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CHAPTER 11: MULCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Los ANGELES, USA

MULCH Diggums was, in fact, outside the apartment of an Oscar-winning actress. Of course, she didn’t know he was there. And, naturally, he was up to no good. Once a thief, always a thief.

Not that Mulch needed the money. He’d done very well out of the Artemis Fowl Affair. Well enough to take out a lease on a penthouse apartment in Beverly Hills. He’d stocked the apartment with a Pioneer entertainment system, a full DVD library and enough beef jerky to last a lifetime. Time for a decade of rest and relaxation.

But life is not like that. It refuses to curl up and sit quietly in a corner. The habits of several centuries would not go away. Halfway through the James Bond Collection, Mulch realized that he missed the bad old days. Soon the penthouse suite’s reclusive occupant was taking midnight strolls. These strolls generally ended up inside other people’s homes.

Initially Mulch just visited, savouring the thrill of defeating sophisticated Mud Man security systems. Then he began to take trophies. Small things – a crystal goblet, an ashtray, or a cat if he was peckish. But soon Mulch Diggums began to crave the old notoriety and his pilferings grew larger. Gold bars, goose egg diamonds, or pit bull terriers if he was really famished.

The Oscar thing began quite by accident. He nabbed one as a curiosity on a midweek break to New York. Best original screenplay. The following morning he was front page news coast to coast. You’d think he’d ripped off a medical convoy instead of a gilded statuette. Mulch, of course, was delighted. He’d found his new nocturnal pastime.

In the next fortnight, Mulch filched best soundtrack and best special effects Academy Awards. The tabloids went crazy. They even gave him a nickname: the Grouch, after another well-known Oscar. When Mulch read that one, his toes wriggled for joy. And dwarf toes wriggling are quite a sight. They are as nimble as fingers, double-jointed and the less said about the smell the better. Mulch’s mission became clear. He had to assemble an entire set.

Over the next six months, the Grouch struck all across the United States. He even made a trip to Italy to collect a best foreign-language film award. He had a special cabinet made, with tinted glass that could be blacked out at the touch of a button. Mulch Diggums felt alive again.

Of course, every Oscar winner on the planet trebled their security, which was just the way Mulch liked it. There was no challenge in breaking into a shack on the beach. High rise and high-tech. That’s what the public wanted. So that’s what the Grouch gave them. The papers ate it up. He was a hero. During the daylight hours, when he couldn’t venture outside, Mulch busied himself writing the screenplay of his own exploits.

Tonight was a big night. The last statuette. He was going for a best actress award. And not just any old best actress. Tonight’s target was the tempestuous Jamaican beauty, Maggie V. This year’s winner for her portrayal of Precious, a tempestuous Jamaican beauty. Maggie V had stated publicly that if the Grouch tried anything in her apartment, he would get a lot more than he had bargained for. How could Mulch resist a challenge like that?

The building itself was easy to locate, a ten-storey block of glass and steel just off Sunset Boulevard, a midnight stroll south of Mulch’s own home. So one cloudy night, the intrepid dwarf packed his tools, preparing to burglarize his way into the history books.

Maggie V was on the top floor. There was no question of going up the stairs, lift or shaft. It would have to be an outside job.

In preparation for the climb, Mulch had not had anything to drink in two days. Dwarf pores are not just for sweating, they can take in moisture too. Very handy when you are trapped in a cave-in for days on end. Even if you can’t get your mouth to a drink, every centimetre of skin can leech water from the surrounding earth. When a dwarf was thirsty, as Mulch was now, his pores opened to the size of pinholes and began to suck like crazy. This could be extremely useful if, say, you had to climb up the side of a tall building.

Mulch took off his shoes and gloves, donned a stolen LEP helmet and began to climb.

CHUTE E93

Holly could feel the commander’s glare crisping the hairs on the back of her neck. She tried to ignore it, concentrating on not dashing the Atlantean ambassador’s shuttle against the walls of the Arctic chute.

‘So, all this time, you knew Mulch Diggums was alive?’

