‘Unlike you,’ retorted Spiro.
Artemis looked like a doll between Pex and Chips. ‘Don’t you understand yet? You’re all on tape. The Cube was working for me.’
‘Big deal. So we’re on tape. All I have to do is pay the security booth a visit and take the recordings.’
‘It’s not going to be that simple.’
Spiro still believed that there was a way out.
‘And why not? Who’s gonna stop me? Little old you?’
Artemis pointed to the screens. ‘No. Little old them.’
The Chicago PD brought everything they had, and a few things they had to borrow. Phonetix was the city’s biggest single employer, not to mention one of the top five subscribers to the Police Benevolent Fund. When the 911 call came in the duty sergeant put out a city wide summons.
In less than five minutes there were twenty uniforms and a full SWAT team beating on the Phonetix doors. Two choppers hovered overhead and eight snipers lined the roofs of the adjacent buildings. No one was leaving the area, unless they were invisible.
The Phonetix security guard had returned from his rounds and just noticed the intruders on the monitors. Shortly after that he noticed a group of Chicago PD uniforms tapping the door with their gun barrels.
He buzzed them in. ‘I was just about to call you guys,’ he said. ‘There’s a buncha intruders in the vault. They musta tunnelled in or somethin’, ‘cause they didn’t come past me.’
The security guard on a restroom break was even more surprised. He was just finishing off the sports section of the Herald Tribune when two very serious-looking men in body armour burst into the cubicle.
‘ID?’ growled one, who apparently did not have the time for full sentences.
The security guard held up his laminated card with a shaking hand.
‘Stay put, sir,’ advised the other police officer. He didn’t have to say it twice.
Juliet slipped out from behind the pillar, joining the ranks of the SWAT team. She pointed her gun and roared with the best of them, and was instantly assimilated into the group. Their assault was cut short by a tiny problem. There was only one access-point to the lab. The lift shaft.
Two officers prised open the lift door with crowbars.
‘Here’s our dilemma,’ said one. ‘We cut the power, then we can’t get the lift up here. If we call the lift up here first, then we tip off our intruders.’
Juliet shouldered herself to the front of the group.
‘Excuse me, sir. Let me go down on the cables. I blow the doors and you cut the power.’
The commander did not even consider it. ‘No. Too dangerous. The intruders would have plenty of time to put a hundred rounds into the lift. Who are you anyway?’
Juliet took a small gripper from her belt. She clipped it on to the lift cable and hopped into the shaft.
‘I’m new,’ she said, disappearing into the blackness.
*
In the laboratory, Spiro and Co. were hypnotized by the monitors. Foaly had allowed the screens to show what was actually happening on the upper levels.
‘SWAT,’ said Blunt. ‘Helicopters. Heavy armament. How did this happen?’
Spiro smacked his own forehead repeatedly.
‘A set-up. This entire thing. A set-up. I suppose Mo Digence was working for you too?’
‘Yes. Pex and Chips too, even if they didn’t know it. You would never have come here if I’d suggested it.’
‘But how? How did you do this? It’s not possible.’
Artemis glanced at the monitors. ‘Obviously it is. I knew you would be waiting for me in the Spiro Needle vault. After that, all I had to do was use your own hatred of Phonetix to lure you here, out of your environment.’
‘If I go down, so do you.’
‘Incorrect. I was never here. The tapes will prove it.’
‘But you are here!’ roared Spiro, his nerves shot. His whole body vibrated and spittle sprayed from his lips in a wide arc. ‘Your dead body will prove it. Give me the gun, Arno. I’m going to shoot him.’
Blunt could not hide his disappointment, but he did as he was told. Spiro pointed the weapon with shaky hands. Pex and Chips stepped rapidly to one side. The boss was not known for his marksmanship.
‘You have taken everything from me,’ he shouted. ‘Everything.’
Artemis was strangely calm. ‘You don’t understand, Jon. It’s like I told you. I am not here.’ He paused for breath. ‘And one more thing. About my name – Artemis – you were right. In London, it is generally a female name, after the Greek goddess of archery. But every now and then a male comes along with such a talent for hunting that he earns the right to use the name. I am that male. Artemis the hunter. I hunted you.’
And just like that, he disappeared.
Holly had been hovering above Spiro and Co. all the way from the Spiro Needle to the Phonetix building. She had got permission to enter the facility minutes earlier when Juliet had called to enquire about the public tours.
Juliet had put on her best cutesy voice for the security guide.