Two officers pried open the elevator door with crowbars.
“Here’s our dilemma,” said one. “We cut the power, then we can’t get the elevator up here. If we call the elevator 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 elevator. Who are you, anyway?”
Juliet took a small gripper from her belt. She clipped it onto the elevator 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 setup. This entire thing. A setup. I suppose Mo Digence was working for you too.”
“Yes. Pex and Chips too, even though they didn’t know it. You would never have come here if I had 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, and 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 was never 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 inquire about public tours.
Juliet had put on her best cutesy voice for the tour guide.
“Hey mister, is it okay if I bring my invisible friend?”
“Sure it is, honey,” replied the guide. “Bring your security blanket too, if it makes you happy.”
They were in.
Holly hovered at ceiling level, following Artemis’s progress below. The Mud Boy’s plan was fraught with risk. If Spiro decided to shoot him in the Needle, then it was all over.
But no, just as Artemis had predicted, Spiro had opted to gloat for as long as possible, basking in the glow of his own demented genius. But of course it wasn’t his own genius. It was Artemis’s. Artemis had orchestrated this whole operation from beginning to end. It had even been his idea to mesmerize Pex and Chips. It was crucial that they plant the idea to invade Phonetix.
Holly was ready when the elevator door opened. She had her weapon charged and targets selected. But she couldn’t go. Wait for the signal.
Artemis dragged it out. Melodramatic to the end. And then, just when Holly was about to disregard her orders and start blasting, he spoke.
“I am that male. Artemis, the hunter. I hunted you.”
Artemis the hunter. The signal.
Holly squeezed the manual throttle on her wing rig, descending to an altitude of three feet. She clipped Artemis onto a retractable cord on her Moonbelt, then dropped a sheet of cam foil in front of him. To everybody in the room, it would seem as though the boy had disappeared.
“Up we go,” she said, though Artemis could not hear her, and opened the throttle wide. In less than a second they were nestled safely among the cables and ducts that ran along the ceiling.
Below them, Jon Spiro lost his mind.
Spiro blinked. The boy had gone. Just gone. It couldn’t be. He was Jon Spiro! Nobody outsmarted Jon Spiro!
He turned to Pex and Chips, gesticulating wildly with the gun.
“Where is he?”
“Huh?” said the bodyguards in perfect unison. Unrehearsed.
“Where is Artemis Fowl? What did you do with him?”
“Nothing, Mr. Spiro. We were just standing here playing the shoulder game.”
“Fowl said you were working for him. So hand him over.”