Foaly had actually been the first person they'd consulted with, at Holly's insistence. "He's the one person in here who I trust, besides you, not to have been in on this," she had told Trouble.
Foaly had gone all out as soon as they'd told him what was happening. The technician genuinely liked Artemis, and more than that, he respected the human's intellect. "You'll wear an eye-cam, of course," he'd told her. "But more than that, I'm going to equip you with a subcutaneous tracker." He held up an absolutely enormous-looking needle. "Once it's implanted it should be nearly undetectable."
"Nearly?" asked Commander Kelp.
"Well, I do have a device. I have to be able to find them, after all, or what's the point?" Foaly pointed out.
Holly eyed it dubiously. "Just do it quick," she told him. When Foaly injected the rice-grain-sized tracker into the skin of her upper arm, she winced, but didn't complain.
"There you are," said Foaly, looking at a computer monitor. "All vitals. Looks like you're a little deficient in Vitamin D, you should have a supplement or spend an hour in the sun, soon." Holly just eyed him and he went on. "Right, then. Communications device. I haven't tested these yet." He held up yet another enormous needle.
"Really?" Holly asked. "Where does thatone go?"
"Just here." Foaly pointed to the skin just below his earlobe along his neck. "Picks up even the faintest of whispers, and transmits directly to your ear canal. This one is gonna hurt, Holly, I'm sorry."
Holly simply tilted her head to one side, exposing the side of her neck to him. She actually grunted this time at the injection, and her eyes watered for a second. "You weren't kidding," she told him.
"You should wear a standard throat-mic, too," he said. "Your kidnappers will be expecting tech, so we'll have to give them some to find and take away. We'll get it all back when we raid their stronghold."
Holly rubbed the spot where the subcutaneous microphone was located. "Anything else?" she asked.
"Well, I do have some gas," Foaly said. He picked up a tiny canister. "Four uses. You have to spray it directly in their face. Don't inhale it yourself. It will knock out anyone, even a troll, in a few seconds."
Holly took the canister and slid it into a pocket. "Thank you," she told him.
Then there was the press briefing. The LEP weren't the only ones that PAIR had contacted. Trouble had had to make a public announcement about the situation, wherein he had reminded every viewer that Artemis Fowl had saved Haven and Atlantis, and was a friend and even benefactor to the People. He asked that anyone with information leading to Artemis' safe recovery and/or the apprehension of members of PAIR to please step forward.
After the press conference PAIR had contacted them again. "We want to speak to Holly Short," said the voice on the other end.
"This is Commander Kelp. You can speak to me."
"Put Ms. Short on the phone or Artemis Fowl will lose a finger."
Kelp looked around at the people in the room who were listening in – Holly, Butler, and Mulch, with Foaly in the background running a trace. "Fine," he said. "She's right here."
Holly took the phone. "This is Holly Short. Who am I talking to?"
"It's not important for you to know my name, Captain Short. If you like, you can call me Driver. Fowl came up with it."
Butler's eyes narrowed as he put two and two together and surmised that the man speaking was the one who'd driven away the limousine.
"Very well, Driver. How can I help you?"
"I – we're delivering coordinates to the station right now. We want you to come alone. No weapons, no gadgets, no tricks."
"And why would I do that?" Holly asked.
"If you ever want to see Fowl alive again, you'll come," snarled Driver.
"How do I know he's not already dead?" Holly asked. "Let me speak to him."
There was a pause, and then Driver sighed. "Pining for your lover's voice?" he asked. "Fine." There was a very short pause, and the sound of a hand striking flesh. "Wake up!"
"What?" it was Artemis' voice, everyone in the room recognized it immediately. "Holly? He's mad. I will neverbetray you, I –"
Artemis' voice cut off to another smack. "Tonight," said Driver, and he hung up.
"No good," Foaly said, frustrated. "He's using some kind of scrambling device."
"He's an amateur," Butler stated. "He's been making mistakes since the get-go. First, I saw his accomplice, and I can identify him if I see him again. Second, he called you and the press to boast about having Artemis, without asking for a ransom or stating a demand. In addition to that, his threats have escalated from cutting off fingers to killing Artemis in the space of a few seconds. He's emotional, unstable, and very, very dangerous. This is a personal vendetta. No matter what he says, we have to assume that his ultimate goal is to kill Artemis, and possibly Holly."
"There's also the fact that we're reasonably sure that this is an inside job," Kelp stated. "Mulch, I'm going to need your investigative skills. Help Foaly, you two see if you can't figure out where the leak of those photographs came from. Whoever's behind that could lead us to this Driver."
"Anything I can do to help," Mulch said. "I've gotten a bit of a soft spot for that particular Mud Man, over the years."
"Likewise," Foaly concurred. "He's the only one who can beat me at chess."
"What did Artemis mean?" Holly asked. "He said he would never betray me. What did he mean?"
No one had an answer for that.
The coordinates arrived soon after that, in a plain envelope addressed to Holly. "That's an old cavern system," Mulch said thoughtfully. "Unstable. No one's been in there for years, it's supposed to be blocked off. Even criminals avoid it, because no one likes the idea of being buried under half a kilometer of sold granite."
"If that's where Artemis is, I'll just have to risk it," Holly said grimly.
Three hours later she stood at the coordinates and waited to be taken by insane kidnappers. They didn't keep her waiting.