Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl. The Opal Deception Страница 8

Root actually growled. ‘It really tugs my beard to put us in harm’s way over a goblin, but that’s the job. We take Scalene with us. I want you to sink a few charges into that box round his waist, and when the buzzing stops I throw him over my shoulder and we’re off up E37.’

‘Understood,’ said Holly, lowering the setting on her weapon to minimum. Some of the charge would be transferred to Scalene, but it wouldn’t do much more than dry up his eyeballs for a couple of minutes.

‘Ignore the pixie. Whatever she says, keep your mind on the job.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Root took several deep breaths. Somehow it calmed Holly to see the commander as nervous as she was. ‘OK. Go.’

The two elves turned and strode rapidly towards the unconscious goblin.

‘Have we come up with a little plan?’ said Koboi mockingly from the small screen.

‘Something ingenious, I hope. Something I haven’t thought of?’

Grim-faced, Holly tried to shut out the words, but they wormed their way into her thoughts. Something ingenious? Hardly. It was simply the only option open to them.

Something Koboi hadn’t thought of? Doubtful. Opal could conceivably have been planning this for almost a year. Were they just about to do exactly what she wanted?

‘Sir…’ began Holly, but Root was already in position beside Scalene.

Holly fired six charges at the small screen. All six impacted on Koboi’s pixelated features. Opal’s image disappeared in a storm of static. Sparks squeezed between the metal seams and acrid smoke leaked through the speaker grid.

Root hesitated for a moment, allowing any charge to disperse, then he grabbed

Scalene firmly by the shoulders.

Nothing happened.

I was wrong, thought Holly, releasing a breath she did not realize she’d been holding. I was wrong, thank the gods. Opal has no plan. But it wasn’t true, and Holly didn’t really believe it.

The box around Scalene’s midriff was secured by a set of octo-bonds, eight telescoping cables often used by the LEP to restrain dangerous criminals. They could be locked and unlocked remotely and, once cinched, could not be removed without the remote or an angle grinder. As soon as Root leaned over, the octo-bonds released Scalene and whiplashed around the commander’s torso, releasing Scalene and drawing the metal box tight to Root’s own chest.

Koboi’s face appeared on the reverse side of the box. The smokescreen had been just that: a smokescreen.

‘Commander Root,’ she said, almost breathless with malice, ‘it looks like you’re the sacrifice.’

‘D’Arvit!’ swore Root, beating the metal box with the butt of his pistol. The cords tightened until Root’s breath came in agonized spurts. Holly heard more than one rib crack. The commander fought the urge to sink to his feet. Magical blue sparks played around his torso, automatically healing the broken bones.

Holly rushed forward to help, but before she could reach her superior officer an urgent beeping began to emanate from the device’s speaker. The closer she got, the louder the beep.

‘Stay back,’ grunted Root. ‘Stay back. It’s a trigger.’

Holly stopped in her sooty tracks, punching the air in frustration. But the commander was probably right. She had heard of proximity triggers before. Dwarfs used them in the mines. They would set a charge in the tunnels, activate a proximity trigger and then set it off from a safe distance, using a stone.

Opal’s face reappeared on the screen.

‘Listen to your Julius, Captain Short,’ advised the pixie. ‘This is a moment for caution. Your commander is quite right — the tone you hear is indeed a proximity trigger. If you come too close, he will be vaporized by the explosive gel packed into the metal box.’

‘Stop lecturing and tell us what you want,’ snarled Root.

‘Now, now, Commander, patience. Your worries will be over soon enough. In fact they are already over, so why don’t you just wait quietly while your final seconds tick away.’

Holly circled the commander, keeping the beep constant, until her back was to the chute.

‘There’s a way out of this, Commander,’ she said. ‘I just need to think. I need a minute to sort things out.’

‘Let me help you to sort things out,’ said Koboi mockingly, her childlike features ugly with malice. ‘Your LEP comrades are currently trying to laser their way in here, but of course they will never make it in time. And you can bet that my old school chum, Foaly, is glued to his video screen. So what does he see? He sees his good friend Holly Short apparently holding a gun on her commander. Now why would she want to do that?’

‘Foaly will figure it out,’ said Root. ‘He beat you before.’

Opal tightened the octo-bonds remotely, forcing the commander to his knees.

‘Maybe he would figure it out, at that. If he had time. But unfortunately for you, time is almost up.’

On Root’s chest, a digital readout flickered into life. There were two numbers on the readout. A six and a zero. Sixty seconds.

‘One minute to live, Commander. How does that feel?’

The numbers began ticking down.

The ticking and the beeping and Opal’s snide sniggers drilled into Holly’s brain.

‘Shut it down, Koboi. Shut it down, or I swear I’ll…’

Opal’s laughter was unrestrained. It echoed through the access tunnel like the attack screech of a harpie.

‘You will what? Exactly? Die beside your commander?’

More cracks. More ribs broken. The blue sparks of magic circled Root’s torso like stars caught in a whirlwind.

‘Go now,’ he grunted. ‘Holly, I am ordering you to leave.’

‘With respect, Commander. No. This isn’t over yet.’

‘Forty-eight,’ said Opal, in a happy, sing-song voice. ‘Forty-seven.’

‘Holly! Go!’

‘I’d listen if I were you,’ said Koboi. ‘There are other lives at stake. Root is already dead — why not save someone who can be saved?’

Holly moaned. Another element in an already overloaded equation.

‘Who can I save? Who’s in danger?’

‘Oh, no one important. Just a couple of Mud Men.’

Of course, thought Holly, Artemis and Butler. Two others who had put a stop to Koboi’s plan.

‘What have you done, Opal?’ said Holly, shouting above the proximity trigger and core wind.

Koboi’s lip drooped, mimicking a guilty child.

‘I’m afraid I may have put your human friends in danger. At this very moment they are stealing a package from the International Bank in Munich. A little package I prepared for them. If Master Fowl is as clever as he is supposed to be, he won’t open the package until he reaches the Kronski Hotel and can check for booby traps. Then a bio-bomb will be activated, and “Bye bye, obnoxious humans”. You can stay here and explain all this. I’m sure it won’t take more than a few hours to sort it out with Internal

Affairs. Or you can try to rescue your friends.’

Holly’s head reeled. The commander, Artemis, Butler. All about to die. How could she save them all? There was no way to win.

‘I will hunt you down, Koboi. For you, there won’t be a safe inch on the planet.’

‘Such venom. What if I gave you a way out? One chance to win.’

Root was on his knees now, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. The blue sparks were gone, he was out of magic.

‘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.