Artemis Fowl - The Arctic Incident



Contents

Artemis Fowl: A Psychological Assessment
Prologue
Chapter 1:    Family Ties
Chapter 2:    Cruisin' for Chix
Chapter 3:    Going Underground
Chapter 4:    Fowl Is Fair
Chapter 5:    Daddy's Girl
Chapter 6:    Photo Opportunity
Chapter 7:    Joining the Dots
Chapter 8:    To Russia with Gloves
Chapter 9:    No Safe Haven
Chapter 10:    Trouble and Strife
Chapter 11:   Mulch Ado About Nothing
Chapter 12:    The Boys Are Back
Chapter 13:    Into the Breach
Chapter 14:    Father's Day
An Epilogue or Two

Artemis Fowl:
A Psychological Assessment

Extract from the Teenage Years

By the age of thirteen, our subject, Artemis Fowl, was showing signs of an intellect greater than that of any human since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Artemis had beaten European chess champion Evan Kashoggi in an on-line tournament, patented over twenty-seven inventions and won the architectural competition to design Dublin's new opera house. He had also written a computer program that diverted millions of dollars from Swiss bank accounts to his own, forged over a dozen Impressionist paintings and cheated the Fairy People out of a substantial amount of gold.
The question is, why? What drove Artemis to get involved in criminal enterprises? The answer lies with his father.
Artemis Fowl Senior was the head of a criminal empire that stretched from Dublin's docklands to the backstreets of Tokyo, but he had ambitions to establish himself as a legitimate businessman. He bought a cargo ship, stocked it with 250,000 cans of cola and set course for Murmansk, in northern Russia, where he had set up a business deal that could have proved profitable for decades to come.
Unfortunately, the Russian Mafiya decided they did not want an Irish tycoon cutting himself a slice of their market, and sank the Fowl Star in the Bay of Kola. Artemis Fowl the First was declared missing, presumed dead.
Artemis Junior was now the head of an empire with limited funds. In order to restore the family fortune, he embarked on a criminal career that would earn him over fifteen million pounds in two short years.
This vast fortune was mainly spent financing rescue expeditions to Russia. Artemis refused to believe that his father was dead, even though every passing day made it seem more likely.
Artemis avoided other teenagers and resented being sent to school, preferring to spend his time plotting his next crime.
So even though his involvement with the goblin uprising during his fourteenth year was to be traumatic, terrifying and dangerous, it was probably the best thing that could have happened. At least he spent some time outdoors and got to meet some new people.
It's a pity most of them were trying to kill him.
Report compiled by: Doctor J. Argon, B. Psych, for the LEP Academy files.

Prologue

Murmansk, northern Russia, two years ago

THE two Russians huddled around a flaming barrel in a futile attempt to ward off the Arctic chill. The Bay of Kola was not a place you wanted to be after September, especially not Murmansk. In Murmansk even the polar bears wore scarves. Nowhere was colder, except perhaps Noril'sk.
The men were Mafiya enforcers and were more used to spending their evenings inside stolen BMWs. The larger of the two, Mikhael Vassikin, checked the fake Rolex beneath the sleeve of his fur coat.
'This thing could freeze up,' he said, tapping the diving bezel. 'What am I going to do with it then?'
'Stop your complaining,' said the one called Kamar. 'It's your fault we're stuck outside in the first place.'
Vassikin paused. 'Pardon me?'
'Our orders were simple: sink the Fowl Star. All you had to do was blow the cargo bay. It was a big enough ship, heaven knows. Blow the cargo bay and down she goes. But no, the great Vassikin hits the stern. Not even a back-up rocket to finish the job. So now we have to search for survivors.'
'She sank, didn't she?'
Kamar shrugged. 'So what? She sank slowly, plenty of time for the passengers to grab on to something. Vassikin, the famous sharpshooter! My grandmother could shoot better.'
Lyubkhin, the Mafiya's man on the docks, approached before the discussion could develop into an all-out brawl.
'How are things?' asked the bear-like Yakut.
Vassikin spat over the quay wall. 'How do you think? Did you find anything?'
'Dead fish and broken crates,' said the Yakut, offering both enforcers a steaming mug. 'Nothing alive. It's been over eight hours now. I have good men searching all the way down to Green Cape.'
Kamar drank deeply, then spat in disgust. 'What is this stuff? Pitch?'
Lyubkhin laughed. 'Hot cola. From the Fowl Star. It's coming ashore by the crate-load. Tonight we are truly on the Bay of Kola.'
'Be warned,' said Vassikin, spilling the liquid on to the snow. 'This weather is souring my temper. So no more terrible jokes. It's enough that I have to listen to Kamar.'
'Not for much longer,' muttered his partner. 'One more sweep and we call off the search. Nothing could survive these waters for eight hours.'
Vassikin held out his empty cup. 'Don't you have something stronger? A shot of vodka to ward off the cold? I know you always keep a flask hidden somewhere.'
Lyubkhin reached for his hip pocket, but stopped when the walkie-talkie on his belt began to emit static. Three short bursts.
'Three squawks. That's the signal.'
'The signal for what?'
Lyubkhin hurried down the docks, shouting back over his shoulder. 'Three squawks on the radio. It means that the K9 unit has found someone.'
The survivor was not Russian. That much was obvious from his clothes. Everything, from the designer suit to the leather overcoat, had obviously been purchased in Western Europe, perhaps even America. They were tailored to fit, and made from the highest-quality material.
Though the man's clothes were relatively intact, his body had not fared so well. His bare feet and hands were mottled with frostbite. One leg hung strangely limp below the knee, and his face was a horrific mask of burns.
The search crew had carried him from a ravine three klicks south of the harbour on a makeshift tarpaulin stretcher. The men crowded around their prize, stamping their feet against the cold that invaded their boots. Vassikin elbowed his way through the gathering, kneeling for a closer look.
'He'll lose the leg for sure,' he noted. 'A couple of fingers too. The face doesn't look too good either.'
'Thank you, Doctor Mikhael,' commented Kamar drily. 'Any ID?'
Vassikin conducted a quick thief's search. Wallet and watch.
'Nothing. That's odd. You'd think a rich man like this would have some personal effects, wouldn't you?'
Kamar nodded. 'Yes, I would.' He turned to the circle of men. 'Ten seconds, then there'll be trouble. Keep the currency, everything else I need returned.'
The sailors considered it. The man was not big. But he was Mafiya, the Russian organized-crime syndicate.
A leather wallet sailed over the crowd, skidding into a dip in the tarpaulin. Moments later it was joined by a Car tier chronograph. Gold with diamond studding. Worth five years of an average Russian's wages.
'Wise decision,' said Kamar, scooping up the treasure trove.
'Well?' asked Vassikin. 'Do we keep him?'
Kamar pulled a platinum Visa card from the kidskin wallet, checking the name.
'Oh we keep him,' he replied, activating his mobile phone. 'We keep him, and put some blankets over him. The way our luck's going, he'll catch pneumonia. And believe me, we don't want anything to happen to this man. He's our ticket to the big time.'
Kamar was getting excited. This was completely out of character for him.
Vassikin clambered to his feet. 'Who are you calling? Who is this guy?'
Kamar picked a number from his speed-dial menu. 'I'm calling Britva. Who do you think I'm calling?'
Vassikin paled. Calling the boss was dangerous. Britva was well known for shooting the bearers of bad news. 'It's good news, right?You're calling with good news?'
Kamar flipped the Visa at his partner. 'Read that.'
Vassikin studied the card for several moments. 'I don't read Angliskii. What does it say? What's the name?'
Kamar told him. A slow smile spread across Mikhael's face. 'Make the call,' he said.

Chapter 1: Family Ties


THE loss of her husband had a profound effect on Angeline Fowl. She had retreated to her room, refusing to go outside. She took refuge in her mind, preferring dreams of the past to real life. It is doubtful whether she would have recovered had not her son, Artemis the Second, done a deal with the elf Holly Short: his mother's sanity in return for half the ransom gold he had stolen from the fairy police. His mother fully recovered, Artemis Junior focused his efforts on locating his father, investing large chunks of the family fortune in Russian excursions, local intelligence and Internet-search companies.
Young Artemis had received a double share of Fowl guile. However, with the recovery of his mother, a moral and beautiful lady, it became increasingly difficult for him to realize his ingenious schemes. Schemes that were ever more necessary to fund the search for his father.
Angeline, distraught by her son's obsession and afraid of the effects of the past two years on his mind, signed up her thirteen-year-old for treatment with the school counsellor.
You have to feel sorry for him. The counsellor, that is ...

ST BARTLEBY’S SCHOOL FOR YOUNG GENTLEMEN, COUNTY WICKLOW IRELAND, PRESENT DAY

Doctor Po leaned back in his padded armchair, eyes flicking across the page in front of him.
'Now, Master Fowl, let's talk, shall we?'
Artemis sighed deeply, smoothing his dark hair back from a wide, pale brow. When would people learn that a mind such as his could not be dissected? He himself had read more psychology textbooks than the counsellor. He had even contributed an article to The Psychologists' Journal under the pseudonym Doctor F. Roy Dean Schlippe.
'Certainly, Doctor. Let's talk about your chair. Victorian?'
Po rubbed the leather arm fondly. 'Yes, quite correct. Something of a family heirloom. My grandfather acquired it at auction at Sotheby's. Apparently it once stood in the palace. The Queen's favourite.'
A taut smile stretched Artemis's lips perhaps a centimetre. 'Really, Doctor. They don't generally allow fakes in the palace.'
Po's grip stretched the worn leather. 'Fake? I assure you, Master Fowl, this is completely authentic.'
Artemis leaned in for a closer examination. 'It's clever, I grant you. But look here.' Po's gaze followed the youth's finger. 'Those furniture tacks. See the criss-cross pattern on the head? Machine tooled. Nineteen twenty at the earliest. Your grandfather was duped. But what matter? A chair is a chair. A possession of no importance, eh, Doctor?'
Po scribbled furiously, burying his dismay. 'Yes, Artemis, very clever. Just as your file says. Playing your little games. Now, shall we get back to you?'
Artemis Fowl the Second straightened the crease in his trousers.
'There is a problem here, Doctor.'
'Really? And what might that be?'
'The problem is that I know the textbook replies to any question you care to ask.'
Doctor Po jotted in his pad for a full minute. 'We do have a problem, Artemis. But that's not it,' he said eventually.
Artemis almost smiled. No doubt the doctor would treat him to another predictable theory. Which disorder would he have today? Multiple personality perhaps, or maybe he'd be a pathological liar?
'The problem is that you don't respect anyone enough to treat them as an equal.'
Artemis was thrown by the statement. This doctor was smarter than the rest. 'That's ridiculous. I hold several people in the highest esteem.'
Po did not glance up from his notebook. 'Really? Who, for example?'
Artemis thought for a moment. 'Albert Einstein. His theories were usually correct. And Archimedes, the Greek mathematician.'
'What about someone that you actually know?'
Artemis thought hard. No one came to mind.
'What? No examples?'
Artemis shrugged. 'You seem to have all the answers, Doctor Po. Why don't you tell me?'
Po opened a window on his laptop. 'Extraordinary. Every time I read this
'My biography, I presume?'
'Yes, it explains a lot.'
'Such as?' asked Artemis, interested in spite of himself.
Doctor Po printed off a page.
'Firstly there's your associate, Butler. A bodyguard, I understand. Hardly a suitable companion for an impressionable boy. Then there's your mother. A wonderful woman in my opinion, but with absolutely no control over your behaviour. Finally, there's your father. According to this, he wasn't much of a role model even when he was alive.'
The remark stung, but Artemis wasn't about to let the doctor realize how much. 'Your file is mistaken, Doctor,' he said. 'My father is alive. Missing perhaps, but alive.'
Po checked the sheet. 'Really? I was under the impression that he has been missing for almost two years. Why, the courts have declared him legally dead.'
Artemis's voice was devoid of emotion, though his heart was pounding. 'I don't care what the courts say, or the Red Cross. He is alive, and I will find him.'
Po scratched another note.
'But even if your father were to return, what then?' he asked. 'Will you follow in his footsteps? Will you be a criminal like him? Perhaps you already are?'
'My father is no criminal,' Artemis pointed out testily. 'He was moving all our assets into legitimate enterprises. The Murmansk venture was completely above board.'
'You're avoiding the question, Artemis,' said Po.
But Artemis had had enough of this line of questioning. Time to play a little game. 'Why, Doctor?' said Artemis, shocked. 'This is a sensitive area. For all you know, I could be suffering from depression.'
'I suppose you could,' said Po, sensing a breakthrough. 'Is that the case?'
Artemis dropped his face into his hands. 'It's my mother, Doctor.'
'Your mother?' prompted Po, trying to keep the excitement from his voice. Artemis had retired half a dozen counsellors from St Bartleby's already this year. Truth be told, Po was on the point of packing his own bags. But now . . .
'My mother, she .. .'
Po leaned forward on his fake Victorian chair. 'Your mother, yes?'
'She forces me to endure this ridiculous therapy when the school's so-called counsellors are little better than misguided do-gooders with degrees.'
Po sighed. 'Very well, Artemis. Have it your way, but you are never going to find peace if you continue to run away from your problems.'
Artemis was spared further analysis by the vibration of his mobile phone. It was on a coded secure line. Only one person had the number. The boy retrieved it from his pocket, flipping open the tiny communicator. 'Yes?'
Butler's voice came through the speaker. 'Artemis. It's me.'
'Obviously. I'm in the middle of something here.'
'We've had a message.'
'Yes. From where?'
'I don't know exactly. But it concerns the Fowl Star.'
A jolt flew along Artemis 's spine. 'Where are you?'
'The main gate.'
'Good man. I'm on my way.'
Doctor Po whipped off his spectacles. 'This session is not over, young man. We made some progress today, even if you won't admit it. Leave now and I will be forced to inform the Dean.'
The warning was lost on Artemis. He was already somewhere else. A familiar electric buzz was crackling over his skin. This was the beginning of something. He could feel it.

