Artemis Fowl Read Online Free PDF

his eyes. Why did these things always happen on his watch? Holly could understand his frustration. Trolls were the meanest of the deep-tunnel creatures. They wandered the labyrinth, preying on anything unlucky enough to cross their path. Their tiny brains had no room for rules or restraint. Occasionally one found its way into the shaft of a pressure elevator. Usually the concentrated air current fried them, but sometimes one survived and was blasted to the surface. Driven crazy by pain and even the tiniest amount of light, they would generally proceed to destroy everything in their path.
    Root shook his head rapidly, recovering himself.
    “Okay, Captain Short. Looks like you get your chance. You’re running hot, I take it?”
    “Yes, sir,” lied Holly, all too aware that Root would suspend her immediately if he knew she’d neglected the Ritual.
    “Good. Then sign yourself out a sidearm, and proceed to the target area.”
    Holly glanced at the view screen. Scopes were sending high-res shots of an Italian fortified town. A red dot was moving rapidly through the countryside toward the human population.
    “Do a thorough reconnaissance and report in. Do not attempt a retrieval. Is that understood?”
    “Yessir.”
    “We lost six men to troll attacks last quarter. Six men. That was belowground, in familiar territory.”
    “I understand, sir.”
    Root pursed his lips doubtfully.
    “Do you understand, Short? Do you really?”
    “I think so, sir.”
    “Have you ever seen what a troll can do to flesh and bone?”
    “No, sir. Not up close.”
    “Good. Let’s not make today your first time.”
    “Understood.”
    Root glared at her. “I don’t know why it is, Captain Short, but whenever you start agreeing with me, I get decidedly nervous.”
    Root was right to be nervous. If he’d known how this straightforward Recon assignment was going to turn out, he would probably have retired then and there. Tonight, history was going to be made. And it wasn’t the discovery-of-radium, first-man-on-the-moon, happy kind of history. It was the Spanish Inquisition, here-comes-the-Hindenburg bad kind of history. Bad for humans and fairies. Bad for everyone.
    Holly proceeded directly to the chutes. Her normally chatty mouth was a grim slash of determination. One chance, that was it. She would allow nothing to break her concentration.
    There was the usual line of holiday visa hopefuls stretching to the corner of Elevator Plaza, but Holly bypassed it by waving her badge at the waiting line. A truculent gnome refused to yield.
    “How come you LEP guys get to go topside? What’s so special about you?”
    Holly breathed deeply through her nose. Courtesy at all times. “Police business, sir. Now, if you could just excuse me.”
    The gnome scratched his massive behind. “I hear you LEP guys make up your police business just to get a look at some moonlight. That’s what I hear.”
    Holly attempted an amused smile. What actually formed on her lips resembled a lemon-sucking grimace.
    “Whoever told you that is an idiot . . . sir. Recon only ventures above ground when absolutely necessary.”
    The gnome frowned. Obviously he had made up the rumor himself, and suspected that Holly might have just called him an idiot. By the time he’d figured it out, she had skipped through the double doors.
    Foaly was waiting for her in Ops. Foaly was a paranoid centaur, convinced that human intelligence agencies were monitoring his transport and surveillance network. To prevent them from reading his mind, he wore a tinfoil hat at all times.
    He glanced up sharply when Holly entered through the pneumatic double doors.
    “Anybody see you come in here?”
    Holly thought about it.
    “The FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, MI6. Oh, and the EIB.”
    Foaly frowned. “The EIB?”
    “Everyone in the building.” Holly smirked.
    Foaly rose from his swivel chair and clip-clopped over to her.
    “Oh, you’re very funny, Short. A regular riot. I thought the Hamburg incident