SFAX, TUNISIA, NORTH AFRICA

FOR her eighteenth birthday, Juliet Butler asked for, and received, a ribbed Judo crash vest, two weighted throwing knives and a World Wrestling Grudge Match video -items that did not generally feature on the average teenage girl’s wish list. Then again, Juliet Butler was not the average teenage girl.

Juliet was extraordinary in many ways. For one thing, she could hit a moving target with any weapon you cared to name and, for another, she could throw most people a lot further than she trusted them.

Of course,   she   didn’t  learn  all   of this  watching wrestling videos. Juliet’s training began at age four. After kindergarten each day, Domovoi Butler would escort his little sister to the Fowl Estate dojo, where he instructed her in the various forms of martial arts. By the time she was eight, Juliet was a third dan black belt in seven disciplines. By eleven years of age, she was beyond belts.

Traditionally, all Butler males enrolled in Madame Ko’s Personal Protection Academy on their tenth birthday, spending six months of every year learning the bodyguard’s craft, and the other six guarding a low-risk principal. The female Butlers generally went into the service of various wealthy families around the world. However, Juliet decided she would combine both roles, spending half the year with Angeline Fowl, and the other half honing her martial arts skills in Madame Ko’s camp. She was the first Butler female to enrol in the Academy, and only the fifth female ever to make it past the physical exam. The camp was never located in the same country for more than five years. Butler had done his training in Switzerland and Israel, but his younger sister received her instruction in the Utsukushigahara Highlands in Japan.

Madame Ko’s dormitory was a far cry from the luxurious accommodation in Fowl Manor. In Japan, Juliet slept on a straw mat, owned nothing apart from two rough cotton robes, and consumed only rice, fish and protein shakes.

The day began at five thirty when Juliet and the other acolytes ran four miles to the nearest stream, catching fish with their bare hands. Having cooked and presented the fish to their sensei, the acolytes strapped empty twenty-gallon barrels to their backs and climbed to the snowline. When their barrel was filled with snow the acolyte would roll it back to base camp, and then pound the snow with bare feet until it melted and could be used by the sensei to bathe. Then the day’s training could begin.

Lessons included Cos Ta’pa, a martial art developed by Madame Ko herself, specially tailored for bodyguards, whose primary aim was not self-defence, but defence of the principal. Acolytes also studied advanced weaponry, information technology, vehicular maintenance and hostage-negotiation techniques.

By her eighteenth birthday, Juliet could break down and reassemble ninety per cent of the world’s production weapons blindfolded, operate any vehicle, do her makeup in under four minutes and, in spite of her stunning Asian and European gene mix, blend into any crowd like a native. Her big brother was very proud.

The final step in her training was a field simulation in a foreign environment. If she passed this test, Madame Ko would have Juliet’s shoulder marked with a blue diamond tattoo. The tattoo, identical to the one on Butler’s shoulder, symbolized not only the graduate’s toughness, but also the multifaceted nature of his or her training. In personal protection circles, a bodyguard bearing the blue diamond needed no further reference.

Madame Ko had chosen the city of Sfax in Tunisia for Juliet’s final assessment. Her mission was to guide the principal through the city’s tumultuous market or medina. Generally, a bodyguard would advise his principal against venturing into such a densely populated area, but Madame Ko pointed out that principals rarely listened to advice, and it was best to be prepared for every eventuality. And, as if Juliet wasn’t under enough pressure, Madame Ko herself decided to act as surrogate principal.

It was exceptionally hot in North Africa. Juliet squinted through her wraparound sunglasses, concentrating on following the diminutive figure bobbing through the crowd before her.

‘Hurry,’ snapped Madame Ko. ‘You will lose me.’

‘In your dreams, Madame,’ replied Juliet, unperturbed. Madame Ko was simply trying to distract her with conversation. And there were already enough distractions in the local environment. Gold hung in shimmering ropes from a dozen stalls; Tunisian rugs flapped from wooden frames, the perfect cover for an assassin. Locals pressed uncomfortably close, eager for a look at this attractive female, and the terrain was treacherous — one false step could lead to a twisted ankle and failure.

