Artemis Fowl_ The Opal Deception - Eoin Colfer [52]
“Remind you of anyone?” asked the dwarf.
Butler polished the Sig Sauer’s slide. “Artemis may be a criminal, but he is not evil.”
“Who said anything about Artemis?”
“Well what about you, Mulch? Why didn’t Opal try to kill you?”
“Ah well,” sighed the dwarf, ever the martyr. “The LEP didn’t advertise my involvement. It wouldn’t do to have the proud officers of our police force tarnished by association with a known criminal.”
Butler nodded. “It makes sense. So you’re safe for now and Artemis and Holly are alive. But Opal has something planned for them. Something to do with trolls and the Eleven Wonders. Any ideas?”
“We both know about trolls, right?”
Butler nodded again. He had fought a troll not so long ago. Without a doubt the toughest battle he had ever been involved in. He couldn’t believe the LEP had managed to wipe it from his mind.
“But what about the Eleven Wonders?”
“The Eleven Wonders is a theme park in Haven’s old-town district. Fairies are obsessed with Mud Men, so one bright spark billionaire thought it would be a great idea to build smaller models of the human wonders of the world and put them all in one place. It did okay for a few years, but I think looking at those buildings made the People remember just how much they missed the surface.”
Butler ran through a list in his head. “But there are only seven wonders in the world.”
“There used to be eleven,” said Mulch. “Trust me, I have photographs. Anyway, the park is closed down now. That whole area of the city has been abandoned for years; the tunnels are not safe. And the whole place is overrun by trolls.” He stopped suddenly, the horror of what he had just said hitting home. “Oh gods. Trolls.”
Butler began to quickly reassemble his weapon. “We need to get down there right now.”
“Impossible,” said Mulch. “I can’t even begin to think how.”
Butler dragged the dwarf to his feet and propelled him toward the door. “Maybe not. But you know someone.
People in your business always know someone.”
Mulch ground his teeth thinking about it. “You know, there is someone. A sprite who owes Holly his life. But whatever I persuade him to do for us won’t be legal.”
Butler grabbed a bag of weaponry from a cabinet. “Good,” he said. “Illegal is always faster.”
CHAPTER 7
THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS
The Lower Elements
Opal Koboi’s shuttle was a concept model that had never gone into mass production. It was years ahead of anything on the market, but its skin of stealth ore and cam-foil made the cost of such a vehicle so exorbitant that even Opal Koboi couldn’t have afforded one without the government grants that had helped to pay for it.
Scant secured the prisoners into the passenger bay, while Merv piloted them across to Scotland, then underground through a mountain river in the highlands. Opal busied herself making sure that her other plan, the one involving world domination, was proceeding smoothly.
She closed the screen on her video phone and dialed a connection to Sicily.
The person at the other end picked up in the middle of the first ring. “Belinda, my dear. Is it you?”
The man who had answered was in his late forties, with Latin good looks and gray-streaked black hair framing his tanned face. He wore a white lab coat over an open-necked striped Versace shirt.
“Yes, Papa. It’s me. Don’t worry, I am safe.”
Opal’s voice was layered with the hypnotic mesmer. The poor human was utterly in her power, as he had been for over a month.
“When are you coming home, my dear? I miss you.”
“Today, Papa, in a few hours. How is everything there?”
The man smiled dreamily. “Molto bene. Wonderful. The weather is fine. We can take a drive to the mountains. Perhaps I can teach you to ski.”
Opal frowned impatiently. “Listen to me, idiota . . . Papa. How is everything with the probe? Are we on schedule?”
For a moment, a flash of annoyance wrinkled the Italian’s brow, then he was bewitched again. “Yes, my dear. Everything is on schedule. The explosive pods are being buried