Holly nudged the starboard thruster to avoid a missile of half-melted rock. ‘Not for sure. Foaly just had this theory.’ The commander wrung an imaginary neck. ‘Foaly! Why am I not surprised?’ Artemis smirked from his seat in the passenger area.

‘Now, you two, we need to work together as a team.’

‘So tell me about Foaly’s theory, Captain,’ ordered Root, belting himself into the co-pilot’s seat.

Holly activated a static wash on the shuttle’s external cameras. Positive and negative charges dislodged the sheets of dust from the lenses.

‘Foaly thought Mulch’s death a bit suspicious, given that he was the best tunnel fairy in the business.’ ‘So why didn’t he come to me?’

‘It was just a hunch. With respect, you know what you’re like with hunches, Commander.’ Root nodded grudgingly. It was true, he didn’t have time for hunches. It was hard evidence, or get out of my office until you’ve got some.

‘The centaur did a bit of investigating in his own time. The first thing he realized was that the gold recovered was a bit light. I negotiated for the return of half the ransom and, by Foaly’s reckoning, the cart was about two dozen bars short.’ The commander lit one of his trademark fungus cigars. He had to admit it sounded promising: gold missing, Mulch Diggums within a hundred miles. Two and two make four.

‘As you know, it’s standard procedure to spray any LEP property with solinium-based tracker, including the ransom gold. So, Foaly runs a scan for solinium, and he picks up hot spots all over Los Angeles. Particularly at the Crowley Hotel in Beverly Hills. When he hacks into the building computer, he finds the penthouse resident is listed as one Lance Digger.’ Root’s pointy ears quivered. ‘Digger?’

‘Exactly,’ said Holly, nodding. ‘A bit more than coincidence. Foaly came to me at that point, and I advised him to get some satellite photos before taking the file to you. Except…’ ‘Except Mister Digger is proving very elusive. Am I right?’

‘Dead on.’

Root’s colouring went from rose to tomato. ‘Mulch, that rascal. How did he do it?’ Holly shrugged. ‘We’re guessing he transferred his iris-cam to some local wildlife, maybe a rabbit. Then collapsed the tunnel.’ ‘So the life signs we were reading belonged to some rabbit.’

‘Exactly. In theory.’

‘I’ll kill him,’ exclaimed Root, pounding the control panel. ‘Can’t this bucket go any faster?’ LOS ANGELES

Mulch scaled the building without much difficulty. There were external closed-circuit cameras, but the helmet’s ion filter showed exactly where these cameras were pointed. It was a simple matter to crawl along the blind spots.

Within an hour, the dwarf was suckered outside Maggie V’s apartment on the tenth floor. The windows were triple glazed with a bulletproof coating. Movie stars. Paranoid, every one of them.

Naturally, there was an alarm point sitting on top of the pane and a motion sensor crouching on a wall like a frozen cricket. Only to be expected.

Mulch melted a hole in the glass with a bottle of dwarf rock polish, used to clean up diamonds in the mines. Humans actually cut diamonds to shine them. Imagine. Half the stone down the drain.

Next, the Grouch used the helmet’s ion filter to sweep the room for the motion sensor’s range. The red ion-stream revealed that the sensor was focused on the floor. No matter. Mulch intended going along the wall.

Pores still crying out for water, the dwarf crept along the partition, making maximum use of a stainless-steel shelving system that almost completely surrounded the main sitting room.

The next step was to find the actual Oscar. It could be hidden anywhere, including under Maggie V’s pillow, but this room was as good a place to start as any. You never knew, he might get lucky.

Mulch activated the helmet’s X-ray filter, scanning the walls for a safe. Nothing. He tried the floor; humans were getting smarter these days. There, under a fake zebra rug, a metal cuboid. Easy.

The Grouch approached the motion sensor from above, very gently twisting the neck until the gadget was surveying the ceiling. The floor was now safe.

Mulch dropped to the rug, testing the surface with his tactile toes. No pressure pads sewn into the rug’s lining. He rolled back the fake skin, revealing a hatch in the wooden floor. The joins were barely visible to the naked eye. But Mulch was an expert and his eyes weren’t naked, they were aided by LEP zoom lenses.

