[AF02] - The Artic Incident

by Colfer, Eoin

  One such submarine was the Nikodim. A twenty-year-old Typhoon class, with rusty pipes and a leaky reactor. Not a healthy combination. And it was here that the Mafiya kingpin, Britva, had instructed his lackeys to make the exchange for Artemis Fowl Senior.

  Mikhael Vassikin and Kamar were none too happy with the situation. They had been bunked in the captain’s quarters for two days already, and were convinced their lives were growing shorter by the minute.

  Vassikin coughed. ‘You hear that? My guts aren’t right. It’s the radiation, I’m telling you.’

  ‘This whole thing is ridiculous,’ snarled Kamar. ‘The Fowl boy is thirteen. Thirteen! He’s a baby. How can a child raise five million dollars? It’s crazy.’

  Vassikin sat up on his bunk. ‘Maybe not. I’ve heard stories about this one. They say he has powers.’

  Kamar snorted. ‘Powers? Magic? Oh, go stuff your head in the reactor, you old woman.’

  ‘No, I have a contact in Interpol. They have an active file on this boy. Thirteen years old and with an active file? I am thirty-seven, and still no Interpol file.’ The Russian sounded disappointed.

  ‘An active file. What’s magic about that?’

  ‘But my contact swears that this boy, Fowl, is sighted all over the world, on the same day. The same hour.’

  Kamar was unimpressed. ‘Your contact is a bigger coward than you are.’

  ‘Believe what you want. But I’ll be happy to get off this cursed boat alive. One way or the other.’

  Kamar pulled a fur cap down over his ears. ‘OK. Let’s go. It’s time.’

  ‘Finally,’ sighed Vassikin.

  The two men collected the prisoner from the next cabin. They were not worried about an escape attempt. Not with one leg missing and a hood secured over his head. Vassikin slung Fowl Senior over his shoulder and climbed the rungs to the conning tower.

  Kamar used a radio to check in with the back-up. There were over a hundred criminals hiding among the petrified bushes and snowdrifts. Cigarette tips lit the night like fireflies.

  ‘Put those cigarettes out, idiots,’ he hissed over an open frequency. ‘It’s almost midnight. Fowl could be here any second. Remember, no one shoots until I give the order. Then everybody shoots.’

  You could almost hear the hiss as a hundred cigarette butts were flicked into the snow. A hundred men. It was a costly operation. But a mere drop in the ocean compared to the twenty per cent promised them by Britva.

  Wherever this boy Fowl came from, he would be trapped in a deadly crossfire. There was no way out for him or his father, while he and Vassikin were safe behind the steel conning tower.

  Kamar grinned. Let’s see how much magic you have then, Irlanskii.

  Holly surveyed the scene through the hi-res night-sight filter in her helmet with the eyes of a seasoned Recon officer. Butler was stuck with plain old binoculars.

  ‘How many cigarettes did you count?’

  ‘More than eighty,’ replied the captain. ‘Could be up to a hundred men. You walk in there and you’ll be carried out.’

  Root nodded in agreement. It was a tactical nightmare.

  They were bivouacked on the opposite side of the fjord, high on a sloped hill. The Council had even approved wings, on account of Artemis’s recent services.

  Foaly had done a mail retrieval from Artemis’s computer and found a message: Five million US. The Nikodim. Murmansk. Midnight on the fourteenth. It was short and to the point. What else was there to say? They had missed their opportunity to snatch Artemis Senior before he was moved to the drop point, and now the Mafiya were in control.

  They gathered around while Butler sketched a diagram in the snow with a laser pointer.

  ‘I would guess that the target is being held here, in the conning tower.To get there, you’ve got to walk all the way along the sub. They’ve got a hundred men hiding out around the perimeter. We have no air support, no satellite information and minimal weaponry.’ Butler sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Artemis. I just don’t see it.’

  Holly knelt to study the diagram.’A time-stop would take days to set up. We can’t shield either because of the radiation, and there’s no way to get close enough to mesmerize.’

  ‘What about LEP weaponry?’ asked Artemis, though he knew the answer.

