by Eoin Colfer
'Gotta bounce it,' said Doodah through gritted teeth.
He leaned hard left, eased up on the accelerator and hit the wall side-on. At the moment of impact he shifted his weight and stepped on the gas. The car lost a door, but shot out of the corner like a stone from a sling.
Beautiful, thought Doodah as soon as his head stopped ringing.
He had maybe seconds now before the girl could see him again, and who knew how many guards stood between him and freedom.
He was in a long straight corridor, opening on to a sitting room. Doodah could see a wall-mounted television and the top rim of a red velvet sofa. There must be steps down into the room. Not good. This car only had one more impact left in it.
'Where is Bobo?' shouted the girl. 'What have you done with him?'
No point in subtlety now. Time to see what this buggy could do. Doodah jammed his foot on the accelerator, then made a beeline for a window behind the velvet sofa. He patted the dash.
'You can do it, you little junk box. One jump. Your chance to be a thoroughbred.'
The car didn't answer back. They never did. Though occasionally in times of extreme stress and oxygen deprivation, Doodah imagined they shared his cavalier attitude.
Minerva came round the corner. She was running hard, and screaming into a walkie-talkie. Doodah heard the words apprehend, necessary violence and interrogation. None of which boded well for him.
The toy car's wheels spun on a long rug, then caught. The rug was shunted backwards like a length of toffee from a roller. Minerva was bowled over, but kept talking as she went down.
'He's headed for the library. Take him down! Shoot if necessary.'
Doodah held on to the wheel grimly, keeping his line. He was going out of that window, closed or not. He entered the room at seventy miles per hour, flying off the top step. Not bad acceleration for a toy. There were two guards in the room, in the act of drawing their weapons. They wouldn't shoot though. It still appeared as though the car was being driven by a child.
Suckers, thought Doodah — then the first bullet crashed into the chassis.
OK, maybe they would shoot the car.
He flew in a gentle arc towards the window. Two more bullets took plastic chunks from the bodywork, but it was too late to stop the tiny vehicle. It clipped the lower frame, lost a fender and tumbled out through the open window.
Someone really should be filming this, thought Doodah, as he clenched his teeth for impact.
The crash shook him all the way from his toes to his skull. Stars danced before Doodah's eyes for a moment, then he was in control again, careering towards the septic tank.
Mulch was waiting, his wild halo of hair quivering with impatience.
'Where have you been? I'm running out of sunblock.'
Doodah did not waste time with an answer. Instead he extricated himself from the all but demolished car, prising off his Mongocharger and mirror.
Mulch pointed a stubby finger at him. 'I have a few more questions.'
A bullet fired from the open window ricocheted off" the septic tank, throwing up concrete splinters.
'But they can wait. Hop on.'
Mulch turned, presenting Doodah with his back, and more besides.
Doodah jumped on, grabbing thick hanks of Mulch's beard.
'Go!' he shouted. 'They're right behind me!'
Mulch unhinged his jaw and he went into the clay like a hairy torpedo.
But fast as he was, they wouldn't have made it. Armed guards were two paces away. They would have seen the gently snoring Beau and riddled the moving tunnel mound with bullets. They probably would have tossed in a few grenades for good measure. But they didn't, because at that precise moment all hell broke loose inside the chateau.
As soon as Doodah had twisted the loaded fibre optic round the video cable, hundreds of tiny spikes had punctured the rubber, making dozens of strong contacts with the wiring inside.
Seconds later in Section 8 HQ, information came flooding into Foaly's terminal. He had video, alarm systems, waffle boxes and communications all flashing up in separate windows on his screen.
Foaly cackled, cracking his knuckles like a concert pianist. He loved those old fibre optic twists. Not as fancy as the new organic bugs, but twice as reliable.
'OK,' he said into a reed mike on his desk. 'I'm in control. What kind of nightmares would you like to give the Paradizos?'
In the south of France, Captain Holly Short spoke into her helmet microphone. 'Whatever you have. Storm troopers, helicopters. Overload their communications, blow out their waffle boxes. Set off all the alarms. I want them to believe they are under attack.'
