‘Yes,’ replied his bodyguard. ‘Don’t go one step further than you have to.’
‘Three, two, one. Go.’
Artemis pressed the spring-release button on the steering column. He shuffled across the bench, pulling the telescoping pole behind him. As the boy moved, Butler swivelled his trunk so that Artemis remained shielded by the blueprint. He moved the plan just far enough to cover the master keyhole, without exposing Artemis’s legless boots. However, the target box, complete with telescoping pole, was visible for the time it took Artemis to insert the second key.
The master keyhole was nearly a metre beyond the end of the steel bench.
Artemis leaned as far as he could without losing his balance, slotting the key into its hole. It fitted snugly. Artemis shuffled back quickly. Now Butler could once again mask
Crane & Sparrow’s box. The entire plan hinged on the assumption that the guards would be concentrating on Butler and would not notice a slim pole extending towards the master keyhole. It would help that the pole was precisely the same colour as the deposit boxes.
Artemis returned to the original box, twisting the hand-grip. A pulley-and-cable system inside the pole twisted the other handgrip simultaneously. Both locks flashed green. Crane & Sparrow’s box popped open. Artemis felt a moment of satisfaction. His contraption had worked. Then again, there was no reason why it shouldn’t; all the laws of physics had been obeyed. Amazing how the tightest of electronic security could be defeated by a pole, a pulley and a brace.
‘Artemis,’ groaned Butler, ‘keeping my arms up is becoming uncomfortable. So, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Artemis cut short his mental celebration. They were not out of the vault yet. He turned the grips back to their original position, then yanked the bar towards him. Both keys popped from their holes. With the touch of a button, the pole snapped back to its original length. Artemis did not reassemble the scooter just yet. The pole might be needed to search other boxes.
Artemis studied the locker through the X-ray panel before opening the door any wider. He was searching for any wires or circuits that could trigger secondary alarms.
There was one, a circuit-breaker attached to a portable klaxon. It would be extremely embarrassing for any thief if the authorities were alerted by the raucous wailing of a foghorn. Artemis smiled. It seemed as though Crane & Sparrow had a sense of humour.
Maybe he would employ them as his lawyers.
Artemis unhooked the headphones from around his neck, popping off the earpieces. Once the wire inside was exposed, he twisted a length around each side of the breaker. Now he could safely pull the breaker apart without opening the circuit.
Artemis pulled. The klaxon remained silent.
At last the box lay open before him. Inside, a single tube stood propped against the rear wall. The tube was fashioned from perspex and contained a rolled-up canvas.
Artemis removed the tube, holding it up to the light. For several seconds he studied the painting through the transparent plastic. He could not risk opening the tube until they were safely back in the hotel. A hasty job now could cause accidental damage to the painting. He had waited years to obtain The Fairy Thief, and he could wait a few more hours.
‘The brush work is unmistakable,’ he said, closing the box. ‘Strong strokes. Thick blocks of light. It’s either Herve or a brilliant copy. I do believe we’ve done it, Butler, but I can’t be sure without X-ray and paint analysis.’
‘Good,’ said the bodyguard, glancing at his watch. ‘That can be done at the hotel.
Pack up and let’s get out of here.’
Artemis shoved the cylinder into his backpack, along with the reassembled scooter. He clipped the keys to his retainer and slotted the brace over his teeth.
The vault door slid open just as the Irish youth lowered himself into his trainers.
Bertholt’s head appeared in the gap.
‘Everything all right in here?’ asked the bank official.
Butler folded the blueprint and slotted it into his pocket.
‘Fine, Bertholt. Excellent, in fact. You may escort us to the main level.’
Bertholt bowed slightly. ‘Of course, follow me.’
Artemis was back in the role of argumentative teenager. ‘Thanks so much, Berty.
This has been a real blast. I just love spending my holidays in banks, looking at papers.’
All credit to Bertholt. His smile never wavered.
Kurt was waiting for them by the X-ray arch, his arms folded across a chest the size of a rhino’s. He waited until Butler had gone past, then tapped Artemis’s shoulder.
‘You think you’re really smart, don’t you, boy?’ he said, grinning.
Artemis grinned back. ‘Compared to you? Definitely.’
Kurt bent over, hands on knees, until his eyes were level with Artemis’s. ‘I was watching you from the security booth. You didn’t do a thing. Your kind never does.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Artemis. ‘I could have been breaking into those safety deposit boxes.’
‘I know all right. I know because I could see your feet the whole time. You barely moved an inch.’