He wormed a nail into the crack, flipping the hatch. The safe itself was a bit of a disappointment. Not even lead-lined; he could see right into the mechanism with the X-ray filter. A simple combination lock. Only three digits.

Mulch turned the filter off. What was the point in breaking a see-through lock? Instead he put his ear to the door, jiggling the dial. In fifteen seconds the door was open at his feet.

The Oscar’s gold plating winked at him. Mulch made a big mistake at that moment. He relaxed. In the Grouch’s mind he was already back in his own apartment, swigging from a two-litre bottle of ice-cold water. And relaxed thieves are destined for prison.

Mulch neglected to check the statuette for traps, plucking it straight from the safe. If he had checked he would have realized that there was a wire attached magnetically to the base. When the Oscar was moved, a circuit was broken allowing all hell to break loose.

CHUTE E93

Holly set the auto-pilot to hover at three thousand metres below the surface. She slapped herself on the chest, releasing the harness, and joined the others in the rear of the shuttle.

‘Two problems. Firstly, if we go any lower, we’ll be picked up on the scanners, presuming they’re still operating.’ ‘Why am I not looking forward to number two?’ asked Butler.

‘Secondly, this part of the chute was retired when we pulled out of the Arctic.’ ‘Which means?’

‘Which means the supply tunnels were collapsed. We have no way into the chute system without supply tunnels.’ ‘No problem,’ declared Root. ‘We blast the wall.’

Holly sighed. ‘With what, Commander? This is a diplomatic craft. We don’t have any cannons.’ 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 of a particularly strong whirlpool of gas caught the shuttle’s rear, spinning it forty degrees anti-clockwise. The dart missed by a metre. It spun into the abyss, trailing the commander’s lifeline behind it. Root had two options: he could rewind the cord using his belt winch, or he could jettison the piton and try again with his spare. Julius unhooked the cord; it would be faster to try again. A good plan, had he not already used his spare to get them out from under the ice. The commander remembered this half a second after he’d cut loose his last piton.

‘D’ Arvit,’ he swore, patting his belt for a dart which he knew wouldn’t be there.

‘Trouble, Commander?’ asked Holly, her voice strained from wrestling with the controls.

‘No pitons left, and the charges are set.’

There followed a brief silence. Very brief. No time for lengthy think-tanks. Root glanced at his moonomenter. Twenty-five seconds and counting.

When Holly’s voice came over the headset, it was not bursting with enthusiasm or confidence.

‘Er … Commander. You wearing any metal?’

‘Yes,’ replied Root, puzzled. ‘My breastplate, buckle, insignia, blaster. Why?’ Holly nudged the shuttle a shade closer. Any nearer was suicide.

‘Put it like this. How fond are you of your ribs?’

‘Why?’

‘I think I know how to get you out of there.’

‘How?’

‘I could tell you, but you’re not going to like it.’

‘Tell me, Captain. That’s a direct order.’

Holly told him. He didn’t like it.

LOS ANGELES

Dwarf gas. Not the most tasteful of subjects; even dwarfs don’t like to talk about it. Many a dwarf wife is known to scold her husband for venting gas at home and not leaving it in the tunnels. The fact is that, genetically, dwarfs are prone to gas attacks, especially if they’ve been eating clay in the mine. A dwarf can take in several kilos of dirt a second through his unhinged jaws. That’s a lot of clay, with a lot of air in it. All this waste has to go somewhere. So it goes south. To put it politely, the tunnels are self-sealing. Mulch hadn’t eaten clay in months, but he still had a few bubbles of gas at his disposal when he needed them.

The dogs were poised to attack. Slobber hung in ribbons from their gaping jaws. He would be torn to pieces. Mulch concentrated. The familiar bubbling began in his stomach, pulling it out of shape. It felt as though a couple of gnome garbage wrestlers were going a few rounds in there. The dwarf gritted his teeth, this was going to be a big one.

The handler blew a football whistle. The dogs lunged forward like torpedoes with teeth. Mulch let go with a stream of gas, blowing a hole in the rug and propelling himself to the ceiling, where his thirsty pores anchored him. Safe. For the moment.