Chapter 2: Crusin' For Chix


West Bank, Haven City, The Lower Elements

THE traditional image of a leprechaun is one of a small, green-suited imp. Of course, this is the human image. Fairies have their own stereotypes. The People generally imagine officers of the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance squad to be truculent gnomes or bulked-up elves, recruited straight from their college crunchball squads.
Captain Holly Short fits neither of these descriptions. In fact, she would probably be the last person you would pick as a member of the LEPrecon squad. If you had to guess her occupation, the catlike stance and the sinewy muscles might suggest a gymnast or perhaps a professional potholer. But take a closer look, past the pretty face, into the eyes, and you will see determination so fiery it could light a candle at ten paces, and a streetwise intelligence that made her one of Recon's most respected officers.
Of course, technically, Holly was no longer attached to Recon. Ever since the Artemis Fowl Affair, when she had been captured and held to ransom, her position as Recon's first female officer had been under review. The only reason she wasn't at home watering her ferns right now was that Commander Root had threatened to turn in his own badge if Holly was suspended. Root knew, even if Internal Affairs wasn't convinced, that the kidnapping had not been Holly's fault, and only her quick thinking had prevented loss of life.
But the Council members weren't particularly interested in loss of human life. They were more concerned with loss of fairy gold. And according to them, Holly had cost them a fair chunk from the Recon ransom fund. Holly was quite prepared to fly above ground and wring Artemis Fowl's neck until he returned the gold, but that wasn't the way it worked: the Book, the fairy bible, stated that once a human managed to separate a fairy from his gold, then that gold was his to keep.
So, instead of confiscating her badge, Internal Affairs had insisted Holly handle grunt work — somewhere that she couldn't do any harm. Stakeout was the obvious choice. Holly was farmed out to Customs and Excise, stuck in a Cham pod and suckered to the rock face overlooking a pressure-elevator chute. Dead-end duty.
That said, smuggling was a serious concern for the Lower Elements Police. It wasn't the contraband itself, which was generally harmless junk — designer sunglasses, DVDs, cappuccino machines and such. It was the method of acquiring these items.
The B'wa Kell goblin triad had cornered the smuggling market and was becoming increasingly brazen in its overground excursions. It was even rumoured that the goblins had constructed their own cargo shuttle to make their expeditions more economically viable.
The main problem was that goblins were dim-witted creatures. All it would take was for one of them to forget to shield and goblin photos would be bouncing from satellites to news stations around the world. Then the Lower Elements, the last Mud-Man-free zone on the planet, would be discovered. When that happened, human nature being what it was, pollution, strip-mining and exploitation were sure to follow.
This meant that whichever poor souls were in the Department's bad books got to spend months at a time on surveillance duty, which is why Holly was now anchored to the rock face outside a little-used chute's entrance.

E37 was a pressure elevator that emerged in downtown Paris, France. The European capital was red-flagged as a high-risk area, so visas were rarely approved. LEP business only. No civilian had been in the chute for decades, but it still merited twenty-four seven surveillance — which meant six officers on eight-hour shifts.
Holly was saddled with Chix Verbil for a pod mate. Like most sprites, Chix believed himself God's green-skinned gift to females, and spent more time trying to impress Holly than doing his job.
'Lookin' good tonight, Captain,' was Chix's opening line that particular night. 'You do something with your hair?'
Holly adjusted the screen focus, wondering what you could do with an auburn crew cut.
'Concentrate, Private. We could be up to our necks in a firefight at any second.'
'I doubt it, Captain. This place is quiet as the grave. I love assignments like this. Nice 'n' easy. Just cruisin'.'
Holly surveyed the scene below. Verbil was right. The once thriving suburb had become a ghost town with the chute's closure to the public. Only the occasional foraging troll stumbled past their pod. When trolls began staking out territory in an area, you knew it was deserted.
'It's jus' you an' me, Cap. And the night's still young.'
'Stow it, Verbil. Keep your mind on the job. Or isn't private a low-enough rank for you?'
'Yes, Holly, sorry, I mean, yes, sir.'
Sprites. They were all the same. Give him a pair of wings and he thought he was irresistible.
Holly chewed her lip. They'd wasted enough taxpayers' gold on this stakeout. The brass should just call it a day, but they wouldn't. Surveillance duty was ideal for keeping embarrassing officers out of the public eye.
In spite of this, Holly was determined to do the job to the best of her ability. The Internal Affairs tribunal wasn't going to have any extra ammunition to throw at her if she could help it.
Holly called up their daily pod checklist on the plasma screen. The gauges for the pneumatic clamps were in the green. Plenty of gas to keep their pod hanging there for four long, boring weeks.
Next on the list was thermal imaging. 'Chix, I want you to do a fly-by. We'll run a thermal.'
Verbil grinned. Sprites loved to fly. 'Roger, Captain,' he said, strapping a thermoscan bar to his chest.
Holly opened a hole in the pod and Verbil swooped out, climbing quickly to the shadows. The bar on his chest bathed the area below with heat-sensitive rays. Holly punched up the thermoscan program on her computer. The view screen swam with fuzzy images in various shades of grey. Any living creature would show up, even behind a layer of solid rock. But there was nothing, just a few swear toads and the tail end of a troll shambling off the screen.
Verbil's voice crackled over the speaker. 'Hey, Captain. Should I take 'er in for a closer look?'
That was the trouble with portable scanners. The further away you were, the weaker the rays became.
'OK, Chix. One more sweep. Be careful.'
'Don't worry, Holly. The Chix man will keep himself in one piece for you.'
Holly drew a breath to make a threatening reply, but the retort died in her throat. On the screen. Something was moving.
'Chix. You getting this?'
'Affirmative, Cap. I'm getting it, but I dunno what I'm getting.'
Holly enhanced a section of the screen. Two beings were moving around on the second level. The beings were grey.
'Chix. Hold your position. Continue scanning.'
Grey? How could grey things be moving? Grey was dead. No heat, cold as the grave. Nevertheless ...
'On your guard, Private Verbil. We have possible hostiles.'
Holly opened a channel to Police Plaza. Foaly, the LEP's technical wizard, would undoubtedly have their video feed running in the Operations' booth. 'Foaly. You watching?'
'Yep, Holly,' answered the centaur. 'Just bringing you up on the main screen.'
'What do you make of these shapes? Moving grey? I've never seen anything like it.'
'Me neither.' There followed a brief silence, punctuated by the clicking of a keyboard. 'Two possible explanations. One, equipment malfunction. These could be phantom images from another system. Like interference on a radio.'
'The other explanation?'
'It's so ludicrous that I hardly like to mention it.'
'Yeah, well do me a favour, Foaly, mention it.'
'Well, ridiculous as it sounds, someone may have found a way to beat my system.'
Holly paled. If Foaly was even admitting the possibility, then it was almost definitely true. She cut the centaur off, switching her attention back to Private Verbil. 'Chix! Get out of there. Pull up! Pull up!'
The sprite was far too busy trying to impress his pretty captain to realize the seriousness of his situation. 'Relax, Holly. I'm a sprite. Nobody can hit a sprite.'
That was when a projectile erupted through a chute window, blowing a fist-sized hole in Verbil's wing.

Holly tucked a Neutrino 2000 into its holster, issuing commands through her helmet's corn-set. 'Code Fourteen, repeat Code Fourteen. Fairy down. Fairy down. We are under fire. E37. Send warlock medics and back-up.'
Holly dropped through the hatch, rappelling to the tunnel floor. She ducked behind a statue of Frond, the first elfin king. Chix was lying on a mound of rubble across the avenue. It didn't look good. The side of his helmet had been bashed in by the jagged remains of a low wall, rendering his corn-system completely useless.
She needed to reach him soon or he was a goner. Sprites only had limited healing powers. They could magic away a wart, but gaping wounds were beyond them.
'I'm patching you through to the commander,' said Foaly's voice in her ear. 'Standby.'
Commander Root's gravelly tones barked across the airwaves. He did not sound in the best of moods. No surprises there.
'Captain Short. I want you to hold your position until back-up gets there.'
'Negative, Commander. Chix is hit. I have to reach him.'
'Holly. Captain Kelp is minutes away. Hold your position. Repeat. Hold your position.'
Behind the helmet's visor, Holly gritted her teeth in frustration. She was one step away from being booted out of the LEP, and now this. To rescue Chix she would have to disobey a direct order.
Root sensed her indecision. 'Holly, listen to me. Whatever they're shooting at you, it punched straight through Verbil's wing. Your LEP vest is no good. So sit tight and wait for Captain Kelp.'
Captain Kelp. Possibly the LEP's most gung-ho officer, famous for choosing the name Trouble at his graduation ceremony. Still, there was no officer Holly would have preferred to have at her back going through a door.
'Sorry, sir, I can't wait. Chix took a hit in the wing.You know what that means.'
Shooting a sprite in the wing was not like shooting a bird. Wings were a sprite's largest organ and contained seven major arteries. A hole like that would have ruptured at least three.
Commander Root sighed. Over the speakers it sounded like a rush of static.
'OK, Holly. But stay low. I don't want to lose any of my people today.'
Holly drew her Neutrino 2000 from its holster, flicking the setting up to three. She wasn't taking any chances with the snipers. Presuming they were goblins from the B'wa Kell triad, on this setting the first shot would knock them unconscious for eight hours at the very least.
She gathered her legs beneath her and rocketed out from behind the statue. Immediately a hail of gunfire blew chunks from the structure.
Holly raced towards her fallen comrade, projectiles buzzing around her head like supersonic bees. Generally, in a situation of this kind, the last thing you do is move the victim, but with gunfire raining down on them, there was no choice. Holly grabbed the private by his epaulettes, hauling him behind a rusted-out delivery shuttle.
Chix had been out there a long time. He was grinning feebly. 'You came for me, Cap. I knew you would.'
Holly tried to keep the worry from her voice. 'Of course I came, Chix. Never leave a man behind.'
'I knew you couldn't resist me,' he breathed. 'I knew it.' Then he closed his eyes. There was a lot of damage done here. Maybe too much.
Holly concentrated on the wound. Heal, she thought, and the magic welled up inside her like a million pins and needles. It spread through her arms and ran down to her fingers. She placed her hands on Verbil's wound. Blue sparks tingled from her fingers into the hole. The sparks played around the wound, repairing the scorched tissue and replicating spilt blood. The sprite's breathing calmed, and a healthy green tinge started to return to his cheeks.
Holly sighed. Chix would be OK. He probably wouldn't fly any more missions on that wing, but he would live. Holly laid the unconscious sprite on his side, careful not to put pressure on the injured wing. Now for the mysterious grey shapes. Holly upped the setting on her weapon to four and ran without hesitation towards the chute entrance.
On your very first day in the LEP Academy, a big hairy gnome, with a chest the size of a bull troll, pins each cadet to a wall and warns them never to run into an unsecured building during a firefight. He says this in a most insistent fashion. He repeats it every day until the maxim is etched on every cadet's brain. Nevertheless, this was exactly what Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit proceeded to do.
She blasted the terminal's double doors, diving through to the shelter of a check-in desk. Less than four hundred years ago, this building had been a hive of activity, with tourists queuing for above-ground visas. Paris had once been a very popular tourist destination. But inevitably, it seemed, humans had claimed the European capital for themselves. The only place fairies felt safe was in Disneyland, Paris, where no one looked twice at diminutive creatures, even if they were green.
Holly activated a motion-sensor filter in her helmet and scanned the building through the desk's quartz security panel. If anything moved, the helmet's computer would automatically flag it with an orange corona. She looked up, just in time to see two figures loping along a viewing gallery towards the shuttle bay. They were goblins all right, reverting to all fours for extra speed, trailing a hover trolley behind them. They were wearing some kind of reflective foil suits, complete with headgear, obviously to fox the thermal sensors. Very clever.Too clever for goblins.
Holly ran parallel to the goblins, one floor down. All around her, ancient advertising hoardings sagged in their brackets. TWO-WEEK SOLSTICE TOUR. TWENTY GOLD GRAMS. CHILDREN UNDER TEN TRAVEL FREE.
She vaulted the turnstile gate, racing past the security zone and duty-free booths. The goblins were descending now, boots and gloves flapping on a frozen escalator. One lost his headgear in his haste. He was big for a goblin, over a metre. His lidless eyes rolled in panic, and his forked tongue flicked upwards to moisten his pupils.
Captain Short squeezed off a few bursts on the run. One clipped the backside of the nearest goblin. Holly groaned. Nowhere near a nerve centre. But it didn't have to be. There was a disadvantage to these foil suits. They conducted neutrino charges. The charge spread through the suit's material like fiery ripples across a pond. The goblin jumped a good two metres straight up, then tumbled, unconscious, to the foot of the escalator. The hover trolley spun out of control, crashing into a luggage carousel. Hundreds of small cylindrical objects spilled from a shattered crate.
Goblin Number Two fired a dozen rounds Holly's way. He missed, partly because his arms were jittery with nerves. But also because firing from the hip only works in the movies. Holly tried to take a screen shot of his weapon with her helmet camera for the computer to run a match on, but there was too much vibration.
The chase continued down the conduits and into the departure bay itself. Holly was surprised to hear the hum of docking computers. There wasn't supposed to be any power here. LEP Engineering would have dismantled the generators. Why would power be needed here?
She already knew the answer. Power would be needed to operate the shuttle monorail and Mission Control. Her suspicions were confirmed as she entered the hangar. The goblins had built a shuttle!

