Thanks to: Shadow914, Sandd, Crazy Female LEPrecon, Steinbock, 2whitie, Shadow Huntress and Fowl Star 57 for the reviews and to Shadow914 again for the alert.
WARNINGS: Bit of swearing, as usual.
Sorry for the cliffie but it's gonna keep hanging a little longer!
CHAPTER 11
Best Laid Plans
LENIN PROSPEKT, MURMANSK, NORTHERN RUSSIA, TWO YEARS AGO - THE PAST
Mikhael Vassikin poured his partner Kamar another shot of vodka. To be fair, the majority of it flooded the glass and overflowed onto the mahogany table. But hey, they were celebrating. Of course, there wasn't much to celebrate, what with the younger Fowl messing up their plans and the Menidzher being less than pleased that he had escaped unharmed meaning they did not get the promotion they had been promised. Still, they had both come out of the other end alive, and the ransom had been found and delivered to Britva. All five million dollars of it.
"Well, here's to not having to see that Irlanskii's ugly face ever again," Vassikin laughed, clinking glasses with Kamar and downing his shot.
"And to, once he realises that we still got the ransom, a promotion from the boss!"
"Urgh," Vassikin grunted. "That I doubt. Still, we're alive and Fowl is not."
There was a hammering on the door that interrupted Kamar's appraisal of that statement.
"Get that, Mikhael."
"Why do I have to get it?"
"Because I'm the brains of this outfit, which makes you the brawn."
"I still don't see..."
"Just get the goddam door, Mikhael."
"Huh. I think I agree with the Fowl boy," Vassikin grunted. "You are a little rat."
"Fat imbecile," Kamar countered.
The door rattled in its frame again.
"Alright, alright!" Mikhael shouted, craning his bulk off the old sofa and stomping over to the door. Before he had even fully opened it, a man burst in, panting slightly. Kamar drew a gun quickly but relaxed once he had seen who it was.
"Jesus, Lyubkhin," he snapped. "You scare shit in me."
"Your shit is least of your worries. Have you heard the news? You should be scared for the rest of your guts."
"Why? What is it? What's happened?" Vassikin shut the door.
"The money," Lyubkhin yelled at him. "The money Fowl left is gone."
"What? Stolen? What idiot would dare steal from the Menidzher?"
"No. Not stolen. Vanished."
"Vanished?" Kamar repeated dumbly.
"Magic," Vassikin breathed. "I told you Kamar! The boy has powers!"
"I told you already. Fairy stories, Mikhael! Pull yourself together."
"Powers or no, you should still be worried. Word up top is Britva is blaming you two," Lyubkhin told them seriously, hooking the near-empty alcohol bottle and downing it in one slug.
"What? How can he blame us? We delivered the money 48 hours ago. We took none of it! Not a single note!" Vassikin protested.
"No. But you did let Fowl go."
"He said that was fine…"
"When he had the money," Lyubkihn finished. "Now without it, he wants him dead."
"When will it end?" Kamar groaned.
"I suggest you prepare yourself for a call from the Menidzher. And I don't think it will be for a promotion."
Mikhael looked at his partner. They had two choices, obey or die. There was no running from the boss of the Mafia.
This Fowl business was far from over.
MURMANSK, NORTHERN RUSSIA – PRESENT DAY
It had taken a long time.
Almost two years ago today they had received the phone-call Lyubkhin had warned them of. Unfortunately for Vassikin and Kamar, Fowl was as slippery a character as his father. They didn't want to confront the miniature criminal mastermind on his home turf and when away, he barely stayed still for more than a day, disappearing to countries all over the world at entirely unpredictable moments. He flitted from Ireland like the cross-hair of a nervous sniper and, much to Kamar's annoyance, his partner's stories of the boy being located all over the world in the same day seemed only to be confirmed by their own tracking work. For example, he had travelled to Munich, only to vanish entirely from their radar, just when they were about to pounce on him and his single bodyguard. Of course, the bodyguard in question was a Butler, but the year previous he had been in a fight with another businessman's security team that had left him for dead. They didn't understand how the man was back to being fighting fit, or how he had sent his supposed murderer gibberingly confessing himself into a life sentence for various charges. Either way they didn't want to risk going up against him single-handedly.
Vassikin, again, suspected magic.
Kamar suspected it was another Butler. They all looked the same anyway.
And then, entirely unexpectedly, the Fowl boy had vanished off the face of the earth.
