“If you wanted to swing a stink worm.”
“True.” Holly studied the pilot. “You’ve grown a lot in two years. The last time I saw you, you were a little girl.”
Juliet smiled. “A lot can happen in two years. I spent most of that time wrestling big hairy men.”
“You should see fairy wrestling. Two pumped-up gnomes going at it in a zero-G chamber. Not a pretty sight. I’ll send you a video disk.”
“No, you won’t.”
Holly remembered the mind wipes.
“You’re right,” she said. “I won’t.”
In the passenger section of the Lear jet, Mulch was reliving his glory days.
“Hey, Artemis,” he said through a mouthful of caviar. “Remember the time I nearly blew Butler’s head off with a blast of gas?”
Artemis did not smile. “I remember, Mulch. You were the wrench in an otherwise perfect works.”
“To tell you the truth, it was an accident. I was just nervous. I didn’t even realize the big guy was there.”
“That makes me feel better. Done in by a bowel problem.”
“And do you remember the time I saved your neck in Koboi Laboratories? If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be locked up in Howler’s Peak right now. Can’t you do anything without me?”
Artemis sipped mineral water from a crystal flute. “Apparently not, though I live for the day.”
Holly made her way back through the aisle.
“We better get you ready, Artemis. We land in thirty minutes.”
“Good idea.”
Holly emptied her kit onto the central table.
“Okay, what do we need for now? The throat mike and an iris camera.”
The LEP captain selected what looked like a circular adhesive bandage from the pile. She peeled back the adhesive layer and stuck the material to Artemis’s neck. It immediately turned the color of his skin.
“Memory latex,” explained Holly. “It’s almost invisible. Maybe an ant crawling up your neck might notice it, but apart from that . . . The material is also X-ray proof, so the mike is undetectable. It will pick up whatever is said in a ten-yard radius, and I record it on my helmet chip. Unfortunately, we can’t risk an earpiece. Too visible, so we can hear you, but you won’t be able to hear us.”
Artemis swallowed, feeling the mike ride on his Adam’s apple.
“And the camera?”
“Here we go.”
Holly removed a contact lense from a jar of fluid.
“This thing is a marvel. We’ve got high resolution, digital quality, recordable picture with several filter options, including magnification and thermal.”
Mulch sucked a chicken bone dry. “You’re starting to sound like Foaly.”
Artemis stared at the lense. “A technological marvel it may be, but it’s hazel.”
“Of course it’s hazel. My eyes are hazel.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Holly. But my eyes are blue, as you well know. This iris-cam will not do.”
“Don’t look at me like that, Mud Boy. You’re the genius.”
“I can’t go in there with one brown eye and one blue eye. Spiro will notice.”
“Well you should have thought of that while you were meditating. It’s a little late now.”
Artemis pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re right, of course. I am the mastermind here. Thinking is my responsibility, not yours.”
Holly squinted suspiciously. “Was that an insult, Mud Boy?”
Mulch spat the chicken bone into a nearby bin. “I have to tell you, Arty, a screwup this early in the proceedings doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I hope you’re as clever as you keep telling everyone you are.”
“I never tell anybody exactly how clever I am. They would be too scared. Very well, we will have to risk the hazel iris-cam. With any luck, Spiro might not notice. If he does, I can invent some excuse.”
Holly placed the camera on the tip of her finger, sliding the lense under Artemis’s lid.
“It’s your decision, Artemis,” she said. “I just hope you haven’t met your match in Jon Spiro.”
O’ Hare International Airport
Spiro was waiting for them at O’ Hare’s private hangar. He wore a fur-collared greatcoat over his trademark white suit. Halogen lamps blasted the tarmac, and the down-draught from the chopper blades snagged his coattails. It was all very cinematic.
All we need now is background music, thought Artemis, as he descended the motorized steps.
As instructed, Mulch was putting on the gangster act.
“Move it, kid,”he snarled, quite convincingly.“We don’t want to keep Mr. Spiro waiting.”
Artemis was about to respond, when he realized that he was supposed to be the “terrified kid.” It wasn’t going to be easy. Being humble was a real problem for Artemis Fowl.
“I said, move it!” repeated the dwarf, stressing the point with a firm shove.
Artemis stumbled the last few steps, almost colliding with a grinning Arno Blunt. This was no ordinary grin. Blunt’s teeth had been replaced by a custom-crafted porcelain set. The tips had been filed to sharp points. The bodyguard looked for all the world like a human–shark hybrid.
Blunt caught Artemis’s stare. “You like ’em? I got other sets, too. One is all flat. For crushing stuff.”
A cynical sneer was forming on Artemis’s mouth, before he remembered his role, replacing the sneer with a set of quivering lips. He was basing his performance on the effect Butler usually had on people.
Spiro was not impressed. “Nice acting, sonny. But pardon me if I doubt the great Artemis Fowl has fallen to pieces quite so easily. Arno, check the plane.”
Blunt nodded curtly, ducking inside the private jet. Juliet was dressed in a flight attendant’s uniform, straightening the headrest covers. For all her athletic ability, she was finding it difficult not to trip in her high heels.
“Where’s the pilot?” growled Blunt, living up to his name.
“Master Artemis flies the plane,” replied Juliet. “He’s been flying it since he was eleven years old.”
“Oh really? Is that legal?”
Juliet put on her best innocent face. “I don’t know about legal, sir. I just serve the drinks.”
Blunt grunted, charming as ever, and had a quick poke about the jet’s interior. Eventually, he decided to accept the flight attendant’s word. Lucky for him, because had he decided to argue, two things would have happened. First, Juliet would have clobbered him with the jade ring. And second, Holly who was lying shielded in an overhead locker, would have blasted him into unconsciousness with her Neutrino 2000. Of course, Holly could simply have mesmerized the bodyguard, but after what he had done to Butler, a blasting seemed more appropriate.
Blunt stuck his head through the hatch. “No one in there except some dumb attendant.”
Spiro was not surprised. “I didn’t think so. But they’re here somewhere. Believe it or not, Digence, Artemis Fowl did not get suckered by a goon like you. He’s here because he wants to be here.”
Artemis was not surprised by this deduction. It was only natural that Spiro be suspicious.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I’m here because this odious little man threatened to crush my skull between his teeth. Why else would I come? The C Cube is useless to you, and I could easily construct another one.”
Spiro was not even listening. “Yeah yeah, whatever you say, kid. But let me tell you something. You bit off more than you could chew when you agreed to come here. The Spiro Needle has the best security on the planet. We’ve got stuff in there that even the military don’t have. Once those doors close behind you, you’re on your own. Nobody is coming to save you. Nobody. Understand?”
Artemis nodded. He understood what Spiro was saying to him. That wasn’t to say that he agreed with it. Jon Spiro might have “stuff ” that the military didn’t have, but Artemis Fowl had “stuff ” that humans had never seen.
A Sikorsky executive helicopter whisk
ed them downtown to the Spiro Needle. They landed on a helipad on the skyscraper’s roof. Artemis was familiar with helicopter controls, and realized how difficult it must be to land in the bluster of the Windy City.
“The wind speed must be treacherous at this altitude,” he said casually. Holly could record the information on her helmet chip.
“You’re telling me,” shouted the pilot over the rotors’ din. “It gets to over sixty miles an hour on top of the Needle. The helipad can sway up to thirty feet in rough conditions.”