“To do what?” Jessie asked.
“Anything they want.” She turned frantically to Lynch. “You’ve seen what he’s capable of.”
He nodded. “I have. And Vlad Korkil’s men received a rather brutal demonstration themselves.”
Nolan smiled. “I heard about that. Several of those mendidn’t come back that day, including one who had been especially cruel to me. I admit I was happy never to see him again.”
“No one will ever see him again,” Lynch said. “You can thank Archie for that.”
Jessie paced the length of the room. “But what else will we soon be thanking Archie for? That psychopath Korkil is in control of him now. This could be bad. Very bad.”
“It could be even worse than you think,” Stevie whispered. “They probably also have my lab notes in which I gave precise instructions on how to upgrade if necessary.” She swallowed hard. “I had no intention of upgrading. It’s just a common procedure every scientist generally does to assure a complete product.”
Lynch gave a low whistle. “Oh, yes, I know all about completion.”
“You don’t understand.” Stevie was almost in tears. “It was never supposed to happen. I would never have permitted it. I just wanted my work to be perfect.”
Kendra was swearing softly as she turned toward Stevie, who was now just staring miserably down at the floor. “You can get him back, right? Can’t you take control?”
“That’s the problem. The first thing they’ll probably do is lock me out.” Stevie savagely struck the wall with her fist. “I need to find a way to get backin!”
Kendra thought for a moment. “Stevie, do you have those gunmen’s phones from the other day?”
Stevie gestured toward the table, where the phones were still connected to her laptop. “Yeah, but there’s still no progress cracking the encryption.”
“I’m not thinking about texts or emails. I want to take acloser look at their digital wallets. Those are visible on each of the devices, aren’t they?”
Stevie unplugged the phones and handed them to Kendra. “Yep, but there isn’t much there.”
Kendra looked at the tickets in each phone’s digital wallet.
Jessie looked over her shoulder. “I guess it would be too much to ask for each of them to have Saturday tickets to some high-value terrorist target.”
“Not quite. But look at this.” Kendra showed the phones to the group. “Each of the men went to a soccer game last weekend. Then they got together and saw a concert Tuesday night.”
“What show?” Lynch asked.
“Taylor Swift.”
“Really?” Stevie said. “Tough-guy killers with assault rifles really aren’t her demographic.”
“Maybe not, but they all went again on Wednesday.”
“All in the same venue?” Lynch said.
Kendra nodded as she picked up her own phone and started searching. “Yes. Wembley Stadium.”
“That’s one of the biggest stadiums in all of Europe. They may have been casing it for whatever they’re planning. What’s happening there tomorrow?”
Kendra completed the search and held up her phone. “It’s a Doctors Without Borders fundraiser and celebration. There will be politicians, bands, movie stars . . . I saw posters for it when we were in London.” She looked up. “Is that high-value enough for you?”
Lynch nodded. “If they’ve turned Archie into a weapon, there’s no telling the damage he might do.”
“He was never meant to be a weapon,” Stevie said. “I’verefused to even discuss him with defense contractors. If that’s what I wanted, I could be a multibillionaire overnight.”
“I know that,” Lynch said. “But we’ve both seen him kill people.”
“People who might have killed you and my father.”
