Artemis Fowl (13 page)

“What don’t you like?”

“The lie of the land. I smell limestone. Solid-rock foundation. There might not be a way in.”

Foaly trotted across. “I’ve done a scan. The original structure is based totally on rock, but some of the later extensions stray on to clay. The wine cellar in the south wing appears to have a wooden floor. It should be no problem for someone with a mouth like yours.”

Mulch decided to take that as a statement of fact rather than an insult. He opened the back flap on his tunneling pants. “Right. Stand back.”

Root and the surrounding LEP officers rushed for cover, but Foaly, who had never actually seen a dwarf tunneling, decided to stay for a peek.

“Good luck, Mulch.”

The dwarf unhinged his jaw.

“Ank oo,” he mumbled, bending over for launch.

The centaur looked around.

“Where’s everyone—”

He never finished that statement, because a blob of recently swallowed and even more recently recycled limestone whacked him in the face. By the time he’d cleared his eyes, Mulch had disappeared down a vibrating hole, and there was the sound of hearty laughter shaking the cherry trees.

Mulch followed a loamy vein through a volcanic fold in the rock. Nice consistency, not too many loose stones. Plenty of insect life too. Vital for strong healthy teeth, a dwarf’s most important attribute—the first thing a prospective mate looked at. Mulch went low to the limestone, his belly almost scraping the rock. The deeper the tunnel, the less chance of subsidence on the surface. You couldn’t be too careful these days, not with motion sensors and land mines. Mud People went to extraordinary lengths to protect their valuables. With good reason, as it happened.

Mulch felt a vibration cluster to his left. Rabbits. The dwarf fixed the location in his internal compass. Always useful to know where the local wildlife hung out. He skirted the warren, following the manor foundations around in a long northwesterly loop.

Wine cellars were easy to locate. Over the centuries, residue seeped through the floor, infusing the land beneath with the wine’s personality. This one was somber, nothing daring here. A touch of fruit, but not enough to lighten the flavor. Definitely an occasion wine on the bottom rack. Mulch burped. That was good clay.

The dwarf aimed his scything jaws skyward, punching through the floorboards. He hauled himself through the jagged hole, shaking the last of the recycled mud from his pants.

He was in a blessedly dark room, perfect for dwarf vision. His sonar had guided him to an uncovered spot in the floor. Three feet to the left and he would have emerged in a huge barrel of Italian red.

Mulch rehinged his jaw and padded across to the wall. He flattened a conchlike ear to the red brickwork. For a moment he was absolutely still, absorbing the house’s vibrations. A lot of low-frequency humming. There was a generator somewhere, and plenty of juice running through the wires.

Footsteps, too. Way up. Maybe on the third floor. And close by. A crashing sound. Metal on concrete. There it was again. Someone was building something. Or breaking something down.

Something skittered past his foot. Mulch squashed it instinctively. It was a spider. Just a spider.

“Sorry, little friend,” he said to the gray smear. “I’m a bit on the jittery side.”

The steps were wooden, of course. More than a century old too by the smell of them. Steps like that creaked as soon as you looked at them. Better than any pressure pads for giving away intruders. Mulch climbed along the edges, one foot in front of the other. Right in by the wall was where the wood had most support and was less likely to creak.

This was not as simple as it sounds. Dwarf feet are designed for spadework, not for the delicate intricacies of ballet dancing or balancing on wooden steps. Nonetheless, Mulch reached the door without incident. A couple of minor squeaks, but nothing that would be detectable by human ears or hardware.

The door was locked, naturally, but it may as well not have been for all the challenge it presented to a kleptomaniac dwarf.

Mulch reached into his beard, plucking out a sturdy hair. Dwarf hair is radically different from the human variety. Mulch’s beard and head hair were actually a matrix of antennae that helped him to navigate and avoid danger below ground. Once removed from its pore, the hair immediately stiffened in rapid rigor mortis. Mulch twisted the end in the seconds before it became completely rigid. A perfect pick.

One quick jiggle and the lock yielded. Only two tumblers. Terrible security. Typical of humans, they never expected an attack from below. Mulch stepped on to a parquet corridor. The whole place smelled of money. He could make a fortune here, if only he had the time.

