It was at that moment that Artemis realized just how much trouble they were in.
It all happened in a heartbeat. Spiro clicked his fingers, and every single customer in En Fin drew a weapon from inside his or her coat. The eighty-year-old lady suddenly looked a lot more threatening with a revolver in her bony fist. Two armed waiters emerged from the kitchen wielding folding-stock machine guns. Butler never even had time to draw breath.
Spiro tipped over the salt cellar. “Check and mate. My game, kid.”
Artemis tried to concentrate. There must be a way out. There was always a way out. But it wouldn’t come. He had been hoodwinked. Perhaps fatally. No human had ever outsmarted Artemis Fowl. Then again, it only had to happen once.
“I’m going now,” continued Spiro, pocketing the C Cube. “Before that satellite beam shows up, and those other ones. The LEP, I’ve never heard of that particular agency. But as soon as I get this gizmo working, they’re going to wish they’d never heard of me. It’s been fun doing business with you.”
On his way to the door, Spiro winked at his bodyguard. “You got six minutes, Arno. A dream come true, eh? You get to be the guy who took out the great Butler.” He turned back to Artemis, unable to resist a final gibe.
“Oh, and by the way.‘Artemis’—isn’t that a girl’s name?”
And he was gone, into the multicultural throngs of tourists on the high street. The old lady locked the door behind him. The click echoed around the restaurant.
Artemis decided to take the initiative.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, trying to avoid staring down the black-eyed gun barrels. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.”
“Quiet, Artemis!”
It took a moment for Artemis’s brain to process the fact that Butler had ordered him to be silent. Most impertinently, in fact.
“I beg your pardon . . .”
Butler clamped a hand over his employer’s mouth.
“Quiet, Artemis. These people are professionals, not to be bargained with.”
Blunt rotated his skull, cracking the tendons in his neck.
“You got that right, Butler. We’re here to kill you. As soon as Mr. Spiro got the call, we started sending people in. I can’t believe you fell for it, man. You must be getting old.”
Butler couldn’t believe it either. There was a time he would have staked out any rendezvous site for a week before giving it the thumbs-up. Maybe he was getting old, but there was an excellent chance he wouldn’t be getting any older.
“Okay, Blunt,” said Butler, stretching his empty palms before him. “You and me. One-on-one.”
“Very noble,” said Blunt. “That’s your code of honor, I suppose. Me, I don’t have a code. If you think I’m going to risk your somehow getting out of here, you’re crazy. This is an uncomplicated deal. I shoot you. You die. No face-off, no duel.”
Blunt reached lazily into this waistband. Why hurry? One move from Butler, and a dozen bullets would find their mark.
Artemis’s brain seemed to have shut down. The usual stream of ideas had dried up. I’m going to die, he thought. I don’t believe it.
Butler was saying something. Artemis decided he should listen.
“Richard of York gave battle in vain,” said the bodyguard, enunciating clearly.
Blunt was screwing a silencer onto the muzzle of his ceramic pistol.
“What are you saying? What kind of gibberish is that? Don’t say the great Butler is cracking up? Wait till I tell the guys.”
But the old woman looked thoughtful.
“Richard of York . . . I know that.”
Artemis knew it too. It was most of the verbal detonation code for the fairy sonix grenade magnetized to the underside of the table. One of Butler’s little security devices. All they needed was one more word and the grenade would explode, sending a solid wall of sound charging through the building, blowing out every window and eardrum. There would be no smoke or flame, but anyone within a ten meter radius not wearing earplugs had about five seconds before severe pain set in. One more word.
The old lady scratched her head with the revolver’s barrel. “Richard of York? I remember now, the nuns taught us that in school. Richard of York gave battle in vain. It’s one of those memory tricks. The colors of the rainbow.”
Rainbow. The final word. Artemis remembered, just in time, to slacken his jaw. If his teeth were clenched, the sonic waves would shatter them like sugar glass.