Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer [78]
“They made it,” completed Holly. “He’s alive. Artemis Fowl is alive.”
“D’Arvit,” groaned Root, and heaved another quart of vomit onto the terra-cotta tiles.
Holly went on alone. She had to see for herself. If Fowl’s corpse was here, it would be with the gold, of that she was certain.
The same family portraits glared down at her, but now they seemed smug rather than austere. Holly was tempted to loose a few blasts into them from the Neutrino 2000. But that would be against the rules. If Artemis Fowl had beaten them, then that was it. There would be no recriminations.
She descended the stairway to her cell. The door was still swinging slightly from the bio-bomb concussion. A solinium flare ricocheted around the room like a trapped bolt of blue lightning. Holly stepped inside, half-afraid of what she might or might not see.
There was nothing. Nothing dead at any rate. Just gold. Two hundred ingots approximately. Piled on the mattress of her cot. Nice neat military rows. Good old Butler, the only human ever to take on a troll and win.
“Commander? Are you receiving? Over.”
“Affirmative, Captain. Body count?”
“Negative on the bodies, sir. I found the rest of the ransom.”
There was along silence.
“Leave it, Holly. You know the rules. We’re pulling out.”
“But, sir. There must be a way. . . .”
Foaly broke in on the conversation. “But nothing, Captain. I’m counting down the seconds until daylight here, and I don’t like our odds if we have to exit at high noon.”
Holly sighed. It made sense. The People could chose their exit time, as long as they left before the field disintegrated. It just galled her to think they’d been beaten by a human. An adolescent human at that.
She took a last look around the cell. A big ball of hatred had been born here, she realized, and it would have to be dealt with sooner or later. Holly jammed her pistol back into its holster. Preferably sooner. Fowl was the winner this time, but someone like him wouldn’t be able to rest on his laurels. He would be back with some other moneymaking scheme. And when he arrived, he would find Holly Short waiting for him. Waiting with a big gun and a smile.
The ground was soft by the time-stop perimeter. Half a millennium’s bad drainage from the medieval walls had transformed the foundations into a virtual bog. So that was where Mulch surfaced.
The soft ground wasn’t the only reason for choosing that exact spot. The other reason was the smell. A good tunnel dwarf can pick up the scent of gold through half a mile of granite bedrock. Mulch Diggums had one of the best noses in the business.
The hovertrolley floated virtually unguarded. Two of Retrieval’s finest were stationed beside the recovered ransom, but at the moment they were having a little giggle at their stricken commander.
“’E can’t half chuck it, can’t’e, Chix?”
Chix nodded, mimicking Root’s spewing technique.
Chix Verbil’s pantomime antics provided the perfect cover for a spot of pilfering. Mulch gave his tubes a clearing before clambering from the tunnel. The last thing he needed was for a sudden burst of gas to alert the LEP to his presence. He needn’t have worried. He could have slapped Chix Verbil in the face with a wet stink worm, and the sprite wouldn’t have noticed.
In a matter of seconds, he had transferred two dozen ingots into the tunnel. It was the easiest job he had ever pulled. Mulch had to stifle a giggle as he dropped the last two bars down the hole. Julius had really done him a favor, getting him involved in this whole affair. Things couldn’t have worked out much better. He was free as a bird, rich, and best of all presumed dead. By the time the LEP realized that the gold was missing, Mulch Diggums would be half a continent away. If they realized at all.
The dwarf lowered himself into the ground. It would take several trips to move his treasure trove, but it would be worth the delay. With this kind of money,