The Time Paradox (Artemis Fowl 6)

Kronski nodded. “You put together a good argument for a ten-year-old. How much do I pay?”

“You pay five million euros. Nonnegotiable.”

“Cash?”

“Diamonds.”

Kronski pouted. “I won’t pay a single stone until I verify the authenticity of your product.”

“That’s fair.”

“That’s mighty accommodating of you, Fowl. How do you know I won’t double-cross you? After all, I’m pretty sure that you had a hand in whatever happened back at the souk. Payback is fair play where I come from.”

“You might double-cross me, Damon. But you won’t double-cross Butler. You are not a stupid man.”

Kronski grunted, impressed. “I got to hand it to you, boy. You’ve got all the angles figured. You present ’em well too.” He stared absently at his glowing hand. “You ever think it strange, Ah-temis, how a kid like you winds up going eyeball to eyeball with an old crook like me?”

“I don’t understand the question,” said Artemis truthfully.

Kronski clapped his hands and laughed. “It delights me, Ah-temis,” he said, “that a boy such as you exists. It makes my day.” The laughter stopped suddenly, as though cut off by a guillotine. “Now, how soon can I inspect the creature?”

“Immediately,” replied Artemis.

“Good. Well, text your man to come hither. Let’s say it takes him thirty minutes to get here, another ten to clear security. We can meet him in the grand lodge in one hour.”

“I said immediately,” said Artemis, clicking his fingers. Butler stepped out from behind a curtain, a Kevlar duffel bag under one arm.

Kronski squealed briefly, then rolled his eyes in frustration. “I can’t control that. . . . Ever since the koala in Cleveland. It’s so embarassing. . . .”

File and save, thought Artemis. Koala in Cleveland.

“Anyway,” continued the doctor, “how did he get in here?”

Butler shrugged. “I came in the same way you did, Doctor.”

“You were in the Land Rover,” breathed Kronski. “Very clever.”

“Not really. More lax on your part than clever on ours.”

“I will remember that. Do you have the merchandise with you?”

Butler’s mouth tightened, and Artemis knew that he was being pushed to the limits of his loyalty by this transaction. The lemur had been bad enough, but this female in the bag was some kind of person.

Wordlessly, the bodyguard placed the duffel on the desktop. Artemis tugged on the zipper, but Butler stopped him.

“She has some kind of hypnotizing skills. I once met a guy in Laos who could put the whammy on you, but nothing like this. She tried it outside the souk and I nearly ran into a camel, so I taped her mouth. Also, as we know, she can turn invisible. When I opened the bag first, she wasn’t there. I think her juice is running out, though. There could be more stunts; who knows what tricks she has hidden in those pointed ears. Are you prepared to take that risk?”

“Yes,” said Kronski, almost foaming at the mouth. “Absolutely yes. Open the bag.”

Butler removed his hand, and Artemis unzipped the duffel, exposing the figure inside.

Kronski stared into the mismatched eyes, ran a hand across the inhumanly wide brow, tugged one of the ears, then staggered to the office bar and poured himself a glass of water with shaky hands.

“Five million at today’s market price,” he said. “You said five and we agreed. No upping the price now.”

Artemis smiled. The doctor was hooked.

“Five million,” he said. “Plus expenses.”

Artemis the elder rode back to the landing site on a collapsible LEP scooter designed to resemble a 1950s human Lambretta. The resemblance was only bumper deep, as there were not many Lambrettas that came equipped with clean nuclear batteries, Gnommish satellite navigation, and self-destruct buttons.

The Ifrane road outside the imperial city was part of the fertile Fez river basin and was lined with olive groves and golf courses.

Ancient and modern. Coexisting.

Overhead the stars seemed closer and fiercer than at home in Ireland, shining down like stadium lights, as though Africa were somehow closer to the rest of the universe.

I lost her. I lost Holly.

But he did have a plan. A half-decent plan. All it needed was a bit of fairy technology to open a few doors, and then there was still a chance. Because without Holly, all was lost. There would be no future for any of them.