It was unbelievable. Goblins had barely enough electricity in their brains to power a ten-watt bulb. How could they possibly build a shuttle? Yet there it was, sitting in the dock like a used-craft seller's worst nightmare. There wasn't a bit of it less than a decade old, and the hull was a patchwork of weld spots and rivets.
Holly swallowed her amazement, concentrating on the pursuit. The goblin had paused to grab a set of wings from the cargo hold. She could have taken a shot then, but it was too risky. She wouldn't be surprised if the shuttle's nuclear battery was protected by nothing more than a single layer of lead.
The goblin took advantage of his reprieve to skip down the access tunnel. The monorail ran the length of the scorched rock to the massive chute. This chute was one of many of the natural vents that riddled the Earth's mantle and crust. Magma streams from the planet's molten core blasted up through these chutes towards the surface at irregular intervals. If it wasn't for these pressure releases, the Earth would have shaken itself to fragments aeons ago. The LEP had harnessed this natural power for express surface shots. Recon officers rode the magma flares in titanium eggs in times of emergency. For a more leisurely trip, shuttles avoided the flares, ascending the chutes on hot-air currents to the various terminals around the world.
Holly slowed her pace. There was nowhere for the goblin to go. Not unless he was going to fly into the chute itself, and nobody was that crazy. Anything that got caught up in a magma flare got fried right down to sub-atomic level.
The chute's entrance loomed ahead. Massive and ringed by charred rock.
Holly switched on the helmet's PA. 'That's far enough,' she shouted over the howl of core wind. 'Give it up. You're not going into the chute without science.'
Science was LEP-speak for technical information. In this case, science would be flare-prediction times. Accurate to within a tenth of a second. Generally.
The goblin raised a strange rifle, this time taking careful aim. The firing pin dropped, but whatever this weapon was firing, there wasn't any left.
'That's the problem with non-nuclear weapons, you run out of charge,' quipped Holly, fulfilling the age-old tradition of firefight banter, even though her knees were threatening to fold.
In response, the goblin hefted the rifle in Holly's direction. It was a terrible throw, landing five metres short. But it served its purpose as a distraction. The triad member used the moment to fire up his wings. They were old models — rotary motor and a broken muffler. The roar of the engine filled the tunnel.
There was another roar, behind the wings. A roar that Holly knew well from a thousand logged flight hours in the chutes. There was a flare coming.
Holly's mind raced. If the goblins had somehow managed to hook up the terminal to a power source, then all the safety features would have been activated. Including ...
Captain Short whirled, but the blast doors were already closing. The fireproof barriers were automatically triggered by a thermo sensor in the chute. When a flare passed by below, two-metre-thick steel doors shut off the access tunnel from the rest of the terminal. They were trapped in there, with a column of magma on the way. Not that the magma would kill them — there wasn't much overspill from the flares. But the super-heated air would bake them drier than autumn leaves.
The goblin was standing on the tunnel's edge, oblivious to the impending eruption. Holly realized that it wasn't a question of the fugitive being crazy enough to fly into the chute. He was just plain stupid.
With a jaunty wave, the goblin hopped into the chute, rising rapidly from view. Not rapidly enough. A seven-metre-long jet of roiling lava pounced on him like a waiting snake, consuming him completely.
Holly did not waste time grieving. She had problems of her own. LEP jumpsuits had thermal coils to disperse excess heat, but that wouldn't be enough. In seconds, a wall of dry heat would roll in there, and raise the temperature enough to crack the walls.
Holly glanced up. A line of reinforced ancient coolant tanks were still bolted to the tunnel roof. She slid her blaster to maximum power and began sinking charges into the belly of the tanks. This was no time for subtlety.
The tanks buckled and split, belching out rancid air and a few trickles of coolant. Useless. Thev must have bled out over the centuries, and the goblins had never bothered replacing them. But there was one left, untouched. A black oblong, out of place among the standard green LEP models. Holly positioned herself directly underneath and fired.
Three thousand gallons of coolant-enhanced water crashed on to her head at the very moment a heatwave came billowing in from the chute. It was a curious sensation being burnt and frozen almost simultaneously. Holly felt blisters pop on her shoulders only to be flattened by water pressure. Captain Short was driven to her knees, lungs starving for air. But she couldn't take a breath, not now, and she couldn't raise a hand to switch on her helmet tank.
After an eternity, the roaring stopped and Holly opened her eyes to a tunnel full of steam. She activated the demister in her visor and got up off her knees. Water slid in sheets from her non-friction suit. She released her helmet seals, taking deep breaths of tunnel air. Still warm, but breathable.
Behind her, the blast doors slid open and Captain Trouble Kelp appeared in the gap, along with an LEP rapid-response team.
'Nice manoeuvre, Captain.'
Holly didn't answer, too absorbed by the weapon abandoned by the recently vaporized goblin. This was the prize pig of rifles, almost half a metre long, with a starlite scope clipped above the barrel.
Holly's first thought had been that somehow the B'wa Kell was manufacturing its own weapons. But now she realized that the truth was far more dangerous. Captain Short pried the rifle from the half-melted rock. She recognized it from her History of Law Enforcement in service. An old Softnose laser. Softnoses had been outlawed long ago. But that wasn't the worst of it. Instead of a fairy power source, the gun was powered by a human AAA alkaline battery.
'Trouble,' she called. 'Have a look at this.'
'D'Arvit,' breathed Kelp, reaching immediately for the radio controls on his helmet. 'Get me a priority channel to Commander Root. We have Class A contraband. Yes, Class A. I need a full team of techies. Get Foaly too. I want this entire quadrant shut down ..."
Trouble continued spouting orders, but they faded to a distant buzz in Holly's ears. The B'wa Kell was trading with the Mud People. Humans and goblins working together to reactivate outlawed weapons. And if the weapons were here, how long could it be before the Mud People followed?
Help arrived just after the nick of time. In thirty minutes there were so many halogen spotlights buzzing around E37 that it looked like a GolemWorld movie premiere.
Foaly was down on his knees examining the unconscious goblin by the escalator. The centaur was the main reason that humans hadn't yet discovered the People's underground lairs. A technical genius, who had pioneered every major development from flare prediction to mind-wiping technology, every discovery made him less respectful and more annoying. But rumour had it that he had a soft spot for a certain female Recon officer. Actually, the only female Recon officer.
'Good job, Holly,' he said, rubbing the goblin's reflective suit. 'You just had a firefight with a kebab.'
'That's it, Foaly, draw attention away from the fact that the B'wa Kell foxed your sensors.'
Foaly tried on one of the helmets. 'Not the B'wa Kell. No way. Too dumb. Goblins just don't have the cranial capacity. These are human manufacture.'
Holly snorted. 'And how do you know that? Recognize the stitching?'
'Nope,' replied Foaly, tossing the helmet to Holly.
Holly read the label. 'Made in Germany.'
'I'd guess that this is a fire suit. The material keeps the heat out as well as in. This is serious, Holly. We're not talking a couple of designer shirts and a case of chocolate bars here. Some human is doing some serious smuggling with the B'wa Kell.'
Foaly stepped out of the way to allow the technical crew access to their prisoner. The techies would tag the unconscious goblin with a subcutaneous sleeper. The sleeper contained microcapsules of a sedative agent and a tiny detonator. Once tagged, a criminal could be knocked out by computer if the LEP realized he was involved in an illegal situation.
'You know who's probably behind this, don't you?' said Holly.
Foaly rolled his eyes. 'Oh, let me guess. Captain Short's arch-enemy, Master Artemis Fowl.'
'Well, who else could it be?'
'Take your pick. The People have been in contact with thousands of Mud Men over the years.'
'Is that so?' retorted Holly. 'And how many that haven't been mind-wiped?'
Foaly pretended to think about it, adjusting the foil hat jammed on his head to deflect any brain-probing signals that could be focused his way. 'Three,' he muttered eventually.
'Pardon?'
'Three, OK?'
'Exactly. Fowl and his pet gorillas. Artemis is behind this. Mark my words.'
'You'd just love that to be the case now, wouldn't you? You'd finally have the chance to get your own back. You do remember what happened the last time the LEP went up against Artemis Fowl?'
'I remember. But that was last time.'
Foaly smirked. 'I would remind you that he'll be thirteen now.'
Holly's hand dropped to her buzz baton. 'I don't care how old he is. One zap with this and he'll be sleeping like a baby.'
Foaly nodded towards the entrance. 'I'd save my charges if I were you. You're going to need them.'
Holly followed his gaze. Commander Julius Root was sweeping across the secured zone. The more he saw, the redder his face grew, hence the nickname, Beetroot.
'Commander,' began Holly. 'You need to see this.'
Root's gaze silenced her. 'What were you thinking?'
'Pardon me, sir?'
'Don't give me that. I was in Ops for the whole thing. I was watching the video feed from your helmet.'
'Oh.'
'Oh hardly covers it, Captain!' Root's buzz-cut grey hair was quivering with emotion. 'This was supposed to be a surveillance mission. There were several back-up squads sitting on their well-trained behinds only waiting for you to call. But no, Captain Short decides to take on the B'wa Kell on her own.'
'I had a man down, sir. There was no choice.'
'What was Verbil doing^out there anyway?'
For the first time, Holly's gaze dropped. 'I sent him out to do a thermal, sir. Just following regulations.'
Root nodded. 'I've talked to the paramedic warlock. Verbil will be OK, but his flying days are over. There'll be a tribunal, of course.'
'Yes, sir. Understood.'
'A formality, I'm sure, but you know the Council.'
Holly knew the Council all too well. She would be the first LEP officer in history to be the subject of two simultaneous investigations.
'So what's this I hear about a Class A?'
All contraband was classed. Class A was code for dangerous human technology. Power sources, for instance.
'This way, sir.'
Holly led them to the rear of the maintenance area, to the shuttle bay itself, where a restricted-access perspex dome had been erected. She pressed through the frosted flaps.
'You see. This is serious.'
Root studied the evidence. In the shuttle's cargo bay were crates of AAA batteries. Holly selected a pack.
'Pencil batteries,' she said. 'A common human power source. Crude, inefficient and an environmental disaster. Twelve crates of them right here. Who knows how many are in the tunnels already.'
Root was unimpressed. 'Forgive me for not quaking in my boots. So a few goblins get to play human video games. So what?'
Foaly had spotted the goblin's Softnose laser. 'Oh no!' he said, checking the weapon.
'Exactly,' agreed Holly.
The commander did not appreciate being left out of the conversation.
'Oh no? I hope you're being melodramatic.'
'No, chief,' replied the centaur, sombre for once. 'This is deadly serious. The B'wa Kell is using human batteries to power the old Softnose lasers. They'd only get about six shots per battery. But you give every goblin a pocketful of power cells, and that's a lot of shots.'
'Softnose lasers? They were outlawed decades ago. Weren't they all recycled?'
Foaly nodded. 'Supposedly. My division supervised the meltdowns. Not that we considered it priority. They were originally powered by a single solar cell, with a life of less than a decade. Obviously somebody managed to sneak a few out of the recycling lock-up.'
'Quite a few by the look of all these batteries. That's the last thing I need, goblins with Softnoses.'
The theory behind the Softnose technique involved placing an inhibitor on the blaster, which allowed the laser to travel at slower speeds so that it actually penetrated the target. Initially developed for mining purposes, they were quickly adapted by some greedy weapons manufacturer.
The Softnoses were just as quickly outlawed, for the obvious reason that these weapons were designed to kill and not incapacitate. Now and then one found its way into the hands of a gang member. But this did not look like small-scale, black-market trading. This looked like somebody was planning something big.
'You know what the worrying thing about this is?' said Foaly.
'No,' said Root, with deceptive calmness. 'Do tell me what the worrying thing is.'
Foaly turned the gun around. 'The way this weapon has been adapted to take a human battery. Very clever. There's no way a goblin figured this out on his own.'
'But why adapt the Softnoses?' asked the commander. 'Why not just use the old solar cells?'
'Those solar cells are very rare. They're worth their weight in gold. Antique dealers use them to power all sorts of old gadgets. And it would be impossible to build a power-cell factory of any kind without my sensors picking up emissions. Much simpler just to steal them from the humans.'
Root lit one of his trademark fungal cigars. 'Tell me that's it. Tell me there's nothing else.'
Holly's gaze flickered to the rear of the hangar. Root caught the glance and pressed past the crates to the makeshift shuttle in the docking bay. The commander climbed into the craft.
'And what the hell is this, Foaly?'
The centaur ran a hand along the ship's hull. 'It's amazing. Unbelievable. They put a shuttle together from junk. I'm surprised this thing gets off the ground.'
The commander bit down hard on his fungus cigar. 'When you're finished admiring the goblins, Foaly, maybe you can explain how the B'wa Kell got a hold of this stuff. I thought all outdated shuttle technology was supposed to be destroyed.'
'That's what I thought. I retired some of this stuff myself. This starboard booster used to be in El, until Captain Short blew it out last year. I remember signing the destruct order.'
Root spared a second to shoot Holly a withering glance.
'So now we have shuttle parts escaping the recycling smelters as well as Softnose lasers. Find out how this shuttle got here.Take it apart, piece by piece. I want every strand of wire lasered for prints and DNA. Feed all the serial numbers into the mainframe. See if there are any common denominators.'
Foaly nodded. 'Good idea. I'll get someone on it.'
'No, Foaly. You get on it. This is priority. So give your conspiracy theories a rest for a few days and find me the inside fairy who's selling this junk.'
'But, Julius,' protested Foaly. 'That's grunt work.'
Root took a step closer. 'One, don't call me Julius, civilian. And two, I'd say it was more like donkey work.'
Foaly noticed the vein pulsing in the commander's temple. 'Point taken,' he said, removing a handheld computer from his belt. 'I'll get right on it.'
'You do that. Now, Captain Short, what is our B'wa Kell prisoner saying?'
Holly shrugged. 'Nothing much, still unconscious. He'll be coughing soot for a month when he wakes up. Anyway, you know how the B'wa Kell works. The soldiers aren't told anything. This guy is just a grunt. It's a pity the Book forbids using the mesmer on other fairies.'
'Hmm,' said Root, his face glowing as red as a baboon's behind. 'An even greater pity the Atlantis Convention outlawed truth drugs. Otherwise we could pump this convict full of serum until he sang like a drunken Mud Man .'The commander took several deep breaths, calming down before his heart popped. 'Right now, we need to find out where these batteries came from, and if there are any more in the Lower Elements.'
Holly took a breath. 'I have a theory, sir.'
'Don't tell me,' groaned Root. 'Artemis Fowl, right?"
'Who else could it be? I knew he'd be back. I knew it.'
'You know the rules, Holly. He beat us last year. Game over. That's what the Book says.'
'Yes, sir, but that was a different game. New game, new rules. If Fowl is supplying power cells to the B'wa Kell, the least we can do is check it out.'
Root considered it. If Fowl was behind this, things could get very complicated, very fast.
'I don't like the idea of interrogating Fowl on his turf. But we can't bring him down here. The pressure below ground would kill him.'
Holly disagreed. 'Not if we keep him in a secure environment. The city is equalized. So are the shuttles.'
'OK, go,' the commander said at last. 'Bring him in for a little chat. Bring the big one too.'
'Butler?'
'Yes, Butler.' Root paused. 'But remember, we're going to run a few scans, Holly, that's it. I don't want you using this as an opportunity to settle a score.'
'No, sir. Strictly business.'
'Do I have your word on that?'
'Yes, sir. I guarantee it.'
Root ground the cigar butt beneath his heel. 'I don't want anyone else getting hurt today, not even Artemis Fowl.'
'Understood.'
'Well,' added the commander, 'not unless it's absolutely necessary.'

CHAPTER 3: Going Underground


St Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen

BUTLER had been in Artemis Fowl's service since the moment of the boy's birth. He had spent the first night of his charge's life standing guard on the Sisters of Mercy maternity ward. For over a decade, Butler had been teacher, mentor and protector to the young heir. The pair had never been separated for more than a week, until now. It shouldn't bother him, he knew that. A bodyguard should never become emotionally attached to his package. It affects his judgement. But in his private moments, Butler couldn't help thinking of the Fowl heir as the son or younger brother he'd never had.
Butler parked the Bentley Arnage Red Label on the college avenue. If anything, the Eurasian manservant had bulked up since mid-term. With Artemis in boarding school, he was spending a lot more time in the gym.Truth be told, Butler was bored pumping iron, but the college authorities absolutely refused to allow him a bunk in Artemis's room. And when the gardener had discovered the bodyguard's hideout just off the seventeenth green, they had banned him from the college grounds altogether.
Artemis slipped through the college gate, Doctor Po's comments still in his thoughts.
'Problems, sir?' said Butler, noticing his employer's sour expression.
Artemis ducked into the Bentley's wine-leather interior, selecting a still water from the bar. 'Hardly, Butler. Just another quack spouting psychobabble."
Butler kept his voice level. 'Should I have a word with him?'
'Never mind him now. What news of the Fowl Star?'
'We got an e-mail at the manor this morning. It's an mpeg;
Artemis scowled. He could not access MPEG video files on his mobile phone.
Butler pulled a portable computer from the glove compartment. 'I thought you might be anxious to see the file, so I downloaded it on to this.'
He passed the computer over his shoulder. Artemis activated the compact machine, folding out the flat colour screen. At first he thought the battery was dead, then realized he was looking at a field of snow. White on white, with only the faintest shadows to indicate dips and drumlins.
Artemis felt the uneasiness rolling in his gut. Funny how such an innocent image could be so foreboding.
The camera panned upwards, revealing a dull twilit sky. Then a black hunched object in the distance. A rhythmic crunching issued through the compact speakers as the cameraman advanced through the snow. The object grew clearer. It was a man sitting on, no, tied to, a chair. The ice clinked in Artemis's glass. His hands were shaking.
The man was dressed in the rags of a once fine suit. Scars branded the prisoner's face like lightning bolts, and one leg appeared to be missing. It was difficult to tell. Artemis's breath was jumpy now, like a marathon runner's.
There was a sign around the man's neck. Cardboard and twine. On the sign was scrawled in thick black letters: Zdmvstvutye, syn. The camera zoomed in on the message for several seconds, then went blank.
'Is that all?' .
Butler nodded. 'Just the man and the sign. That's it.'
'Zdmvstvutye, syn,' muttered Artemis, his accent flawless. Since his father's disappearance he had been teaching himself the language.
'Should I translate for you?' asked Butler, also a Russian speaker. He had picked it up during a five-year stint with an espionage unit in the late eighties. His accent, however, was not quite so sophisticated as his young employer's.
'No, I know what it means,' replied Artemis. ‘Zdmvstvutye, syn: Hello, son.'
Butler pulled the Bentley on to the dual carriageway. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Eventually Butler had to ask.
'Do you think it's him, Artemis? Could that man be your father?'
Artemis rewound the MPEG, freezing it on the mysterious man's face. He touched the display, sending rainbow distortions across the screen.
'I think so, Butler. But the picture quality is too poor. I can't be certain.'
Butler understood the emotions battering his young charge. He too had lost someone aboard the Fowl Star. His uncle, the Major, had been assigned to Artemis's father on that fateful trip. Unfortunately, the Major's body had turned up in theTchersky morgue.
Artemis regained his composure. 'I must pursue this, Butler.'
'You know what's coming next, of course?'
'Yes. A ransom demand. This is merely the teaser, to get my attention. I need to cash in some of the People's gold. Contact Lars in Zurich immediately.'
Butler accelerated into the fast lane.
'Master Artemis, I have had some experience in these matters.'
Artemis did not interrupt. Butler's career before his current charge's birth had been varied to say the least.
'The pattern with kidnappers is to eliminate all witnesses. Then they will generally try to eliminate each other to avoid splitting the ransom.'

