The infuriating boy laughed again. 'How long do you think you've been here?'
Holly groaned; she knew what was coming. 'A few hours?'
Artemis shook his head. 'Three days,' he lied. 'We've had you on a drip for over sixty hours…until
you told us everything we needed to know.'
Even as the words came out, Artemis felt guilty. These mind games were having an obvious
effect on Holly, destroying her from the inside out. Was there really a need for this?
'Three days? You could have killed me. What kind of ...'
And it was that speechless quality that sent the doubt shooting through Artemis's brain. The fairy
thought him so evil, she couldn't even find the words.
Holly pulled herself together.
'Well then, Master Fowl,' she spat, heavy on the contempt, 'if you know so much about us, then
you know what happens when they locate me.'
Artemis nodded absently. 'Oh yes, I know. In fact, I'm counting on it.'
It was Holly's turn to grin.
'Oh really. Tell me, boy, have you ever met a troll?'
For the first time, the human's confidence dropped a notch.
'No. Never a troll.'
Holly showed more teeth.
'You will, Fowl. You will. And I hope I'm there to see it.'
The LEP had established a surface Op's HQ at E1:Tara.
'Well?' said Root, slapping at a paramedic gremlin who was applying burn salve to his forehead.
'Leave it. The magic will sort me out soon enough.'
'Well what?' replied Foaly.
'Don't give me any of your lip today, Foaly, because today is not one of those
Oh-I'm-so-impressed-with-the-pony's-technology days. Tell me what you found on the human.'
Foaly scowled, securing his foil hat on his head. He flipped the top on a wafer-thin laptop.
'I hacked into Interpol. Not too difficult, I can tell you. They might as well have put out a
welcome mat ...'
Root drummed his fingers on the conference table. 'Get on with it.'
'Right. Fowl. Ten-gigabyte file. In paper terms that's half a library.'
The commander whistled. 'That's one busy human.'
'Family,' corrected Foaly. 'The Fowls have been subverting justice for generations. Racketeering,
smuggling, armed robbery. Mostly corporate crime last century.'
'So do we have a location?'
'That was the easy bit. Fowl Manor. On a two-hundred-acre estate on the outskirts of Dublin.
Fowl Manor is only about twenty klicks from our current location.'
Root chewed his bottom lip.
'Only twenty? That means we could make it before first light.'
'Yep. Sort out this whole mess before it gets out of hand in the rays of the sun.'
The commander nodded. This was their first break. Fairies had not operated in natural light for
centuries. Even when they had lived above ground, they were essentially night creatures. The sun
diluted their magic like bleaching a photograph. If they had to wait another day before sending in a
strike force, who knew what damage Fowl could achieve?
It was even possible that this whole affair was media-oriented, and by tomorrow evening Captain
Short's face would be on the cover of every publication on the planet. Root shuddered. That would
spell the end of everything, unless the Mud People had learned to coexist with other species. And if
history had taught him any lessons it was that humans couldn't get along with anyone, even
themselves.
'Right. Everyone, lock and load. V flight pattern. Establish a perimeter inside the Manor grounds.'
The Retrieval Squad roared military-type affirmatives, coaxing as many metallic noises from their
weapons as possible.
'Foaly, round up the techies. Follow us in the shuttle. And bring the big dishes. We'll shut down
the entire estate, give ourselves a bit of breathing room.'
'One thing, Commander,' mused Foaly.
'Yes?' said Root impatiently.
'Why did this human tell us who he was? He must have known we could find him.'
Root shrugged. 'Maybe he's not as clever as he thinks he is.'
'No. I don't think that's it. I don't think that's it at all. I think he's been one step ahead of us all
the way, and this is no different.'
'I don't have time for theorizing now, Foaly. First light is approaching.'
'One more thing, Commander.'
'Is this important?'
'Yes, I think it is.'
'Well?'
Foaly tapped a key on his laptop, scrolling through Artemis's vital statistics.
'This criminal mastermind, the one behind this elaborate scheme ...'
'Yes? What about him?'
Foaly looked up, an almost admiring look in his golden eyes.
'Well, he's only twelve years old. And that's young, even for a human.'
Root snorted, jacking a new battery into his tri-barrelled blaster.
'Too much damned TV. Thinks he's Sherlock Holmes.'
'That's Professor Moriarty,' corrected Foaly.
'Holmes, Moriarty, they both look the same with the flesh scorched off their skulls.'
And with that elegant parting riposte, Root followed his squad into the night air.