  Root chewed an unlit cigar. ‘We discussed this, Artemis. We have as much firepower as you like, but if we start blasting, your father will be their first target. Standard kidnapping rules.’

  Artemis pulled an LEP field parka closer to his throat, staring at the rough diagram. ‘And if we give them the money?’

  Foaly had run them up five million in small bills on one of his old printers. He had even had a squad of sprites crumple it up a bit.

  Butler shook his head. ‘That’s not the way these people do business. Alive, Mister Fowl is a potential enemy. He has to die.’

  Artemis nodded slowly. There was absolutely no other way. He would have to implement the plan he had concocted in the Arctic shuttle port.

  ‘Very well, everyone,’ he said. ‘I have a plan. But it’s going to sound a bit extreme.’

  Mikhael Vassikin’s mobile phone rang, shattering the Arctic silence. Vassikin almost fell down the tower hatch.

  ‘Da? What is it? I’m busy.’

  ‘This is Fowl,’ said a voice in flawless Russian, colder than Arctic pack ice. ‘It’s midnight. I’m here.’

  Mikhael swung around, scanning the surroundings through his binoculars.

  ‘Here? Where? I don’t see anything.’

  ‘Close enough.’

  ‘How did you get this number?’

  A chuckle rattled through the speakers. The sound set Vassikin’s fillings on edge.

  ‘I know someone. He has all the numbers.’

  Mikhael took deep breaths, settling himself. ‘Do you have the money?’

  ‘Of course. Do you have the package?’

  ‘Right here.’

  Again the cold chuckle. ‘All I see is a fat imbecile, a little rat and someone with a hood over his head. It could be anyone. I’m not paying five million for your cousin Yuri.’

  Vassikin ducked below the lip of the tower. ‘Fowl can see us!’ he hissed at Kamar. ‘Stay low.’

  Kamar scuttled to the far side of the tower, opening a line to his men. ‘He’s here. Fowl is here. Search the area.’

  Vassikin brought the phone back to his ear. ‘So come down here and check. You’ll see soon enough.’

  ‘I can see fine from right here. Just take the hood off.’

  Mikhael covered the phone. ‘He wants me to take the hood off. What should I do?’

  Kamar sighed. Now it was becoming plain who was the brains in this outfit. ‘Take it off. What difference does it make? Either way they’re both dead in five minutes.’

  ‘OK, Fowl. I’m taking off the hood. The next face you see will be your father’s.’ The big Russian propped up the prisoner, high over the lip of the conning tower. He reached up with one hand and pulled off the rough sackcloth hood.

  On the other end of the line, he heard a sharp intake of breath.

  Through the filters of his borrowed LEP helmet, Artemis could see the conning tower as though it were a metre away. The hood came off, and he could not suppress a sharp gasp.

  It was his father. Different certainly. But not beyond recognition. Artemis Fowl the First, without a shadow of a doubt.

  ‘Well,’ said a Russian voice in his ear. ‘Is it him?’

  Artemis struggled to stop his voice from shaking. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is him. Congratulations. You have an item of some value.’

  In the conning tower, Vassikin gave his partner the thumbs up. ‘It’s him,’ he hissed. ‘We’re in the money.’

  Kamar didn’t share his confidence. There would be no celebrating until the cash was in his hand.

  Butler steadied the fairy Far shoot rifle on its stand. He had selected it from the LEP armoury. Fifteen hundred metres. Not an easy shot. But there was no wind, and Foaly
had given him a scope that did the aiming for him. Artemis Fowl Senior’s torso was centred in the crosshair.

  He took a breath. ‘Artemis. Are you sure?This is risky.’

  Artemis did not reply, checking for the hundredth time that Holly was in position. Of course he wasn’t sure. A million things could go wrong with this deception, but what choice did he have?

  Artemis nodded. Just once.

  Butler fired the shot.

  The shot caught Artemis Senior in the shoulder. He spun around, slumping over the startled Vassikin.

  The Russian howled in disgust, heaving the bleeding Irishman over the lip of the conning tower. Artemis Senior slid along the keel, crashing through the brittle ice plates clinging to the sub’s hull.

