Given the need to expedite the trip to Tara, Butler, Holly and Artemis had agreed that it would be fastest to forget taking one of the Fowl family's luxury sedans and instead fly. Accordingly, Artemis and Butler had donned camo-foil (Holly knew she might get her wrists slapped for using so much to cover up Butler) and been hooked onto Holly's moonbelt.

There was no discussion of the facts of the case on the way to Tara—the howling of the wind as it whipped past them precluded all conversation. As they lowered themselves through the holographically concealed entrance to the Tara shuttleport, Butler wasted no time in shimmying out of the camo-foil. Both he and Artemis were free by the time the trio's feet touched the ground.

Once she had managed to unhook the two humans—while Butler quietly grumbled something about low ceilings—she rushed over to the small LEP booth near Customs. It was currently being staffed by an old pixie named Kellers. Retirement was only a couple of months away for him. Right now he was talking to an irritated female sprite with two kids in tow.

"Kellers," Holly abruptly broke in, "I need a shuttle, ASAP. Sorry," she said to the sprite, as an afterthought. The sprite did not seem very placated by Holly's belated attempt at politeness.

Kellers waved his hand dismissively. "Sure, kid. What size do you need?"

Holly turned around and looked at Butler. When she turned back to Kellers, she saw that his gaze—and the sprite's—had followed hers, and now both were eying the massive human. Kellers had seen Butler before, but Holly had a feeling this was the first time the sprite had. "I need the biggest one you've got," Holly replied.

Kellers nodded repeatedly, clearly a little nervous with the sight of Butler. "Yeah, sure, sure, take Big Bertha. She's been itching for some exercise anyways."

"Thanks. And, of course, we'll need chute priority as soon as we get up and running."

Kellers snorted. "Usually I'd say that you might have trouble convincing the mucky-mucks up here to give you that, but I think with him—"he nodded his head towards Butler—"you shouldn't have too many problems."

The old man was right. Generally the higher-ups at the Tara shuttleport didn't like to be told they had to delay flights just because the LEP wanted to get somewhere a little faster. But they also had seen Butler come and go through their shuttleport numerous times. And if what the several unofficial biographies of Artemis Fowl floating around the fairy world said was true, they didn't want to see what happened when something stood in Butler's way. At least, not if what stood in Butler's way was their own bureaucratic red tape. So, in minutes Holly was firing up "Big Bertha", an old clunker of a shuttle—but at least Butler didn't have to hunch when sitting.

On the way to Haven City, Holly filled Artemis and Butler in on the remainder of the information she knew about the situation they were walking into—which wasn't much.

"Did they find Judkins' phone in his home?" Artemis asked Holly.

"I don't know. Let's ask Foaly." She connected to Foaly's control booth through the shuttle's communication system. "Foaly, this is Holly. Artemis wants to know if we picked up Judkins' phone when we searched his home."

Foaly's voice sounded through the old speakers—which were still better than the speakers on the average high-end human surround sound system. "No—but I know what you're thinking, Artemis. We can't track his phone. Judkins was paranoid when it came to privacy. He paid a lot of money to make his phone untraceable."

Artemis murmured, "No phone is untraceable."

"What was that?" Foaly asked.

Clearing his throat, Artemis repeated, this time louder, "No phone is untraceable. I might be able to pick something up when I get there."

Foaly scoffed. "Yeah right, Mud Boy. If I couldn't pick anything up, what makes you so sure you can get something?"

"It's a technology I have been working on recently. When phones—both fairy and human—are used, they beam nearly waves up to satellites, which, as you know, then beam the signal back down to the intended recipient on earth. Each phone leaves a barely detectable digital signature in the surrounding area when it is used, made up of residual waves left behind. If Judkins used his phone recently in his home, we should be able to detect the digital signature, replicate it, beam it up to the satellite, and use it to connect backwards with the device. Once we have given the satellite the digital signature, it will find the phone for us. It will be like giving a bloodhound the scent of of its prey."