'Your point being?'
'My point being that paying a ransom in no way guarantees your father's safety. If indeed that man is your father. It is quite possible that the kidnappers will take your money and then kill all of us.'
Artemis studied the screen. 'You're right, of course. I will have to devise a plan.'
Butler swallowed. He remembered the last plan. It had almost got them both killed, and could have plunged the planet into a cross-species war. Butler was a man who didn't scare easily, but the spark in Artemis Fowl's eyes was enough to send a shiver crackling down his spine.

CHUTE TERMINAL EI: TARA, IRELAND

Captain Holly Short had decided to work a double shift and proceed directly to the surface. She paused only for a nutri-bar and energy shake before hopping on the first shuttle to the terminal at Tara.
One of Tara's officials was not making her journey any easier. The head of security was annoyed that Captain Short had not only put all chute traffic on hold to take a priority pod from El, but had then proceeded to commandeer an entire shuttle for the return journey.
'Why don't you check your system again?' said Holly, through gritted teeth. 'I'm sure the authorization from Police Plaza has arrived by now.'
The truculent gnome consulted his hand-held computer. 'No, ma'am. I ain't got nuthin.'
'Look, Mister ...'
'Commandant Terryl.'
'Commandant Terryl. I'm on an important mission here. National security. I need you to keep the arrivals hall completely clear for the next couple of hours.'
Terryl made a great show of almost collapsing. 'The next coupl'a hours! Are you crazy, girly? I got three shuttles comin' in from Atlantis. What'm I s'posed to tell 'em? Tour's off 'cause of some LEP secret shenanigans. This is high season. I can't just shut things down. No way, no how.'
Holly shrugged. 'Fine. You just let all your tourists catch sight of the two humans I'm bringing down here. There'll be a riot. I guarantee it.'
'Two humans?' said the head of security. 'Inside the terminal? Are you nuts?'
Holly was running out of patience, and time. 'Do you see this?' she demanded, pointing to the insignia on her helmet. 'I'm LEP. A captain. No rent-a-cop gnome is going to stand in the way of my orders.'
Terryl drew himself up to his full height, which was about seventy centimetres. 'Yeah, I heard a you. The crazy girly captain. Caused quite a stir up here last year, didn't you? My tax ingots gonna be payin' for that little screw-up for quite some time.'
'Just ask Central, you bureaucratic idiot.'
'Call me what you want, missy. We have our rules here, and without confirmation from below, ain't nuthin I can do to change 'em. 'Specially not fer some gun-totin' girly with an attitude problem.'
'Well get on the blower to Police Plaza then!'
Terryl sniffed. 'The magma flares have just started actin' up. It's hard to get a line. Maybe I'll try again, after my rounds. Just you take yourself a seat in the departure lounge.'
Holly's hand strayed towards her buzz baton.
'You know what you're doing, don't you?'
'What?' croaked the gnome.
'You're obstructing an LEP operation.'
'I ain't obstructin' nuthin
'And, as such, it is in my power to remove said obstruction using any force that I deem necessary.'
'Don't you threaten me, missy.'
Holly drew the baton, twirling it expertly. 'I'm not threatening you. I'm just informing you of police procedure. If you continue to obstruct me, I remove the obstruction, in this case you, and proceed to the next in command.'
Terryl was unconvinced. 'You wouldn't dare.'
Holly grinned. 'I'm the crazy girly captain. Remember?'
The gnome considered it. It was unlikely the officer would buzz him, but then again who knew with female elves?
'OK,' he said, printing off a sheet on the computer. 'This is a twenty-four-hour visa. But if you're not back here in that time, I'll have you taken into custody on your return. Then I'll be the one making the threats.'
Holly snatched the sheet. 'Whatever. Now, remember, make sure Arrivals is clear when I get back.'

IRELAND, EN ROUTE FROM ST BARTLEBY'S TO FOWL MANOR

Artemis was bouncing ideas off Butler. It was a technique he often used when trying to come up with a plan. After all, if anybody was an expert on covert operations, it was his bodyguard.
'We can't trace the MPEG?'
'No, Artemis. I tried. They put a decay virus in with the e-mail. I only just managed to get the film on disk before the original disintegrated.'
'What about the MPEG itself? Could we get a geographical fix from the stars?'
Butler smiled. Young Master Artemis was starting to think like a soldier.
'No luck. I sent a shot to a friend of mine in NASA. He didn't even bother putting it into the computer. Not enough definition.'
Artemis was silent for a minute.
'How fast can we get to Russia?'
Butler drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. 'It depends.'
'Depends on what?'
'On how we go, legal or illegal.'
'Which is quicker?'
Butler laughed. Something you didn't hear very often. 'Illegal is usually faster. Either way is going to be pretty slow. We can't go by air, that's for sure. The Mafiya are going to have foot soldiers at every airstrip.'
'Are we sure it's the Mafiya?'
Butler glanced in the rear-view mirror. 'I'm afraid so. All kidnappings go through the Mafiya. Even if an ordinary criminal managed to abduct your father, he would have to hand him over once the Mafiya had found out about it.'
Artemis nodded. 'That's what I thought. So we will have to travel by sea, and that will take a week at the very least. We could really use some help with transport.
Something the Mafiya won't expect. How's our ID situation?'
'No problem. I thought we'd go native. We'll arouse less suspicion. I have passports and visas.'
'Da. What is our cover?'
'What about Stefan Bashkir and his Uncle Constantin?'
'Perfect. The chess prodigy and his chaperone.' They had used this cover many times before on previous search missions. Once, a checkpoint official, himself a chess grandmaster, had doubted their story until Artemis beat him in six moves. The technique had since become known as the Bashkir Manoeuvre.
'How soon can we leave?'
'Almost immediately. Missus Fowl and Juliet are in Nice this week. That gives us eight days. We can mail the school, make up some excuse.'
'I dare say St Bartleby's will be glad to be rid of me for a while.'
'We could go straight to the airport from Fowl Manor. The Lear jet is stocked. At least we can fly as far as Scandinavia and we can try to pick up a boat from there. I just have to pick up a few things at the manor first.'
Artemis could imagine exactly the kind of things his manservant wished to pick up. Sharp things and explosive things.
'Good. The sooner the better. We've got to find these people before they know we're looking. We can monitor e-mail as we go.'
Butler took the exit for Fowl Manor.
'You know, Artemis,' he said, glancing in the mirror. 'We're going up against the Russian Mafiya. I've had dealings with these people before. They don't negotiate. This could get bloody. If we take these gangsters on, people are going to get hurt. Most likely us.'
Artemis nodded absently, watching his own reflection in the window. He needed a plan. Something audacious and brilliant. Something that had never been attempted before. Artemis was not unduly worried on that front. His brain had never let him down.

TARA SHUTTLE PORT


The fairy shuttle port at Tara was an impressive operation. Ten thousand cubic metres of terminal concealed beneath an overgrown hillock in the middle of the McGraney farm.
For centuries, the McGraneys had respected the fairy fort's boundaries and, for centuries, they had enjoyed exceptional good luck. Illnesses mysteriously cleared up overnight. Priceless art treasures unearthed themselves with incredible regularity, and mad cow disease seemed to avoid their herds altogether.
Having solved her visa problem, Holly finally made her way to the security door and slipped through the holographic camouflage. She had managed to secure a set of Koboi DoubleDex for the trip. The rig ran on a satellite-bounced solar battery, and employed a revolutionary wing design.There were two sets, or decks; one fixed for gliding, and a smaller set for manoeuvrability. Holly had been dying to try out the DoubleDex, but only a few rigs had made their way across from Koboi Labs. Foaly was reluctant to let them out because he hadn't designed them. Professional envy. Holly had taken advantage of his absence from the lab to swipe a set from the rack.
She soared fifteen metres above the ground, allowing unfiltered surface air to fill her lungs. Though laden with pollutants, it was still sweeter than the recycled tunnel variety. For several minutes, she enjoyed the experience, before turning her concentration to the mission at hand: how to abduct Artemis Fowl.
Not from his home, Fowl Manor, that was for certain. Legally, she put herself on very shaky ground by entering a dwelling without permission. Even though, technically, Fowl had invited her in by kidnapping her last year. Not many lawyers would take your case on the basis of that defence. Anyway, the manor was a virtual fortress and had already seen off an entire LEPretrieval team. Why should she fare any better?
There was also the complication that Artemis could very welt be expecting her, especially if he was trading with the B'wa Kell.The idea of walking into a trap did not appeal to Holly. She had already been imprisoned once in Fowl Manor. Doubtless her cell was still furnished.
Holly activated the computer navigation package, calling up Fowl Manor on her helmet visor. A soft crimson light began to blip beside the 3D plan of the house. The building had been red-flagged by the LEP. Holly groaned. Now she would be treated to a video warning, just in case there was one Recon officer under the world who had not heard of Artemis Fowl.
Corporal Lili Frond's face appeared on the screen. Of course they chose Lili for this assignment. The bimbo face of the LEP. Sexism was alive and well and living in Police Plaza. It was rumoured that Frond's LEP scores had been bumped up because of her descendancy from the elfin king.
'You have selected Fowl Manor,' said Frond's image, fluttering her eyelids. 'This is a red-flagged building. Unauthorized access is strictly forbidden. Do not even attempt a fly-over. Artemis Fowl is considered an active threat to the People.'
A picture of Fowl appeared beside Frond, a digitally enhanced scowl on his face.
'His accomplice, known only as Butler, is not to be approached under any circumstances. He is generally armed and always dangerous.'
Butler's massive head appeared beside the two other images. Armed and dangerous hardly did him justice. He was the only human in history to have taken on a troll and won.
Holly sent the co-ordinates to the flight computer and let the wings do the steering for her. The countryside sped by below. Even since her last visit, the Mud People infestation seemed to have taken a stronger hold. There was barely an acre of land without dozens of their dwellings digging into its soil, and barely a mile of river without one of their factories pouring its poison into the waters.
The sun finally dipped below the horizon and Holly raised the filters on her visor. Time was on her side now. She had the entire night to come up with a plan. Holly found that she missed Foaly's sarcastic comments in her ear. Annoying as the centaur's observations were, they generally proved accurate and had saved her hide on more than one occasion. She tried to establish a link, but the flares were still high and there was no reception. Nothing but static.
Fowl Manor loomed in the distance, completely dominating the surrounding landscape. Holly scanned the building with her thermal bar and found nothing but insect and small rodent life forms. Spiders and mice. Nobody home. That suited her fine. She landed on the head of a particularly gruesome stone gargoyle, and settled in to wait.

FOWL MANOR, DUBLIN, IRELAND

The original Fowl castle had been built by Lord Hugh Fowl in the fifteenth century, overlooking low-lying country on all sides. A tactic borrowed from the Normans: never let your enemies sneak up on you. Over the centuries, the castle had been extensively remodelled until it became a manor, but the attention to security remained. The manor was surrounded by metre-thick walls, and wired with a state-of-the-art security system.
Butler pulled off the road, opening the estate gates with a remote. He glanced back at his employer's pensive face. Sometimes he thought that, in spite of all his contacts, informants and employees, Artemis Fowl was the loneliest boy he'd ever met.
'We could bring a couple of those fairy blasters,' he said.
Butler had relieved LEPretrieval One of their weaponry during the previous year's siege.
Artemis nodded. 'Good idea, but remove the nuclear batteries and put the blasters in a bag with some old games and books. We can pretend they're toys if we're captured.'
'Yes, sir. Good thinking.'
The Bentley Red Label crunched up the driveway, activating the ground's security lights. There were several lamps on in the main house. These were on randomly alternating timers.
Butler undid his seat belt, stepping lithely from the Bentley.
'You need anything special, Artemis?'
Artemis nodded. 'Grab some caviar from the kitchen. You wouldn't believe the muck they feed us in Bartleby's for ten thousand a term.'
Butler smiled again. A teenager asking for caviar. He'd never get used to it.
The smile withered on his lips halfway to the recently remodelled entrance. A shiver passed across his heart. He knew that feeling well. His mother used to say that someone had just walked over his grave. A sixth sense. Gut instinct. There was peril somewhere. Invisible, but here nevertheless.
Holly spotted the headlights raking the sky from over a mile away. Optix were no good from this vantage point. Even when the automobile's windscreen came into view, the glass was tinted and the shadows beyond were deep. She felt her heart rate increase at the sight of Fowl's car.
The Bentley wound along the avenue, flickering between the rows of willow and horse chestnut. Holly ducked instinctively, though she was completely shielded from human eyes. You couldn't be certain with Artemis
Fowl's manservant. Last year Artemis had cannibalized a fairy helmet, constructing an eyepiece that allowed Butler to spot and neutralize an entire crack squad of LEPretrieval commandos. It was hardly likely that he was wearing the lens at the moment but, as Trouble Kelp and his boys had learned, it didn't pay to underestimate Artemis or his manservant.
Holly set the Neutrino to slightly above the recommended stun setting. A couple of Butler's brain cells might get fried, but she wasn't about to lose any sleep over it.
The car swung into the driveway, crunching across the gravel. Butler climbed out. Holly felt her back teeth grinding. Once upon a time, she had saved his life, healing him after a mortal encounter with a troll. She wasn't sure if she'd do it again.
Holding her breath, LEPrecon Captain Holly Short set the DoubleDex to slow descent. She dropped soundlessly, skimming past the storeys, and aimed her weapon at Butler's chest. Now there was a target a sun-blinded dwarf couldn't miss.
The human couldn't have detected her presence. Not possible. Yet something made him pause. He stopped and sniffed the air. The Mud Man was like a dog. No, not a dog, a wolf. A wolf with a big handgun.
Holly focused her helmet lens on the weapon, sending a photo to her computer database. Moments later, a hi-res rotating 3D image of the gun appeared in the corner of her visor.
'Sig Sauer,' said a recorded byte of Foaly's voice. 'Nine millimetre. Thirteen in the magazine. Big bullets. One of these hits you and it could blow your head off; something even the magic can't fix. Other than that you should be all right, presuming you remembered to wear the regulation above-ground micro-fibre jumpsuit recently patented by me. Then again, being a Recon jock, you probably didn't.'
Holly scowled. Foaly was all the more annoying when he was right. She had jumped on the first available shuttle without even bothering to change into an above-ground suit.
Holly's eyes were level with Butler's now, yet she was still hovering over a metre from the ground. She released the visor seals, wincing at the pneumatic hiss.
Butler heard the escaping gas, swinging the Sig Sauer towards the source.
'Fairy,' he said. 'I know you're there. Unshield or I start shooting.'
This was not exactly the tactical advantage Holly had in mind. Her visor was up, and the manservant's finger was creaking on his pistol's hair trigger. She took a deep breath and shut down her shield.
'Hello, Butler,' she said evenly.
Butler cocked the Sig Sauer. 'Hello, Captain. Come down slowly, and don't try any of your ...'
'Put your gun away,' said Holly, her voice layered with the hypnotic mesmer.
Butler fought it, the gun barrel shaking erratically.
'Put it down, Butler. Don't make me fry your brain.'
A vein pulsed in Butler's eyelid.
Unusual, thought Holly. I've never seen that before.
'Don't fight me, Mud Man. Give in to it.'
Butler opened his mouth to speak. To warn Artemis. She pushed harder, the magic cascading around the human's head.
'I said put it down!'
A bead of sweat ran down the bodyguard's cheek.
'PUT IT DOWN!'
And Butler did, gradually and grudgingly.
Holly smiled. 'Good, Mud Man. Now, back to the car and act as though nothing's wrong.'
The manservant's legs obeyed, ignoring the signals from his own brain.
Holly buzzed up her shield. She was going to enjoy this.
Artemis was composing an e-mail on his laptop.
Dear Principal Guiney ... it read ...
Because of your counsellor's tactless interrogation of my little Arty, I have taken him out of school for a course of therapy sessions with real professionals in the Mont Gaspard Clinic in Switzerland. I am considering legal action. Do not attempt to contact me as that would only serve to irritate me further and, when irritated, I generally call my attorneys.
Sincerely,
Angeline Fowl
Artemis sent the message, allowing himself the luxury of a small grin. It would have been nice to watch Principal Guiney's expression when he read the electronic letter. Unfortunately, the button camera he'd planted in the headmaster's office could only be accessed within a mile radius.
Butler opened the driver's door and, after a moment, slipped into the seat.