The pair had been happy. Surely he was dead. Where else would be? Britva had not been so pleased. He wanted proof. Photographs of a body at the very least. In his mind, the boy had heard of the Mafia's interest in him and decided to conceal himself. He had ordered them to search for him. Any little mention. The boy had been missing barely three months when they had finally caught chance word of one 'Artemis Fowl', possibly living under the pseudonym of Zoridon Kochanski - in Murmansk of all places!
The audacity of the boy. Hiding under their very noses, perhaps in the hope that they wouldn't look so close to home. But then there was the chance that he was taunting Britva. And nobody who taunted the Menidzher lived to boast about it.
Either way, here they were, sat in their stolen BMW 4x4 outside a house that supposedly contained the boy they had been chasing for two years. The team who had been watching the building informed them that there were two other men with him. One, an old native, was possibly a part of the disguise. And the other could possibly be the infamous Butler, although their Irish intelligence assured them that he was still in the country. Absent from the Fowl's residence, currently, but then again he was a harder man to track even than his charge.
"Ready?"
"I have been ready for a year and a half, Mikhael. Give the order already," Kamar grumbled irritably.
"Alright, alright," muttered Vassikin, pressing the button on the communicator. "Let's move in, men."
The blacked-out 4x4 idled for a few seconds, then the doors opened and a pair of darkly clad men stepped out, followed by others striding purposefully from the shadows and slinking towards the house. They were good.
Mafia good, Butler thought, his muscles tensing.
He had always thought they'd gotten away far too easily with the whole 'false-money' thing. But his job had been to fire the shot. And he had. Perfectly, of course. Although he'd like to think that he had a bit more nous than the average hired chunk of muscle, that was, in essence, what he was and so he left the more complicated aspects of plotting to Artemis and geniuses like him. And, when discussed, Artemis had admitted that had simply thought that Foaly had sorted it out for them somehow and told his bodyguard to stop being so paranoid.
This situation might have nothing to do with the kidnapping and ransom of Artemis Fowl Senior, or it might have everything. Depending on whether the boy, or man, was Artemis Fowl Junior.
Butler had only seen the men himself as he and Juliet had rounded the corner, but it had been enough to have him on high alert immediately.
Within seconds, they reached an entrance to an alleyway, little more than 100 metres from the house and Juliet managed to tilt her head enough to use her peripheral vision to see what had made Butler change course so suddenly. And what had managed to flick the switch between him simply being her big brother a few seconds ago and practically bodyguarding her as he was now.
The men were moving like professionals and Juliet didn't like the way some of their hands were straying to their belts as they surrounded the house and its unsuspecting occupants, slinking like deadly shadows towards the building.
To her right, her brother checked the alley was clear of everything but rubbish and pulled out his binoculars, crouching by an overflowing bin and scanning the area around the house.
"They've got it surrounded," he muttered, just so that he was sure that she definitely knew. She probably did, and he never would have bothered speaking if he had been with anyone other than her. Anyone he was protecting didn't need to know what was going through his head and anyone fully trained as he was would already have seen the situation arising, as he had.
"What do you reckon? Someone getting here before us?" Juliet asked, following suit and sweeping her gaze across the street. "What are we going to do?"
Butler was silent. If there was perhaps even half a chance that his charge was in the house… he was willing to at least attempt to rescue him from whatever was about to happen. But even with Juliet by his side, they couldn't possibly hope to go up against the Mafia and come off better.
With his uncle, perhaps they would have risked it for any of the Fowls. But there were at least eight men at his counting and although Butler alone could take on so many untrained opponents without breaking a sweat, these men weren't your average layabouts. Why they were suddenly after Artemis now, he didn't know, but he never liked to rely on coincidences. Something was going on here.
"Maybe we should just go. I don't think that lad was Arty anyway and whatever this is, we should probably at least try not to get involved," Juliet continued when he didn't answer. "Looks like trouble."
"Agreed," Butler muttered.
Then again, we've never been ones for avoiding trouble...
He pocketed the binoculars and slid his hand absently into the Russian overcoat he was wearing.
"Dom?" Juliet asked tentatively, eyeing the straying hand and knowing exactly what it was reaching towards, hidden in its shoulder-holster under the jacket. "You're not thinking of going in there, are you?"
"They haven't gone in yet. Likely they're waiting either for someone to go out, or for them to go to sleep."
"Or they're just about to go in and we should call some authorities before things get messy."
"We could go over there, like we're friends of the residents. Least they'll have some protection when whoever these people are decide to go in."
"What? We go chap their door and say 'Oh hello there, you probably don't know us, but there's some weirdo's outside your house, you see and we thought we'd give you a hand?'" Juliet said sarcastically. "What can we do? It's not as though us being there will help anything, anyway."
Butler broke his gaze from the house to look at his sister quizzically.
