Artemis didn’t reply.

‘No?’ grunted Spiro. ‘I didn’t think so. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

Guts. And you don’t have them.’

Artemis was at a loss for words. Something that had only happened twice since his fifth birthday. Butler stepped in to fill the silence. Unveiled threats were more his area.

‘Mister Spiro. Don’t try to bluff us. Blunt may be big, but I can snap him like a twig. Then there’s nobody between me and you. And, take my word for it, you don’t want that.’

Spiro’s smile spread across his nicotine-stained teeth like a smear of treacle.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say there’s nobody between us.’

Butler got that sinking feeling. The one you get when there are a dozen laser sights playing across your chest. They had been set up.

Somehow Spiro had outmanoeuvred Artemis.

‘Hey, Fowl?’ said the American. ‘I wonder how come your lunch is taking so long.’

It was at that moment Artemis realized just how much trouble they were in.

It all happened in a heartbeat. Spiro clicked his fingers and every single customer in En Fin drew a weapon from inside his or her coat. The eighty-year-old lady suddenly looked a lot more threatening with a revolver in her bony fist. Two armed waiters emerged from the kitchen wielding folding-stock machine guns. Butler never even had time to draw breath.

Spiro tipped over the salt cellar. ‘Check and mate. My game, kid.’

Artemis tried to concentrate. There must be a way out. There was always a way out. But it wouldn’t come. He had been hoodwinked.

Perhaps fatally. No human had ever outsmarted Artemis Fowl. Then again, it only had to happen once.

‘I’m going now,’ continued Spiro, pocketing the C Cube, ‘before that satellite beam shows up, and those other ones. The LEP, I’ve never heard of that particular agency. And as soon as I get this gizmo working they’re going to wish they never heard of me. It’s been fun doing business with you.’