The German shepherds were particularly surprised. In their time they had chewed their way through most creatures in the food chain. This was something new. And not altogether pleasant. You have to remember that a dog’s nose is far more sensitive than a human one.

The handler blew his whistle a few more times, but any control he might have had disappeared the moment Mulch flew through the air on a jet of recycled wind. As soon as the dogs’ nasal passages cleared, they began to leap, teeth gnashing at the apex.

Mulch swallowed. Dogs are smarter than the average goblin. It was only a matter of time before they thought to scale the furniture and make a jump from there.

Mulch made for the window, but the handler was there before him, blocking the hole with his padded body. Mulch noticed him fumbling with a weapon at his belt. This was getting serious. Dwarfs are many things, but bulletproof is not one of them.

To make matters worse, Maggie V appeared at the bedroom door, brandishing a chrome baseball bat. This was not the Maggie V the public was used to. Her face was covered with a green mask, and there appeared to be a tea bag taped under each eye.

‘Now we have you, Mister Grouch,’ she gloated. ‘And suction pads aren’t going to save you.’ Mulch realized that his career as the Grouch was over. Whether he escaped or not, the LAPD would be visiting every dwarf in the city come sunrise.

Mulch only had one card left to play. The gift of tongues. Every fairy has a natural grasp of languages, as all tongues are based on Gnommish, if you trace them back far enough. Including American Dog.

‘Arf,’ grunted Mulch. ‘Arff, rrruff rrufff.’

The dogs froze. One attempted to freeze in mid-leap, landing on his partner. They chewed each other’s tails for a moment, then remembered that there was a creature on the ceiling barking at them. His accent was terrible, something mid-European. But it was Dog nevertheless.

‘Aroof?’ enquired dog number one. ‘Whaddya sayin’?’

Mulch pointed at the handler. ‘Woof arfy arrooof! That human has a big bone inside his shirt,’ he grunted. (Obviously, that’s been translated.) The German shepherds pounced on their handler, Mulch scampered through the hole in the window, and Maggie V howled so much that her mask cracked and her tea bags fell off. And even though the Grouch knew that this particular chapter in his career was closed, the weight of Maggie V’s Academy Award inside his shirt gave him no little satisfaction.

CHUTE E93

Twenty seconds left before the concussors blew, and the commander was still flattened against the chute wall. They had no wing sets, and no time to get one outside even if they had. If they couldn’t pull Root out of there right now, then he’d be blown off the wall and into the abyss. And magic didn’t work on melted slop. There was only one option. Holly would have to use the gripper clamps.

All shuttles are equipped with secondary landing gear. If the docking nodes fail, then four magnetic gripper clamps could be blasted from recessed grooves. These clamps will latch on to the metal underside of the landing-bay dock, reeling the shuttle into the airlock. The grippers also came in handy in unfamiliar environments,where the magnets would seek out trace elements and latch on like sucker slugs.

‘OK, Julius,’ said Holly. ‘Don’t move a muscle.’

Root paled. Julius. Holly had called him Julius. That was not good.

Ten seconds.

Holly flicked down a small view screen. ‘Release forward port docking clamp.’ A grating hum signalled the clamp’s release.

The commander’s image appeared in the view screen. Even from here he looked worried. Holly centred a cross hair on his chest.

‘Captain Short. Are you absolutely sure about this?’

Holly ignored her superior. ‘Range fifteen metres. Magnets only.’

‘Holly, maybe I could jump. I could make it. I’m sure I could make it.’ Five seconds …

‘Fire port clamp.’

Six tiny charges ignited around the clamp’s base, sending the metal disc rocketing from its socket, trailed by a length of retractable polymer cable.

Root opened his mouth to swear, then the clamp crashed into his chest, driving every gasp of air from his body. Several somethings cracked.

‘Reel it in,’ spat Holly into the computer mike, simultaneously peeling across the chute. The commander was dragged behind like an extreme surfer.

Zero seconds. The concussors blew, sending two thousand kilograms of rubble careering into the void. A drop in an ocean of magma.

A minute later, the commander was strapped on a gurney in the Atlantean ambassador’s sick bay. It hurt to breathe, but that wasn’t going to stop him talking.