Juliet processed all this information automatically, factoring it into every move. She placed a firm hand on the chest of a teenager grinning at her, skipped over an oily puddle reflecting rainbow patterns and followed Madame Ko down yet another alley in the medina’s endless maze.

Suddenly there was a man in her face. One of the market traders.

‘I have good carpets,’ he said in broken French. ‘You come with me. I show you!’

Madame Ko kept going. Juliet attempted to follow her, but the man blocked her path.

‘No, thank you. I am so not interested. I live outdoors.’

‘Very funny, mademoiselle. You make good joke. Now come and see Ahmed’s carpets.’

The crowd began to take notice, swirling to face her, like the tendrils of a giant organism. Madame Ko was moving further away. She was losing the principal.

‘I said no. Now back off, Mister Carpet Man. Don’t make me break a nail.’

The Tunisian was unaccustomed to taking orders from a female, and now his friends were watching.

‘I give good bargain,’ he persisted, pointing at his stall. ‘Best rugs in Sfax.’

Juliet dodged to one side, but the crowd moved to cut her off.

It was at this point that Ahmed lost any sympathy that Juliet might have had for him. Up to now, he had simply been an innocent local in the wrong place at the wrong time. But now . . .

‘Let’s go,’ said the Tunisian, wrapping an arm around the blonde girl’s waist. Not an idea that would make it on to his top ten of good ideas.

‘Oh, bad move, Carpet Man!’

Faster than the eye could blink, Ahmed was wrapped in the folds of a nearby carpet and Juliet was gone. Nobody had a clue what had happened until they replayed the incident on the screen of Kamal the chicken man’s camcorder. In slo-mo, the traders saw the Eurasian girl hoist Ahmed by the throat and belt, and lob him bodily into a carpet stall. It was a move that one of the gold merchants recognized as a Slingshot, a manoeuvre made popular by the American wrestler Papa Hog. The traders laughed so much that several of them became dehydrated. It was the funniest thing to happen all year. The clip even won a prize on Tunisia’s version of the World’s Funniest Videos. Three weeks later, Ahmed moved to Egypt.

Back to Juliet. The bodyguard-in-training ran like a sprinter out of the blocks, dodging around stunned merchants and hanging a hard right down an alley. Madame Ko couldn’t have gone far. She could still complete her assignment.

Juliet was furious with herself. This was exactly the kind of stunt her brother had warned her about.

‘Watch out for Madame Ko,’ Butler had advised. ‘You never know what she’ll cook up for a field assignment. I heard that she once stampeded a herd of elephants in Calcutta, just to distract an acolyte.’

The trouble was that you couldn’t be sure. That carpet merchant might have been in Madame Ko’s employ, or he might have been an innocent civilian, who happened to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong.

The alley narrowed so that the human traffic ran single file. Makeshift clothes lines zigzagged at head height; gutras and abayas hung limp and steaming in the heat. Juliet ducked below the laundry, dodging around dawdling shoppers. Startled turkeys hopped as far out of the way as their string leads would allow.

And suddenly she was in a clearing. A dim square surrounded by three-storey houses. Men lounged on the upper balconies, puffing on fruit-flavoured water pipes. Underfoot was a priceless chipped mosaic, depicting a Roman bath scene.

In the centre of the square, lying with her knees hugged to her chest, was Madame Ko. She was being assaulted by three men. These were no local traders. All three wore special-forces black, and attacked with the assurance and accuracy of trained professionals. This was no test. These men were actually trying to kill her sensei.

Juliet was unarmed; this was one of the rules. To smuggle arms into the African country would automatically mean life imprisonment. Luckily, it seemed as though her adversaries were also without weapons, though hands and feet would certainly be sufficient for the job they had in mind.

Improvization was the key to survival here. There was no point in attempting a straight assault. If these three had subdued Madame Ko, then they would be more than a match for her in regular combat. Time to try something a bit unorthodox.