Artemis grabbed his ring of keys from the tray, running after Butler to catch the lift. ‘You win this time. But I’ll be back.’
Kurt cupped a hand around his mouth. ‘Bring it on,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
Chapter 3: Nearly Departed
POLICE PLAZA, HAVEN CITY, THE LOWER ELEMENTS
Captain Holly Short was up for a promotion. It was the career turnaround of the century. Less than a year had passed since she had been the subject of two g Internal Affairs inquiries; but now, after six successful 1 missions, Holly was the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance squad’s golden fairy. The Council would soon meet to decide whether or not she would be the first female major in LEPrecon’s history. And to tell the truth, the prospect did not appeal to her one bit. Majors rarely got to strap on a set of wings and fly between land and stars. Instead they spent their time sending junior officers topside on missions. Holly had made up her mind to turn down the promotion if it were offered to her. She could live with a smaller pay cheque if it meant she could still see the surface on a regular basis.
Holly decided it would be wise to tell Commander Julius Root what she planned to do. After all, it was Root who had stood by her through the inquiries, and it was Root who had recommended her for promotion in the first place. The commander would not take the news well. He never took any kind of news well; even good news was received with a gruff ‘Thank you’ and a slammed door.
Holly stood outside Root’s office on that morning, working up the courage to knock. And even though, at one metre exactly, she was just below the average fairy height, Holly was glad of the extra centimetre granted by her spiky auburn hair. Before she could knock, the door was yanked open and Root’s rosy-cheeked face appeared in the doorway.
‘Captain Short!’ he roared, his buzz-cut grey hair quivering. ‘Get in here!’ Then he noticed Holly standing beside the door. ‘Oh, there you are. Come in, we have a puzzle that needs solving. It involves one of our goblin friends.’
Holly followed Root into the office. Foaly, the LEP’s technical adviser, was already there, close enough to the wall plasma screen to singe his nose hairs.
‘Howler’s Peak video,’ explained Root. ‘General Scalene escaped.’
‘Escaped?’ echoed Holly. ‘Do we know how?’
Foaly snapped his fingers. ‘D’Arvit! That’s what we should be thinking about, instead of standing around here playing I Spy.’
‘We don’t have time for the usual sarcastic small talk, Foaly,’ snapped Root, his complexion deepening to burgundy. ‘This is a PR disaster. Scalene is public enemy number two, second only to Opal Koboi herself. If the journos get wind of this, we’ll be the laughing stock of Haven. Not to mention the fact that Scalene could round up a few of his goblin buddies and reactivate the triad.’
Holly crossed to the screen, elbowing Foaly’s hindquarters out of the way. Her little talk with Commander Root could wait. There was police work to be done. ‘What are we looking at?’
Foaly highlighted a section of the screen with a laser pointer.
‘Howler’s Peak, goblin correctional facility. Camera eighty-six.’
‘Which shows?’
‘The visiting room. Scalene went in, but he never came out.’
Holly scanned the camera location list. ‘No camera in the room itself?’
Root coughed, or it may have been an actual growl. ‘No. According to the third
Atlantis Convention on Fairy Rights, detainees are entitled to privacy in the visiting room.’
‘So we don’t know what went on in there?’
‘Not as such, no.’
‘What genius designed this system anyway?’
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Root chuckled. He never could resist needling the smug centaur.
‘Our horsy friend here designed Howler’s Peak automated security system all on his own.’
Foaly pouted, and when a centaur pouts his bottom lip almost reaches his chin.
‘It’s not the system. The system is foolproof. Every prisoner has the standard subcutaneous seeker-sleeper in his head. Even if a goblin manages to miraculously escape, we can remotely knock him out, then pick him up.’
Holly raised her palms. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that the seeker-sleeper is not broadcasting. Or, if it is, we’re not picking up the signal.’
‘That is a problem.’
Root lit a noxious fungal cigar. The smoke was instantly whipped away by an air recycler on his desk. ‘Major Kelp is out with a mobile unit, trying to get a fix on a signal.’
Trouble Kelp had recently been promoted to Root’s second in command. He was not the kind of officer who liked sitting behind a desk, unlike his little brother, Corporal Grub Kelp, who would have liked nothing better than to be stuck behind a nice safe desk for the remainder of his career. If Holly were forced into promotion, she hoped she could be half the major that Trouble was.
Holly returned her attention to the plasma screen. ‘So, who was visiting General
Scalene?’