Artemis folded his phone into its wallet. 'Captain Short, I presume. Why don't you stop vibrating and settle into the visible spectrum?'
Holly speckled into view. There was a gleaming gun in her hand. Guess where it was pointed.
'Really, Holly, is that necessary?'
Holly snorted. 'Well, let's see. Kidnapping, actual bodily harm, extortion, conspiracy to commit murder. I'd say it's necessary.'
'Please, Captain Short,' said Artemis, with a smile, 'I was young and selfish. Believe it or not, I do harbour some doubts over that particular venture.'
'Not enough doubts to return the gold?'
'No,' admitted Artemis. 'Not quite.'
'How did you know I was here?'
Artemis steepled his fingers. 'There were several clues. One, Butler did not conduct his usual bomb check under the car. Two, he returned without the items he went to fetch. Three, the door was left open for several seconds, something no good security man would permit. And four, I detected a slight haze as you entered the vehicle. Elementary really.'
Holly scowled. 'Observant little Mud Boy, aren't you?'
'I try. Now, Captain Short, if you would be so kind as to tell me why you are here.'
'As if you don't know.'
Artemis thought for a moment. 'Interesting. I would guess that something has happened. Obviously something that I am being held responsible for.' He raised an eyebrow fractionally. An intense expression of emotion for Artemis Fowl. 'There are humans trading with the People.'
'Very impressive,' said Holly. 'Or it would be if we didn't both know that you're behind it. And if we can't get the truth out of you, I'm sure your computer files will prove most revealing.'
Artemis closed the laptop's lid. 'Captain. I realize there is no love lost between us, but I don't have time for this now. It is imperative that you give me a few days to sort out my affairs.'
'No can do, Fowl. There are a few people below ground who would like a word.'
Artemis shrugged. 'I suppose after what I did, I can't really expect any consideration.'
'That's right. You can't.'
'Well then,' sighed Artemis. 'I don't suppose I have a choice.'
Holly smiled. 'That's right, Fowl, you don't.'
'Shall we go?' Artemis's tone was meek, but his brain was sparking off ideas. Maybe co-operating with the fairies wasn't such a bad idea. They had certain abilities after all.
'Why not?' Holly turned to Butler. 'Drive south. Stay on the back roads.'
'Tara, I presume. I often wondered where exactly the entrance to El was.'
'Keep wondering, Mud Boy,' muttered Holly. 'Now, sleep. All this deduction is wearing me out.'

Chapter 4: Fowl is Fair


DETENTION CELL 4, POLICE PLAZA, HAVEN CITY, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

ARTEMIS woke in the LEP interrogation room. He could have been in any police interview room in the world. Same uncomfortable furniture, same old routine. Root jumped right in. 'OK, Fowl, start talking.' Artemis took a moment to get his bearings. Holly and Root were facing him across a low plastic-topped table. A high-watt bulb shone directly into his face.
'Really, Commander. Is this it? I expected more.' 'Oh there's more. Just not for criminals like you.' Artemis noted that his hands were shackled to the chair.
'You're not still upset about last year, are you? After all, I won. That is supposed to be that, according to your own Book.'
Root leaned forward until the tip of his cigar was centimetres from Artemis's nose. 'This is an entirely different case, Mud Boy. So don't give me the innocent act.'
Artemis was unperturbed. 'Which one are you? Good Cop or Bad Cop?'
Root laughed heartily, the tip of his cigar drawing patterns in the air. 'Good Cop, Bad Cop! Hate to tell you this, Dorothy, but you ain't in Kansas any more.' The commander loved quoting The Wizard of Oz. Three of his cousins were in the movie.
A figure emerged from the shadows. It had a tail, four legs, two arms and was holding what looked like a pair of common kitchen plungers.
'OK, Mud Boy,' said the figure. 'Just relax and this might not hurt too much.'
Foaly attached the suction cups to Artemis's eyes and the boy immediately fell unconscious.
'The sedative is in the rubber seals,' explained the centaur. 'Gets in through the pores. They never see it coming. Tell me I'm not the cleverest individual in the universe.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Root innocently. 'That pixie Koboi is one pretty sharp female.'
Foaly stamped a hoof angrily. 'Koboi? Koboi? Those wings of hers are ridiculous. If you ask me, we're using far too much Koboi technology these days. It's not good to let one company have all the LEP's business.'
'Unless it's yours, of course.'
‘I’m serious, Julius. I know Opal Koboi from my days at university. She's not stable. There are Koboi chips in all the new Neutrinos. If those labs go under, all we'd have left are the DNA cannons in Police Plaza and a few cases of electric stun guns.'
Root snorted. 'Koboi just upgraded every gun and vehicle in the force. Three times the power, half the heat emission. Better than the last statistics from your lab, Foaly.'
Foaly threaded a set of fibre-optic cables back to the computer.
'Yes, well, maybe if the Council would give me a decent budget ..."
'Quit your moaning, Foaly. I saw the budget for this machine. It better do more than unblock the drains.'
Foaly flicked his tail, highly offended.
'This is a Retimager, I'm considering going private with this baby.'
'And it does what exactly?'
Foaly activated a plasma screen on the holding-cell wall.
'You see these dark circles? These are the human's retinas. Every image leaves a tiny etching, like a photo negative. We can feed whatever pictures we want into the computer and search for matches.'
Root didn't exactly fall to his knees in awe. 'Isn't that handy.'
'Well, yes, it is actually. Observe.'
Foaly called up an image of a goblin, cross-referencing it with the Retimager's database.
'For every matching point we get a hit. About two hundred hits is normal. General shape of the head, features and so on. Anything significantly above that and he's seen that goblin before.'
One eighty-six flashed up on the screen.
'Negative on the goblin. Let's try a Softnose.'
Again, the count was under two hundred.
'Another negative. Sorry, Captain, but Master Fowl here is innocent. He's never even seen a goblin, much less traded with the B'wa Kell.'
'They could have mind-wiped him.'
Foaly removed the seals from Artemis's eyes. 'That's the beauty of this baby. Mind-wipes don't work. The Retimager operates on actual physical evidence. You'd have to scrub the retinas.'
'Anything on the human's computer?'
'Plenty,' replied Foaly. 'But nothing incriminating. Not a single mention of goblins or batteries.'
Root scratched his square jaw. 'What about the big one? He could have been the go-between.'
'Did him already with the Retimager. Nothing. Face it, the LEP have pulled in the wrong Mud Men. Wipe 'em and send 'em home.'
Holly nodded. The commander didn't.
'Wait a minute. I'm thinking.'
'About what?' asked Holly. 'The sooner we get Artemis Fowl's nose out of our business, the better.'
'Maybe not. Since they're already here ..."
Holly's jaw dropped. 'Commander. You don't know Fowl like I do. Give him half a chance and he'll be a bigger problem than the goblins.'
'Maybe he could help us with our Mud Man problem.'
'I have to object, Commander.These humans are not to be trusted.'
Root's face would have glowed in the dark.
'Do you think I like this, Captain? Do you think I relish the idea of crawling to this Mud Boy? I do not. I would rather swallow live stink worms than ask Artemis Fowl for help. But someone is powering the B'wa Kell's arms, and I need to find out who. So get with the programme, Holly. There's more at stake here than your little vendetta.'
Holly bit her tongue. She couldn't oppose the commander, not after all he'd done for her, but asking Artemis Fowl for help was the wrong course of action whatever the situation. She didn't doubt for a minute that the human would have a solution to their problem, but at what cost?
Root drew a deep breath. 'OK, Foaly, bring him round. And fit him with a translator. Speaking Mud Man gives me a headache.'


*


Artemis massaged the puffy skin beneath his eyes.
'Sedative in the seals?' he said, glancing at Foaly. 'Micro-needles?'
The centaur was impressed. 'You're pretty sharp for a Mud Boy.'
Artemis touched the crescent-shaped nodule fixed above his ear.
'Translator?'
Foaly nodded at the commander. 'Speaking in tongues gives some people a headache.'
Artemis straightened his school tie. 'I see. Now, how can I be of service?'
'What makes you think we need help from you, human?' growled Root around the butt of his cigar.
The boy smirked. 'I have a feeling, Commander, that if you did not need something from me, I would be regaining consciousness in my own bed, with absolutely no memory of our encounter.'
Foaly hid his grin behind a hairy hand.
'You're lucky you're not waking up in a cell,' said Holly.
'Still bitter, Captain Short? Can't we wipe the slate clean?'
Holly's glare was all the answer he needed.
Artemis sighed. 'Very well. I shall guess. There are humans trading with the Lower Elements. And you need Butler to track these merchants down. Close enough?'
The fairies were silent for a moment. Hearing it from Fowl suddenly brought the reality home to them.
'Close enough,' admitted Root. 'OK, Foaly, bring Mud Boy up to speed.'
The consultant loaded a file from the LEP central server. A series of Network News clips flashed up on the plasma screen. The reporter was a middle-aged elf with a quiff the size of a Honolulu roller.
'Downtown Haven,' crooned the reporter. 'Another contraband seizure by the LEP. Hollywood laser disks with an estimated street value of five hundred gold grams. The B'wa Kell goblin triad is suspected.'
'It gets worse,' said Root grimly.
Artemis smiled. 'There's worse?'
The reporter appeared again. This time flames billowed from the windows of a warehouse behind him. His quiff looked a bit crispy.
'Tonight the B'wa Kell has staked its claim to the East Bank by torching a warehouse used by Koboi Laboratories. Apparently the pixie with the golden touch refused to pay the triad's protection fee.'
The flames were replaced by another news bite, this time featuring an angry mob.
'Controversy today outside Police Plaza as the public protest at the LEP's failure to deal with the goblin problem. Many ancient houses have been put out of business by the B'wa Kell's racketeering. Most heavily targeted has been Koboi Laboratories, which has suffered six counts of sabotage in the past month alone.'
Foaly froze the image. The public did not look happy.
'The thing you have to understand, Fowl, is that goblins are dumb. I'm not insulting them. It's scientifically proven. Brains no bigger than rats.'
Artemis nodded. 'So who's organizing them?'
Root ground out his cigar. 'We don't know. But it's getting worse. The B'wa Kell has graduated from petty crime to an all-out war on the police. Last night we intercepted a delivery of batteries from the surface. These batteries are being used to power outlawed Softnose laser weapons.'
'And Captain Short thought that I might be the Mud Man on the other end of the deal.'
'Can you blame me?'muttered Holly.
Artemis ignored the comment. 'How do you know the goblins aren't just ripping off wholesalers? After all, batteries are rarely under guard.'
Foaly chuckled. 'No, I don't think you understand just how stupid goblins are. Let me give you an example. One of the B'wa Kell generals, and this is their top fairy, was caught trying to pass off forged credit slips by signing his own name. No, whoever is behind this would need a human contact to make sure the deals weren't fouled up.'
'So you'd like me to find out who this human contact is,' said Artemis. 'And more importantly, how much he knows.'
As he spoke, Artemis's mind was racing. He could work this entire situation to his advantage. The People's powers would be valuable aces to hold in a negotiation with mobsters. The seeds of a plan began to sprout in his brain.
Root nodded reluctantly. 'That's it. I can't risk putting LEPrecon agents above ground. Who knows what technology the goblins have traded. I could be walking my men into a trap. As humans, you could both blend in.'
'Butler blend in?' said Artemis, smiling. 'I doubt it.'
'At least he doesn't have four legs and a tail,' observed Foaly.
'Point taken. And there is no doubt that if any man alive can track down your rogue trader, it's Butler. But ...'
Here we go, thought Holly. Artemis Fowl does nothing for nothing.
'But?' prompted Root.
'But if you want my help, I will require something in return.'
'What exactly?' said Root warily.
'I need transport to Russia,' replied Artemis. 'The Arctic Circle to be precise. And I need help with a rescue attempt.'
Root frowned. 'Northern Russia is not good for us. We can't shield there because of the radiation.'
'Those are my conditions,' said Artemis. 'The man I intend to rescue is my father. For all I know, it's already too late. So I really don't have time to negotiate.'
The Mud Boy sounded sincere. Even Holly's heart softened for a moment. But you never knew with Artemis Fowl — this could all be part of yet another scheme. Root made an executive decision.
'Deal,' he said, holding out his hand.
They shook. Fairy and human. A historic moment.
'Good,' said Root. 'Now, Foaly, wake the big one and give that goblin shuttle a quick systems check.'
'What about me?' asked Holly. 'Back on stakeout duty?'
If Root had not been a commander, he probably would have cackled. 'Oh no, Captain. You're the best shuttle pilot we have. You're going to Paris.'

