(Mis)understanding

Prologue

It was the last intercept that clinched it in Klu Suspean's mind.

You didn't become a data analyst in the LEP without having a knack for interpreting information and extrapolating from it. It was like doing a jigsaw puzzle with only half the pieces: you had to fill in the gaps. In his fifteen years as a junior analyst working under Foaly, Klu had become an expert at filling in gaps. And when it came to Artemis Fowl he'd been trying to fill in the missing pieces for years.

He'd been monitoring the latest situation all week amidst his regular duties. Foaly's scopes (his communications monitoring system) could listen in on every communications signal on the planet and under it, and cull the 99.99% that was irrelevant to the People. But it was up to his small team of analysts to sift through the remaining 0.01% – which was harder than it sounded with the communications boom among the Mud Men in the past half century. Most of it was dull enough to put a insomniac to sleep before you could say "narcolepsy." Klu had had to listen in to more than his share of Dungeons and Dragons games and excited fan babble about the latest fantasy movie to include fairies, dwarves, and underground havens, but this week's surveillance duties had been different: Fowl had been involved.

Klu had had suspicions about the Mud Man for years and this was the drop that made the bucket overflow.

The video feed came from Police Plaza itself. The main lobby. There they were, Artemis Fowl and Captain Holly Short. It was quite the little tableau in the midst of the bustle of convicts and officers surrounding them: Fowl leaning down to place his hands on the Captain's slim shoulders, his eyes locked with hers, her hands gripping his forearms. The audio had been a mess what with the chain gang of goblins being brought in by a team of officers at the time. He'd only been able to restore one line, but that line was enough.

'I want you, Holly.'