Once Artemis had finished, Holly waited for Foaly's reply. There was silence. It lasted so long that eventually Holly asked, "Foaly, you there?"

"Yes," Foaly piped in, coldly.

Artemis looked at Holly and smirked.

"Fine, Mud Boy," Foaly said, finally. "I'll send a few of my guys out to Judkins's place. Let's hope your little theory is right." And with that, Foaly cut out.

"He just cannot handle suggestions, can he?" Artemis said, sounding very satisfied with himself.

"You didn't just make all of that up to annoy Foaly, right?" Holly asked.

"No, I really have been working on it recently. I daresay Foaly will have the technology to do it in some of his already existing devices; he just had not yet thought of the concept. But I also did enjoy annoying him."

Holly just shook her head, smiling.

By the time they reached Foaly's control booth at Police Plaza, he was just dismissing the techies who had returned from Judkins's place. Foaly seemed to have recovered from his irritation with Artemis, and in a perfectly affable manner conveyed the results of the search. "My guys were able to pick up the digital signature at his place. I was just about to call in the Commander for the attempt to connect via satellite."

Trouble was sent for, and shuffled into the now-packed control booth. When he saw Artemis and Butler—for how could one miss two fully-grown (or in Butler's case, overgrown) humans in any fairy-sized room?—he cleared his throat and almost growled as he said, "I hope you've got something for us, Fowl. Time to earn those ridiculous fees you charge."

"Commander, I think if you did a little research in the human world, you would find that my fees are really quite reasonable. But yes, I do believe we have a lead."

Foaly explained the basics of what the techies had done at Judkins's house, and what Foaly was about to do now. Even after simplifying things a great deal, Holly could tell that Trouble knew almost no more than he had known when he had stepped into the booth. She was actually in the same boat.

Foaly turned to his 'old school' keyboard and started clacking away at the keys. Soon, a fairy dial tone came through the control booth speakers, and after a few more key strokes by Foaly, the sound turned into ringing. Holly glanced up at Artemis. He appeared to be concentrating very hard on listening.

The ringing abruptly ended and Judkins's voicemail greeting began playing. Holly felt disappointment that it seemed their only possible lead had ended in one of the most annoying voicemail greetings she had ever heard. So, naturally, she was a bit surprised when Foaly said, "Well, Artemis, I have to give you credit. It's worked. I'll have to remember this little trick for the future."

She was about to chalk it up to Foaly's typical facetiousness, when Artemis graciously replied, "It was my pleasure. Now, what is his location?"

Trouble was, again, just as confused as she was. "Wait a second. We got his voicemail. Weren't we hoping to connect with someone?"

Foaly answered his question. "We didn't care about connecting with a person—just the phone itself. His phone is obviously on silent, but that's okay. We only wanted to know where it was. We told the satellite which phone we were looking for, and it hunted it down—a natural task for a communications satellite. Now we have a lock on exactly where he is. All the anti-spying features in the world couldn't prevent us from tracking him."

Holly understood what he was saying now. "All right, let's get some officers to the site. I'll go, Trubs."

"Commander Kelp," he corrected her through clenched teeth. "And no, you're staying here. You're Recon, remember? This is a job for Retrieval."

"Don't we need Recon to go in first? To scope out the situation?"

"The answer is no, Captain. We need tactically-trained personnel going in there. I've had a perfectly good team waiting on call for any leads. They will go in."

Holly felt like sulking, but then decided that would not be the most professional thing to do.

As Trouble left the control booth momentarily to go and give the order to move out to the coordinates Foaly provided, Foaly was trying to find out what was actually at the location of the coordinates. He patched himself through to the complex network of surveillance cameras that hung above Haven City and its suburbs. When he found the relevant camera, he switched his large monitor to display the video feed.

"Uh oh," he said. "Well. Not an ideal situation."

Holly's eyes widened as she saw what he meant. Judkins—or at least his phone—was at a school.

Butler nearly growled, "A school? What kind of psychopath are we dealing with here?"