Juliet leaped on the run, snagging a clothes line on her way past. The ring resisted for a second, then popped out of the dried plaster. The cable played out behind her, sagging with its load of rugs and headscarves. Juliet veered left as far as the line’s other anchor would allow, and then swung round towards the men.

‘Hey, boys!’ she yelled, not from bravado, but because this would work better head on.

The men looked up just in time to get a faceful of sopping camel hair. The heavy rugs and garments wrapped themselves around their flailing limbs, and the nylon cable caught them below the chins. In under a second the three were down. And Juliet made certain they stayed down with pinches to the nerve clusters at the base of their necks.

‘Madame Ko!’ she cried, searching the laundry for her sensei. The old woman lay shuddering in an olive dress, a plain headscarf covering her face.

Juliet helped the woman to her feet.

‘Did you see that move, Madame? I totally decked those morons. I bet they never saw anything like that before. Improvization. Butler always says it’s the key. You know, I think my eyeshadow distracted them. Glitter green. Never fails . . .’

Juliet stopped talking because there was a knife at her throat. The knife was wielded by Madame Ko herself, who was in fact not Madame Ko, but some other tiny Oriental lady in an olive dress. A decoy.

‘You are dead,’ said the lady.

‘Yes,’ agreed Madame Ko, stepping from the shadows. ‘And if you are dead, then the principal is dead. And you have failed.’

Juliet bowed low, joining her hands.

‘That was a sly trick, Madame,’ she said, trying to sound respectful.

Her sensei laughed. ‘Of course. That is the way of life. What did you expect?’

‘But those assassins; I completely kicked their b— ; I defeated them comprehensively.’

Madame Ko dismissed the claim with a wave. ‘Luck. Fortunately for you, these were not assassins, but three graduates of the Academy. What was that nonsense with the wire?’

‘It’s a wrestling trick,’ said Juliet. ‘It’s called the Clothes Line.’

‘Unreliable,’ said the Japanese lady. ‘You succeeded because fortune was with you. Fortune is not enough in our business.’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ protested Juliet. ‘There was this guy in the market. Totally in my face. I had to put him asleep for a while.’

Madame Ko tapped Juliet between the eyes. ‘Quiet, girl. Think for once. What should you have done?’

Juliet bowed an inch lower. ‘I should have incapacitated the merchant immediately.’

‘Exactly. His life means nothing. Insignificant compared to the principal’s safety.’

‘I can’t just kill innocent people,’ protested Juliet.

Madame Ko sighed. ‘I know, child. And that is why you are not ready. You have all the skill, but you lack focus and resolve. Perhaps next year.’

Juliet’s heart plummeted. Her brother had earned the blue diamond at eighteen years of age. The youngest graduate in the Academy’s history. She had been hoping to equal that feat. Now she would have to try again in twelve months. It was pointless to object any further. Madame Ko never reversed a decision.

A young woman in acolyte’s robes emerged from the alley, holding a small briefcase.

‘Madame,’ she said, bowing. ‘There is a call for you on the satellite phone.’

Madame Ko took the offered handset and listened intently for several moments.

‘A message from Artemis Fowl,’ she said eventually.

Juliet itched to straighten from her bow, but it would be an unforgivable breach of protocol.

‘Yes, Madame?’

‘The message is: Domovoi needs you.’

Juliet frowned. ‘You mean Butler needs me.’

‘No,’ said Madame Ko, without a trace of emotion. ‘I mean Domovoi needs you. I am just repeating what was told to me.’

And suddenly Juliet could feel the sun pounding on her neck, and she could hear the mosquitoes whining in her ears like dentist drills, and all she wanted to do was straighten up and run all the way to the airport. Butler would never have revealed his name to Artemis. Not unless . . . No, she couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t even allow herself to think it.

Madame Ko tapped her chin thoughtfully. ‘You are not ready. I should not let you leave. You are too emotionally involved to be an effective bodyguard.’

‘Please, Madame,’ said Juliet.

Her sensei considered it for two long minutes.

‘Very well,’she said. ‘Go.’

Juliet was gone before the word finished echoing around the square, and heaven help any carpet merchant who blocked her path.