The Retrieval Squad adopted the V goose formation with Root on point. They flew south-west,
following the video feed e-mailed to their helmets. Foaly had even marked Fowl Manor with a red
dot. Idiot-proof, he'd muttered into his mouthpiece, just loud enough for the commander to hear
him
. The centrepiece of the Fowl estate was a renovated late-medieval/early-modern castle, built by
Lord Hugh Fowl in the fifteenth century.
The Fowls had held on to Fowl Manor over the years, surviving war, civil unrest and several tax
audits. Artemis did not intend to be the one to lose it.
The estate was ringed by a five-metre crenellated stone wall, complete with the original guard
towers and walkways. The Retrieval Squad put down just inside the boundary and began an
immediate scan for possible hostiles.
'Twenty metres apart,' instructed Root. 'Sweep the area. Check in every sixty seconds. Clear?'
Retrieval nodded. Of course it was clear. They were professionals.
Lieutenant Gudgeon, Retrieval Squad's leader, climbed a guard tower.
'You know what we should do, Julius?'
He and Root had been in the Academy together, brought up in the same tunnel. Gudgeon was
one of perhaps five fairies who called Root by his first name.
'I know what you think we should do.'
'We should blast the whole place.'
'What a surprise.'
'The cleanest way. One blue rinse and our losses are minimum.'
Blue rinse was the slang term for the devastating biological bomb used on rare occasions by the
force. The clever thing about a bio-bomb was that it destroyed only living tissue. The landscape was
unchanged.
'That minimum loss you're talking about happens to be one of my officers.'
'Oh yes,' tutted Gudgeon. 'A female Recon officer. The test case. Well, I don't think you'll have
any problem justifying a tactical solution.'
Root's face took on that familiar purple hue.
'The best thing you can do right now is stay out of my way, or else I may be forced to ram that
blue rinse straight into that morass you call a brain.'
Gudgeon was unperturbed. 'Insulting me doesn't change the facts, Julius. You know what the
Book says. We cannot under any circumstances allow the Lower Elements to be compromised. One
time-stop is all you get, after that ...'
The lieutenant didn't finish his statement. He didn't have to.
'I know what the Book says,' snapped Root. 'I just wish you weren't so gung-ho about it. If I
didn't know you better, I'd say there was some human blood in you.'
'There's no call for that,' pouted Gudgeon. 'I'm only doing my job.'
'Point taken,' conceded the commander. 'I'm sorry.'
You didn't often hear Root apologizing, but then it had been a deeply offensive insult.
Butler was on monitors.
'Anything?' asked Artemis.
Butler started; he hadn't heard the young master come in.
'No. Nothing. Once or twice I thought I saw a flicker, but it turned out to be nothing.'
'Nothing is nothing,' commented Artemis cryptically. 'Use the new camera.'
Butler nodded. Only last month, Master Fowl had purchased a cine-camera over the Internet.
Two thousand frames a second, recently developed by Industrial Light and Magic for specialized
nature shoots, hummingbird wings and such. It processed images faster than the human eye could.
Artemis had had it installed behind a cherub over the main entrance.
Butler activated the joypad.
'Where?'
'Try the avenue. I have a feeling visitors are on the way.'
The manservant manipulated the toothpick-sized stick with his massive fingers. A live image
sprang into life on the digital monitor.
'Nothing,' muttered Butler. 'Quiet as the grave.'
Artemis pointed to the control desk.
'Freeze it.'
Butler nearly queried the order. Nearly. Instead he held his tongue and pressed the pad. On
screen, the cherry trees froze, blossoms trapped in mid-air. More importantly, a dozen or so
black-clad figures suddenly appeared on the avenue.
'What!' exclaimed Butler. 'Where did they spring from?'
'They're shielded,' explained Artemis. 'Vibrating at high speed. Too fast for the human eye to
follow ...'
'But not for the camera,' nodded Butler. Master Artemis. Always two steps ahead. 'If only I could
carry it around with me.'
'If only. But we do have the next best thing ...'
Artemis lifted a headset gingerly from the workbench. It was the remains of Holly's helmet.
Obviously, trying to cram Butler's head into the original helmet would be like trying to fit a potato
into a thimble. Only the visor and control buttons were intact. Straps from a hard hat had been
jury-rigged to fit the manservant's cranium.
'This thing is equipped with several filters. It stands to reason that one of them is anti-shield.
Let's try it out, shall we?'
Artemis placed the set over Butler's ears.
'Obviously with your eye span, there are going to be blind spots, but that shouldn't hamper you
unduly. Now, run the camera.'
Butler set the camera rolling again, while Artemis slotted down one filter after another.
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