Life had been hard on Luc – he had been born into poverty and had had a rather unsuccessful career as a PI. In fact, Luc Carrère's life had just been one big failure until the voice. It had come with money and it had been sooo beautiful - but then the giant had come and crushed all of that.
Luc could still remember that man. He had had it all. Then the man had ended it. "Answer the question, Monsieur Carrère!" He had had called the police – framed him. One day, he would pay!
Jon Spiro's story had been completely different, until the end. He had had everything he could wish for: money, power, gang connections – until Artemis Fowl. The Irish boy had invited him to a business lunch. Spiro had set a trap. The trap had almost worked. Almost. Artemis had escaped. Spiro had captured him. Artemis had led him into a trap and then disappeared. Next thing Spiro had known, he was behind bars.
Spiro had met Luc by chance and had immediately realized that they had something in common: they both had a deep, deep hatred of the ones who had been the cause of their long period in jail.
There was another reason that Spiro chose to act friendly with Carrère. Spiro suspected that "the man" Luc spoke of was Butler, Fowl's bodyguard. After all, his description could hardly fit anyone else.
So, naturally, when Spiro learned that he had a chance of escape he checked to see if he could bring anyone along. It would, he reasoned, make sense to have a cohort when getting revenge – even if the cohort was overweight and stupid.
Luc was a start, but Spiro wanted somebody else, to. Several somebodies, if possible.
He started asking around; the only person who knew Artemis personally was a man named Nguyen Xuan, who had been captured while attempting to rob a bank. However, his meeting with Artemis seemed to have made him extremely paranoid, he refused to do anything that might anger the boy genius, or, Spiro guessed, Butler.
However, an opportunity to escape interested many, and it didn't hurt that Spiro offered them money if they helped him after the escape.
Soon Spiro had an army.
An army of thieves and murderers.