“Okay,” said Spiro. “I want you and Chips to go over to Carla Frazetti’s and tell her I owe her thirty-five grand for the team. I’ll wire it to her Cayman Islands account in the morning.”
Mulch was understandably curious, and not a little apprehensive.
“Excuse me? Thirty-five grand? But I’m still alive. You only owe twenty grand for Loafers, unless the extra fifteen K is my bonus?”
Spiro sighed with almost convincing regret.
“This is the way it is, Mo,” he said, punching Mulch playfully on the shoulder. “This deal is huge. Mammoth. We’re talking telephone numbers. I can’t afford any loose ends. Maybe you know something, maybe you don’t. But I’m not about to take the chance that you might tip off Phonetix or one of my other competitors. I’m sure you understand.”
Mulch stretched his lips, revealing a row of tombstone teeth.
“I understand all right, Spiro. You’re a backstabbing snake. You know, the kid offered me two million dollars to cut him loose.”
“You should have taken the cash,” said Arno Blunt, propelling Mulch into Pex’s gigantic arms.
The dwarf kept talking, even as he was being dragged down the corridor.
“You better bury me deep, Spiro. You better bury me real deep.”
Spiro’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You heard the man, boys. Before you go to Frazetti’s, bury him deep.”
Dr. Pearson led the party through to the vault room. They had to pass through a small antechamber before entering the main security area.
“Please stand on the scanner pad,” said Pearson. “We wouldn’t want any bugs in here. Especially not the electronic kind.”
Artemis stepped onto the mat. It sank like a sponge beneath his feet, spurting jets of foam over his shoes.
“Anti-infection foam,” explained Pearson. “Kills any virus you might have picked up. We’re keeping some biotechnology experiments in the vault at the moment. Very susceptible to disease. The foam has the added advantage of shorting out any surveillance devices in your shoes.”
Overhead, a mobile scanner bathed Artemis’s shoes framed in purple light.
“One of my own inventions,” said Pearson. “A combination scanner. I have incorporated thermal, X-ray, and metal-detector beams. The beam basically breaks your body down into its elements and displays them on this screen here.”
Artemis saw a 3-D replica of himself being traced out on the small plasma screen. He held his breath, praying that Foaly’s equipment was as clever as the centaur thought it was.
On screen, a red light pulsed on Artemis’s jacket front.
“Aha,” said Dr. Pearson, plucking off a button. “What have we here?” He cracked the button open, revealing a tiny chip, mike, and power source.
“Very clever. A micro bug. Our young friend was attempting to spy on us, Mr. Spiro.”
Jon Spiro was not angry, in fact he was delighted to have the opportunity to gloat.
“You see, kid. You may be some kind of genius, but surveillance and espionage are my business. You can’t slip anything past me. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can get this thing over with.”
Artemis stepped off the pad. The decoy had worked, but the real bugs hadn’t caused a blip in the system. Pearson was smart, but Foaly was smarter.
Artemis made sure to have a good look around the antechamber. There was more here. Every square inch of the metal surface contained a security or surveillance device. From what Artemis could see, an invisible ant would have trouble sneaking in here. Not to mention two humans, an elf, and a dwarf. Providing the dwarf had survived Pex and Chips.
The vault door itself was impressive. Most corporate vaults looked impressive, plenty of chrome and keypads, but that was just to make an impression on stockholders. In Spiro’s vault there wasn’t a tumbler out of place. Artemis spotted the very latest computer lock on the face of titanium double doors. Spiro keyed in another complicated series of numbers, and the meter-thick doors slid back to reveal another barrier. The secondary door.
“Imagine you were a thief,” said Spiro, as if he were an actor introducing a play. “And you somehow get into the building, past the electronic eyes and the locked doors. Then, imagine you somehow cheat the sensor pad and open the first vault door, an impossible feat by the way. And while we’re imagining all this, let’s pretend you disable the half dozen cameras, and even then, even after all that, would you be able to do this?”
Spiro stood on a small red plate painted on the floor in front of the door. He placed a thumb on a gel-print scanner, held his left eyelid open, and enunciated clearly.
“Jon Spiro. I am the boss, so open up quick.”