‘One of his thousand nephews. A goblin by the name of Boohn. Apparently that means “of noble brow” in Goblin cant.’
‘I remember him,’ said Holly. ‘Boohn. Customs and Excise think he’s one of the goblins behind the B’wa Kell smuggling operation. There’s nothing noble about him.’
Foaly opened a folder on the plasma screen with his laser pointer.
‘Here’s the visitors’ list. Boohn checks in at seven fifty, Lower Elements Mean Time. At least I can show you that on video.’
A grainy screen showed a bulky goblin in the prison’s access corridor nervously licking his eyeballs, while the security laser scanned him. Once it was confirmed that Boohn wasn’t trying to smuggle anything in, the visitors’ door popped open.
Foaly scrolled down the list. ‘And look here. He checks out at eight fifteen.’
Boohn left swiftly, obviously uncomfortable in the facility. The parking-lot camera showed him reverting to all fours for the dash to his car.
Holly scanned the list carefully. ‘So you’re saying that Boohn checked out at eight fifteen?’
‘I just said that, didn’t I, Holly?’ replied Foaly testily. ‘I’ll say it again slowly. Eight fifteen.’
Holly snatched the laser pointer. ‘Well, if that’s true, how did he manage to check out again at eight twenty?’
It was true. Eight lines down on the list, Boohn’s name popped up again.
‘I saw that already. It’s a glitch,’ muttered Foaly, ‘that’s all. He couldn’t leave twice. It’s not possible. We get that sometimes, a bug, nothing more.’
‘Unless it wasn’t him the second time.’
The centaur folded his arms defensively. ‘Don’t you think I thought of that?
Everyone who enters or leaves Howler’s Peak is scanned a dozen times. We take at least eighty facial points of reference with each scan. If the computer says Boohn, then that’s who it was. There’s no way a goblin beat my system. They barely have enough brainpower to walk and talk at the same time.’
Holly used the pointer to review the entry video of Boohn. She enlarged his head, using a photo-manipulation program to sharpen the image.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked Root.
‘I don’t know, Commander. Something. Anything.’
It took a few minutes, but finally Holly got it. She knew immediately that she was right. Her intuition was buzzing like a swarm of bees at the base of her neck.
‘Look here,’ she said, enlarging Boohn’s brow. ‘A scale blister. This goblin is shedding.’
‘So?’ said Foaly grumpily.
Holly reopened Boohn’s exit file. ‘Now look. No blister.’
‘So he burst the blister. Big deal.’
‘No. It’s more than that. Going in, Boohn’s skin was almost grey. Now he’s bright green. He even has a camouflage pattern on his back.’
Foaly snorted. ‘A lot of good camouflage is in the city.’
‘What’s your point, Captain?’ asked Root, stubbing out his cigar.
‘Boohn shed his skin in the visitors’ room. So where’s the skin?’
There was silence for a long moment as the others absorbed the implications of this question.
‘Would it work?’ asked Root urgently.
Foaly was almost dumbstruck. ‘By the gods, I think it would.’
The centaur pulled out a keyboard, his thick fingers flying across the Gnommish letters. A new video box appeared on the screen. In this box, another goblin was leaving the room. It looked a lot like Boohn. A lot, but not exactly. Something wasn’t quite right.
Foaly zoomed in on the goblin’s head. At high magnification it was clear that the goblin’s skin was ill-fitting. Patches were missing altogether, and the goblin seemed to be holding folds together across his waist.
‘He did it. I can’t believe it.’
‘This was all planned,’ said Holly. ‘This was no opportunistic act. Boohn waits until he’s shedding. Then he visits his uncle and they peel off his skin. General Scalene puts on the skin and just walks out the front door, fooling all your scanners on the way.
When Boohn’s name shows up again, you think it’s a glitch. Simple, but completely ingenious.’
Foaly collapsed into a specially designed office chair. ‘This is incredible. Can goblins do that?’
‘Are you kidding?’ said Root. ‘A good goblin seamstress can peel a skin without a single tear. That’s what they make their clothes from, when they bother wearing any.’
‘I know that. I meant, could goblins think of this all on their own? I don’t think so.
We need to catch Scalene and find out who planned this.’
Foaly dialled a connection to the Koboi cam in the Argon Clinic. ‘I’m going to check Opal Koboi is still under. This sort of thing is just her style.’ A minute later, he swivelled to face Root. ‘Nope. Still in dreamland. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’d hate to have Opal back in circulation, but at least we’d know what we were up against.’
