“Artemis Fowl,” snapped Holly. “Start talking. You’re going to jail, dwarf. For how long depends on you.”
Mulch chewed it over for a moment. He could feel the Fei Fei tiara pricking his skin beneath the leotard. It had slipped around the side, below the armpit, most uncomfortable. He had a choice to make. Try to complete the job, or look after number one. Fowl or a reduced sentence. It took less than a second to decide.
“Artemis wants me to steal the Fei Fei tiara for him. My … ah … circus mates had already taken it, and he bribed me to pass it on to him.”
“Where is this tiara?”
Mulch reached inside his leotard.
“Slowly, dwarf.”
“Okay. Two fingers.”
Mulch drew the tiara from under his armpit.
“You don’t take bribes I suppose?”
“Correct. This tiara goes back near enough to wherever it came from. Police will get an anonymous tip and find it in a skip.”
Mulch sighed. “The old skip routine. Don’t the LEP ever get tired of that?”
Holly did not want to be drawn into conversation.
“Toss it on the ground,” she instructed. “Then get down there yourself. Lie on your back.”
One did not order a dwarf to lie on the ground on his belly. One click of the jaws, and the perpetrator would be gone in a cloud of dust.
“On my back? That’s really uncomfortable with this helmet.”
“On your back!”
Mulch obeyed, dropping the tiara and shifting the helmet to the front. The dwarf was thinking furiously. How much time had gone by? Surely the Significants would be back any second. They would come running to relieve Sergei.
“Officer, you really should get out of here.”
Holly searched him for weapons. She unstrapped the LEP helmet, rolling it across the floor.
“And why is that?”
“My teammates will be here any second. We’re on a tight schedule.”
Holly smiled grimly. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle dwarfs. My gun has a nuclear battery.”
Mulch swallowed, glancing through Holly’s legs toward the tent flaps. The Significants had arrived right on time, and three were sneaking through the tent flap, making less noise than ants in slippers. Each dwarf held a flint dagger in his stubby fingers. Mulch heard a rustling overhead, and looked up to see another Significant peering through a fresh rip in the tent seam. Still one unaccounted for.
“The battery isn’t important,” said Mulch. “It’s not how many bullets you have, it’s how fast you can shoot.”
Artemis was not enjoying the circus. Butler should have contacted him over a minute ago to confirm that Mulch had arrived at the rendezvous point. Something must be wrong. His instinct told him to take a look, but he ignored it. Stick to the plan. Give Mulch every possible second.
The last few seconds ran out moments later when the five dwarfs in the ring took their bows. They exited the ring with a series of elaborate tumbles, and headed for their own tent.
Artemis raised his right fist to his mouth. Strapped across his palm was a tiny microphone, of the type used by the U.S. secret service. A skin-tone earpiece was lodged in his right ear.
“Butler,” he said softly—the mike was whisper sensitive. “The Significants have left the building. We must execute plan B.”
“Roger,” said Butler’s voice in his ear.
Of course there was a plan B. Plan A may have been perfect, but the dwarf executing it certainly wasn’t. Plan B involved chaos and escape, hopefully with the Fei Fei tiara. Artemis hurried along his row while the second box was lowered into the center of the ring. All around him, children and their parents cooed at the melodrama unfolding before them, unaware of the very real drama that was being played out not twenty yards away.
Artemis approached the dwarfs’ tent, sticking to the shadows.
The Significants trotted ahead of him in a group. In seconds they would enter the tent and find that things were not as they should be. There would be delays and confusion, in which time the jewel merchants in the big top would probably come running, along with their armed security. This mission would have to be either completed or aborted in the next few seconds.
Artemis heard voices from inside the tent. The Significants heard them too and froze. There shouldn’t be voices. Sergei was alone, and if he was not, something was wrong. One dwarf crawled on his belly to the flap, peeking inside. Whatever he saw obviously upset him, because he crawled rapidly back to the group, and began issuing frantic instructions. Three dwarfs went in the front flap, one scaled the tent wall, and the other popped his bum flap and went subterranean.