Foaly called up several phantom files on his computer. The phantoms were one of his own pet projects. He would lift patterns from human movies, soldiers, explosions whatever, and then use them universally in whatever scene he chose. In this case he sent a squad of French Army special forces, the Commandement des Operations Speciales, or COS, to the Paradizos' closed-circuit system. That would do nicely for starters.
Inside the chateau, the Paradizo chief of security, Juan Soto, had a little problem. His little problem was that a couple of loose shots were being popped off in the house. This can only be seen as a little problem in relation to the very big problem that Foaly was sending his way.
Soto was speaking into a radio.
'Yes, Miss Paradizo,' he said, keeping his voice calm. . 'I realize that your brother may be missing. I say may be because that may be him in the toy car. It sure looks like him to me. OK, OK, I take your point. It is unusual for toy cars to fly that far. It could be a malfunction.'
Soto resolved to have strong words with the two idiots who had actually fired on a toy car on Minerva's command. He did not care how smart she was, no child was giving orders like that on his watch.
Even though Miss Minerva was nowhere near the security centre and could not see his face, Chief Soto adopted a stern expression for the lecture he was about to give.
'Now, Miss Paradizo, you listen to me,' he began, then his expression changed completely as the security system went ballistic.
'Yes, Chief, I'm listening.'
The chief held on to his radio with one hand; with the other he flicked numerous switches on his security console, praying for malfunction.
'There seems to be a full squad of COS converging on the chateau. My
God, there are some in the house. Helicopters, the rooftop cameras are picking up helicopters.' Transmissions suddenly squawked through the band monitor. 'And we have chatter. They're after you, Miss Paradizo, and your prisoner. My God, the alarms have all been tripped. Every sector. We're surrounded! We need to evacuate. I can see them in the treeline. They have a tank. How did they get a tank up here?'
Outside, Artemis and Butler watched the chaos Foaly had created. Alarm klaxons ripped through the Alpine air and security men sprinted to ordained spots.
Butler lobbed a few smoke grenades into the grounds to add to the effect.
'A tank,' said Artemis wryly into his fairy phone. 'You sent them a tank?'
'You've hacked into the audio feed?' said Foaly sharply. 'Just what else can that phone of yours do?'
'It can play solitaire and minesweeper,' replied Artemis innocently.
Foaly grunted doubtfully. 'We'll talk about this later, Mud Boy. For now, let's concentrate on the plan.'
'Excellent suggestion. Do you have any phantom guided missiles?'
The security chief nearly fainted. The radar had picked up two tracks spiralling from the belly of a helicopter.
'Man Dieu! Missiles. They're firing smart bombs at us. We must evacuate now.' 162
He flicked open a perspex panel, revealing an orange switch below.
With only a moment's hesitation, he pressed the orange switch. The various alarms were immediately cut off and replaced by a single continuous whine. The evac alarm.
The moment this was sounded, the guards changed course, heading for their assigned vehicles or principals, an
d the non-security residents of the chateau began gathering data or whatever was most precious to them.
On the eastern side of the house, a series of garage doors opened and six black BMW four-wheel drives sprang into the courtyard like cougars.
One had blacked-out windows.
Artemis studied the situation through binoculars.
'Watch the girl,' he said into the tiny phone in his palm. 'The girl is the key. I'm guessing hers is the vehicle with the tinted windows.'
The girl Minerva appeared through patio doors, speaking calmly into a walkie-talkie. Her father trailed beside her, dragging a protesting Beau
Paradizo by the hand. Billy Kong came last, bending slightly under the weight of a large golf bag.
'Here we go, Holly. Are you ready?'
'Artemis! I'm the field agent here,' came the irritated reply. 'Stay off my band unless you have something to contribute.'
'I was just thinking. .'
'I was just thinking that you should change your middle name to control freak.'
Artemis glanced across at Butler, who was lying beside him on the verge and couldn't help overhearing the entire exchange.
'Control freak? Can you believe that?' 'The nerve of some people,' replied the bodyguard, without taking his eyes off the chateau.
