Approx. 2 Months Earlier. Fairy Retrieval Agency HQ

The Fairy Retrieval Agency had been fairly straightforward to start off with. Well, as easy as being recruited to a top-secret organisation that dealt with life forms the rest of the informed planet were unaware of could be. Masek still remembered his first conversation with Artemis Fowl, the enigmatic mastermind that had made all of this happen. It was surreal to think that he had been headhunted to a top-secret organisation, but he had fit all of Artemis' criteria. He was a former Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marines, and had also served as Chief Tactical Officer for the US Government after leaving the Marines. He had an IQ comparable enough to Artemis that he wasn't considered an idiot, and, for someone who was 45, he was in rather good physical shape. Of course, he didn't know what the FRA entailed until his first face to face meeting with Artemis, which was surreal enough too. There was something disconcerting about meeting someone under half your age that seems to know about 3x as much about the world around you. Artemis gave Masek 3 days to think about the proposal, but Masek had already been sold on the idea of practically leading a small team to help assist the existing police force of an underground race of 'fairies'. It was a prospect that excited Masek- something unknown to sink his teeth into, and he would be on site Commander even if Artemis had overall control.

Now in partnership with Artemis, they had set about putting together the rest of the team. They only needed a few roles, but each role was key. They needed a sharpshooter, a tough guy, a tactician and a technical operator. It wasn't hard for Masek to put forward a name for the Tough Guy slot. He had been working with a Navy fleet when they had been attacked by insurgents and the survivors taken hostage. The only reason they had managed to get out alive was because one of the prisoners, who had been with the Navy fleet, beat most of the insurgents half to death on their way off the vessel. That guy was Cable – Masek had no idea if it was his real name or not, but it was the only name he had been given. Cable seemed less than taken with Artemis' leadership, but did eventually agree to take up the role. Masek knew deep down that Cable only took the role because he really needed work after being discharged from the Navy, but he was a reliable officer. More followed – Artemis somehow managed to rope Scarlett in from the shadows, much to everyone's confusion. She was the complete opposite of Masek and Cable, having been more of a troublemaker and an assassin for hire before joining up with them. To get the remaining members, Artemis sent out two anonymous puzzles to a popular online forum and waited to see who would be able to not just complete them, but be able to overcome the many obstacles they presented. It took creative minds to complete the puzzles, and naturally only a select few ever managed it. Among those were Jenna and Wyatt, and both subsequently were given the roles as technician and tactician respectively.

And thus, the team was formed.

The first month had gone fairly well, as well as could be expected for a team hastily put together and getting used to each other. But if it took long enough to get used to each other, it took even longer to get used to the Lower Elements and the many surprises they threw at the team. Sometimes they would have days without doing anything, and then a mad dash and flurry of activity that kept them up for several nights in a row. The likes of Trolls and Pixies and Sprites were always tricky customers, and not accustomed to playing by the rules. But soon, the team had formed a bond, and a good system. Whilst the LEP was still recovering, they were on a roll. It was almost too good to last; No, it was too good to last.

The first big problem the FRA endured came in the form of a large data siphon. Naturally, when you're working practically as a second police force, you tend to keep a lot of data, be it records of their missions or of items recovered. Strategy plans and even cross mission plans with the LEP. Everything was taken, or rather a copy of everything had been stolen right from under their noses. Masek had been angry, Artemis hadn't shown any emotion at all. But now all missions had been put on hold, and Masek was determined to find out what had happened. For days he had been sat at his computer, reviewing security protocols and CCTV footage. But nothing, nothing that would suggest how the data had been stolen. The network line that had been wormed into their system in order to copy the data had been routed through 18 different countries in a circular pattern, so there was no way of tracing that, and even though they knew somebody had to have used one of the terminals inside the HQ to actually initiate the transfer, there was no sign of any break in, no sign of any terminal being used. It was a head scratcher.

