The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer [11]
He quickly crossed the fifty yards to the second sniper. Another well-known fugitive: Unix B’Lob. The grounded sprite. He had been Turnball’s right-hand fairy for decades now. Root grinned tightly as he bound the unconscious sprite. Even just these two would be a good day’s work. But the day wasn’t over yet.
Holly was surreptitiously worming the spike from the ground when Root arrived.
“Can I give you a hand with that?” asked Julius.
“Get down, Commander,” hissed Holly. “There are two rifles trained on you right now.”
Root patted the guns slung over his shoulder. “You mean these rifles. I got your text. Well done.” He wrapped his fingers round the chain, yanking it from the earth. “The parameters of your assignment have changed.”
You don’t say, thought Holly.
Root used an omnitool to pop open the shackle. “This is no longer an exercise. We are now in a combat situation, with a hostile and presumably armed opponent.”
Holly rubbed her ankle where the shackle had chafed. “Your brother, Turnball, has Captain Kelp in the human dwelling. He has threatened to feed him a Tunnel Blue spider if anything goes wrong with the plan.”
Root sighed, leaning against the rock. “We can’t go inside the dwelling. If we do, not only will we get disorientated, but the arrest won’t be legal. Turnball is clever. Even if we did outsmart his goons, we couldn’t take the house.”
“We could use laser sights and knock out the target,” suggested Holly. “Then Captain Kelp could walk out himself.”
If the target had been anyone else besides his own brother, Root would have smiled. “Yes, Corporal Short. We could do that.”
Root and Holly double-timed it to a ridge overlooking the human dwelling. The cottage was in a hollow, surrounded by silver birch trees.
The commander scratched his chin. “We have to get closer. I need to get a clean shot through one of the windows. One chance may be all we get.”
“Should I take one rifle, sir?” asked Holly.
“No. You’re not licensed for weapons. Captain Kelp’s life is at stake here, so I need steady fingers on the trigger. And even if you did bag Turnball, it would blow our entire case.”
“So what can I do?”
Root checked the load in both weapons. “Stay here. If Turnball gets me, then go back to the shuttle and activate the distress signal. If help doesn’t arrive and you see Turnball coming, then set the self-destruct.”
“But I can fly the shuttle,” protested Holly. “I have hundreds of hours on the simulators.”
“And no pilot’s licence,” added the commander. “If you fly that thing, you may as well kiss your career good-bye. Set the self-destruct, then wait for the Retrieval squad.” He handed Holly the starter chip, which doubled as a locator. “That’s a direct order, Short, so take that insolent look off your face, it’s making me nervous. And when I get nervous I tend to fire people. Get the message?”
“Yessir. Message understood, sir.”
“Good.”
Holly squatted behind the ridge while her commander threaded his way through the trees toward the house itself. Halfway down the hill, he buzzed up his shield, becoming all but invisible to the naked eye. When a fairy shielded, he vibrated so quickly that the eyes could not capture an image of him. Of course, Root would have to turn off his shield to take the shot at his brother, but that need not be until the last moment.
Root could taste metal filings in the air, doubtless left over from the radio jammer that Turnball had detonated earlier. He stepped carefully over the uneven terrain until the front windows of the house were clearly visible. The curtains were open, but there was no sign of Turnball or Captain Kelp. Round the back then.
Hugging the wall, the commander crept along the cracked flagstone path