Chapter 5: Daddy's Girl



KOBOI LABORATORIES, EAST BANK, HAVEN CITY, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

KOBOI Laboratories was carved from the rock of Haven's East Bank. It stood eight storeys high, surrounded by half a mile of granite on five sides, with access from the front only. Management had beefed up their security, and who could blame them? After all, the B'wa Kell had specifically targeted Koboi for arson attacks. The Council had gone so far as to grant the company special weapons permits — if Koboi went under, the entire Haven City defence network went under with it.
Any B'wa Kell goblins attempting to storm Koboi Laboratories would have been met with DNA-coded stun cannons, which scanned an intruder before blasting him.
There were no blind spots in the building, no place to hide. The system was foolproof.
But the goblins didn't have to worry about that. The Laboratories' defences were actually designed to keep out any LEP officers who might come snooping around at the wrong moment. It was Opal Koboi herself who was funding the goblin triad. The attacks on Koboi were actually a smokescreen to divert suspicions away from her own personal dealings: the tiny pixie was the mastermind behind the battery operation and the increased B'wa Kell activity. Well, one of the masterminds. But why would an individual of almost limitless wealth possibly wish to associate with a goblin tunnel gang?
Since the day of her birth, nothing much had ever been expected of Opal Koboi. Born to a family of old-money pixies on Principality Hill, her parents would have been quite content had young Opal done nothing more than attend private school, complete some wishy-washy Arts degree and marry a suitable vice-president.
In fact, as far as her father, Ferall Koboi, was concerned, a dream daughter would have been moderately intelligent, quite pretty and, of course, complacent. But Opal did not display the personality traits Ferall would have wished for. By the age of ten months she was already walking unaided, by a year and a half she had a vocabulary of over five hundred words. Before her second birthday she had dismantled her first hard drive.
Opal grew to be precocious, headstrong and beautiful. A dangerous combination. Ferall lost count of the times he sat his daughter down, advising her to leave business to the male pixies. Eventually Opal refused to see him at all. Her blatant hostility was worrying.
Ferall was right to be worried. Opal's first action in college was to ditch her History of Art degree in favour of the male-dominated Brotherhood of Engineers Masters. No sooner was the scroll in her hand than Opal set up shop in direct opposition to her father. Patents quickly followed. An engine muffler that doubled as an energy streamliner, a 3D entertainment system and, of course, her speciality, the DoubleDex wing series.
Once Opal had destroyed her father's business, she proceeded to buy shares in it at rock-bottom prices, and then incorporated her businesses under the banner of Koboi Laboratories. Within five years, Koboi Laboratories held more defence contracts than any other company. Within ten years, Opal Koboi had personally registered more patents than any fairy alive. Except the centaur Foaly.
But it wasn't enough. Opal Koboi yearned for the kind of power that hadn't been held by any single fairy since the days of the monarchy. Luckily, she knew someone who might be able to assist her with that particular ambition. A disillusioned officer in the LEP, and a classmate from her college days. A certain Briar Cudgeon ...
Briar had good reason to despise the LEP; after all, they had allowed his public humiliation at the hands of Julius Root to go unpunished. Not only that, but he had been stripped of his commander's acorns after his disastrous involvement in the Artemis Fowl Affair ...
It had been a simple matter for Opal to slip a truth pill into Cudgeon's drink in one of Haven's swankier eateries. To her glee, she found that the delightfully twisted Cudgeon was already formulating a plan to topple the LEP. Quite an ingenious plan as it happened. All he needed was a partner. One with large reserves of gold and a secure facility at her disposal. Opal was happy to supply both.
Opal was curled, catlike, in her hoverchair, eavesdropping on the goings-on in Police Plaza when Cudgeon entered the facility. She had installed mole cameras in the LEP network when her engineers were upgrading their system. The units operated on precisely the same frequency as Police Plaza's own surveillance cameras, plus they drew power from the heat leaking from the LEP's fibre optics. Completely undetectable.
'Well?' demanded Cudgeon, with customary bluntness.
Koboi didn't bother to turn around. It had to be Briar. Only he had the necessary access chip to the inner sanctum, implanted in his knuckle.
'We lost the last shipment of power cells. A routine LEP stakeout. Bad luck.'
'D'Arvit!' swore Cudgeon. 'Still, no matter. We have enough stored. And to the LEP, they are simply batteries after all.'
Opal took a breath. 'The goblins were armed ...'
'Don't tell me.'
'With Softnoses.'
Cudgeon pounded a worktop. 'Those idiots! I warned them not to use those weapons. Now Julius will know something is afoot.'
'He may know,' said Opal placatingly. 'But he is powerless to stop us. By the time they figure it out, it will already be too late.'
Cudgeon did not smile. He hadn't in over a year. Instead his scowl grew more pronounced.
'Good. My time is at hand ... Perhaps we should have simply manufactured the batteries ourselves,' he mused.
'No. Just to build a factory would have set us back two years, and there's no guarantee that Foaly wouldn't have discovered it. We had no choice.'
Koboi swivelled to face her partner. 'You look terrible. Have you been using that ointment I gave you?'
Cudgeon rubbed his head tenderly. It was bubbled with horrific lumps. 'It doesn't work. There's cortisone in it. I'm allergic.'
Cudgeon's condition was unusual, perhaps unique. The previous year he had been sedated by Commander Root during the Fowl Manor siege. Unfortunately, the tranquillizer had reacted badly with some banned mind-accelerating substances the former acting-commander had been experimenting with. Cudgeon was left with a forehead like melted tar, plus a droopy eye. Ugly and demoted, not a great combination.
'You should get those boils lanced. I can barely stand the sight of you.'
Sometimes Opal Koboi forgot who she was talking to. Briar Cudgeon was not the usual corporate lackey. He calmly drew a customized Redboy blaster, firing two bursts into the hoverchair's arm.The contraption whirled across the stippled rubber tiles, coming to rest leaving Opal sprawled across a bank of hard drives.
The disgraced LEP elf caught Opal by the pointed chin. 'You better get used to looking at me, my dear Opal. Because soon this face will be on every view screen under this planet, and on top of it.'
The tiny pixie curled her fingers into a fist. She was unaccustomed to insubordination, not to mention actual violence. But at moments like this she could see the madness in Cudgeon's eyes. The drugs had cost him more than his magic and looks, they had cost him his mind.
And suddenly he was himself again, graciously helping her up as though nothing had happened.
'Now, my dear, progress report. The B'wa Kell is eager for blood.'
Opal smoothed the front of her catsuit. 'Captain Short is escorting the human, Artemis Fowl, to E37.'
'Fowl is here?' exclaimed Cudgeon. 'Of course! I should have guessed that he would be suspected. This is perfect! Our human slave will take care of him — Carrere has been mesmerized. I still have that power.'
Koboi applied a layer of blood-red lipstick. 'There could be trouble if Carrere is captured.'
'Don't worry,' Cudgeon assured her. 'Monsieur Carrere has been mesmerized so many times that his mind is blanker than a wiped disk. He couldn't tell any tales, even if he wanted to. Then, once he has done our dirty work for us, the French police will lock him up in a nice padded cell.'
Opal giggled. For someone who never smiled, Cudgeon had a delicious sense of humour.

Chapter 6: Photo Opportunity



CHUTE E37, HAVENI CITY, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

THE unlikely allies took the goblin shuttle up E37. Holly was none too pleased. First of all, she was being ordered to work with public-enemy number one, Artemis Fowl. And secondly, the goblin shuttle was held together by spit and prayers.
Holly hooked a corn rig over one pointy ear. 'Hey, Foaly? You there?'
'Right here, Captain.'
'Remind me again why I'm flying this old slammer.' LEPrecon pilots referred to suspect shuttles as slammers because of their alarming tendency to slam into the chute walls.
'The reason you're flying that old slammer, Captain, is that the goblins built this shuttle inside the port, and all three of the original access ramps were removed years ago. It would take days to get a new rig in there. So, I'm afraid we're stuck with the goblin ship.'
Holly strapped herself into the pilot's wraparound seat. The thruster toggles almost seemed to jump into her hands. For a split second, Captain Short's natural good humour returned. She was an ace pilot, top of her class in the Academy. On her final assessment, Wing Commander Vinyaya had written that Cadet Short could fly a shuttle pod through the gap in your teeth. It was a compliment with a sting in the tail. On her first try-out in a pod, Holly had lost control, crash-landing the craft two metres from Vinyaya's nose.
So, for five seconds, Holly was happy. Then she remembered who her passengers were.
'I wonder, could you tell me,' said Artemis, settling into the co-pilot's chair, 'how close the Russian terminal is to Murmansk?'
'Civilians behind the yellow line,' growled Holly, ignoring the enquiry.
Artemis pressed on. 'This is important to me. I am trying to plan a rescue.'
Holly grinned tightly. 'There's so much irony here, I could write a poem. The kidnapper looking for help with a kidnapping.'
Artemis rubbed his temples. 'Holly, I am a criminal. It's what I do best. When I abducted you, I was thinking only of the ransom. You were never supposed to be in any danger.'
'Oh really?' said Holly. 'Apart from bio-bombs and trolls.'
'True,' admitted Artemis. 'Sometimes plans don't translate smoothly from paper to real life.' He paused, cleaning some non-existent dirt from his manicured nails. 'I have matured, Captain. This is my father. I need all the information I can gather before facing the Mafiya.'
Holly relented. It wasn't easy growing up without a father. She knew. Her own father had passed away when she was barely sixty. More than twenty years ago now.
'OK, Mud Boy, listen up. I'm only saying this once.'
Artemis sat up. Butler stooped as he entered the cockpit. He could smell a war story.
'Over the past two centuries, with the advances in human technology, the LEP have been forced to shut down over sixty terminals. We pulled out of northern Russia in the sixties. The entire Kola peninsula is a nuclear disaster. The People have no tolerance to radiation, we never built up a resistance. In truth, there wasn't much to close down. Just a Grade Three terminal and a couple of cloaking projectors. The People aren't very fond of the Arctic. A bit frosty. Everybody was glad to be leaving. So, to answer your question: there's one unmanned terminal, with little or no above-ground facilities, located about twenty klicks north of Murmansk —'
Foaly's voice blurted from the intercom, interrupting what was dangerously close to a civil conversation. 'OK, Captain. You've got a clear run to the subway. There's still a bit of waffle from the last flare, so go easy.'
Holly pulled down her mouth mike. 'Roger that, Foaly. Have the rad suits ready when I get back. We're on a tight schedule.'
Foaly chuckled. 'Take it easy on the thrusters, Holly. Technically, this is Artemis's first time in the chutes, seeing as he and Butler were mesmerized on the way down. We wouldn't want him getting a fright.'
Holly gunned the throttle quite a bit more than was absolutely necessary. 'No,' she growled. 'We wouldn't want him getting a fright.'
Artemis decided to strap on his restraining harness. A good idea, as it turned out.
Captain Short gunned the makeshift shuttle down the magnetized approach rail. The fins shook, sending twin waves of sparks cascading past the portholes. Holly adjusted the internal gyroscopes, otherwise there'd be Mud People vomiting all over the cockpit.
Holly's thumbs hovered over the turbo buttons. 'OK. Well, let's see what this bucket can do.'
'Don't go trying for any records, Holly,' said Foaly over the speakers. 'That ship is not built for speed. I've seen more aerodynamic dwarfs.'
Holly grunted. After all, what was the point in flying slowly? None whatsoever. And if you happened to terrify a few Mud Men along the way, well, that was just an added bonus.
The service tunnel opened on to the main chute. Artemis gasped. It was an awe-inspiring sight. You could drop Mount Everest down this chute and it wouldn't even hit the sides. A deep red glow pulsed from the Earth's core like the fires of hell, and the constant crack of contracting rock smacked the hull like physical blows.
Holly fired up all four flight engines, tumbling the shuttle into the abyss. Her worries evaporated like the eddies of mist swirling around the cockpit. It was a fly-boy thing. The lower you went without pulling out of the dive, the tougher you were. Even the fiery demise of Retrieval Officer Bom Arbles couldn't stop the LEP pilots core diving. Holly held the current record. Five hundred metres from the Earth's core before dipping the flaps. That had cost her two weeks' suspension, plus a hefty fine.
Not today though. No records in a slammer. With the g-force rippling the skin on her cheeks, Holly dragged the joysticks back, pulling the nose out of vertical. It gave her no small satisfaction to hear both humans sigh with relief.
'OK, Foaly, we're on the up 'n' up. What's the situation above ground?'
She could hear Foaly tapping a keyboard. 'Sorry, Holly. I can't get a lock on any of our surface equipment. Too much radiation from the last flare. You're on your own. Holly eyed the two pale humans in the cockpit. On my own, she thought. I wish.