Artemis waited a couple of heartbeats, then crept to the tent flap. If Mulch was still in there, something would have to be done to get him out, even if it meant sacrificing the diamond. He flattened his body against the tightly drawn canvas and peered inside. He was surprised by what he saw. Surprised, but not amazed: he should have expected it, really. Holly Short was standing over a fallen dwarf who may or may not have been Mulch Diggums. The Significants were closing in on her, daggers drawn.
Artemis raised the radio to his mouth.
“Butler, how far away are you, exactly?”
Butler answered immediately. “I’m on the circus perimeter. Forty seconds, no more.”
In forty seconds, Holly and Mulch would be dead. He could not allow that.
“I have to go in,” he said tersely. “When you get here, moderate plan B as necessary.”
Butler did not waste time arguing. “Roger. Keep them talking, Artemis. Promise them the world, and everything under it. Their greed will keep you alive.”
“Understood,” said Artemis, stepping into the tent.
“Well, well, well,” said Derph, Sergei’s second in command. “Looks like the law finally tracked us down.”
Holly planted a foot on Mulch’s chest, pinning him to the earth. She trained her weapon on Derph.
“That’s right, I’m with Recon. Retrieval are seconds away. So just accept it and lie on your backs.”
Derph casually tossed his dagger from hand to hand. “I don’t think so, elf. We’ve been living this life for five hundred years, and we don’t plan to stop now. You just let Sergei go, and we’ll be on our way. No need for anyone to get hurt.”
Mulch realized that the other dwarfs believed he was Sergei. Maybe there was still a way out.
“Just stay where you are,” Holly ordered with more bravado than she felt. “It’s guns against knives here, you can’t possibly win.”
Derph smiled through his beard. “We’ve already won,” he said.
With the kind of synchronization born of centuries of teamwork, the dwarfs attacked together. One dropped from the shadows in the tent’s upper regions, while another breached the earthen flooring, jaws wide, tunnel wind driving him a full three feet into the air. The vibration of Holly’s voice had drawn him to her, as a struggling swimmer’s kicks will draw a shark. “Look out!” screeched Mulch, unwilling to let the Significants deal with Holly, even at the price of his own freedom. He might be a thief, but he realized that that was as low as he was willing to go.
Holly looked up, squeezing off a shot that stunned the descending dwarf, but she did not have time to look down. The second attacker clamped his fingers around her gun, almost taking her hand with it, then wrapped his powerful arms around Holly’s shoulders, squeezing the air from her body. The others closed in.
Mulch hopped to his feet.
“Wait, brothers. We need to interrogate the elf, find out what the LEP know.”
Derph didn’t agree. “No, Sergei. We do as we always do. Bury the witness and move on. Nobody can catch us underground. We take the jewels and go.”
Mulch punched the bear-hugging dwarf under the arm, a nerve cluster for dwarfs. He released Holly, and she fell gasping to the earth.
“No,” he barked. “I am the pack leader here! This is an LEP officer. We kill her and a thou
sand more will be on our trail. We bind her and leave.”
Derph tensed suddenly, leveling the tip of his dagger at Mulch. “You are different, Sergei. All this talk of sparing elves. Let me see you without the mask.”
Mulch backed up a step. “What are you saying? You can see my face later.”
“The mask! Now! Or I’ll see your innards as well as your face.”
And suddenly Artemis was in the tent, striding across the floor as if he owned the space.
“What is going on here?” he demanded, his accent decidedly German.
All faces turned to him. He was magnetic.
“Who are you?” asked Derph.
Artemis snorted. “Who am I? the little man asks. Did you not invite my master here from Berlin? My name is not important. All you need to know is that I represent Herr Ehrich Stern.”
“H–H–Herr Stern, of course,” stammered Derph. Ehrich Stern was a legend in the field of precious stones and how to dispose of them illegally. He also disposed of people who disappointed him. He had been invited to the tiara’s auction and was sitting in row three, as Artemis well knew.
“We come here to do business, and instead of professionalism we find some kind of dwarf feud.”