"What? Just because I'm being the paranoid, over-cautious one now?" she asked, thumping him on the arm.
"Maybe you should try again for your diamond," her brother shrugged. "You're actually finally starting to think like one."
"Well maybe I could just have yours," she retaliated. "Since you don't seem to be acting like one."
"Ouch. Well, that hurt," he muttered, going back to his watching.
And it did. More than he let on.
"I'm sorry," Juliet mumbled after a few seconds. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just… you make me nervous when you start contemplating stuff I'd do. I'm the one who's supposed to come up with the idiotic plans and then you're supposed to come up with the better one."
Butler straightened up. "I know, I know. Alright then. We'll just take a walk down the street and see if anyone reacts. If they don't, we'll keep walking. At the end of the road there's a police station."
"And if they do?"
"Then… well, I suppose then we'll just have to improvise."
"Imaginatively?" Juliet grinned like a hungry wolf.
"Imaginatively," Butler nodded, returning the gesture.
And forget the infamous plotting-Fowl vampire smile, for it had nothing on the smirk of a Butler with a plan.
"There are people in the street," one of the men muttered into the mouthpiece of his walkie-talkie.
"So? They are taking a night-time stroll. None of our concern. Do not get distracted and hold position," Kamar hissed. "Team two - update."
"Targets located. Rear of the building. Kitchen. They are sat down to eat, I think," another of the team informed him.
"Excellent. Shall we join them for dinner?"
Kamar looked around again. The walkers were gone. Disappeared into the night and, to be honest, they would be no trouble if they hadn't moved on. Likely they were locals anyway and every person in the country knew not to mess with Mafia business.
"Is everyone in position?" he asked into the radio.
Affirmations came from the other six men surrounding the residence.
"So, do you want to knock, or should I?" asked Vassikin.
"Be my guest," sniggered Kamar.
Art, Zory and Aramazd had barely finished their first helpings of the stew the old man had left to simmer all day, when there was a knock at the door. Aramazd sighed. He was more than a little 'old-school' and an interruption to dinner was more than an annoyance. It was downright bad manners to leave a dinner table before the meal was finished.
"I'll get it," Zory said, standing up switly.
Art stopped with his fork half-way to his mouth. "Wait."
He was listening. A soft thud of snow sliding off the slanted roof had piqued the interest of some hidden creature deep inside him.
Danger, it warned. Danger. Protect the principle.
Art had no idea what a principle was, but when he looked at Zory, he felt it had something to do with his perpetual need to protect him. From the bullies at school, from the men at the docks, from… well, everything really.
"I'll go," he said firmly.
"Why?" Zory frowned.
"Just… I'll get it," Art said as calmly as he could. Something was wrong. A long forgotten part of his brain was thrumming with the threat of it.
His chair scraped back over the tiled floor with magnified volume.
Get your gun, something told him. Now.
Art was confused at that. He hadn't even thought of any of using any of the array of weaponry he had turned up with all those years ago. In fact, other than the knives, he hadn't seen the stuff in years. He'd even sold some of it when times had been tough. But as he stepped towards the front door he paused, opening the cupboard under the stairs and laying his hand on the shoebox on the shelf. He prised the dusty cardboard lid off gently and picked up an item wrapped carefully in cloth. It had lain there for five years - dormant. Waiting patiently for him to come to his senses and carry it with him everywhere once again.
He had no idea if it would work, but heaven knew it had had the time to dry out. He checked the clip entirely automatically, hands working separately to his brain.
Whoever was at the door knocked again, more forcefully.
"Art? Who is it?" Aramazd asked, breaking his own rule and standing-up stiffly.
Art put a finger to his lips. "I don't know. But I have a bad feeling…"
"You opened your box!" Zory gasped. "Do you think it's someone from your past?"
"Could be. Just… just stay in the kitchen, please."
He crossed the room and opened the porch door, slipping his feet into his boots and reaching for the outside door. A third knock and, checking over his shoulder that Aramazd and Zory were following his instructions, he brought his hand down on the handle, and pulled open the door.
Dundunduh!
I know, I know, another cliffie, but the next chapter is fast-paced and hopefully worth the wait!
Well, the ball has really started rolling and things will be happening very quickly indeed in the next few chapters compared to what it's been like for the past chapters.
And yes, I know that as it is meant to be their language (Russian) and not a translation, Kamar would probably not say 'you scare shit in me', but I watched my pretty-much all-time favourite film last week and it reminded me of the quote and so I had to put it in there. Anyone know what it's off?
Hope you're still enjoying reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it,
Wolfy
ooo
O