PARIS, FRANCE

So, if Artemis wasn't the human helping Cudgeon in his quest to arm the B'wa Kell, who was? Some tyrannical dictator? Perhaps a disgruntled general with access to an unlimited supply of power cells? Well, no. Not exactly.
Luc Carrere was responsible for selling batteries to the B'wa Kell. Not that you'd know it to look at him. In fact, he didn't even know it himself. Luc was a small-time French private eye, who was well known for his inefficiency. In PI circles, it was said that Luc couldn't trace a golf ball in a barrel of mozzarella.
Cudgeon decided to use Luc for three reasons. One, Foaly's files showed that Carrere had a reputation as a wheeler-dealer. In spite of his ineptness as an investigator, Luc had a knack for laying his hand on whatever it was the client wanted to buy. Two, the man was greedy and had never been able to resist the lure of easy money. And three, Luc was stupid. And as every little fairy knows, weak minds are easier to mesmerize.
The fact that he had located Carrere in Foaly's database was nearly enough to make Cudgeon smile. Of course, Briar would have preferred not to have any human link in the chain. But a chain comprised completely of goblin links is one dumb chain.
Establishing contact with any Mud Man was not something Cudgeon took lightly. Deranged as he was, Briar was well aware of what would happen if the humans got wind of a new market below ground. They would swarm to the Earth's core like an army of red-backed flesh-eating ants. Cudgeon was not ready to meet the humans head on. Not yet. Not until he had the might of the LEP behind him.
So instead, Cudgeon sent Luc Carrere a little package. First class, shielded goblin mail ...
Luc Carrere had shuffled into his office apartment' one July evening to find a small parcel lying on his desk. The package was nothing more than a FedEx delivery. Or something that looked very much like a FedEx delivery.
Luc slit the tape. Inside the box, cushioned on a nest of hundred-euro bills, was a small flat device of some kind. Like a portable CD player, but made from a strange black metal that seemed to absorb light. Luc would have shouted to reception and instructed his secretary to hold all calls. If he had had a reception. If he had had a secretary. Instead the PI began stuffing cash down his grease-stained shirt as though the notes would disappear.
Suddenly, the device popped open, clam-like, revealing a micro-screen and speakers. A shadowy face appeared on the display. Though Luc could see nothing but a pair of red-rimmed eyes, that was enough to set goose bumps popping across his back.
Funny though, because when the face began to speak, Luc's worries slid away like an old snakeskin. How could he have been worried?This person was obviously a friend. What a lovely voice. Like a choir of angels, all on its own.
'Luc Carrere?'
Luc nearly cried. Poetry.
'Oui. It's me.'
'Bonsoir. Do you see the money, Luc? It's all yours.' Sixty miles below ground, Cudgeon almost smiled. This was easier than expected. He had been worried that the dribble of power left in his brain wouldn't be sufficient to mesmerize the human. But this particular Mud Man seemed to have the will-power of a hungry hog faced with a trough of turnips.
Luc held two wads of cash in his fists. 'This money. It's mine? What do I have to do?'
'Nothing. The money is yours. Do whatever you want.'
Now Luc Carrere knew that there was no such thing as free cash, but that voice ... That voice was truth in a micro-speaker.
'But there's more. A lot more.'
Luc stopped what he was doing, which was kissing a hundred-euro bill. 'More? How much more?'
The eyes seemed to glow crimson. 'As much as you want, Lac. But to get it, I need you to do me a favour.'
Luc was hooked. 'Sure. What kind of favour?'
The voice emanating from the speaker was as clear as spring water. 'It's simple, not even illegal. I need batteries, Luc. Thousands of batteries. Maybe millions. Do you think you can get them for me?'
Luc thought about it for about two seconds. The banknotes were tickling his chin. As a matter of fact, he had a contact on the river who regularly shipped boatloads of hardware to the Middle East, including batteries. Luc was confident that some of those shipments could be diverted.
'Batteries. Oui, certainment, I could do that.'
And so it went on for several months. Luc Carrere hit his contact for every battery he could lay his hands on. It was a sweet deal. Luc would crate the cells up in his apartment and in the morning they would be gone. In their place would sit a fresh pile of bills. Of course, the euros were fake, run off on an old Koboi printer, but Luc couldn't tell the difference. Nobody outside the Treasury could.
Occasionally, the voice on the screen would make a special request. Some fire suits, for example. But hey, Luc was a player now. Nothing was more than a phone call away. In six months, Luc Carrere went from a one-room studio to a fancy loft apartment in St Germain. So naturally, the Surete and Interpol were building separate cases against him. But Luc wasn't to know that. All he knew was that for the first time in his corrupt life, he was riding the gravy train.
One morning there was another parcel on his new marble-topped desk. Bigger this time. Bulkier. But Luc wasn't worried. It was probably more money.
Luc popped the top to reveal an aluminium case and a second communicator. The eyes were waiting for him.
'Bonjour, Luc. fa ra?'
'Bien,' replied Luc, mesmerized from the first syllable.
'I have a special assignment for you today. Do this right and you will never have to worry about money again. Your tool is in the case.'
'What is it?' asked the PI nervously. The instrument looked like a weapon and, even though Luc was mesmerized, Cudgeon did not have enough magic to completely suppress the Parisian's nature. The PI may have been devious, but he was no killer.
'It's a special camera, Luc, that's all. If you pull that thing that looks like a trigger, it takes a picture,' said Cudgeon.
'Oh,' said Luc Carrere blearily.
'Some friends of mine are coming to visit you. And I want you to take their picture. It's just a game we play.'
'How will I know your friends?' asked Luc. 'A lot of people visit me.'
'They will ask about the batteries. If they ask about the batteries, then you take their picture.'
'Sure. Great.' And it was great. Because the voice would never make him do anything wrong. The voice was his friend.

E37 SHUTTLE PORT

Holly steered the slammer through the chute's final section. A proximity sensor in the shuttle's nose set off the landing lights.
'Hmm,' muttered Holly.
Artemis squinted through the quartz windscreen. 'A problem?'
'No. It's just that those lights shouldn't be working. There hasn't been a power source in the terminal since the last century.'
'Our goblin friends, I presume.'
Holly frowned. 'Doubtful. It takes half a dozen goblins to turn on a glow cube. Wiring a shuttle port takes real know-how. Elfin know-how.'
'The plot thickens,' said Artemis. If he'd had a beard, he would have stroked it. 'I smell a traitor. Now, who would have access to all this technology and a motive for selling it?'
Holly pointed the shuttle's cone towards the landing nodes. 'We'll find out soon enough. You just get me a live trader, and my mesmer will soon have him spilling his guts.'
The shuttle docked with a pneumatic hiss as the bay's rubber collar formed an airtight seal around the outer hull.
Butler was out of his chair before the seat-belt light winked off, ready for action.
'Just don't kill anyone,' warned Holly. 'That's not how the LEP likes to operate. Anyway, dead Mud Men don't rat on their partners.'
She brought up a schematic on the wall-screen. It depicted Par is's old city. 'OK,' she said, pointing to a bridge across the Seine. 'We're here. Under this bridge, sixty metres from Notre-Dame. The cathedral, not the football team. The dock is disguised as a bridge support. Stand in the doorway until I give you a green light. We have to be careful here. The last thing we need is some Parisian seeing you emerging from a brick wall.' , . . 'You're not accompanying us?' asked Artemis.
'Orders,' said Holly, scowling. 'Apparently this could be a trap. Who knows what hardware is pointed at the terminal door? Lucky for you, you're expendable. Irish tourists on holiday, you'll fit right in.'
'Lucky us. What leads do we have?'
Holly slid a disk into the console. 'Foaly stuck his Retimager on the goblin prisoner. Apparently he has seen this human.'
The captain brought up a mugshot on the screen. 'Foaly got a match on his Interpol files. Luc Carrere. Disbarred attorney, does a bit of PI work.'
She printed off a card. 'Here's his address. He just moved to a swanky new apartment. It could be nothing, but at least we have somewhere to start. I need you to immobilize him, and show him this.' Holly handed the bodyguard what looked like a diver's watch.
'What is it?' asked the manservant.
'Just a com screen. You put it in front of Carrere's face and I can mesmerize the truth out of him from down here. It also contains one of Foaly's doodahs: a personal shield. The Safetynet. A prototype, you'll be delighted to know. You have the honour of testing it. Touch the screen, and the micro-reactor generates a two-metre diameter sphere of tri-phased light. No good for solids, but laser bursts or concussion shocks are OK.'
'Hmm,' said Butler doubtfully. 'We don't get a lot of laser bursts above ground.'
'Hey, don't use it. Do I care?'
Butler studied the tiny instrument. 'One-metre radius? What about the bits that are sticking out.'
Holly thumped the manservant playfully in the stomach. 'My advice to you, big man, is curl up in a ball.'
‘I’ll try to remember that,' said Butler, cinching the strap around his wrist. 'You two try not to kill each other while I'm gone.'
Artemis was surprised. It didn't happen very often. 'While you're gone? Surely you don't expect me to stay behind?'
Butler tapped his forehead. 'Don't worry, you'll see everything on the iris-cam.'
Artemis fumed for several moments, before settling back down into the co-pilot's seat. 'I know. I would only slow you down, and that, in turn, would slow down the search for my father.'
'Of course, if you insist
'No. This is no time for childishness.'
Butler smiled gently. Childishness was one thing Master Artemis was hardly likely to be accused of.
'How long do I have?'
Holly shrugged. 'As long as it takes. Obviously the sooner the better for everybody's sake.' She glanced at Artemis. 'Especially his father's.'
In spite of everything, Butler felt good. This was life at its most basic. The hunt. Not exactly Stone Age, not with a large semi-automatic weapon under his arm. But the principle was the same: the survival of the fittest. And there was no doubt in Butler's mind that he was the fittest.
He followed Holly's directions to a service ladder, scaling it quickly to the doorway above. He waited beside the metal door until the light above changed from red to green, and the camouflaged entrance slid noiselessly back. The bodyguard emerged cautiously. While it was likely that the bridge was deserted, he could hardly explain himself away as a homeless person, dressed as he was in a dark designer suit.
Butler felt a breeze play across the shaven dome of his crown. The morning air felt good, even after a few hours below ground. He could easily imagine how fairies must feel, forced out of their native environment by humans. From what Butler had seen, if the People ever decided to reclaim what was theirs, the battle wouldn't last long. But luckily for mankind, fairies were a peace-loving people, and not prepared to go to war over real estate.
The coast was clear. Butler stepped casually on to the riverside walkway, proceeding west towards the St Germain district.
A riverboat swept past on his right, ferrying a hundred tourists around the city. Butler automatically covered his face with a massive hand. Just in case some of those tourists had cameras pointed in his direction.
The bodyguard mounted a set of stone steps to the road above. Behind him the pointed spire of Notre-Dame rose into the sky, and to his left the Eiffel Tower's famous profile punctured the clouds. Butler strode confidently across the main road, nodding at several French ladies who stopped to stare. He was familiar with this area of Paris, having spent a month recuperating here after a particularly dangerous assignment for the French Secret Service.
Butler strolled along Rue Jacob. Even at this hour, cars and lorries jammed the narrow street. Drivers leaned on their horns, hanging from car windows, Gallic tempers running wild. Mopeds dodged between bumpers, and several pretty girls strolled past. Butler smiled. Paris. He had forgotten.
Carrere's apartment was on Rue Bonaparte, opposite the church. Apartments in St Germain cost more per month than most Parisians made in a year. Butler ordered a coffee and croissant at the Bonaparte cafe, settling himself at an outside table. According to his calculations, it gave him the perfect view of Monsieur Carrere's balcony.
Butler didn't have long to wait. In less than an hour, the chunky Parisian appeared on the balcony, leaning on the ornate railing for several minutes. He very obligingly presented front and side views of himself.
Holly's voice sounded in Butler's ear. 'That's our boy. Is he alone?'
'I can't tell,' muttered the bodyguard into his hand.The flesh-tone mike glued to his throat would pick up any vibrations and translate them for Holly.
'Just a sec.'
Butler heard a keyboard being tapped, and suddenly the iris-cam in his eye sparked. The vision in one eye jumped into a completely different spectrum.
'Heat-sensitive,' Holly informed him. 'Hot equals red. Cold equals blue. Not a very powerful system, but the lens should penetrate an outer wall.'
Butler cast a fresh eye over the apartment. There were three red objects in the room. One was Carrere's heart, which pulsed crimson in the centre of his pink body. The second appeared to be a kettle or possibly a coffee pot, and the third was a TV.
'OK. All clear, I'm going in.'
'Affirmative. Watch your step. This is a bit too convenient.'
'Agreed.'
Butler crossed the cobbled street to the four-storey apartment building. There was an intercom security system, but this structure was nineteenth century, and a solid shoulder at the right point popped the bolt right out of its housing.
‘I’m in.’
There was noise on the stairs above. Someone coming this way. Butler wasn't unduly concerned. Nevertheless he slid a palm inside his jacket, fingers resting on his handgun's grip. It was unlikely he would need it. Even the most boisterous young bucks generally gave Butler a wide berth. Something to do with his merciless eyes. Being over two metres tall didn't hurt either.
A group of teenagers rounded the corner.
'Excusez-moi,' said Butler, gallantly stepping aside.
The girls giggled. The boys glared. One, a mono-eyebrowed rugby type, even thought about passing comment. Then Butler winked at him. It was a peculiar wink, somehow simultaneously cheerful and terrifying. No comments were passed.
Butler ascended to the fourth floor without incident. Carrere's apartment was on the gable end. Two walls of windows. Very expensive.
The bodyguard was considering his breaking and entering options when he noticed the door was open. Open doors generally meant one of two things: one, nobody was left alive to close it, or two, he was expected. Neither of these options appealed to him particularly.
Butler entered cautiously. The apartment walls were lined with open crates. Battery packs and fire suits poked through the Styrofoam packing. The floor was littered with thick wads of currency.
'Are you a friend?' It was Carrere. He was slumped in an oversized armchair, a weapon of some kind nestling in his lap.
Butler approached slowly. An important rule of combat is that every opponent is taken seriously.
'Take it easy.'
The Parisian raised the weapon. The grip was made for smaller fingers. A child, or a fairy. 'I asked if you were a friend.'
Butler cocked his own pistol. 'No need to shoot.'
'Stand still,' ordered Carrere. 'I'm not going to shoot you, just take your photo maybe. The voice told me.'
Holly's voice sounded in Butler's earpiece. 'Get closer. I need to see the eyes.'
Butler bolstered his weapon, taking a step forward. 'You see, no one has to get hurt here.'
'I'm going to enhance the image,' said Holly. 'This may sting a bit.'
The tiny camera in his eye buzzed, and suddenly Butler's vision was magnified by four — which would have been just fine had the magnification not been accompanied by a sharp jolt of pain. Butler blinked back a stream of tears from his eye.
Below, in the goblin shuttle, Holly studied Luc's pupils. 'He's been mesmerized,' she pronounced. 'Several times. You see how the iris has actually become jagged. You mesmerize a human too much and they can go blind.'
Artemis studied the image. 'Is it safe to mesmerize him again?'
Holly shrugged. 'Doesn't matter. He's already under a spell. This particular individual is just following orders. His brain doesn't know a thing about it.'
Artemis grabbed the mike stand. 'Butler! Get out of there. Right now.'
In the apartment, Butler stood his ground. Any sudden movement might be his last.
'Butler,' said Holly. 'Listen carefully. That gun pointed at you is a wide-bore low-frequency blaster. We call it a Bouncer. It was developed for tunnel skirmishes. If he pulls that trigger, a wide arc laser is going to ricochet off the walls until it hits something.'
'I see,' muttered Butler.
'What did you say?' asked Carrere.
'Nothing. I just don't like having my photo taken.'
A spark of Luc's greedy personality surfaced. 'I like that watch on your wrist. It looks expensive. Is it a Rolex?'
'You don't want this,' said Butler, very reluctant to part with the com screen. 'It's cheap. A piece of trash.'
'Just give me the watch.'
Butler peeled back the strap of the instrument on his wrist. 'If I give you this watch, maybe you can tell me about all these batteries.'
'It is you! Say cheese,' squealed Carrere, forcing his pudgy thumb into the undersized trigger guard and pumping for all he was worth.
For Butler, time seemed to slow to a crawl. It was almost as though he were inside his personal time-stop. His soldier's brain absorbed all the facts and analysed his options. Carrere's finger was too far gone. In a moment, a wide-bore laser burst would be speeding his way, and would continue to bounce around the room until they were both dead. His gun was of no use in a situation like this. All he had was the Safetynet, but a two-metre sphere was not going to be enough. Not for two good-sized humans.
So, in the fraction of a second left to him, Butler formulated a new strategy. If the sphere could stop concussive waves coming towards him, perhaps it could stop them coming out of the blaster. Butler touched the screen of the Safetynet, and hurled the device in Carrere's direction.
Not a nanosecond too soon, a spherical shield blossomed, enveloping the expanding beam from Carrere's blaster: 360 degrees of protection. It was a sight to see, a fireworks display in a bubble. The shield hovered in the air, shafts of light ricocheting against the sphere's curved planes.
Carrere was hypnotized by the sight, and Butler took advantage of the distraction to disarm him.
'Start the engines,' grunted the bodyguard into his throat mike. 'The Surete are going to be all over this place in minutes. Foaly's Safetynet didn't stop the noise.'
'Roger that. What about Monsieur Carrere?'
Butler dumped the dazed Parisian flat on the carpet. 'Luc and I are going to have a little chat.'
For the first time Carrere seemed to be aware of his surroundings.
'Who are you?' he mumbled. 'What's happening?'
Butler ripped open the man's shirt, placing his palm flat on the Pi's heart. Time for a little trick he'd learned from Madame Ko, his Japanese sensei. 'Don't worry, Monsieur Carrere. I'm a doctor.There's been an accident, but you're perfectly fine.'
'An accident? I don't remember any accident.'
'Trauma. It's quite normal. I'm just going to check your vitals.'
Butler placed a thumb on Luc's neck, locating the artery. 'I'm going to ask you a few questions, to check for concussion.'
Luc didn't argue. Then again, who'd argue with a two-metre-plus Eurasian with muscles like a Michelangelo statue?
'Is your name Luc Carrere?'
'Yes.'
Butler noted the pulse rate. One from the heartbeat, and a second reference on the carotid artery. Steady, in spite of the accident.
'Are you a private eye?'
'I prefer the title investigator.'
No increase in pulse rate. The man was telling the truth.
'Have you ever sold batteries to a mystery buyer?'
'No, I have not,' protested Luc. 'What kind of doctor are you?'
The man's pulse sky-rocketed. He was lying.
'Answer the questions, Monsieur Carrere,' said Butler sternly. 'Just one more. Have you ever had dealings with goblins?'
Relief flooded through Luc. The police did not ask questions about fairies. 'What are you? Crazy? Goblins? I don't know what you're talking about.'
Butler closed his eyes, concentrating on the pounding beneath his thumb and palm. Luc's pulse had settled. He was telling the truth. He had never had any direct dealings with the goblins. Obviously the B'wa Kell wasn't that stupid.
Butler stood up, pocketing the Bouncer. He could hear the sirens on the street below.
'Hey, Doctor,' protested Luc. 'You can't just leave me like this.'
Butler eyed him coldly. 'I would take you with me, but the police will want to know why your apartment is full of what I suspect are counterfeit bills.'
Luc could only watch with his mouth open as the giant figure disappeared into the corridor. He knew he should run, but Luc Carrere hadn't run more than fifty metres since gym class in the nineteen seventies, and anyway, his legs had suddenly turned to jelly. The thought of a long stretch in prison can do that to a person.

