Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl

Butler felt that something was afoot. Nevertheless, he took the crystal flute offered to him.

Juliet looked at her big brother.

'Is this OK?'

'I suppose so.' He took a breath. 'You know I love you, don't you, sis?'

Juliet scowled — something else that the local louts found very endearing. She smacked her brother on the shoulder.

'You're so emotional for a bodyguard.'

Butler looked his employer straight in the eye.

'You want us to drink this, don't you, Artemis?'

Artemis met his gaze squarely.

'Yes, Butler. I do.'

Without another word Butler drained his glass, Juliet followed suit. The manservant tasted the tranquillizer immediately, and although he would have had ample time to snap Artemis Fowl's neck, he didn't. No need for Juliet to be distressed in her final moments.

Artemis watched his friends sink to the floor. A pity to deceive them. But if they had been alerted to the plan, their anxiety could have counteracted the sedative. He gazed at the bubbles swirling in his own glass. Time for the most audacious step in his scheme. With only the barest hint of hesitation, he swallowed the tranquillizer-laced champagne.

Artemis waited calmly for the drug to take hold of his system. He didn't have to wait long, for each dose had been calculated according to body weight. As his thoughts began to swirl, it occurred to him that he might never awaken again. It's a bit late for doubts, he chided himself, and sank into unconsciousness.

'She's away,' said Foaly, leaning back from the console. 'It's out of my hands now.'

They followed the missile's progress through polarized windows.

It really was a remarkable piece of equipment. Because its main weapon was light, the fallout could be focused to an exact radius. The radioactive element used in the core was solinium 2, which had a half-life of fourteen seconds. This effectively meant that Foaly could tune the bio-bomb to blue-rinse only Fowl Manor and not one blade of grass more, plus the building would be radiation-free in under a minute. In the event that a few solinium flares refused to be focused, they would be contained by the time-field. Murder made easy.

'The flight path is pre-programmed,' explained Foaly, though no one was paying a blind bit of attention. 'She'll sail into the lobby and detonate. The casing and firing mechanism are plastic alloy and will completely disintegrate. Clean as a whistle.'

Root and Holly followed the bomb's arc. As predicted, it swooped through the decimated doorway without knocking so much as a sliver of stone from the medieval walls. Holly switched her attention to the missile's nose-cam. For a moment she caught a glimpse of the grand hallway where she had, until recently, been a prisoner. It was empty. Not a human in sight. Maybe, she thought.

Just maybe. Then she looked at Foaly and the technology at his fingertips. And she realized that the humans were as good as dead.

The bio-bomb detonated. A blue orb of condensed light crackled and spread, filling every corner of the manor with its deadly rays.

Flowers withered, insects shrivelled and fish died in their tanks. Not one cubic millimetre was spared. Artemis Fowl and his cohorts could not have escaped. It was impossible.

Holly sighed, turning away from the already dwindling blue-rinse. For all his grand designs, Artemis had been a mere mortal in the end. And for some reason she mourned his passing.

Root was more pragmatic.

'OK. Suit up. Full blackout gear.'

'It's perfectly safe,' said Foaly. 'Didn't you ever listen in school?'

The commander snorted.

'I trust science about as far as I could throw you, Foaly. Radiation has a habit of hanging around when certain scientists have assured us it has dissipated. No one steps outside the unit without blackout gear. So that counts you out, Foaly. Only bipedal suits. Anyway I want you on monitors, just in case…'

In case of what? wondered Foaly, but he didn't comment. Save it for an I told you so later.

Root turned to Holly.

'Are you ready, Captain?'

Going back in. The idea of identifying three cadavers didn't appeal to Holly. But she knew it was her duty. She was the only one with first-hand knowledge of the interior.

'Yessir. On my way.'

Holly selected a blackout suit from the rack, pulling it on over her jumpsuit. As per training, she checked the gauge before tugging the vulcanized cowl. A dip in pressure would indicate a rip, which could prove fatal in the long term.

Root lined up the insertion team at the perimeter. The remains of Retrieval One were about as eager to insert themselves into the manor as they would be to juggle Atlantean stink balloons.

'You're certain the big one is gone?'

'Yes, Captain Kelp. He's gone, one way or another.'

Trouble wasn't convinced. 'Because that's one mean human. I think he has magic of his own.'

Corporal Grub giggled, and got an immediate clip on the ear for himself. He muttered something about telling Mummy and quickly strapped on his helmet.

Root felt his complexion redden.

'Let's move out. Your mission is to locate and recover the bullion. Watch for booby traps. I didn't trust Fowl when he was alive, and I definitely don't trust him now that he's dead.'

The phrase 'booby traps' got everyone's attention. The idea of a Bouncing Betty anti-personnel mine exploding at head height was enough to dispel any nonchalance in the troops. No one built weapons of cruelty like the Mud Men.

As the junior Recon officer, Holly was on point. And even though there weren't supposed to be any hostiles in the manor, she found her gun hand automatically straying to the Neutrino 2000.

The mansion was eerily quiet, with only the fizzle of the last few solinium flares to alleviate the stillness. Death was there too, in the silence. The manor was a cradle of death. Holly could smell it. Behind those medieval walls lay the bodies of a million insects, and under its floors the cooling corpses of spiders and mice.

They approached the doorway tentatively. Holly swept the area with an X-ray scanner. Nothing under the flagstones but dirt, and a nest of dead money-spiders.

'Clear,' she said into her microphone. 'I'm going in. Foaly, have you got your ears on?'

'I'm right there with you, darlin',' replied the centaur. 'Unless you step on a landmine, in which case I'm way back in the Operations Room.'

'Are you getting any thermals?'

'Not after a blue-rinse. We have residual heat signatures all over the place. Mostly solinium flares. It won't calm down for a couple of days.'

'But no radiation, right?'

'That's right.'

Root snorted in disbelief. Over the headsets it sounded like an elephant sneezing.

'It looks like we're going to have to sweep this house the old-fashioned way,' he grumbled.

'Make it quick,' advised Foaly.

'I give it five minutes tops before Fowl Manor rejoins the world at large.'

Holly stepped through what used to be the doorway. The chandelier swung gently from the concussive force of the missile's detonation, but otherwise everything was as she remembered it.

'The gold is downstairs. In my cell.'

Nobody answered. Not in words. Someone did manage a retch.

Right into the microphone. Holly spun around. Trouble was doubled over, clutching his stomach.

'I don' feel so good,' he groaned. A tad unnecessarily, considering the pool of vomit all over his boots.

Corporal Grub took a breath, possibly to utter a sentence containing the word Mummy. What came out was a jet of concentrated bile. Unfortunately Grub didn't have the opportunity to open his visor before the illness struck. It was not a pretty sight.

'Ugh,' said Holly, pressing the corporal's visor-release button. A tsunami of regurgitated rations flooded over Grub's blackout suit.