‘Captain Short!’ he rasped. ‘What the hell were you thinking? I could have been killed.’ Butler ripped open Root’s tunic to survey the damage. ‘You could have been. Five more seconds and you were pulp. It’s thanks to Holly that you are still alive.’ Holly set the auto-pilot to hover and grabbed a medi-pac from the first-aid box. She crumpled it between her fingers to activate the crystals. Another of Foaly’s inventions. Ice packs infused with healing crystals. No substitute for magic, but better than a hug and a kiss.

‘Where does it hurt?’

Root coughed. A bloody string splattered his uniform. ‘The general bodily area. Coupla ribs gone.’ Holly chewed her lip. She was no doctor and healing was by no means an automatic business. Things could go wrong. Holly knew a vice-captain once who had broken a leg and passed out. He woke up with one foot pointing backwards. Not that Holly hadn’t performed some tricky operations before. When Artemis wanted his mother’s depression cured, she was in a different time zone. Holly had sent out a strong positive signal, with enough sparks in it to hang around for a few days. A sort of general pick-me-up. Anyone who even visited Fowl Manor for the following week should have gone away whistling.

‘Holly,’ groaned Root.

‘O-OK,’ she stammered. ‘OK.’

She laid her hands on Root’s chest, sending the magic scurrying down her fingers. ‘Heal,’ she breathed.

The commander’s eyes rolled back in his head. The magic was shutting him down for recuperation. Holly laid a medi-pac on the unconscious LEP officer’s chest.

‘Hold that,’ she instructed Artemis. ‘Ten minutes only. Otherwise there’ll be tissue damage.’ Artemis applied pressure to the pack. His fingers were quickly submerged in a pool of blood. Suddenly the desire to pass a smart remark utterly deserted him. First physical exercise, then actual bodily harm. And now this. These past few days were turning out to be quite educational. He’d almost prefer to be back in St Bartleby’s.

Holly returned quickly to the cockpit, panning the external cameras towards the supply tunnel.

Butler squeezed into the co-pilot’s chair. ‘Well,’ he asked. ‘What’ve we got?’ Holly grinned. And for a second her expression reminded the manservant of Artemis Fowl. “We’ve got a big hole.’ ‘Good. Then let’s go visit an old friend.’

Holly’s thumbs hovered over the thrusters. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s.’

The Atlantean shuttle disappeared into the supply tunnel faster than a carrot down Foaly’s gullet. And for those who don’t know, that’s pretty fast.

THE CROWLEY HOTEL, BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES

Mulch made it back to his hotel undetected. Of course, this time he didn’t have to scale the walls. It would have been more of a challenge than Maggie V’s building. The walls here were brick, very porous. His fingers would have leeched the moisture from the stone and lost their suction.

No, this time Mulch used the main foyer. And why wouldn’t he? As far as the doorman was concerned, he was Lance Digger, reclusive millionaire. Short, maybe. But short and rich.

‘Evening, Art,’ said Mulch, saluting the doorman on his way to the lift.

Art peered over the marble-topped desk.

‘Ah, Mister Digger, it’s you,’ he said, slightly puzzled. ‘I thought I heard you passing below my sightline only moments ago.’ ‘Nope,’ said Mulch, grinning. ‘First time tonight.’

‘Hmm. The night wind perhaps.’

‘Maybe. You’d think they’d block up the holes in this building. All the rent I’m paying.’ ‘You would indeed,’ agreed Art. Always agree with the tenants, company policy.

Inside the mirrored lift, Mulch used a telescopic pointer to push P for penthouse. For the first few months, he had jumped to reach the button, but that was undignified behaviour for a millionaire. And besides, he was certain that Art could hear the thumping from the security desk.

The mirrored box rose silently, flickering past the floors towards the penthouse. Mulch resisted the urge to take the Academy Award out of his bag. Someone could board the lift. He contented himself with a long drink from a bottle of Irish spring water, the closest to fairy pure it was possible to get. As soon as he had stowed the Oscar he would run a cold bath and give his pores a drink. Otherwise he could wake up in the morning glued to the bed.