“There is no feud,” said Mulch, still playing the part of Sergei. “Just a little misunderstanding. We are deciding how to dispose of an unwelcome guest.”
Again, Artemis snorted. “There is only one way to dispose of unwanted guests. As a special favor, we will perform that service for you, for a discount on the tiara, of course.” He paused in disbelief, his eyes widening. “Tell me this is not she,” he said, picking the tiara off the ground where Holly had dropped it. “She lies in the dirt like some cluster of common stones. This truly is a circus.”
“Hey, take it easy,” said Mulch.
“And what is this?” demanded Artemis, pointing to Mulch’s helmet in the dirt.
“I dunno,” said Derph. “It’s an LEP … I mean, the intruder’s helmet. It’s her helmet.”
Artemis waggled a finger. “I think not, unless your tiny intruder has two heads. She is already wearing a helmet.”
Derph did the maths. “Hey, that’s right. So where did that helmet come from?”
Artemis shrugged. “I just got here, but I would guess that you have a traitor in your midst.”
The dwarfs turned, as one, toward Mulch.
“The mask!” growled Derph. “Take it off! Now!”
Mulch shot Artemis a look through the mask’s eyeholes. “Thanks a bunch.”
The dwarfs advanced in a semicircle, knives raised.
Artemis stepped in front of the group. “Halt, little men,” he said imperiously. “There is only one way to save this operation, and that is certainly not by staining the earth with blood. Leave these two to my bodyguard, and then we shall commence negotiations.”
Derph smelled a rat. “Wait a minute. How do we know you’re with Stern? You waltz in here just in time to save these two. It’s all a bit convenient if you ask me.”
“That’s why nobody asks you,” retorted Artemis. “Because you’re a dullard.”
Derph’s dagger glittered dangerously. “I’ve had it with you, kid. I say we get rid of all witnesses and move on.”
“Fine,” said Artemis. “This charade is beginning to bore me.” He raised his palm to his mouth. “Time for plan B.”
Outside the tent, Butler wrapped the tent’s mainstay around his wrist and pulled. He was a man of prodigious strength, and soon the metal pegs began to slide from the mud that held them. The canvas cracked, rippling and ripping. The dwarfs gaped at the billowing canvas.
“The sky is falling,” screamed a particularly dense one.
Holly took advantage of the sudden confusion, grabbing a stun grenade on her belt. She had seconds left before the dwarfs cut their losses and went subterranean. Once that happened it was all over. No one could catch a dwarf below ground. By the time Retrieval got here, the dwarfs would be miles away. The grenade was a strobe that sent out flashing light at such high frequency that too many messages were sent simultaneously to the watcher’s brain, shutting it down temporarily. Dwarfs were particularly susceptible to this kind of weapon, as they had a low light tolerance in the first place.
Artemis noticed the silver orb in Holly’s hand.
“Butler,” he said into his mike. “We need to get out of here! Now. Northeast corner.”
He grabbed Mulch’s collar, leading him backward. Overhead the canvas was falling, its descent cushioned by trapped air.
“We go,” screamed Derph. “We go now. Leave everything and dig.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” gasped Holly, her breath rasping along a bruised windpipe. She twisted the timer, rolling the grenade into the midst of the Significants. It was the perfect weapon against dwarfs. Shiny. No dwarf can resist anything shiny. Even Mulch was watching the glittering sphere, and would have kept watching until the flash, had Butler not slit a five-foot gash in the canvas and yanked the pair through the gap.
“Plan B,” he grunted. “Next time we pay more attention to the backup strategy.”
“Recriminations later,” said Artemis briskly. “If Holly is here, then backup won’t be far away. There must have been some kind of tracker on the helmet, something he hadn’t detected. Perhaps in one of the coatings. “Here’s the new plan. With the arrival of the LEP, we must split up now. I will write you a check for your share of the tiara. One point eight million euros, a fair black-market price.”
“A check? Are you joking?” objected Mulch. “How do I know I can trust you, Mud Boy?”
