“You could tie the others up,” ventured Artemis. “Then we could leave together.”
Loafers smacked his own head. “What a great idea! Then maybe I could agree to some other delaying tactic, on account of me being a complete amateur.”
Loafers felt a shadow fall across his back. He spun around to see a girl standing in the doorway. Another witness. Carla Frazetti would be getting the bill for all these sundries. This whole job had been misrepresented from the start.
“Okay, miss,” said Loafers. “Go join the others. And don’t do anything stupid.”
The girl at the door flicked her hair over one shoulder, blinking glittering green eyelids.
“I don’t do stupid things,” she said. Then her hand flicked out, brushing against Loafer’s weapon. She grabbed the pistol’s slide and deftly twisted it from the stock. The gun was now completely useless, except for hammering nails.
Loafers jerked backward. “Hey, hey. Watch it. I don’t want to wound you by accident. This gun could go off.”
That’s what he thought.
Loafers continued brandishing his piece of harmless metal.
“Back off, little girl, I won’t say it again.”
Juliet dangled the slide under his nose. “Or what? You’ll shoot me with this?”
Loafers stared cross-eyed at the piece of metal.
“Hey, that looks just like—”
Then Juliet hit him in the chest so hard he crashed through the breakfast bar.
Mulch stared over at the unconscious mobster, then at the girl in the doorway.
“Hey, Butler. Just a shot in the dark here, but I’d say that’s your sister.”
“You’re right,” said the manservant, hugging Juliet tightly. “How on earth did you guess?”
CHAPTER 7
THE BEST-LAID PLANS
Fowl Manor
It was time for consultation. That night, the group sat in the manor’s conference room facing two monitors that Juliet had brought down from the security booth. Foaly had hijacked the monitors’ frequency and was broadcasting live images of Commander Root and himself.
Much to his own annoyance, Mulch was still present. He had been attempting to weasel some kind of reward from Artemis when Holly returned and cuffed him to a chair.
Root’s cigar smoke was hazing the screen. “Looks like the gang’s all here,” he said, using the fairy gift of tongues to speak English. “And guess what? I don’t like gangs.”
Holly had placed her headset in the center of the conference table, so all the room’s occupants could be picked up.
“I can explain, Commander.”
“Oh, I’ll just bet you can. But strangely, I have a premonition that your explanation is going to cut no ice with me whatsoever, and I will have your badge in my drawer by the end of this shift.”
Artemis tried to intervene. “Really, Commander. Holly—Captain Short is only here because I tricked her.”
“Is that a fact? And then, pray tell, why is she still there? Doing lunch, are we?”
“This is no time for sarcasm, Commander. We have a serious situation here. Potentially disastrous.”
Root exhaled a cloud of greenish smoke. “What you humans do to each other is your own affair. We are not your personal police force, Fowl.”
Foaly cleared his throat. “We’re involved whether we like it or not. Artemis was the one who pinged us. And that’s not the worst of it, Julius.”
Root glanced across at the centaur. Foaly had called him by his first name. Things must be serious.
“Very well, Captain,” he said. “Continue with your briefing.”
Holly opened a report on her handheld computer. “Yesterday I responded to a recording from the Sentinel warning system. The call was sent by Artemis Fowl, a Mud Man well known to the LEP for his part in suppressing the B’wa Kell uprising. Fowl’s associate, Butler, had been mortally injured on the orders of another Mud Man, Jon Spiro, and he requested my assistance with a healing.”
“Which you refused, and then requested technical backup to perform a mind wipe, as per regulations.”
Holly could have sworn the screen was heating up.
“No. Taking into account Butler’s considerable assistance during the goblin revolution, I performed the healing and transported Butler and Fowl back to their domicile.”
“Tell me you didn’t fly them.”
“There was no alternative. They were wrapped in cam-foil.”
Root rubbed his temples. “One foot. If there was so much as one foot sticking out, we could be all over the Internet by tomorrow. Holly, why do you do this to me?”
Holly didn’t reply. What could she say?
“There’s more. We have detained one of Spiro’s employees. A nasty piece of work.”
“Did he see you?”
“No. But he heard Mulch say that he was a fairy dwarf.”
“No problem,” said Foaly. “Do a block mind wipe, and send him home.”
“It’s not that simple. The man is an assassin. He could be sent back to finish the job. I think we need to relocate him. Believe me. He won’t be missed here.”
“Okay,” said Foaly. “Sedate him, do the wipe and get rid of anything that might trigger his memories. Then send him someplace where he can’t do any harm.”
The commander took several long puffs to calm him-self.“Okay. Tell me about the probe. And if Fowl is responsible, is the alert over?”
“No. The human businessman, Jon Spiro, had stolen the fairy technology from Artemis.”
“Which Artemis stole from us,” noted Foaly.
“This Spiro character is determined to acquire the technology’s secret and he’s not particular how he gets it.”
“And who knows the secret?”
“Artemis is the only one who can operate the C Cube.”
“Do I want to know what a C Cube is?”
Foaly took up the narrative. “Artemis cobbled a microcomputer together from old LEP technology. Most of it is obsolete belowground, but by human standards it’s approximately fifty years ahead of their developmental schedule.”
“And therefore worth a fortune,” concluded the commander.
“And therefore absolutely worth a fortune,” agreed Foaly.
Suddenly Mulch was listening.
“A fortune? Exactly how much of a fortune?”
Root was relieved to have someone to shout at. “Shut your mouth, convict! This doesn’t concern you. You just concentrate on enjoying your last few breaths of free air. This time tomorrow you’ll be shaking hands with your cellmate, and I hope he’s a troll.”
Mulch was unbowed. “Give me a break, Julius. Every time there’s a Fowl situation, I’m the one who saves your sorry hide. I have no doubt that whatever plan Artemis concocts will feature yours truly. Probably in some ridiculously dangerous capacity.”
Root’s complexion went from rosé to full-bodied red. “Well, Artemis? Do you plan on using the convict?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not you give me Holly.”
Root’s head disappeared behind a fog of cigar smoke. With the red tip glowing, he looked like a steam train coming out of a tunnel. Some of the smoke drifted across to Foaly’s screen.
“It doesn’t look good,” commented the centaur.
Eventually, Root calmed down sufficiently to talk.
“Give you Holly? Gods give me patience. Have you any idea the amount of red tape I’m ignoring just for this conference?”
“Quite a lot, I’d imagine.”
“A mountain of the stuff, Artemis. A mountain. I wouldn’t be talking to you at all if it wasn’t for the B’wa Kell thing. If this ever leaked out, I’d end up directing sewage-treatment subs in Atlantis.”
Mulch winked at the screen. “I probably shouldn’t have heard that.”
The commander ignored him. “You have thirty seconds, Artemis. Sell me.”
Artemis rose, standing directl
y before the screen. “Spiro has fairy technology. It is unlikely that he will be able to use it, but it will put his scientists onto ion technology. The man is a megalomaniac, with no respect for life or the environment. Who knows what ghastly machine he will construct from fairy technology. There is also the definite chance that his new technology will lead him to discover Haven itself, and if that happens, the life of every creature on the planet, and under it, is at risk.”
Root wheeled his chair off camera, reappearing in Foaly’s monitor. He leaned close to the centaur’s ear, whispering in low tones.
“It doesn’t look good,” said Holly. “I could be on the next shuttle home.”