the car with the tinted windows.
Artemis opened his mouth to issue an order, then closed it again. Holly probably knew what to do.
She did. The driver's door clunked open a fraction, apparently all on its own, then closed again. Before Minerva or Billy Kong could do more than blink in surprise, the four-by-four started up and laid down a six-metre length of rubber skidding towards the main gate.
'Perfect,' said Artemis under his breath. 'Now, Miss Minerva Paradizo, would-be criminal mastermind, let us see exactly how smart you are. I know what I would do in this situation.'
Minerva Paradizo's reaction was a bit less dramatic than one might expect from a child who has just had her prize possession stolen. There were no tantrums or foot-stamping. Billy Kong also defied expectations.
He did not so much as draw a weapon. Instead he squatted on his hunkers, ran his fingers through Manga hair and lit a cigarette, which Minerva promptly plucked from his lips and squashed underfoot.
Meanwhile the four-by-four was getting away, barrelling towards the main gates. Perhaps Minerva was confident that the reinforced steel barrier would be sufficient to halt the BMW in its tracks. She was wrong.
Holly had already weakened the bolts with her Neutrino. One tap from the vehicle's grille would be more than sufficient to barge the gates out of the way. If it got that far. Which it did not.
After she had crushed Kong's cigarette, Minerva took a remote control from her pocket, tapped in a short code, then hit the 'Send' button. In the BMW's cab, a tiny charge detonated in the airflow system, releasing a cloud of sevoflurane, a potent sleeping gas. In seconds, the vehicle began to weave, ramping the driveway bushes and cutting a swathe through the manicured lawn.
'Problems,' said Butler.
'Hmm,' said Artemis. 'A gas device, I would guess. Fast-acting. Possibly cyclopropane or sevoflurane.'
Butler knelt, drawing his pistol. 'Should I stroll in there and get them?'
'No. You shouldn't.'
The BMW was careering wildly now, following the dips and slopes of the grounds' topography. It destroyed a mini-golf green, pulverized a gazebo and decapitated a centaur statue.
Hundreds of miles below ground, Foaly winced.
The vehicle finally came to rest in a lavender bed, nose down, rear wheels spinning, spitting out hunks of clay and uprooted long-stemmed purple flowers, like missiles.
Nice action, thought Mulch, but he kept the notion to himself, fully aware that this might not be the time to stretch Butler's patience.
Butler was raring to go. His gun was out and the tendons in his neck were stretched, but Artemis held him back with a touch to the forearm.
'No,' he said. 'Not now. I know your impulse4s to help, but now is not the time.'
The bodyguard jammed his Sig Sauer handgun back into its holster, scowling. 'Are you sure, Artemis?'
'Trust me, old friend.'
And of course, Butler did, even if his instincts were not so sure.
Inside the grounds, a dozen security guards were warily approaching the vehicle, led by Billy Kong. The man moved like a cat, on the balls of his feet. Even his face was feline, smug grin and flat eyes.
On his signal, the men rushed the car, reclaiming the golf bag and hauling an unconscious Holly from the front seat. The elf was cuffed with plastic ties and hauled across the garden to where Minerva Paradizo and her father stood waiting.
Minerva removed Holly's helmet and kneeled to examine her pointed ears. Through his binocular lenses, Artemis could clearly see that she was smiling.
It had been a trap. AH a trap.
Minerva tucked the helmet under her arm, then walked briskly back towards the house. Halfway there, she stopped and turned. Shielding her eyes from the sun's glare, she scanned the shadows and peaks of the surrounding hillsides.
'What's she looking for?' Butler speculated aloud.
Artemis did not wonder. He knew exactly what this surprising girl was after.
'She's looking for us, old friend. If that was your chateau, perhaps you might have wondered where a spy would conceal himself.'
'Of course. And that's why I picked this spot. The ideal location would have been further up the hill, in that cluster of rocks, but that would also have been the first spot any security expert would booby-trap. This would be my second choice, and so, my first choice.'
Minerva's gaze swept past the rock cluster and rested on the line of bushes where they were hiding. She couldn't possibly see them, but her intellect told her that they were there.
Artemis focused on the girl's pretty face. It amazed him that he could appreciate Minerva's features, even as his friend was being hauled into captivity. Puberty was a powerful force.
Minerva was smiling. Her eyes were bright and they taunted Artemis across the vale between them. She spoke in English then. Artemis and Butler, both expert lip-readers, had no difficulty interpreting her short sentence.
'Did you get that, Artemis?' asked Butler.
'I got it. And she got us.'
'Your move, Artemis Fowl,' Minerva had said.
Butler sat back in the ditch, slapping mud from his elbows.
'I thought you were one of a kind, Artemis, but that girl is a smart one.'
'Yes,' said Artemis, musing. 'She's a regular juvenile criminal mastermind.'
Below ground, in Section 8 HQ, Foaly groaned into his microphone.
'Great,' he said. 'Now there are two of you.'
Chapter 8: SUDDEN IMPACT
No.1 was having a lovely dream. In the dream, his mother was holding a surprise party for him, in honour of his graduation from warlock college. The food was scrumptious. The dishes were cooked and most of the meat was already dead.
He was reaching for a beautifully presented basted pheasant in a basket of woven herb bread ropes, just like the one described in Chapter Three of Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow, when suddenly the vision retreated into the far distance, as though reality itself was being stretched.
No.1 tried to follow the feast but it drew further and further away, and now his legs wouldn't work and No.1 couldn't understand why. He looked down and saw to his horror that everything from his armpits down had turned to stone. The stone virus was spreading upwards across his chest and along his neck. No.1 felt the urge to scream. He was suddenly terrified that his mouth would turn to stone before he could scream. To be petrified forever and hold that scream inside would be the ultimate horror.
No.1 opened his mouth and screamed.
Billy Kong, who had been lounging on a chair watching, snapped his fingers at a camera on the ceiling.
'The ugly one is awake,' he said. 'And I think it wants its mother.'
No.1 stopped screaming when his breath ran out. It was a bit of an anticlimax really, starting out with a lusty howl and petering off to a reedy whine.
OK, thought No.1. I am alive and in the land of men. Time to open my eyes andjind out just how deep in the pig dung I actually am.
No.1 cracked his eyes open warily, as though he might see something big and hard heading for his face at high speed. What he did see was that he was in a small bare room. There were rectangular lights on the ceiling that threw out the light of a thousand candles, and most of one wall was taken up by a mirror. There was a human, possibly a child, perhaps a female, with a ridiculous mane of blonde curls and an extra finger on each hand. The creature was wearing a ludicrously impractical toga-type arrangement and spongy-soled shoes, with lightning bolts 170 embossed on the sides. There was another person in the room. A slouching, leering, thin man,