To their left, a small patch of earth began to vibrate. Mud, grass and insects were thrust upwards in a sudden gush, followed by two heads.
One dwarf and one pixie.
Doodah climbed over Mulch's shoulders, collapsing on the ground.
'You people are crazy,' he panted, plucking a beetle from his shirt pocket. 'I should be getting more than amnesty for this. I should be getting a pension.'
'Quiet, little man,' said Butler calmly. 'Phase two of the plan is about to start, and I wouldn't want to miss it because of you.'
Doodah blanched. 'Neither would I. Want you to miss it, that is. Because of me.'
Outside the chateau's garage, Billy Kong popped one of I the BMW's boots, hefting the golf bag inside. It was the car with the tinted windows.
Artemis opened his mouth to issue an order, then closed it again. Holly probably knew what to do.
She did. The driver's door clunked open a fraction, apparently all on its own, then closed again. Before Minerva or Billy Kong could do more than blink in surprise, the four-by-four started up and laid down a six-metre length of rubber skidding towards the main gate.
'Perfect,' said Artemis under his breath. 'Now, Miss Minerva Paradizo, would-be criminal mastermind, let us see exactly how smart you are. I know what I would do in this situation.'
Minerva Paradizo's reaction was a bit less dramatic than one might expect from a child who has just had her prize possession stolen. There were no tantrums or foot-stamping. Billy Kong also defied expectations.
He did not so much as draw a weapon. Instead he squatted on his hunkers, ran his fingers through Manga hair and lit a cigarette, which Minerva promptly plucked from his lips and squashed underfoot.
Meanwhile the four-by-four was getting away, barrelling towards the main gates. Perhaps Minerva was confident that the reinforced steel barrier would be sufficient to halt the BMW in its tracks. She was wrong.
Holly had already weakened the bolts with her Neutrino. One tap from the vehicle's grille would be more than sufficient to barge the gates out of the way. If it got that far. Which it did not.
After she had crushed Kong's cigarette, Minerva took a remote control from her pocket, tapped in a short code, then hit the 'Send' button. In the BMW's cab, a tiny charge detonated in the airflow system, releasing a cloud of sevoflurane, a potent sleeping gas. In seconds, the vehicle began to weave, ramping the driveway bushes and cutting a swathe through the manicured lawn.
'Problems,' said Butler.
'Hmm,' said Artemis. 'A gas device, I would guess. Fast-acting. Possibly cyclopropane or sevoflurane.'
Butler knelt, drawing his pistol. 'Should I stroll in there and get them?'
'No. You shouldn't.'
The BMW was careering wildly now, following the dips and slopes of the grounds' topography. It destroyed a mini-golf green, pulverized a gazebo and decapitated a centaur statue.
Hundreds of miles below ground, Foaly winced.
The vehicle finally came to rest in a lavender bed, nose down, rear wheels spinning, spitting out hunks of clay and uprooted long-stemmed purple flowers, like missiles.
Nice action, thought Mulch, but he kept the notion to himself, fully aware that this might not be the time to stretch Butler's patience.
Butler was raring to go. His gun was out and the tendons in his neck were stretched, but Artemis held him back with a touch to the forearm.
'No,' he said. 'Not now. I know your impulse4s to help, but now is not the time.'
The bodyguard jammed his Sig Sauer handgun back into its holster, scowling. 'Are you sure, Artemis?'
'Trust me, old friend.'
And of course, Butler did, even if his instincts were not so sure.
Inside the grounds, a dozen security guards were warily approaching the vehicle, led by Billy Kong. The man moved like a cat, on the balls of his feet. Even his face was feline, smug grin and flat eyes.
On his signal, the men rushed the car, reclaiming the golf bag and hauling an unconscious Holly from the front seat. The elf was cuffed with plastic ties and hauled across the garden to where Minerva Paradizo and her father stood waiting.
Minerva removed Holly's helmet and kneeled to examine her pointed ears. Through his binocular lenses, Artemis could clearly see that she was smiling.