It took almost an hour to find the particular golf course where Holly had parked the LEP shuttle. Not that there was much evidence of a craft in that spot, besides a slightly flat plane of sand in the bunker. Holly had nosed the shuttle deep into the dry sand and left the shield powered on. Artemis only found it himself with the help of the bike’s navigation systems.

He collapsed the scooter into a Frisbee-size disk and climbed down through the roof hatch. Mulch Diggums was idly swiveling himself in the pilot’s chair. “That’s my scooter, Mud Boy,” he said. “That came off the trolley, so I take it with me.” Artemis shut the hatch behind him. “Where’s the lemur? Where’s Jayjay?”

Mulch answered these questions with some of his own. “Where’s Holly? Have you lost her?”

“Yes,” Artemis admitted miserably. “The boy outwitted me. He knew we would come for the lemur. He sacrificed it to get Holly.”

“Smart,” said Mulch. “Anyway, I’m off, see you . . .”

“See you? See you? One of your fairy comrades is in danger and you’re just going to desert her?”

Mulch raised his palms. “Hey, calm down, Mud Boy. The LEP are not my comrades. We had a deal: I get you the little furry fellow and you get me a trolley of LEP tech goodies. Job done, both parties happy.”

At that moment Jayjay poked his head around the bathroom door.

“What’s he doing in there?”

Mulch grinned. “Take two guesses.”

“Lemurs cannot use advanced plumbing.”

“See for yourself. Whatever’s in there, I’m blaming Jayjay.”

He clicked his furry fingers, and the lemur ran along his arm, onto his head.

“See? He accepts responsibility.” Mulch frowned. “You’re not going to trade this fellow for Captain Short, are you?”

“No point,” said Artemis, accessing the LEP central database. “It would be like trying to trade a hairpin for Excalibur.”

Mulch chewed his lip. “I’m familiar with the Excalibur story, so I know what you’re trying to say there. A hairpin is useless, Excalibur is wonderful, and so on. But in some instances a hairpin is extremely useful. Now, if you had said a rubber hairpin . . . Do you see what I’m getting at?”

Artemis ignored him, tapping furiously at the V-board that had appeared in front of him. He needed to know e

verything he could about the Extinctionists, and Foaly had an extensive file on them.

Mulch tickled Jayjay under the chin. “I was getting pretty fond of Captain Short, against my better judgment. I suppose I could dig in and rescue her.”

This was a genuine offer and a fair point, so Artemis spared a moment to address it.

“Not possible. Kronski has seen the tunnel rescue before and he won’t fall for it again. At any rate, you wouldn’t survive the temperature during the day. Even underground you wouldn’t be safe. The earth is so dry that cracks can penetrate up to fifty feet in open ground. One pinprick of midday sun and you would crisp like an old book in a furnace.”

Mulch winced. “Now you see that image works really well. So what are you going to do?”

Artemis used the advanced fairy technology to print a leopard print card with an Extinctionists’ hologram flashing silver and purple in the center.

“I’m going to the Extinctionists’ banquet tonight,” he said, flicking the card with his forefinger. “After all, I have been invited. All I need is a disguise and some medical supplies.”

Mulch was impressed. “That’s very good. You’re almost as devious as I am.”

Artemis turned back to the V-board. It would take time to firm up his cover.

“You have no idea,” he said.

The night of the Extinctionists’ banquet was upon him, and Kronski’s nerves were frazzled. He danced around his chalet wearing nothing but a bath towel, anxiously humming his way through the tunes from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Kronski often dreamed that he was wearing the technicolor coat, and it was fashioned from the pelts of all the animals he had hunted to extinction. He always awoke smiling.

Everything has to be perfect. This is the biggest night of my life. Thank you, little Ah-temis.

There was a lot riding on this conference, and the banquet generally set the tone for the entire weekend. Pull off something big at the banquet trial and the members would be buzzing about it for days. The Internet would be alive with chatter.