  ‘He shot him,’ yelped the khuligany. ‘That devil shot his own father.’

  Kamar was stunned, ‘idiot!’ he howled. ‘You’ve just thrown our hostage overboard!’ He peered into the black Arctic waters. Nothing remained of the Irlanskii but ripples.

  ‘Go down and get him, if you wish,’ said Vassikin sullenly.

  ‘Was he dead?’

  His partner shrugged. ‘Maybe. He was bleeding bad. And if the bullet doesn’t finish him, the water will. Anyway, it’s not our fault.’

  Kamar swore viciously. ‘I don’t think Britva will see it that way.’

  ‘Britva,’ breathed Vassikin.The only thing the Menidzher understood was money. ‘O gods. We’re dead.’

  The mobile phone rattled on the deck. The speaker was vibrating. Fowl was still on the other end.

  Mikhael picked up the mobile as though it were a grenade. ‘Fowl?You there?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the reply.

  ‘You crazy devil! What are you doing?Your father is as good as dead. I thought we had a deal!’

  ‘We still do. A new one. You can still make some money tonight.’

  Mikhael stopped panicking and started paying attention. Could there possibly be a way out of this nightmare?

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The last thing I need is for my father to return and destroy what I have built up over the past two years.’

  Mikhael nodded. This made perfect sense to him.

  ‘So he had to die. I had to see it done myself, just to be sure. But I could still leave you a little something.’

  Mikhael could barely breathe. ‘A little something?’

  ‘The ransom. All five million.’

  ‘And why would you do that?’

  ‘You get the money; I get safe passage home. Fair enough?’

  ‘Seems fair to me.’

  ‘Very well. Now look across the bay, above the fjord.’

  Mikhael looked. There was a flare burning, right at the snow-covered hill’s tip.

  ‘There is a briefcase tied to that flare. The flare goes out in ten minutes. I’d get there before then if I were you. Otherwise the case could take years to find.’

  Mikhael didn’t bother to cut the connection. He just dropped the phone and ran. ‘The money,’ he shouted at Kamar. ‘Up there. The flare.’

  Kamar was after him in a heartbeat, shouting instructions into the radio. Someone had to reach that money. Who cared about a drowning Irlanskii when there were five million dollars to be claimed?

  Root pointed at Holly the moment Artemis Senior had been shot. ‘Go!’ he ordered.

  Captain Short activated her wings, launching herself right off the hilltop. Of course, what they were doing here was against all the regulations, but the Council was cutting Foaly a lot of slack having more or less convicted him of treason. The only conditions were that the centaur was in constant communication, and that every member of the party was fitted with remote incineration packs, so that they and all their fairy technology could be destroyed in the event of capture or injury.

  Holly followed events on the submarine through her visor. She saw the charge impact on Artemis Senior’s shoulder, knocking him against the larger Russian. Blood registered in her field of vision. It was still warm enough to be picked up by her thermal imager. Holly had to admit, it looked effective. Maybe Artemis’s plan could actually work. Maybe the Russians would be fooled. After all, humans generally saw what they wanted to see.

  Then things went horribly wrong.

  ‘He’s in the water!’ shouted Holly into her helmet mike, opening the wing rig’s throttle to the max. ‘He’s alive, but not for long unless we get him out.’

  She skimmed silently over the glistening ice, arms crossed over her chest for speed. She was moving too fast for human vision to pin her down. She could be a bird, or a seal breaking the waves. The submarine loomed before her.

  On board the Nikodim, the Russians were evacuating. Clambering down the tower ladder, feet slipping in their haste. And ashore, the same. Men breaking cover, crashing through the frosted undergrowth. The commander must have set the flare. Those Mud Men would be delirious to find their precious money, only to have it dissolve in seventy-two hours. That should just about give them time to deliver it to their boss. Odds on he wouldn’t be happy with disappearing cash.

  Holly skimmed the sub’s keel, safe from radiation in her suit and helmet. At the last moment, she flipped upwards, shielded from the northern shore by the conning tower. She popped the throttle, hovering above the ice hole where the human had fallen in. The commander was talking into her ear, but Holly didn’t reply. She had a job to do and no time for talk.