Mulch’s door was key-coded. A fourteen-number sequence. Nothing like a bit of paranoia to keep you out of prison. Even though the LEP believed that he was dead, Mulch could never quite shake the feeling that one day Julius Root would figure it all out and come looking for him.

The apartment’s decor was quite unusual, for a human dwelling. A lot of clay, crumbling rock and water features. More like the inside of a cave than an exclusive Beverly Hills residence.

The northern wall appeared to be a single slab of black marble. Appeared to be. Closer inspection revealed a forty-inch flat-screen television, a DVD slot and a tinted glass pane. Mulch hefted a remote control bigger than his leg, popping the hidden cabinet with another complicated key code. Inside were three rows of Oscars. Mulch placed Maggie V’s on a waiting velvet pad.

He wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. ‘I’d like to thank the Academy,’ giggled the dwarf.

‘Very touching,’ said a voice behind him.

Mulch slammed the cabinet door shut, cracking the glass pane.

There was a human youth beside the rockery. In his apartment! The boy’s appearance was strange, even by Mud Man standards. He was abnormally pale, raven-haired, slender and dressed in a school uniform that looked as though it had been dragged across two continents.

The hairs on Mulch’s chin stiffened. This boy was trouble. Dwarf hair is never wrong.

‘Your alarm was amusing,’ continued the boy. ‘It took me several seconds to bypass it.’ Mulch knew he was in trouble then. Human police don’t break into people’s apartments.

‘Who are you, hu … boy?’

‘I think the question here is, who are you? Are you reclusive millionaire Lance Digger? Are you the notorious Grouch? Or perhaps, as Foaly suspects, you are escaped convict Mulch Diggums?’ Mulch ran, the last vestiges of gas providing him with an extra burst of speed. He had no idea who this Mud Boy was, but if Foaly sent him, then he was a bounty hunter of one kind or another.

The dwarf raced across the sunken lounge, making for his escape route. It was the reason he’d chosen this building. In the early nineteen hundreds a wide-bore chimney had run the length of the multi-storey building. When a central-heating system had been installed in the fifties, the building contractor had simply packed the chute with dirt, topping it off with a seal of concrete. Mulch had smelled the vein of soil the second his estate agent had opened the front door. It had been a simple matter to uncover the old fireplace and chip away the concrete. Voilà. Instant tunnel.

Mulch unbuttoned his bum-flap on the run. The strange youth made no attempt to follow him. Why would he? There was nowhere to go.

The dwarf spared a second for a parting shot. ‘You’ll never take me alive, human. Tell Foaly not to send a Mud Man to do a fairy’s job.’ Oh dear, thought Artemis, rubbing his brow. Hollywood had a lot to answer for.

Mulch tore a basket of dried flowers from the fireplace and dived right in. He unhinged his jaw and was quickly submerged in the century-old clay. It was not really to his taste. The minerals and nutrients had long since dried up. Instead, the soil was infused with a hundred years of burnt refuse and tobacco ash. But it was clay nevertheless, and this was what dwarfs were born to do. Mulch felt his anxiety melt away. There wasn’t a creature alive that could catch him now. This was his domain.

The dwarf descended rapidly, chewing his way through the storeys. More than one wall collapsed on his way past. Mulch had a feeling that he wouldn’t be getting his deposit back, even if he had been around to collect it.

In a little over a minute, Mulch had reached the basement car park. He rehinged, gave his rear-end a shake to dislodge any bubbles of gas, then tumbled through the grate. His specially adapted four-wheel drive was waiting for him. Fuelled up, blacked out and ready to go.

‘Suckers,’ gloated the dwarf, fishing the keys from a chain around his neck.

Then Captain Holly Short materialized not a metre away. ‘Suckers?’ she said, powering up her buzz baton.

Mulch considered his options. The basement floor was asphalt. Asphalt was death to dwarfs, sealed up their insides like glue. There appeared to be a man mountain blocking the basement ramp. Mulch had seen that one before in Fowl Manor. That meant the human upstairs must be the infamous Artemis Fowl. Captain Short was dead ahead looking none too merciful. Only one way to go. Back into the flue. Up a couple of storeys, and hide out in another apartment.