It was a very cold, very wet day. The world outside them was completely grey, but inside FRA Headquarters the heating was turned up full blast and things were generally rather bright. Masek loved the contrast. He looked out of his window in one direction to see a storm starting up, then looked back into his room and basked in its glow. But he also had work to do, as they still had no leads on the massive data leak. It wasn't something he or Artemis were taking lightly. He must have taken about 5 different looks at the same set of security camera footage, but there was something he was missing. So, he took one large swig of his heavily caffeinated coffee and set back to it. It was tedious work, but he still looked through everything in as much detail as he possibly could. When he got to the final set of footage, about 3 hours in, he was about ready to give up. Just as he started the last tape, his phone suddenly went off. He glanced at it briefly, but as he did his peripheral picked up something on the tape. It was a glimmer, that was all, but it was a glimmer that shouldn't have been there. The tapes were usually flawless. He rewound the tape and played it back again, and there it was. It lasted for less than a second, but there it was. Almost as if someone had torn into the footage and tried to stitch it back together, only to leave a scar. The tape had been tampered with, but he had no way of knowing what they had done, because this was the only copy of the tape they had on file. No, wait, there was something he could do. There was a chance anyway. He had to see Jenna.

Any time they weren't out on a mission, Jenna spent at her computer. All of it. She was the computer whizz of the group, but that didn't take away from the fact she was also a rather amazing problem solver and even a half decent soldier by Masek's standards. Yet, somehow, despite spending all of her time at her computer, she never managed to lose her energy. She was the definition of a human Duracell bunny. Masek liked the energy she brought to the team, Cable liked it perhaps a little bit too much, Scarlett thought it was weird and Wyatt straight up didn't seem to even acknowledge the fact she was how she was. One of the perks of being chief computer girl was that she tended to keep a copy of all security footage to herself on a separate server. Masek knew she had been going through it all herself, but as they had split it between them, she hadn't seen the tapes he had. IF she had the original... Well, they might just be able to see what made that glitch.

As soon as Masek knocked on Jenna's door, she shot out of her chair and jumped on him, her way of saying hello.
"I'm amazed your blood pressure doesn't go through the floor every time you do that" Masek remarked, but Jenna responded by looking up at him with her big, brown eyes.
"If it does, I haven't noticed" She responded, jumping down and returning to her chair, which she spun on the spot as she sat down.
"I have something to show you" Masek said, and Jenna's eyes practically lit up.
"You found something, didn't you?"
"Just watch and see."
Masek played the footage, but he let it run the first time to see if Jenna noticed it. Even someone as talented as her missed it. It was so small, so brief. When Masek pointed it out to her on the second run through, it was as if she'd won the lottery. In a way, they almost had.
"Now we know the feed was tampered with, I have a question. Do you have the separate server copy that wouldn't have been tampered with?"
Jenna nodded an affirmative.
"Yes, I will."
After searching for it for a few minutes, and then making sure it was the right tape, Jenna loaded it up and they got down to watching it. They knew where the scar in the original copy was, so they skipped ahead to near that point before starting. But when the tape started to play, it painted a very different picture to what they had seen before. And more than that, it gave them answers. Jenna said something incomprehensible under her breath when she saw it, but Masek wasn't afraid to say it out loud.
"You little bastard!"

Wyatt Munroe was a strange person, in Masek's view. He was the other person to be hired as a consequence of completing one of Artemis' puzzles, but whilst nobody could doubt that he was very good at what he did – mission strategy and co-ordination – as a person he was very much off the beaten track. Aside from relaying strategy plans before and during missions, he barely spoke to anybody. Even when you were in his presence, it would feel more like he was silently judging you. It looked like he was silently judging everything. And then he would quietly slither away, and you wouldn't hear from him again for the next few hours. It unnerved Masek, and he was certain it made everyone else uncomfortable too, except perhaps Jenna who herself was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Jenna and Wyatt were complete opposites, and yet she was perhaps the only person he regarded with any normality. But now Masek knew that his feelings about Wyatt Munroe were more than just being paranoid; He was an enemy of The People and he had to be stopped.
"Jenna" Masek said. "Call Cable and Scarlett, quickly. Wherever Wyatt is right now, I get the feeling he will know that we're onto him."
Jenna nodded, and hurriedly ran over to the radio. When she engaged it, she got Cable's voice.
"Guys, excellent timing" he said, breathing heavily. "I don't know if you've been in the bathroom recently, but right now I'm staring at a bomb. And we have 12 minutes until it goes off."