Chapter 7: Joining The Dots



POLICE PLAZA

ROOT pointed the finger of authority at Holly.
'Congratulations, Captain. You managed to lose some LEP technology.' Holly was ready for that one. 'Not strictly my fault, sir. The human was mesmerized and you ordered me not to leave the shuttle. I had no control over the situation.'
'Ten out of ten,' commented Foaly. 'Good answer. Anyway the Safetynet has a self-destruct, like everything I send into the field.'
'Quiet, civilian,' snapped the commander. But there was no venom in the LEP officer's rebuke. He was relieved; they all were. The human threat had been contained, and without the loss of a single life. They were gathered in a conference room reserved for civilian committees. Generally debriefings of this importance would be held in the Operations' Centre, but the LEP was not ready to show Artemis Fowl the nerve centre of its defences just yet.
Root jabbed an intercom button on the desk.
'Trouble, are you out there?'
'Yessir.'
'OK. Now listen, I want you to stand down the alert. Send the teams into the deep tunnels, see if we can't root out a few goblin gangs. There are still plenty of loose ends: who's organizing the B'wa Kell for one, and for what reason?'
Artemis knew he shouldn't say anything. The sooner his side of the bargain was completed, the sooner he could be in the Arctic. But the entire Paris scenario seemed suspicious.
'Does anyone else think this is too neat? It's just what you all wanted to happen. Not to mention the fact that there could be more mesmerized humans up there.'
Root did not appreciate being lectured by a Mud Boy. Especially this particular Mud Boy.
'Look, Fowl, you've done what we asked. The Paris connection has been broken off. There won't be any more illegal shipments coming down that chute, I assure you. In fact, we have doubled security on all chutes, whether they're operational or not. The important thing is that whoever is trading with the humans hasn't told them about the People. There will, of course, be a major investigation, but that's an internal problem. So don't you worry your juvenile head about it. Concentrate on growing some bristles.'
Foaly interrupted before Artemis could respond. 'About Russia,' he said, hurriedly placing his torso between Artemis and the commander. 'I've got a lead.'
'You traced the e-mail?' said Artemis, his attention switching immediately to the centaur.
'Exactly,' confirmed Foaly, launching into lecture mode.
'But it's been spiked. Untraceable.'
Foaly chuckled openly. 'Spiked? Don't make me laugh. You Mud Men and your communications systems. You're still using wires, for heaven's sake. If it's been sent, I can trace it.'
'So, where did you trace it to?'
'Every computer has a signature, as individual as a fingerprint,' continued Foaly. 'Networks too. They leave micro-traces, depending on the age of the wiring. Everything is molecular, and if you pack gigabytes of data into a little cable, some of that cable is going to wear off.'
Butler was growing impatient. 'Listen, Foaly.Time is of the essence. Mister Fowl's life could hang in the balance. So get to the point before I start breaking things.'
The centaur's first impulse was to laugh. Surely the human was joking? Then he remembered what Butler had done to Trouble Kelp's Retrieval squad, and decided to proceed directly to the point.
'Very well, Mud Man. Keep your hair on.'
Well, almost directly to the point.
'I put the MPEG through my filters. Uranium residue points to northern Russia.'
'Now there's a shock.'
'I'm not finished,' said Foaly. 'Watch and learn.'
The centaur brought up a satellite photo of the Arctic Circle on the wall-screen. With every keystroke, the highlighted area shrank.
'Uranium means Severomorsk. Or somewhere within fifty miles. The copper wiring is from an old network. Early twentieth century, patched up over the years. The only match is Murmansk. As easy as joining the dots.' ,
Artemis sat forward in his chair.
'There are two hundred and eighty-four thousand landlines on that network.' Foaly had to stop for a laugh. 'Landlines. Barbarians.'
Butler cracked his knuckles loudly.
'Ah, so two hundred and eighty-four thousand landlines. I wrote a program to search for hits on our MPEG. Two possible matches. One, the Hall of Justice.'
'Not likely. The other?'
'The other line is registered to a Mikhael Vassikin on Lenin Prospekt.'
Artemis felt his stomach churn. 'And what do we know about Mikhael Vassikin?'
Foaly wiggled his fingers like a concert pianist. 'I ran a search on my own intelligence files archives. I like to keep tabs on Mud People's so-called intelligence agencies. Quite a few mentions of you by the way, Butler.'
The manservant tried to look innocent, but his facial muscles couldn't quite pull it off.
'Mikhael Vassikin is ex-KGB, now working for the Mafiya. The official term is khuligany. An enforcer. Not high level, but not street trash either. Vassikin's boss is a Murmansker known as Britva.The group's main source of income is the kidnapping of European businessmen. In the past five years they have abducted six Germans and a Swede.'
'How many were recovered alive?' asked Artemis, his voice a whisper.
Foaly consulted his statistics. 'None,' he said. 'And in two cases, the negotiators went missing. Eight million dollars in lost ransom.'
Butler struggled from a tiny fairy chair. 'Right, enough talk. I think it's time Mister Vassikin was introduced to my friend, Mister Fist.'
Melodramatic, thought Artemis. But I couldn't have put it better myself.
'Yes, old friend. Soon enough. But I have no wish to add you to the list of lost negotiators. These men are smart. So we must be smarter. We have advantages that none of our predecessors had. We know who the kidnapper is, we know where he lives and, most importantly, we have fairy magic.' Artemis glanced at Commander Root. 'We do have fairy magic, don't we?'
'You have this fairy at any rate,' replied the commander. 'I won't force any of my people to go to Russia. But I could use some back-up.' He glanced at Holly. 'What do you think?'
'Of course I'm coming,' said Holly. 'I'm the best shuttle pilot you have.'

KOBOI LABORATORIES

There was a firing range in the Koboi Labs' basement. Opal had it constructed to her exact specifications. It incorporated her 3D projection system, was completely soundproof and was mounted on gyroscopes. You could drop an elephant from twenty metres in there and no seismograph under the world would detect so much as a shudder.
The purpose of the firing range was to give the B'wa Kell somewhere to practise with their Softnose lasers before the operation began in earnest. But it was Briar Cudgeon who had logged more hours on the simulators than anyone else. He seemed to spend every spare minute fighting virtual battles with his nemesis, Commander Julius Root.
When Opal found him, he was pumping shells from his prized Softnose Redboy into a 3D holoscreen running one of Root's old training films. It was pathetic really; a fact she didn't bother mentioning.
Cudgeon twisted out his earplugs. 'So. Who died?'
Opal handed him a video pad. 'This just came in on the spy cameras. Carrere proved as inept as usual. Everyone survived but, as you predicted, Root has called off the alert. And now the commander has agreed to personally escort the humans to northern Russia, inside the Arctic Circle.'
'I know where northern Russia is,' Cudgeon snapped. He paused, stroking his bubbled forehead thoughtfully for several moments. 'This could turn out to our advantage. Now we have the perfect opportunity to eliminate the commander. With Julius out of the way, the LEP will be like a headless stink worm. Especially with their surface communications down. Their communications are down I take it?'
'Of course,' replied Opal. 'The jammer is linked into the chute sensors. All interference with surface transmitters will be blamed on the magma flares.'
'Perfect,' said Cudgeon, his mouth twitching in what could almost be described as glee. 'I want you to disable all LEP weaponry now. No need to give Julius any advantages.'


When Koboi Laboratories had upgraded LEP weapons and transport, a tiny dot of solder had been included in each device. The solder was actually a mercury/glycerine solution that would detonate when a signal of the appropriate frequency was broadcast from the Koboi communications dish. LEP blasters would be useless, while the B'wa Kell would be armed to the teeth with Softnose lasers.
'Consider it done,' said Opal. 'Are you certain Root won't be returning? He could upset our entire plan.'
Cudgeon polished the Redboy on the leg of his uniform. 'Don't fret, my dear. Julius won't be coming back. Now that I know where he's going, I'll arrange for a little welcome party. I'm certain our scaly friends will be only too eager to oblige.'
The funny thing was that Briar Cudgeon didn't even like goblins. In fact, he detested them. They made his skin crawl with their reptilian ways. Their gas-burner breath, their lidless eyes and their constantly darting forked tongues.
But they did supply a certain something that Cudgeon needed: dumb muscle.
For centuries, the B'wa Kell triad had skulked around Haven's borders, vandalizing what they couldn't steal and fleecing any tourists stupid enough to stray off the beaten path. But they were never really any threat to society. Whenever they got too cheeky, Commander Root would send a team into the tunnels to flush out the culprits.
One evening, a disguised Briar Cudgeon strolled into The Second Skin, a notorious B'wa Kell hang-out, plonked an attache case of gold ingots on the bar and said, 'I want to talk to the triad.'
Cudgeon was searched and blindfolded by several of the club's bouncers. When the tape came off his face, he was in a damp warehouse, walls lined with creeping moss. Three elderly goblins were seated across the table from him. He recognized them from their mugshots. Scalene, Sputa and Phlebum.The triad old guard.
The gift of gold, and the promise of more, were enough to pique their curiosity. His first utterance was carefully planned.
'Ah, Generals, I am honoured you greet me in person.'
The goblins puffed out their wrinkled old chests proudly. Generals?
The rest of Cudgeon's patter was equally smooth. He could 'help' organize the B'wa Kell, streamline it and, most importantly, arm it. Then, when the time was right, they would rise up and overthrow the Council and their lackeys, the LEP. Cudgeon promised that his first act as Governor General would be to free all the goblin prisoners in Howler's Peak. It didn't hurt that he subtly laced his speech with hints of the hypnotic mesmer.
It was an offer the goblins could not refuse. Gold, weapons, freedom for their brothers and, of course, a chance to crush the hated LEP. It never occurred to the B'wa Kell that Cudgeon could betray them just as easily as he had the LEP. They were as dumb as stink worms and twice as short-sighted.
Cudgeon met with General Scalene in a secret chamber beneath the Koboi Labs. He was in a foul mood following Luc's failure to put a scratch on any of his enemies. But there was always Plan B ... The B'wa Kell was always eager to kill someone. It didn't really matter who.
The goblin was excited, thirsty for blood. He panted blue flames like a broken heater. 'When do we go to war, Cudgeon? Tell us when?'
The elf kept his distance. He dreamed of the day when these stupid creatures would no longer be necessary.
'Soon, General Scalene. Very soon. But first I need a favour. It concerns Commander Root.'
The goblin's yellow eyes narrowed. 'Root? The hated one. Can we kill him? Can we crack his skull and fry his brains?'
Cudgeon smiled magnanimously. 'Certainly, General. All of these things. Once Root is dead, the city will fall easily.'
The goblin was bobbing now, jiggling with excitement. 'Where is he? Where is Root?'
'I don't know,' Cudgeon admitted. 'But I know where he will be in six hours.'
'Where?Tell me, elf!'
Cudgeon heaved a large case on to the table. It contained four pairs of Koboi DoubleDex. 'Chute 93. Take these, send your best hit squad. And tell them to wrap up warm.'

CHUTE E93

Julius Root always travelled in style. In this instance, he had commandeered the Atlantean ambassador's shuttle. All leather and gold. Seats softer than a gnome's behind, and drag buffers that negated all but the most serious jolts. Needless to say, the Atlantean ambassador hadn't been all that thrilled about handing over the starter chip. But it was difficult to refuse the commander when his fingers were drumming a tattoo on the tri-barrelled blaster strapped to his hip. So now the humans and their two elfin chaperones were climbing E93 in some considerable comfort.
Artemis helped himself to a still water from the chiller cabinet. 'This tastes unusual,' he commented. 'Not unpleasant, but different.'
'Clean is the word you're searching for,' said Holly. 'You wouldn't believe how many filters we have to put it through to purge the Mud People from it.'
'No bickering, Captain Short,' warned Root. 'We're on the same side now. I want a smooth mission. Now suit up, all of you. We won't last five minutes out there without protection.'
Holly cracked open an overhead locker. 'Fowl, front and centre.'
Artemis complied, a bemused smile twitching at his lips.
Holly pulled several cubic packages from the locker. 'What are you, about a six?'
Artemis shrugged. He wasn't familiar with the People's system of measurement.
'What? Artemis Fowl doesn't know? I thought you were the world's expert on the People. It was you who stole our Book last year, wasn't it?'
Artemis unwrapped the package. It was a suit of some ultra-light rubber polymer.
'Anti-radiation,' explained Holly. 'Your cells will thank me in fifty years, if you're still around.'
Artemis pulled the suit over his clothes. It shrank to fit like a second skin. 'Clever material.'
'Memory latex. Moulds itself to your shape, within reason. One use only unfortunately. Wear it and recycle it.'
Butler clinked over. He was carrying so much fairy weaponry that Foaly had supplied him with a Moonbelt. The belt reduced the effective weight of its attachments to one fifth of the Earth norm.
'What about me?' asked Butler, nodding at the rad suits.
Holly frowned. 'We don't have anything that big. Latex can only go so far.'
'Forget it. I've been in Russia before. It didn't kill me.'
'Not yet it hasn't. Give it time.'
Butler shrugged. 'What choice do I have?'
Holly smiled, and there was a nasty twist to it. 'Oh, I didn't say there wasn't a choice.'
She reached into the locker, pulling out a large pump 'n' spray can. And, for some reason, that little can scared Butler more than a bunker full of missiles.
'Now, hold still,' she said, aiming a gramophone-type nozzle at the bodyguard. 'This may stink worse than a hermit dwarf, but at least your skin won't glow in the dark.'