He wrapped his fingers around the joysticks and suddenly realized just how long it had been since he had ridden the hotshots. Foaly noticed his discomfort.
“Don’t worry, chief,” he said without the usual cynicism. “It’s like riding a unicorn. You never forget.”
Root grunted, unconvinced. “Let’s get the show on the road,” he muttered. “Before I change my mind.”
Foaly hauled the door across until the suction ring took hold, sealing the portal with a pneumatic hiss. Root’s face took on a green hue through the quartz pane. He didn’t look too scary anymore. Quite the opposite in fact.
Artemis was performing a little field surgery on the fairy locator. It was no mean feat to alter some of the dimensions without destroying the mechanisms. The technologies were most definitely incompatible. Imagine trying to perform open-heart surgery with a sledgehammer.
The first problem was opening the cursed thing. The screwheads defied both flathead and Phillips screwdrivers. Even Artemis’s extensive set of Allen wrenches were unable to find purchase in the tiny grooves. Think futuristic, Artemis told himself. Think advanced technology.
It came to him after a few moments of silent contemplation. Magnetic bolts. Obvious, really. But how to construct a revolving magnetic field in the back of a four-wheel drive? Impossible. The only thing for it was to chase the screws around manually with a domestic magnet.
Artemis hunted the small magnet from its niche in the toolbox and applied both poles to the tiny screws. The negative side wiggled them slightly. It was enough to give Artemis some room to maneuver with needlenose pliers, and he soon had the locator’s panel disassembled before him.
The circuitry was minute. And not a sign of a solder bead. They must use another form of binder. Perhaps if he had time the principles of this device could be unraveled, but for now he would have to improvise. He would have to rely on the inattention of others. And if the People were anything like humans, they saw what they wanted to see.
Artemis held the locator’s face up to the cab’s light. It was translucent. Slightly polarized but good enough. He nudged a slew of tiny shimmering wires aside, inserting a buttonhole camera in the space. He secured the pea-sized transmitter with a dab of silicone. Crude but effective. Hopefully.
The magnetic screws refused to be coaxed back into their grooves without the proper tool, so Artemis was forced to glue them too. Messy, but it should suffice, provided the locator wasn’t examined too closely. And if it was? Well, he would only lose an advantage that he never expected to have in the first place.
Butler knocked off his high beams as they entered the city limits. “Dock’s coming up, Artemis,” he said over his shoulder. “There’s bound to be a Customs and Excise crew around somewhere.”
Artemis nodded. It made sense. The port was a thriving artery of illegal activity. Over fifty percent of the country’s contraband made it ashore somewhere along this half-mile stretch.
“A diversion then, Butler. Two minutes are all I need.”
The manservant nodded thoughtfully.
“The usual?”
“I don’t see why not. Knock yourself out. . . . Or rather don’t.”
Artemis blinked. That was his second joke in recent times. And his first aloud. Better take care. This was no time for frivolity.
* * *
The dockers were rolling cigarettes. It wasn’t easy with fingers the size of lead bars, but they managed. And if a few strands of brown tobacco dropped to the rough flagstones, what of it? The pouches were available by the carton from a little man who didn’t bother adding government tax to his prices.
Butler strolled over to the men, his eyes shadowed beneath the brim of a watch cap.
“Cold night,” he said to the assembled group.
No one replied. Policemen came in all shapes and sizes.
The big stranger persevered. “Even work is better than standing around on a frosty one like tonight.”
One of the workmen, a bit soft in the head, couldn’t help nodding in agreement. A comrade drove an elbow into his ribs.
“Still, though,” continued the newcomer. “I don’t suppose you girls ever did a decent day’s work in your lives.”
Again there was no reply. But this time it was because the dockers’ mouths were hanging open in amazement.
“Yep, you’re a pathetic-looking bunch, all right,” went on Butler blithely. “Oh, I’ve no doubt you would have passed as men during the famine. But by today’s standards you’re little more than a pack of blouse-wearing weaklings.”
“Arrrrgh,” said one of the dock hands. It was all he could manage.
Butler raised an eyebrow. “Argh? Pathetic and inarticulate. Nice combination. Your mothers must be so proud.”
The stranger had crossed a sacred line. He had mentioned the men’s mothers. Nothing could get him out of a beating now, not even the fact that he was obviously a simpleton. Albeit a simpleton with a good vocabulary.
The men stamped out their cigarettes and spread slowly into a semicircle. It was six against one. You had to feel sorry for them. Butler wasn’t finished yet.
“Now before we get into anything, ladies, no scratching, no spitting, and no tattling to Mommy.”
It was the last straw. The men howled and attacked as one. If they had been paying any attention to their adversary in that moment before contact, they might have noticed that he shifted his weight to lower his center of gravity. They might also have seen that the hands he drew out of his pockets were the size and approximate shape of spades. But no one was paying attention to Butler—too busy watching their comrades, making sure they weren’t alone in the assault.
The thing about a diversion is that it has to be diverting. Big. Crude. Not Butler’s style at all. He would have preferred to take these gentlemen out from five hundred feet with a dart rifle. Failing that, if contact was absolutely necessary, a series of thumb jabs to the nerve cluster at the base of the neck would be his chosen modus operandi—quiet as a whisper. But that would be defeating the purpose of the exercise.
And so Butler went against his training, screaming like a demon and utilizing the most vulgar combat actions. Vulgar they may have been, but that’s not to say they weren’t effective. Perhaps a Shao Lin priest could have anticipated some of the more exaggerated movements, but these men were hardly trained adversaries. In fairness, they weren’t even completely sober.
Butler dropped the first with a roundhouse punch. Two more had their heads clapped together, cartoon style. The fourth was, to Butler’s eternal shame, dispatched with a spinning kick. But the most ostentatious was saved for the last pair. The manservant rolled on to his back, caught them by the collars of their donkey jackets, and flipped them into Dublin harbor. Big splashes, plenty of wailing. Perfect.
Two headlights poked from the black shadow of a cargo container and a government saloon screeched along the quay. As anticipated, a Customs and Excise team on stakeout. Butler grinned with grim satisfaction and ducked around the corner. He was long gone before the agents had flipped their badges or begun inquiries. Not that their interrogations would yield much. “Big as a house” was hardly an adequate description to track him down.
By the time Butler reached the car, Artemis had already returned from his mission.