  Fairies hate cold. They hate it. Some are so phobic about low temperatures that they won’t even eat ice cream. The last thing Holly wanted to do right now was put so much as a toe into that sub-zero, radioactive water. But what choice did she have? ‘D’Arvit,’ she swore, and plunged into the water.

  The micro-filaments in her suit deadened the cold, but they could not dispel it entirely. Holly knew that she had seconds before the temperature-drop slowed her reactions and sent her into shock.

  Below her, the unconscious human was as pale as a ghost. Holly fumbled with her wing controls. A touch too much on the throttle could send her too deep. Not enough and she would fall short. And at these temperatures, you got one shot only.

  Holly hit the throttle. The engine buzzed once, sending her ten fathoms down. Perfect. She grabbed Fowl Senior by the waist, quickly clipping him on to her Moonbelt. He hung there limply. He needed an infusion of magic, and the sooner the better.

  Holly glanced upwards. It seemed as though the ice hole was already closing. Was there anything else that could go wrong? The commander was shouting in her ear, but she shut him out, concentrating on getting back to dry land.

  Ice crystals spun themselves across the hole like spiders’ webs. The ocean seemed determined to claim them.

  I don’t think so, thought Holly, pointing her helmeted head at the surface, and opening the throttle as far as it would go.They crashed through the ice, arced through the air and landed on the slatted surface of the sub’s forward deck.

  The human’s face was the colour of the surrounding landscape. Holly crouched on his chest like a predatory creature, exposing the supposed wound to the night air. There was blood on the deck, but it was Artemis Junior’s blood: they had pried the cap from a Hydrosion shell, and half filled it with blood taken from Artemis’s arm. On impact, the Fizzer had knocked Artemis Senior off his feet, sending the crimson liquid spiralling through the air. Very convincing. Of course, being thrown into the freezing waters had not been part of the plan.

  The shell had not penetrated his skin, but Mister Fowl was not safe yet. Holly’s thermal imager showed that his heartbeat was dangerously slow and weak. She laid her hands on his chest. ‘Heal,’ she whispered. ‘Heal.’

  And the magic scurried down her fingers.

  Artemis couldn’t watch Holly’s rescue attempt. Had he done the right thing? What if the Hydrosion shell penetrated? How could he ever face his mother again?

  ‘Oh no,’ said Butler.

  Artemis was at his side in an instant. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your f
ather is in the water. One of the Russians threw him in.’

  The boy groaned. That water was as deadly as any bullet. He’d been afraid that something like this would happen.

  Root had also been following the rescue attempt. ‘OK. She’s over the water. Can you see him, Holly?’

  No answer. Just static in his earphones.

  ‘Status, Captain? Respond.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Holly?’

  She’s not talking because it’s too late, thought Artemis. There’s nothing she can do to save my father and it’s all my fault.

  Root’s voice cut through his thoughts. ‘The Russians are evacuating,’ he said. ‘Holly’s at the sub now, over the hole in the ice. She’s going in. Holly, what have you got? Come on, Holly. Talk to me.’

  Nothing. For the longest time.

  Then Holly erupted through the ice like a mechanized dolphin. She arced briefly through the Arctic night, crash-landing on the Typhoon’s deck.

  ‘She has your father,’ said the commander.

  Artemis slipped on the spare Recon helmet, willing Holly’s voice to sound through the speakers. He magnified the picture in his visor until it seemed as though he could touch his father and watched Holly lean over his father’s chest, pulses of magic shooting down her fingers.

  After several moments, Holly looked up, straight into Artemis’s eyes, as though she knew he was watching. ‘I got him,’ she gasped. ‘One live Mud Man. He’s not pretty, but he’s breathing.’

  Artemis sank to the ground, sobs of relief shaking his thin shoulders. He cried for a whole minute. Then he was himself again.

  ‘Well done, Captain. Now let’s get out of here before Foaly activates one of these incinerator packs by accident.’

  In the bowels of the Earth, the centaur leaned back from his communications console.

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ he chuckled.

  * * *

  AN EPILOGUE OR TWO

  TARA