong and he’s got a smile bigger than a peeled banana.’
Loafers stretched his smile, just in case it was a factor. For some reason, all he wanted in this world was to go to the village and live a productive life.
‘OK, Chief, I’ll bring him in. He can have the missionary’s old hut.’
Bobby clipped the phone back on to his belt.
‘Very well, brother Nuru. You’re in. Follow us, and try to keep up.’
The warriors set off at a brisk run. Loafers, henceforth to be known as Nuru, raced after them, his leather sandals flapping beneath his feet.
He really would have to see about getting a pair of trainers.
One hundred and fifty feet over their heads, Captain Holly Short hovered, shielded from view, recording the entire incident.
‘Relocation complete,’ she said into her helmet mike. ‘The subject has been adopted successfully. No apparent signs of original personality.
But he will be monitored at monthly intervals, just in case.’
Foaly was on the other end of the line. ‘Excellent, Captain. Return to shuttle port E77 immediately. If you open the throttle, you might just make the evening shuttle. We’ll have you back in Ireland in a couple of hours.’
Holly did not need to be told twice. It wasn’t often you got clearance for a speed run. She activated her radar in case of buzzards and set the stopwatch on her visor.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘Let’s see if we can’t break the airspeed record.’
A record that Julius Root had set eighty years ago.