There were cameras just below the architrave. Tastefully done, nestling in the natural shadows. But vigilant nonetheless. Mulch stood for a moment, calculating the system’s blind spot. Three cameras on the corridor. Ninety-second sweep. No way through.

“You could ask for help,” said a voice in his ear.

“Foaly?” Mulch pointed his wired eyeball at the nearest camera. “Can you do anything about those?” he whispered.

The dwarf heard the sound of a keyboard being manipulated, and suddenly his right eye zoomed like a camera lens.

“Handy,” breathed Mulch. “I’ve got to get me one of these.”

Root’s voice crackled through the tiny speaker. “No chance, convict. Government issue. Anyway, what would you do with one in prison? Get a close-up of the other side of your cell?”

“You’re such a charmer, Julius. What’s the matter? Are you jealous because I’m succeeding where you failed?”

Root’s foul swearing was drowned out by Foaly.

“Okay, I’ve got it. Simple video network. Not even digital. I’m going to broadcast a loop of the last ten seconds to every camera through our dishes. That should give you a few minutes.”

Mulch shuffled uncomfortably. “How long will that take? I’m a bit exposed here, you know.”

“It’s already started,” replied Foaly. “So get moving.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Elementary electronics. I’ve been messing with human surveillance since kindergarten. You’ll just have to trust me.”

I’d rather trust a bunch of humans not to hunt a species to extinction than trust an LEP consultant, thought Mulch. But aloud he said, “Okay. I’m away. Over and out.”

He sneaked down the hall. Even his hands were sneaky, padding the air as if he could somehow make himself lighter. Whatever that centaur did must have worked, because there were no agitated Mud People racing down the stairs, waving primitive gunpowder weapons.

Stairs. Ah, stairs. Mulch had a thing for stairs. They were like predug shafts. He found that inevitably the best booty lay at their summit. And what a stairway. Stained oak, with the intricate carvings generally associated with either the eighteenth century or the obscenely rich.

Mulch rubbed his finger along an ornate banister. In this case, probably both.

Still, no time to moon about. Stairways did not tend to remain deserted for long, especially during a siege. Who could tell how many bloodthirsty troopers waited behind each door, eager for a fairy head to add to their stuffed trophy wall.

Mulch climbed carefully, taking nothing for granted. Even solid oak creaked. He stuck to the borders, avoiding the carpet inlay. The dwarf knew from conviction number eight how easy it was to conceal a pressure pad beneath the deep shag of some antique weave.

He reached the landing with his head still attached to his shoulders. But there was another problem quite literally brewing. Dwarf digestion, due to its accelerated rate, can be quite explosive. The loosely packed soil on the Fowl estate was very well aerated, and a lot of that air had entered Mulch’s tubes along with the soil and minerals. Now the air wanted to get out.

Dwarf etiquette dictated that gas be passed while still in the tunnel, but Mulch didn’t have time for manners. Now he regretted not taking a moment to get rid of the gas while he was in the cellar. The problem with dwarf gas was that it couldn’t go up, only down. Imagine, if you will, the catastrophic effects of burping while digesting a mouthful of clay. Total system backup. Not a pretty sight. Thus dwarf anatomy ensured that all gas was passed below, actually aiding in the expulsion of unwanted clay.

Mulch wrapped his arms around his stomach. He’d better get out of the open. A blowout on a landing like this could take out the windows. He shuffled along the corridor, skipping through the first doorway he encountered.

More cameras. Quite a lot of them, in fact. Mulch studied the lenses’ sweep. Four were surveying the general floorspace, but another three were fixed.

“Foaly? You there?” whispered the dwarf.

“No.”
The typical sarcastic reply. “I have much better things to do than worry about the collapse of civilization as we know it.”

“Yes, thank you. Don’t let my life being in danger interrupt your merriment.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“I have a challenge for you.”

Foaly was instantly interested. “Really? Go on.”

Mulch pointed his gaze at the recessed cameras, half hidden in the swirling architrave. “I need to know where those three cameras are pointing. Exactly.”

Foaly laughed.“That’s not a challenge. Those old video systems emit faint ion beams. Invisible to the naked eye, of course, but not with your iris-cam . . .”

The hardware in Mulch’s eye flickered and sparked.

“Oww!”

