‘OK, Mud Boy,’ said Mulch, scooping a bulb-shaped hollow with his flat fingers. ‘We are here. X marks the monkey.’
‘Lemur,’ corrected Artemis automatically. ‘Are you certain you can distinguish this particular animal’s scent from all the others?’
Mulch held a hand to his heart in mock affront. ‘I?
Artemis groaned. ‘I shall take that as a yes.’
‘And so you should. Keep this up and I may choose not to marry your sister.’
‘If I had a sister, I’m sure she would be inconsolable.’
They crouched in the hollow for several minutes, the park’s night-time growls and snores drifting down through the clay. By some curious anomaly, once the sounds penetrated the tunnel’s coating of dwarf spittle, they were trapped inside and bounced off the walls in conflicting waves. Artemis felt as though he were literally in the lion’s den.
As if this wasn’t disturbing enough, he noticed that Mulch’s cheeks were glowing bright pink. All of them.
‘Problems?’ he asked, unable to mask a nervous tremor.
‘I’ve been holding in this gas for a long time,’ replied the dwarf through clenched teeth. ‘It’s coming out soon. You got any sinus problems?’
Artemis shook his head.
‘Pity,’ said Mulch. ‘This would have cleared them right up.’
If it wasn’t for Artemis’s determination to save his mother, he would have bolted right then.
Luckily for Artemis’s nasal passages, Holly beeped him on the ad-com. The communicator was a basic vibration model that sent signals directly to Artemis’s ear without any external noise. Artemis heard Holly’s words but not her voice. The ad-com was only sophisticated enough to produce robotic tones.
‘In position. Over.’
Artemis placed a finger on the communicator, completing the circuit that allowed him to speak.
‘Received. We are directly below the target’s cage. Can you see the opposition?’
‘Negative. No visual. But I do see the lemur. He seems to be asleep on a low branch. I can reach him easily.’
‘Negative, Holly. Hold your position. We will secure the target. You watch for my younger self.’
‘Understood. Don’t hang around, Arty. Get up, get down and back to the car.’
Artemis was surprised that Holly would call him that. It was his mother’s pet name for him.
‘Got it. Up, down and back.’
Mulch tapped him urgently on the shoulder. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Mud Boy. Now would be great.’
‘Very well. Proceed. Try to be quiet.’
Mulch changed position, pointing the crown of his head at the tunnel roof, squatting low on his haunches.
‘Too late for quiet,’ he grunted. ‘Pull your jacket over your face.’
Artemis barely had time to do what he’d been asked when Mulch released a thundering cylinder of gas and earth, spraying the boy with undigested clods. The shell of dwarf spittle cracked in a thousand places and Mulch was borne aloft by a churning pillar of force, easily punching through to the surface.
Once the dust had settled somewhat, Artemis scrambled after him into the cage. Mulch had pinballed off a low ceiling and was unconscious, blood matting his already tangled hair, his bum-flap fluttering like a windsock while the remainder of the tunnel waste escaped.
The lemur in the next cage seemed highly amused by all the commotion and hopped up and down on a truncated branch wedged between the bars.
Before he could had time to investigate, his cheek beeped and an emotionless robotic voice droned into his ear.
‘Get Mulch out of there, Arty. Get back down now.’
Then a two-hundred-kilo Ugandan mountain gorilla crashed into him, leaving the thought behind like a speech bubble.
Young Artemis and Butler were watching all of this through the slot windows of a camouflaged hide that sat in front of the cages. The hide had been built inside a rockery and water feature and allowed close study of the various animals without disturbing the natural rhythms of their day. The director had been kind enough to let Artemis sit in the observer’s chair earlier that day.
‘Some day you could run the hide’s thermal-imaging camera and all this equipment from that chair,’ he had said.
‘Perhaps sooner than that,’ Artemis had replied.
‘Oh dear,’ said Butler, the phrase sounding over-delicate in his gravelly voice. ‘That must have really hurt.’ He reached into his pocket for the dart gun. ‘I better lend a hand or at least a dart.’
Butler had been busy with his darts. Two night workers lay unconscious on cots at the rear of the hide.
Through the slot window they had a clear view of the male intruder being shaken like a rag doll by an enormous gorilla. The cage’s third occupant had collapsed and appeared to be wracked by an energetic bout of flatulence.
He tapped a few keys on the computer keyboard before him, redirecting the compound’s thermal-imaging camera.
‘I don’t think a dart will be necessary,’ he said. ‘Help is already on the way.’
Sure enough, a red-hearted glow bounced across the cobbled walkway, hovering before the gorilla cage.
‘Now this should be interesting,’ mused ten-year-old Artemis.
Holly was forced into action. She had been discreetly tucked away behind the broad trunk of an imported baobab tree, shield off, conserving magic, keeping an eye out for young Artemis, when Mulch blew a hole in the earth into the wrong cage. He exploded from the ground in a mini-cyclone of debris, bounced off a few surfaces like a cartoon pinball and collapsed on to the cage floor.
The cage’s resident, a black-and-grey bull gorilla, shot straight up, woken from deep sleep. Its eyes were wide but blurred, its teeth yellow and bared.
No such luck. Artemis clambered to the surface, carefully navigating the simple climb. The time stream had not granted him any agility. As Artemis often said, the physical was not his area.
Holly thumbed her ad-com. ‘Get Mulch out of there, Arty,’ she shouted. ‘Get back down now.’
It was too late. The gorilla had decided these newcomers were a threat to be dealt with. It rolled from its nest of leaves and bark, landing on eight knuckles, the impact sending a jarring wave along its arm hair.
Holly buzzed up her shield as she ran, silver strands floating behind her as the wig fell apart, marking her trail.
The gorilla attacked, grabbing a surprised Artemis Fowl by the shoulders, roaring in his face, head back, teeth like a bear trap.
Holly was at the gate, powering down, pulling the Omnitool from her pocket, jabbing the business end into
