“I’m offering you twelve months. For the right price, I’m prepared to keep my Cube off the market for a year.”
Jon Spiro toyed with his ID bracelet. A birthday present to himself. “You’ll suppress the technology for a year?”
“Correct. That should give you ample time to sell your stocks before they crash, and use the profits to buy into Fowl Industries.”
“There is no Fowl Industries.”
Artemis smirked. “There will be.”
Butler squeezed his employer’s shoulder. It was not a good idea to bait a man like Jon Spiro.
But Spiro hadn’t even noticed the gibe. He was too busy calculating, twisting his bracelet like a string of worry beads.
“Your price?” he asked eventually.
“Gold. One metric ton,” replied the heir to the Fowl estate.
“That’s a lot of gold.”
Artemis shrugged. “I like gold. It holds its value. And anyway, it’s a pittance compared to what this deal will save you.”
Spiro thought about it. At his shoulder, Arno Blunt continued staring at Butler. The Fowl bodyguard blinked freely. In the event of confrontation, dry eyeballs would only lessen his advantage. Staring matches were for amateurs.
“Let’s say I don’t like your terms,” said Jon Spiro. “Let’s say I decide to take your little gadget with me right now.”
Arno Blunt’s chest puffed out another inch.
“Even if you could take the Cube”—Artemis smiled— “it would be of little use to you. The technology is beyond anything your engineers have ever seen.”
Spiro smiled a thin, mirthless smile. “Oh, I’m sure they could figure it out. Even if it took a couple of years, it won’t matter to you. Not where you’re going.”
“If I go anywhere, then the C Cube’s secrets go with me. It’s every function is coded to my voice patterns. It’s quite a clever code.”
Butler bent his knees slightly, ready to spring.
“I bet we could break that code. I got one helluva team assembled at Fission Chips.”
“Pardon me if I am unimpressed by your ‘one helluva team,’” said Artemis. “Thus far you have been trailing several years behind Phonetix.”
Spiro jumped to his feet. He did not like the P-word. Phonetix was the only communications company whose stock was higher than Fission Chips.
“Okay, kid, you’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn. I have to go now, before the satellite beam gets here. But I’m leaving Mr. Blunt behind.” He patted his bodyguard on the shoulder. “You know what you have to do.”
Blunt nodded. He knew. He was looking forward to it.
For the first time since the meeting began, Artemis forgot about his lunch and concentrated completely on the situation at hand. This was not going according to plan.
“Mr. Spiro. You cannot be serious. We are in a public place, surrounded by civilians. Your man cannot hope to compete with Butler. If you persist with these ludicrous threats, I will be forced to withdraw my offer and release the C Cube immediately.”
Spiro placed his palms on the table. “Listen, kid,” he whispered. “I like you. In a couple of years, you could have been just like me. But did you ever put a gun to somebody’s head and pull the trigger?”
Artemis didn’t reply.
“No?” grunted Spiro. “I didn’t think so. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Guts. And you don’t have them.”
Artemis was at a loss for words. Something that had only happened twice since his fifth birthday. Butler stepped in to fill the silence. Unveiled threats were more his area.
“Mr. Spiro. Don’t try to bluff us. Blunt may be big, but I can snap him like a twig. Then there’s nobody between me and you. And take my word for it, you don’t want that.”
Spiro’s smile spread across his nicotine-stained teeth like a smear of treacle. “Oh, I wouldn’t say there’s nobody between us.”
Butler got that sinking feeling. The one you get when there are a dozen laser sights playing across your chest. They had been set up. Somehow Spiro had outmaneuvered Artemis.
“Hey, Fowl?” said the American. “I wonder how come your lunch is taking so long.”
It was at that moment that Artemis realized just how much trouble they were in.
It all happened in a heartbeat. Spiro clicked his fingers, and every single customer in En Fin drew a weapon from inside his or her coat. The eighty-year-old lady suddenly looked a lot more threatening with a revolver in her bony fist. Two armed waiters emerged from the kitchen wielding folding-stock machine guns. Butler never even had time to draw breath.
Spiro tipped over the salt cellar. “Check and mate. My game, kid.”
Artemis tried to concentrate. There must be a way out. There was always a way out. But it wouldn’t come. He had been hoodwinked. Perhaps fatally. No human had ever outsmarted Artemis Fowl. Then again, it only had to happen once.
“I’m going now,” continued Spiro, pocketing the C Cube. “Before that satellite beam shows up, and those other ones. The LEP, I’ve never heard of that particular agency. But as soon as I get this gizmo working, they’re going to wish they’d never heard of me. It’s been fun doing business with you.”
On his way to the door, Spiro winked at his bodyguard. “You got six minutes, Arno. A dream come true, eh? You get to be the guy who took out the great Butler.” He turned back to Artemis, unable to resist a final gibe.
“Oh, and by the way.‘Artemis’—isn’t that a girl’s name?”
And he was gone, into the multicultural throngs of tourists on the high street. The old lady locked the door behind him. The click echoed around the restaurant.
Artemis decided to take the initiative.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, trying to avoid staring down the black-eyed gun barrels. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.”
“Quiet, Artemis!”
It took a moment for Artemis’s brain to process the fact that Butler had ordered him to be silent. Most impertinently, in fact.
“I beg your pardon . . .”
Butler clamped a hand over his employer’s mouth.
“Quiet, Artemis. These people are professionals, not to be bargained with.”
Blunt rotated his skull, cracking the tendons in his neck.
“You got that right, Butler. We’re here to kill you. As soon as Mr. Spiro got the call, we started sending people in. I can’t believe you fell for it, man. You must be getting old.”
Butler couldn’t believe it either. There was a time he would have staked out any rendezvous site for a week before giving it the thumbs-up. Maybe he was getting old, but there was an excellent chance he wouldn’t be getting any older.
“Okay, Blunt,” said Butler, stretching his empty palms before him. “You and me. One-on-one.”
“Very noble,” said Blunt. “That’s your code of honor, I suppose. Me, I don’t have a code. If you think I’m going to risk your somehow getting out of here, you’re crazy. This is an uncomplicated deal. I shoot you. You die. No face-off, no duel.”
Blunt reached lazily into this waistband. Why hurry? One move from Butler, and a dozen bullets would find their mark.
Artemis’s brain seemed to have shut down. The usual stream of ideas had dried up. I’m going to die, he thought. I don’t believe it.
Butler was saying something. Artemis decided he should listen.
“Richard of York gave battle in vain,” said the bodyguard, enunciating clearly.
Blunt was screwing a silencer onto the muzzle of his ceramic pistol.
“What are you saying? What kind of gibberish is that? Don’t say the great Butler is cracking up? Wait till I tell the guys.”
But the old woman looked thoughtful.
“Richard of York . . . I know that.”