Artemis Fowl_ The Arctic Incident - Eoin Colfer [57]
Butler plucked two concussor eggs from a pouch on his Moonbelt. ‘Will these do? Foaly thought they might come in handy.’
Artemis groaned. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the manservant was enjoying this.
LOS ANGELES
‘Uh oh,’ breathed Mulch.
In a matter of moments, things had gone from rosy to extremely dangerous. Once the security circuit was broken, a side door slid open admitting two very large German shepherds. The ultimate watchdogs. They were followed by their handler, a huge man covered in protective clothing. It looked as though he were dressed in doormats. Obviously the dogs were unstable.
‘Nice doggies,’ said Mulch, slowly unbuttoning his bum-flap.
CHUTE E93
Holly nudged the flight controls, inching the shuttle closer to the chute wall.
‘That’s as near as we get,’ she said into her helmet mike. ‘Any closer and the thermals could flip us against the rock face.’
‘Thermals?’ growled Root. ‘You never said anything about thermals before I climbed out here.’
The commander was spread-eagled on the port wing, a concussor egg jammed down each boot.
‘Sorry, Commander, someone has to fly this bird.’
Root muttered under his breath, dragging himself closer to the wing-tip. While the turbulence was nowhere as severe as it would have been on a moving aircraft, the buffeting thermals were quite enough to shake the commander like dice in a cup. All that kept him going was the thought of his fingers tightening around Mulch Diggums’s throat.
‘Another metre,’ he gasped into the mike. At least they had communications, the shuttle had its own local intercom. ‘One more metre and I can make it.’
‘No go, Commander. That’s your lot.’
Root risked a peek into the abyss. The chute stretched on forever, winding down to the orange magma glow at the Earth’s core. This was madness. Crazy. There must be another way. At this point, the commander would even be willing to risk an over-ground flight.
Then Julius Root had a vision. It could have been the sulphur fumes, stress or even lack of food. But the commander could have sworn Mulch Diggums’s features appeared before him, etched into the rock face. The face was sucking on a cigar and smirking.
His determination returned in a surge. Bested by a criminal. Not likely.
Root clambered to his feet, drying sweaty palms on his jumpsuit. The thermals plucked at his limbs like mischievous ghosts.
‘Ready to put some distance between us and this soon-to-be hole?’ he shouted into the mike.
‘Bet on it, Commander,’ responded Holly. ‘Soon as we have you back in the hold, we’re out of here.’
‘OK. Standby.’
Root fired the piton dart from his belt. The titanium head sank easily into the rock. The commander knew that tiny charges inside the dart would blow out two flanges securing it inside the face. Five metres. Not a great distance to swing on a piton cord. But it wasn’t the swing really. It was the bone-crushing drop and the lack of handholds on the chute wall.
Come on, Julius, sniggered the Mulch edifice. Let’s see what you look like splattered against a wall.
‘You shut your mouth, convict,’ roared the commander. And he jumped, swinging into the void.
The rock face rushed out to meet him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Root ground his back teeth against the pain. He hoped nothing was broken, because after the Russian trip, he didn’t even have enough magic left to make a daisy bloom, never mind heal a fractured rib.
The shuttle’s forward lights picked out the laser burns where the LEP tunnel dwarfs had sealed the supply chute. That weld line would be the weak spot. Root slotted the concussor eggs along two indents.
‘I’m coming for you, Diggums,’ he muttered, crushing the capsule detonators embedded in each one. Thirty seconds now.
Root aimed a second piton dart at the shuttle wing. An easy shot, he made this kind of thing in his sleep in the sim-range. Unfortunately, the simulators didn’t have thermals fouling things up at the last moment.
Just as the commander fired his dart, the edge