“Believe me,” said Artemis. “I am not to be trusted, generally. But we made a deal, and I don’t cheat my partners. You could, of course, wait here for the LEP to arrive and discover your miraculous recovery from the usually fatal affliction of death.”
Mulch snatched the offered check. “If this doesn’t clear, then I’m coming to Fowl Manor, and remember I know how to get in.” He noticed Butler’s angry glare. “Though obviously, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“It won’t. Trust me.”
Mulch unbuttoned his bum flap. “It’d better not.” He winked at Butler. And he was gone, below the earth in a flurry of dust, before the bodyguard could respond. It was just as well, really.
Artemis closed his fist around the blue diamond on the tiara’s crown. It was already loose in its setting. All he had to do now was leave. Simple. Let the LEP clean up their own mess. But even before he heard Holly’s voice, Artemis knew that it couldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever was.
“Don’t move, Artemis!” said the fairy captain. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you. In fact, I’m quite looking forward to it.”
Holly activated the Polaroid filter on her visor just before the stun grenade detonated. It was difficult to concentrate enough to perform even that simple operation. The canvas was flapping, the dwarfs were popping their bum flaps, and from the corner of her eye she noticed Fowl disappearing through a slit in the tent. He would not escape again. This time she would get a mind-wipe warrant and erase the fairy People from the Irish boy’s memory permanently.
She closed her eyes, in case any strobe light leaked through her visor, and waited for the pop. The flash, when it came, lit up the tent like a lampshade. Several seams of weak stitching were burned out, and rays of white light shot skyward like wartime searchlights. When she opened her eyes, the dwarfs were unconscious on the tent floor. One was the unfortunate Sergei, who had managed to climb from his tunnel just in time to get knocked out. Holly searched her belt for a sleeper-seeker hypodermic. The hypodermic contained small tracker beads loaded with a charged sedative. When the beads were injected into a fairy’s bloodstream, that fairy could be tracked anywhere in the world, and knocked out at will. It made retrieving rogue fairies a lot easier. Holly quickly fought her way through the folds of canvas, tagged all six dwarfs, then crawled to the flaps. Now Sergei and his band could be apprehended at any time
. This left her free to pursue Artemis Fowl. The tent was around her ears now, held up by pockets of trapped air. She had to get out, or it would completely collapse on her. Holly activated the mechanical wings on her back, creating her own little wind tunnel, and hovered through the flap, boots scraping the earth.
Fowl was leaving along with Butler.
“Don’t move, Artemis!” she yelled. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you. In fact, I’m quite looking forward to it.”
This was fighting talk, brimming with bravado and confidence—two things that were in short supply. But at least she sounded ready for a fight.
Artemis turned slowly. “Captain Short. You don’t look so well. Maybe you should get some medical attention.”
Holly knew she looked terrible. She could feel her fairy magic healing the bruises on her ribs, and her vision was still jumpy from stun-grenade overspill.
“I’m fine, Fowl. And even if I’m not, the computer in my helmet can fire this gun all on its own.”
Butler took a step to one side, splitting the target. He knew Holly would have to shoot him first.
“Don’t bother, Butler,” said Holly. “I can drop you and hunt the Mud Boy down in my own time.”
Artemis tutted. “Time is something you don’t have. The circus hands are already coming. In seconds they will be here, followed closely by the circus audience. Five hundred people all wondering what is going on here.”
“So what? I’ll be shielded.”
“So there is no way for you to take me in. And even if you could, I doubt that I have broken any fairy law. All I did was to steal a human tiara. Surely the LEP don’t get involved in human crime. I can’t be held responsible for fairy criminals.”
Holly struggled to keep her gun hand steady. Artemis was right, he hadn’t done anything to threaten the People. And the shouts from the circus folk were growing louder.
“So you see, Holly, you have no choice but to let me go.”
“And what about the other dwarf?”
“What dwarf?” said Artemis innocently. “The seventh dwarf. There were seven.”
Artemis counted on his fingers. “Six, I believe. Only six. Perhaps in all the excitement …”