It had been a trap. AH a trap.
Minerva tucked the helmet under her arm, then walked briskly back towards the house. Halfway there, she stopped and turned. Shielding her eyes from the sun's glare, she scanned the shadows and peaks of the surrounding hillsides.
'What's she looking for?' Butler speculated aloud.
Artemis did not wonder. He knew exactly what this surprising girl was after.
'She's looking for us, old friend. If that was your chateau, perhaps you might have wondered where a spy would conceal himself.'
'Of course. And that's why I picked this spot. The ideal location would have been further up the hill, in that cluster of rocks, but that would also have been the first spot any security expert would booby-trap. This would be my second choice, and so, my first choice.'
Minerva's gaze swept past the rock cluster and rested on the line of bushes where they were hiding. She couldn't possibly see them, but her intellect told her that they were there.
Artemis focused on the girl's pretty face. It amazed him that he could appreciate Minerva's features, even as his friend was being hauled into captivity. Puberty was a powerful force.
Minerva was smiling. Her eyes were bright and they taunted Artemis across the vale between them. She spoke in English then. Artemis and Butler, both expert lip-readers, had no difficulty interpreting her short sentence.
'Did you get that, Artemis?' asked Butler.
'I got it. And she got us.'
'Your move, Artemis Fowl,' Minerva had said.
Butler sat back in the ditch, slapping mud from his elbows.
'I thought you were one of a kind, Artemis, but that girl is a smart one.'
'Yes,' said Artemis, musing. 'She's a regular juvenile criminal mastermind.'
Below ground, in Section 8 HQ, Foaly groaned into his microphone.
'Great,' he said. 'Now there are two of you.'
Chapter 8: SUDDEN IMPACT
INSIDE the chateau paradizo
No.1 was having a lovely dream. In the dream, his mother was holding a surprise party for him, in honour of his graduation from warlock college. The food was scrumptious. The dishes were cooked and most of the meat was already dead.
He was reaching for a beautifully presented basted pheasant in a basket of woven herb bread ropes, just like the one described in Chapter Three of Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow, when suddenly the vision retreated i
nto the far distance, as though reality itself was being stretched.
No.1 tried to follow the feast but it drew further and further away, and now his legs wouldn't work and No.1 couldn't understand why. He looked down and saw to his horror that everything from his armpits down had turned to stone. The stone virus was spreading upwards across his chest and along his neck. No.1 felt the urge to scream. He was suddenly terrified that his mouth would turn to stone before he could scream. To be petrified forever and hold that scream inside would be the ultimate horror.
No.1 opened his mouth and screamed.
Billy Kong, who had been lounging on a chair watching, snapped his fingers at a camera on the ceiling.
'The ugly one is awake,' he said. 'And I think it wants its mother.'
No.1 stopped screaming when his breath ran out. It was a bit of an anticlimax really, starting out with a lusty howl and petering off to a reedy whine.
OK, thought No.1. I am alive and in the land of men. Time to open my eyes andjind out just how deep in the pig dung I actually am.
No.1 cracked his eyes open warily, as though he might see something big and hard heading for his face at high speed. What he did see was that he was in a small bare room. There were rectangular lights on the ceiling that threw out the light of a thousand candles, and most of one wall was taken up by a mirror. There was a human, possibly a child, perhaps a female, with a ridiculous mane of blonde curls and an extra finger on each hand. The creature was wearing a ludicrously impractical toga-type arrangement and spongy-soled shoes, with lightning bolts 170 embossed on the sides. There was another person in the room. A slouching, leering, thin man, who tapped a staccato rhythm on his leg.
No.1 's eyes were drawn to the second human's hair. There were at least half a dozen colours in there. The man was a peacock.
No.1 decided that perhaps he should raise his empty hands, to show that he wasn't carrying a weapon, but it's difficult to do that when you are tied to a chair.
'I'm tied to a chair,' he said apologetically, as though it was his fault.
Unfortunately he said this in Gnommish and in the demon dialect. To the humans it sounded like he was trying to dislodge a particularly annoying blockage from his throat.