"We don't know yet," Artemis answered, though all of them knew Butler's question had been rhetorical. "It could be the kind of psychopath who uses a school full of children as a shield from the police, or it could be the kind of psychopath who wants to harm a school full of children just for fun. Either way, I echo Foaly's sentiments that this complicates matters a great deal."

Trouble re-entered the room. He noticed the expressions of the others and asked, "What did I miss?"

"Sir," Holly replied, choosing formality given the gravity of the situation, "it appears from the coordinates that Judkins is at Roland Urich Primary School."

Trouble groaned, and took out his com device. He barked through it to the commanding officer of the Retrieval team the fact that the team was now going to have to perform the mission walking on eggshells to ensure no children were hurt. When he disconnected, he looked at Foaly. "We have minutes until our team reaches the site. Can we get audio on the surveillance feed? I need to see and hear what's going down on the ground."

Foaly looked mildly insulted by Commander Kelp's request, but Holly could see he was at least making an effort to be respectful as he replied, "We've already got audio. It's just that nothing is happening there yet. Sir."

Trouble only grunted in response.

True to Trouble's prediction, the Retrieval squad entered the video feed minutes later. The leader, Captain Orville Poole, radioed back to the control booth that scared children were inside the school, crowded around the windows. Judkins, too, was visible through one of the windows. They were clearly in the right place.

The troops approached cautiously, but once they were within about fifteen feet of the main entrance to the school, external speakers mounted above the door started made a tapping noise for a couple of seconds, followed by a low, scratchy, female voice, with a nervous shaking to it. "Welcome, LEP officers," the voice said.

"Are you getting this?" Poole asked Foaly through his helmet.

"Loud and clear," Foaly replied.

The voice began again. "This school is…" There was a pause and a few deep breaths through the speakers. "…rigged with explosives."

Holly's shoulders slumped. This was bad. It was one thing when it was only Judkins in danger—he was an adult. But a school full of kids? She glanced at Artemis and Butler. Butler was completely stonefaced. Holly could only imagine what was going through his mind—probably the plethora of methods he could use to incapacitate the kidnapper. Artemis was also deep in thought, his expression inscrutable.

Continuing, the voice said, "I've overridden the…"—more heavy breathing—"central computer system. Doors are locked. Windows are locked." It didn't take a genius to see that the kidnapper was telling the truth. Metal bars, meant to lock the school down and make it a place of safety in the event of any future event like the Goblin Rebellion, had come down over the windows. The doors were similarly barricaded.

Trouble looked at Foaly. "Can you get into the school's computer system?"

Foaly started typing furiously on his keyboard. "I should, unless…" He cursed. "No, she's cut the school's system off from the outside. I can't tap in remotely."

"I've a detonator," the voice went on, still shaking. "The LEP's junk. You shouldn't leave…your garbage unincinerated." Holly could tell that, for some reason, the last three words had taken the kidnapper some effort to utter. "And the detonator—I'll use it. Make no mistake."

Trouble spoke into his com device. "Poole, find out what she wants."

Poole, his voice amplified through his special LEP helmet, accordingly asked, "What are you looking for here?"

The voice giggled nervously. "I want gold. Three tons' worth. All in ingots, by noon tomorrow. Or else this…this school goes…to kingdom come. Just like that. I'll do it. I really will."

Poole replied, "That's a lot of gold. We need more time than that."

"I'm not negotiating. By noon tomorrow." And a brief, scratchy noise emanating from the speakers told them that the kidnapper had turned off the microphone.

Poole's voice came through the control booth speakers. "Commander, sir. What would you like us to do?"

Trouble looked…troubled. "Stick around. Keep an eye out on the school in case things go south. We'll work on the ransom request from our end. At the very least we may be able to draw the kidnapper out of the building somehow."

"Roger that, sir. We'll wait here for further orders."

As Holly looked at Trouble, who was currently staring into space, she knew that he had absolutely no idea of what those further orders might be.

Author's Note: thanks for the follows and the reviews! You guys are great—keep them coming!