“Sorry. Small charge.”

“You could have warned me.”

“I’ll give you a big kiss later, you baby. I thought dwarfs were tough.”

“We are tough. I’ll show you just how tough when I get back.”

Root’s voice interrupted the posturing. “You won’t be showing anyone anything, convict, except perhaps where the toilet is in your cell. Now, what do you see?”

Mulch looked at the room again through his ion-sensitive eye. Each camera was emitting a faint beam, like the last evening sun rays. The rays pooled on a portrait of Artemis Fowl, Senior.

“Not behind the picture. Oh, please.”

Mulch placed his ear against the picture glass. Nothing electrical. Not alarmed, then. Just to be sure, he sniffed the frame’s edge. No plastic or copper. Wood, steel, and glass. Some lead in the paint. He curled a nail behind the frame and pulled. The picture came away smoothly, hinged on the side. And behind it—a safe.

“It’s a safe,” said Foaly.

“I know that, you idiot. I’m trying to concentrate here! If you want to help, tell me the combination.”

“No problem. Oh, by the way, there’s another little shock coming. Maybe the big baby would like to suck his thumb for comfort.”

“Foaly. I’m going to . . . Owww!”

“There. That’s the X ray on.”

Mulch squinted at the safe. It was incredible. He could see right into the works. Tumblers and catches stood out in shadowy relief. He blew on his hairy fingers and twisted the combination dial. In seconds the safe lay open before him.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just human currency. Nothing of value.”

“Leave it,” ordered Root. “Try another room. Get going.”

Mulch nodded. Another room. Before his time ran out. But something was niggling at him. If this guy was so clever, why did he put the safe behind a painting? Such a cliché. Totally against form. No. Something wasn’t right here. They were being duped somehow.

Mulch closed the safe, swinging the portrait back into position. It swung smoothly, weightless on the hinges. Weightless. He swung the picture out again. And back in.

“Convict. What are you doing?”

“Shut up, Julius! I mean, quiet a moment, Commander.”

Mulch squinted at the frame’s profile. A bit thicker than normal. Quite a bit thicker. Even taking the box frame into account. Two inches. He ran a nail down the heavy cartridge backing and stripped it away to reveal . . .

“Another safe.”

A smaller one. Custom-made, obviously.

“Foaly. I can’t see through this.”

“Lead-lined. You’re on your own, burglar boy. Do what you do best.”

“Typical,” muttered Mulch, flattening his ear to the cold steel.

He twirled the dial experimentally. Nice action. The clicks were muted by the lead; he would have to concentrate. The upside was that something this thin could have only three tumblers at the most.

Mulch held his breath and twisted the dial, one cog at a time. To the normal ear, even with amplification, the clicks would have seemed uniform. But to Mulch, each cog had a distinctive signature and when a ratchet caught, it was so loud as to be deafening.

“One,” he breathed.

“Hurry it up, convict. Your time is running out.”

“You interrupted to tell me that? I can see now how you made commander, Julius.”

“Convict, I’m going to . . .”

But it was no use. Mulch had removed his earpiece, slipping it into his pocket. Now he could devote his full attention to the task at hand.

“Two.”

There was noise outside. In the hall. Someone was coming. About the size of an elephant by the sound of it. No doubt this was the man mountain that had made mincemeat of the Retrieval Squad.

Mulch blinked a bead of sweat from his eye.

Concentrate. Concentrate. The cogs clicked by. Millimeter by millimeter. Nothing was catching. The floor seemed to be hopping gently, though he could be imagining it.

Click, click.
Come on. Come on. His fingers were slick with perspiration, the dial slipping between them. Mulch wiped them on his jerkin.

“Now, baby, come on. Talk to me.”

Click. Thunk.

“Yes!”

Mulch twisted the handle. Nothing. Still an obstruction. He ran a fingertip over the metal face. There. A small irregularity. A micro keyhole. Too small for your average lock pick. Time for a little trick he’d learned in prison. Quickly though, his stomach was bubbling like stew in the oven, and the footsteps were getting closer.

Selecting a sturdy chin hair, Mulch fed it gently into the tiny hole. When the tip reappeared, he pulled the root from his chin. The hair immediately stiffened, retaining the shape of the lock’s interior.