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Derph casually tossed his dagger from hand to hand. 'I don't think so, elf. We've been living this life for five hundred years, and we don't plan to stop now. You just let Sergei go, and we'll be on our way. No need for anyone to get hurt.'
Mulch realized that the other dwarfs believed he was Sergei. Maybe there was still a way out.
'Just stay where you are,' Holly ordered with more bravado than she felt. 'It's guns against knives here, you can't possibly win.'
Derph smiled through his beard. 'We've already won,' he said.
With the kind of synchronization born of centuries of teamwork, the dwarfs attacked together. One dropped from the shadows in the tent's upper regions, while another breached the earthen flooring, jaws wide, tunnel wind driving him a full three feet into
the air. The vibration of Holly's voice had drawn him to her, as a struggling swimmer's kicks will draw a shark.
'Look out!' screeched Mulch, unwilling to let the Significants deal with Holly, even at the price of his own freedom. He may be a thief, but he realized that that was as low as he was willing to go.
Holly looked up, squeezing off a shot that stunned the descending dwarf, but she did not have time to look down. The second attacker clamped his fingers around her gun, almost taking the hand with it, then wrapped his powerful arms around Holly's shoulders, squeezing the air from her body. The others closed in.
Mulch hopped to his feet.
'Wait, brothers. We need to interrogate the elf, find out what the LEP know.'
Derph didn't agree. 'No, Sergei. We do as we always do. Bury the witness and move on. Nobody can catch us underground. We take the jewels and go.’
Mulch punched the bear-hugging dwarf under the arm, a nerve cluster for dwarfs. He released Holly, and she fell gasping to the earth.
'No,' he barked. 'I am the pack leader here! This is an LEP officer. We kill her and a thousand more will be on our trail. We bind her and leave.'
Derph tensed suddenly, levelling the tip of his dagger at Mulch. 'You are different, Sergei. All this talk of sparing elves. Let me see you without the mask.'
Mulch backed up a step. 'What are you saying? You can see my face later.'
'The mask! Now! Or I'll see your innards as well as your face.'
And suddenly Artemis was in the tent, striding across the floor as if he owned the space.
'What is going on here?' he demanded, his accent decidedly German.
All faces turned to him. He was magnetic.
'Who are you?' asked Derph.
Artemis snorted. 'Who am I the little man asks. Did you not invite my master here from Berlin? My name is not important. All you need to know is that I represent Herr Ehrich Stern.'
'H—H—err Stern, of course,' stammered Derph. Ehrich Stern was a legend in the field of precious stones and how to dispose of them illegally. He also disposed of people who
disappointed him. He had been invited to the tiara's auction and was sitting in row three, as Artemis well knew.
'We come here to do business, and instead of professionalism we find some kind of dwarf feud.'
'There is no feud,' said Mulch, still playing the part of Sergei. 'Just a little misunderstanding. We are deciding how to dispose of an unwelcome guest.'
Again, Artemis snorted. 'There is only one way to dispose of unwanted guests. As a special favour, we will perform that service for you, for a discount on the tiara of course.' He paused in disbelief, his eyes widening. 'Tell me this is not she,' he said, picking the tiara off the ground where Holly had dropped it. 'She lies in the dirt like some cluster of common stones. This truly is a circus.'
'Hey, take it easy,' said Mulch.
'And what is this?' demanded Artemis, pointing to Mulch's helmet in the dirt.
'I dunno,' said Derph. 'It's an LEP ... I mean, the intruder's helmet. It's her helmet.'
Artemis waggled a finger. 'I think not, unless your tiny intruder has two heads. She is already wearing a helmet.'
Derph did the maths. 'Hey, that's right. So where did that helmet come from?'
Artemis shrugged. 'I just got here, but I would guess that you have a traitor in your midst.'
The dwarfs turned, as one, towards Mulch.
'The mask!' growled Derph. 'Take it off! Now!'
Mulch shot Artemis a look through the mask's eyeholes. 'Thanks a bunch.'
The dwarfs advanced in a semi-circle, knives raised.