Holly grinned. ‘Go on, Mulch. I dare you.’

And Mulch did, he turned, launching himself back into the chimney, expecting a sharp shock in the rear-end. He was not disappointed. How could Holly miss a target like that?

CHUTE E116, BELOW LOS ANGELS

The Los Angeles shuttle port was sixteen miles south of the city, hidden beneath the holographic projection of a sand dune. Root was waiting for them in the shuttle. He had recovered just enough to crack a grin.

‘Well, well,’ he grunted, hauling himself off the gurney, a fresh medi-pac strapped across his ribs. ‘If it isn’t my favourite reprobate, back from the dead.’ Mulch helped himself to a jar of squid paté from the Atlantean ambassador’s personal cooler.

‘Why is it, Julius, that you never pay me a social visit? After all, I did save your career back in Ireland. If it hadn’t been for me, you never would have known about Fowl’s copy of the Book.’ When Root was fuming, as he was now, you could have toasted marshmallows on his cheeks.

‘We had a deal, convict. You broke it. And now I’m bringing you in.’

Mulch scooped dollops of paté from the jar with his stubby fingers.

‘Could use a little beetle juice,’ he commented.

‘Enjoy it while you can, Diggums. Because your next meal is going to be pushed through a slot in a door.’ The dwarf settled back in a padded chair. ‘Comfortable.’

‘I thought so,’ agreed Artemis. ‘Some form of liquid suspension. Expensive, I shouldn’t wonder.’ ‘Sure beats prison shuttles,’ agreed Mulch. ‘I remember this one time they caught me selling a Van Gogh to a Texan. I was transported in a shuttle the size of a mouse hole. They had a troll in the next cubicle. Stank something awful.’ Holly grinned. ‘That’s what the troll said.’

Root knew he was being goaded, but he blew his top anyway. ‘Listen to me, convict. I have not travelled all this way to listen to your war stories. So shut your trap before I shut it for you.’ Mulch was unimpressed by the outburst. ‘Just out of interest, Julius, why have you travelled all this way? The great Commander Root commandeering an ambassador’s shuttle just to apprehend little old me? I don’t think so. So, what’s going on? And what’s with the Mud Men?’ He nodded at Butler. ‘Especially that one.’ The manservant grinned. ‘Remember me, little man? Seems to me I owe you something.’ Mulch swallowed. He had crossed swords with Butler before. It hadn’t ended well for the human. Mulch had vented a bowel full of dwarf gas directly at the manservant. Very embarrassing for a bodyguard of his status, not to mention painful.

For the first time Root chortled, even though it stretched his ribs. ‘OK, Mulch. You’re right. Something is going on. Something important.’ ‘I thought so. And, as usual, you need me to do your dirty work.’ Mulch rubbed his rump. ‘Well, assaulting me isn’t going to help. You didn’t have to buzz me so hard, Captain. That’s going to leave a mark.’ Holly cupped a hand around one pointed ear. ‘Hey, Mulch, if you listen really hard you can just about make out the sound of nobody giving a hoot. From what I saw, you were living pretty well on LEP gold.’ ‘That apartment cost me a fortune, you know. The deposit alone was four years of your salary. Did you see the view? Used to belong to some movie director.’ Holly raised an eyebrow. ‘Glad to see the money was put to good use. Heaven forbid you should squander it.’ Mulch shrugged. ‘Hey, I’m a thief. What did you expect – I’d start a shelter?’ ‘No, Mulch, funnily enough I didn’t expect that for one second.’

Artemis cleared his throat. ‘This reunion is all very touching. But while you’re exchanging witticisms, my father is freezing in the Arctic’ The dwarf zipped up his suit. ‘His father? You want me to rescue Artemis Fowl’s father? In the Arctic?’ There was real fear in his voice. Dwarfs hated ice almost as much as fire.

Root shook his head. ‘I wish it were that simple, and in a few minutes so will you.’ Mulch’s beard hairs curled in apprehension. And as his grandmother always said, trust the hair, Mulch, trust the hair.