“Strange thing. He was calling the Times newspaper crossword hot line.”
“Maybe those words were the answers to today’s crossword?” said Holly hopefully.
“No. I checked the correct solution. Not a fairy-related word in sight.”
Holly set her wings to manual.“Okay. Time to find out what our caller is up to. Send me the institute’s coordinates.”
Holly suspected that it was a false alarm. Hundreds of these calls came in every year. Foaly was so paranoid that he believed the Mud Men were invading every time someone mentioned the word magic on a phone line. And with the recent trend for human fantasy movies and video games, magical phrases cropped up quite a lot. Thousands f police hours were wasted staking out the residents of dwellings where these phone calls originated, and it usually turned out to be some kid playing on his PC.
More than likely this phantom phone call was the result of a crossed line, or some Hollywood hack pitching a screenplay, or even an undercover LEP operative trying to phone home. But then, today of all days, everything had to be checked.
Holly kicked up her legs behind her, dropping into a steep dive. Diving was against Recon regulations. All approaches were supposed to be controlled and gradual. But what was the point of flying if you couldn’t feel the slipstream tugging at your toes?
Ice Age Cryogenics Institute, London
Artemis leaned against the cryogenics mobile unit’s rear bumper. It was funny how quickly a person’s priorities could change. That morning he had been worried about which loafers to wear with his suit, and now his dearest friend’s life hung in the balance. And the balance was rapidly shifting.
Artemis wiped a coating of frost from the spectacles he’d retrieved from his bodyguard’s jacket. These were no ordinary spectacles—Butler had twenty-twenty vision. These particular eyeglasses had been specially tooled to accommodate filters taken from an LEP helmet. Anti-shield filters. Butler had carried them since the time when Holly Short almost got the jump on him at Fowl Manor. You never know, he’d said. We’re a threat to LEP security, and someday Commander Root could be replaced with someone who isn’t quite so fond of us.
Artemis wasn’t convinced. The fairies were by and large a peaceful people. He couldn’t believe they would harm anyone, even a Mud Man, on the basis of past crimes. After all, they had parted friends. Or at least not enemies.
That was presuming the call worked. But there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t. Several government security agencies monitored phone lines using the keyword system, recording conversations that could compromise national security. And if humans were doing it, it was a safe bet that Foaly was two steps ahead.
Artemis donned the glasses, climbing into the vehicle’s cabin. He had placed the call ten minutes ago. Presuming Foaly got working on a trace straight away, it could still be another two hours before the LEP could get an operative on the surface. That would make it almost five hours since Butler’s heart had stopped. The record for a revival was two hours and fifty minutes for an Alpine skier frozen in an avalanche. There had never been a revival after three hours. Maybe there shouldn’t be.
Artemis glanced at the tray of food sent out by Dr. Lane. On another day he would have complained about just about everything on the plate. But now the meal was simply sustenance to keep him awake until the cavalry arrived. Artemis took a long drink from a polystyrene cup of tea. It sloshed audibly around in his empty stomach. Behind him in the van’s surgery, Butler’s cryo unit hummed like a common household freezer. Occasionally the computer emitted electronic beeps and whirrs as the machine ran self-diagnostics. Artemis was reminded of the weeks spent in Helsinki waiting for his father to regain consciousness. Waiting to see what the fairy magic would do for him ...
Excerpt from Artemis Fowl’s diary, disk 2 (encrypted)
Today my father spoke to me. For the first time in over two years I heard his voice, and it is exactly as I remembered it. But not everything is the same.
It had been over two months since Holly Short used her healing magic on his battered body, and still he lay in his Helsinki hospital bed. Immobile, unresponsive.
The doctors could not understand it. He should be awake, they informed me. His brain waves are strong, exceptionally so. And his heart beats like a horse. It is incredible, this man should be at death’s door, yet he has the muscle tone of a twenty-year-old.
Of course it is no mystery to me. Holly’s magic has overhauled my father’s entire being, with the exception of his left leg, which was lost when his ship went down off the coast of Murmansk. He has received an infusion of life, in body and mind.