‘It’s a trap,’ he gasped, every syllable making him wince. ‘Don’t be fooled again.’
‘Thirty,’ said Koboi. ‘Twenty-nine.’
Holly felt her forehead throb against the helmet pads. ‘OK. OK, Koboi. Tell me quickly. How do I save the commander?’
Opal took a deep, theatrical breath. ‘On the device. There’s a sweet spot. Two-centimetre diameter. The red dot below the screen. If you hit that spot from outside the trigger area, then you overload the circuit. If you miss, even by a hair, you set off the explosive gel. It’s a sporting chance — more than you gave me, Holly Short.’
Holly gritted her teeth. ‘You’re lying. Why would you give me a chance?’
‘Don’t take the shot,’ said Root, strangely calm. ‘Just get out of range. Go and save Artemis. That’s the last order I’ll ever give you, Captain. Don’t you dare ignore it.
Holly felt as though her senses were being filtered through a metre of water.
Everything was blurred and slowed down.
‘I don’t have any choice, Julius.’
Root frowned. ‘Don’t call me Julius! You always do that just before you disobey me. Save Artemis, Holly. Save him.’
Holly closed one eye, aiming her pistol. The laser sights were no good for this kind of accuracy. She would have to do it manually.
‘I’ll save Artemis next,’ she said.
She took a deep breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.
Holly hit the red spot. She was certain of it. The charge sank into the device, spreading across the metal face like a tiny bush fire.
‘I hit it,’ she shouted at Opal’s image. ‘I hit the spot.’
Koboi shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I thought you were a fraction low. Hard luck. I mean that sincerely.’
‘No!’ screamed Holly.
The countdown on Root’s chest ticked faster than before, flickering through the numbers. There were only moments left now.
The commander struggled to his feet, raising the visor on his helmet. His eyes were steady and fearless. He smiled gently at Holly. A smile that laid no blame. For once there wasn’t even a touch of feverish temper in his cheeks.
‘Be well,’ he said, and then an orange flame blossomed in the centre of his chest.
The explosion sucked the air from the tunnel, feeding on the oxygen.
Multicoloured flames roiled like the plumage of battling birds. Holly was shunted backwards by a wall of shock waves, the force impacting on every surface inch facing the commander. Microfilaments blew in her suit as they were overloaded with heat and force. The camera cylinder on her helmet popped right out of its groove, spinning into E37.
Holly herself was borne bodily into the chute, spinning like a twig in a cyclone.
Sonix sponges in her earpieces sealed automatically as the sound of the explosion caught up with the blast. The commander had disappeared inside a ball of flame. He was gone, there was no doubt about it. Even magic could not help him now. Some things are beyond fixing.
The contents of the access tunnel, including Root and Scalene, disintegrated into a cloud of shrapnel and dust, particles ricocheting off the tunnel walls. The cloud surged down the path of least resistance, which was, of course, directly after Holly. She barely had time to activate her wings and climb a few metres before flying shrapnel drilled a hole in the chute wall below her.
Holly hovered in the vast tunnel, the sound of her own breathing filling her helmet. The commander was dead. It was unbelievable. Just like that, at the whim of a vengeful pixie. Had there been a sweet spot on the device? Or had she actually missed the target? She would probably never know. But to the LEP observers it would seem as though she had shot her own commander.
Holly glanced downwards. Below her, fragments from the explosion were spiralling towards the Earth’s core. As they neared the revolving magma sphere, the heat ignited each one, utterly cremating all that was left of Julius Root. For the briefest moment the particles twinkled, gold and bronze, like a million stars falling to earth.
Holly hung there for several minutes, trying to absorb what had happened. She couldn’t. It was too awful. Instead, she froze the pain and guilt, preserving it for later.
Right now she had an order to follow. And she would follow it, even if it were the last thing she ever did, because it had been the last order Julius Root would ever give.
Holly increased the power to her wings, rising through the massive charred chute. There were Mud Men to be saved.
Chapter 4: Narrow Escapes
MUNICH
Munich during working hours was like any other major city in the world: utterly congested. In spite of the U-Bahn, an efficient and comfortable rail system, the general population preferred the privacy and comfort of their own cars, with the result that Artemis and Butler were stuck on the airport road in a rush-hour traffic jam that stretched all the way from the International Bank to the Kronski Hotel.
Master Artemis did not like delays. But today he was too focused on his latest acquisition, The Fairy Thief, still sealed in its perspex tube. Artemis itched to open it, but the previous owners, Crane & Sparrow, could somehow have booby-trapped the container. Just because there were no visible traps didn’t mean that there couldn’t be an invisible one. An obvious trick would be to vacuum-pack the canvas, then inject a corrosive gas that would react with oxygen and burn the painting.
It took almost two hours to reach the hotel, a journey that should have taken twenty minutes. Artemis changed into a dark cotton suit, then called up Fowl Manor’s number on his mobile phone’s speed dial. But before he connected, he linked the phone by firewire to his Powerbook so he could record the conversation. Angeline Fowl answered on the third ring.
‘Arty,’ said his mother, sounding slightly out of breath, as though she had been in the middle of something. Angeline Fowl did not believe in taking life easy, and was probably halfway through a Tai Bo workout.
‘How are you, Mother?’
Angeline sighed down the phone line. ‘I’m fine, Arty, but you sound like you’re doing a job interview, as usual. Always so formal. Couldn’t you call me “Mum” or even
“Angeline”? Would that be so terrible?’
‘I don’t know, Mother. “Mum” sounds so infantile. I am fourteen now, remember?’
Angeline laughed. ‘How could I forget? Not many teenage boys ask for a ticket to a genetics symposium for their birthday.’
Artemis had one eye on the perspex tube. ‘And how is Father?’
‘He is wonderful,’ gushed Angeline. ‘I am surprised how well he is. That prosthetic leg of his is marvellous, and so is his outlook. He never complains. I honestly think that he has got a better attitude towards life now than he had before he lost his leg. He’s under the care of a remarkable therapist. He says the mental is far more important than the physical. In fact, we leave for the private spa in Westmeath this evening. They use this marvellous seaweed treatment, which should do wonders for your father’s muscles.’
Artemis Fowl Senior had lost a leg before his kidnap by the Russian Mafiya.
Luckily Artemis had been able to rescue him with Butler’s help. It had been an eventful year. Since Artemis Senior’s return, he had been making good on his promise to turn over a new leaf and go straight. Artemis Junior was expected to follow suit but was having trouble abandoning his criminal ventures. Although sometimes, when he looked at his father and mother together, the idea of being a normal son to loving parents didn’t seem such a far-fetched one.
‘Is he doing his physiotherapy exercises twice a day?’