Artemis stepped in front of the group. 'Halt, little men,' he said imperiously. 'There is only one way to save this operation, and that is certainly not by staining the earth with blood. Leave these two to my bodyguard, and then we shall commence negotiations.
Derph smelled a rat. 'Wait a minute. How do we know you're with Stern? You waltz in here just in time to save these two. It's all a bit convenient if you ask me.'
'That's why nobody asks you,' retorted Artemis. 'Because you're a dullard.'
Derph's dagger glittered dangerously. 'I've had it with you, kid. I say we get rid of all witnesses and move on.'
'Fine,' said Artemis. 'This charade is beginning to bore me.' He raised his palm to his mouth. 'Time for plan B.'
Outside the tent, Butler wrapped the tent's mainstay around his wrist and pulled. He was a man of prodigious strength, and soon the metal pegs began to slide from the mud that held them. The canvas cracked, rippling and ripping. The dwarfs gaped at the billowing canvas.
'The sky is falling,' screamed a particularly dense one.
Holly took advantage of the sudden confusion, grabbing a stun grenade on her belt. She had seconds left before the dwarfs cut their losses and went subterranean. Once that happened it was all over. Nothing could catch a dwarf below ground. By the time Retrieval got here, the dwarfs would be miles away.
The grenade was strobe operated, sending out flashing light at such high frequency that too many messages were sent simultaneously to the watcher's brain, shutting it down temporarily. Dwarfs were particularly susceptible to this kind of weapon, as they had a low light tolerance in the first place.
Artemis noticed the silver orb in Holly's hand.
'Butler,' he said into his mike. 'We need to get out of here! Now. Northeast corner.'
He grabbed Mulch's collar, leading him backwards. Overhead the canvas was falling, its descent cushioned by trapped air.
'We go,' screamed Derph. 'We go now. Leave everything and dig.'
'You're not going anywhere,' gasped Holly, her breath rasping along a bruised windpipe. She twisted the timer, rolling the grenade into the midst of the Significants. It was the perfect weapon against dwarfs. Shiny. No dwarf can resist anything shi
ny. Even Mulch was watching the glittering sphere, and would have kept watching until the flash, had Butler not slit a five-foot gash in the canvas and yanked the pair through the gap.
'Plan B,' he grunted. 'Next time we pay more attention to the back-up strategy.'
'Recriminations later,' said Artemis briskly. 'If Holly is here, then back up won't be far away.' There must have been some kind of tracker on the helmet, something he hadn't detected. Perhaps in one of the coatings.
'Here's the new plan. With the arrival of the LEP, we must split up now. I will write you a cheque for your share of the tiara. One point eight million euros, a fair black market price.'
'A cheque? Are you joking?' objected Mulch. 'How do I know I can trust you, Mud Boy?'
'Believe me,' said Artemis. 'I am not to be trusted, generally. But we made a deal, and I don't cheat my partners. You could, of course, wait here for the LEP to arrive and discover your miraculous recovery from the usually fatal affliction of death.'
Mulch snatched the offered cheque. 'If this doesn't clear then I'm coming to Fowl Manor, and remember I know how to get in.' He noticed Butler's angry glare. 'Though obviously, I hope it doesn't come to that.'
'It won't. Trust me.'
Mulch unbuttoned his bum flap. 'It'd better not.' he winked at Butler. And he was gone, below the earth in a flurry of dust, before the bodyguard could respond. It was just as well really.
Artemis closed his fist around the blue diamond on the tiara's crown. It was already loose in its setting. All he had to do now was leave. Simple. Let the LEP clean up their own mess. But even before he heard Holly's voice, Artemis knew that it couldn't be that easy. Nothing ever was.
'Don't move, Artemis,' said the fairy captain. 'I won't hesitate to shoot you. In fact, I'm quite looking forward to it.'
Holly activated the Polaroid filter on her visor just before the stun grenade detonated. It was difficult to concentrate enough to perform even that simple operation. The canvas was flapping, the dwarfs were popping their bum flaps, and from the corner of her eye she noticed Fowl disappearing through a slit in the tent.
He would not escape again. This time she would get a mind-wipe warrant and erase the fairy People from the Irish boy's memory permanently.
