Four months of stakeout. Even Butler, the consummate professional,
was beginning to dread the long nights of dampness and insect bites.
Thankfully, the moon was not full every night.
It was always the same. They would crouch in their foil-lined blind in
complete silence, Butler repeatedly checking his equipment, while
Artemis stared unblinking through the eye of the scope. At times like
these, nature seemed deafening in their confined space. Butler longed to
whistle, to make conversation, anything to break the unnatural silence. But
Artemis’s concentration was absolute. He would brook no interference or
lapse of focus. This was business.
Tonight they were in the southeast. The most inaccessible site yet.
Butler had been forced to make three trips to the Jeep in order to hump the
equipment across a stile, a bog, and two fields. His boots and trousers
were ruined. And now he would have to sit in the blind with ditchwater
soaking into the seat of his pants. Artemis had somehow contrived to
remain spotless.
The blind was ingenious in design and interest had already been
expressed in the manufacturing rights— mostly by military representatives
—but Artemis had resolved to sell the patent to a sporting goods
multinational. It was constructed of an elasticated foil polymer on a
multihinged fiberglass skeleton. The foil, similar to that used by NASA,
trapped the heat inside the structure while preventing the camouflaged
outside surface from overheating. This ensured that any animals sensitive
to heat would be unaware of its presence. The hinges meant that the blind
would move almost like a liquid, filling whatever depression it was
dropped into. Instant shelter and vantage point. You simply placed the
Velcroed bag in a hole and pulled the string.

- Artemis Fowl, Chapter 4