Chapter 18
CHAPTER
WEMBLEY STADIUM
LONDON
Kendra, Stevie, Lynch, and Jessie ran across Wembley Stadium’s main plaza, which was already flooded with attendees for the daylong festival.
Their helicopter had landed at London Heliport, and a waiting limo had successfully negotiated the heavy traffic building around the stadium.
Lynch punched a number and raised his phone to his ear. He muttered a curse and cut the connection. “Voicemail. My contact at MI5 isn’t answering his phone. He’s probably here somewhere. As soon as I can get in touch, I’m sure he can get us inside. I’ll send him another text.”
Jessie looked at her phone and smiled broadly. “No need. It so happens I have a contact here.”
“Really?” Kendra said. “Who?”
“You’re about to see. Gate L. Just around to the left.” Jessie was walking quickly, her pace increasing with every stride.
Kendra, Lynch, and Stevie were giving one another mystified looks as they followed her around the massive arena. In less than five minutes, they approached Gate L, where a young man with an iPad was checking in guests and rally participants.
“Name?” he said.
“Jessie Mercado, plus three.”
He checked his iPad. “Sorry, I don’t have you here.”
“There must be some mistake, I was just told—”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, if you’ll just step aside . . .”
“Hey, is that any way to treat my guests!”
Everyone in the immediate vicinity turned and then did a double take as they were confronted by one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.
Jake Brice walked up wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and his twenty-million-dollar smile.
He kissed Jessie and fist-bumped the shocked attendant.
“Just joking, you’re doing a great job.”
The attendant scrolled through the names on his iPad. “Mr. Brice, I don’t see your name here . . .”
“No, it wouldn’t be there. I was invited to appear, but I had to decline because of my shooting schedule. As luck would have it, I have a day off today. Talk to your producer.”
A young woman walked up from behind the attendant. “That would be me. I’m so glad you can join us, Mr. Brice. I’m Katrina Pace.”
“Yes! We met at the Golden Globes a few years ago.” He gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Good memory!” Katrina was carrying a short wooden dowel with dozens of event badges and lanyards hanging from it. She pulled off a badge and gave it to Brice.
“Thank you, milady. And four more for my people.”
She hesitated, but Brice didn’t miss a beat. “All access, please.” He winked at her. “It’s going to be a long day.”
Katrina pulled off four more badges and gave them to Kendra, Lynch, Jessie, and Stevie. She squeezed Brice’s arm as she backed away. “I’ll be in touch about the schedule. We’ll have some fun things for you to do this afternoon. Maybe you’ll do a bit with Tom Hanks?”
“Hey, I love Tom. Let me know!”
She disappeared down a corridor.
Kendra only waited a few seconds to make sure the woman was gone before turning and hugging Brice. “That was amazing!” she whispered.
Lynch shook his hand. “That was every bit as entertaining as your movies. Thank you.”
Brice turned and was now shaking Stevie’s hand. “Jessie has told me some amazing things about you, young lady. I’d love to sit down and talk to you sometime.”
Stevie smiled and blushed. “Uh, sure. Whenever.”
Jessie leaned close to him. “Thank you. I really didn’t think you’d come.”
Brice kissed her forehead. “I didn’t know if I could until early this morning. I was supposed to be shooting today, but the production agreed to move the schedule around for me. They swapped it out for a night shoot tonight. I fly back to Rome late this afternoon.”
Jessie turned to the others. “I sent him a text at one A.M., and here he is, all the way from Italy. We owe him.”
Kendra smiled. “We’re very grateful. I don’t think he’d do that for just anyone, Jessie.”
Brice rubbed his hands together. “Okay, so why am I here? What’s on the agenda?”
“We’re looking for a robot,” Kendra said.
He just stared at her for a moment. “Is this a bit? Are we on the Jumbotron in there right now?”
“This isn’t a bit,” Stevie said as she stepped toward Brice.
“This is the most important thing I’ll ever do in my life, and someone has turned it into something terrible.
We need to find it and stop it. There are antiterrorist units searching all over this place, but I think I have a good shot at finding him before they do. ”
“I think so, too,” Kendra said. “That’s why we’re here.”
Brice looked at Jessie, and she nodded her confirmation. He turned back to Stevie. “Well, I went to a sci-fi movie premiere at the Chinese Theatre a while back that had some pretty amazing robots walking the red carpet.”
“I saw that,” Stevie said. “Mine’s much better.”
Brice smiled. “Okay, then what do you need us to do?”
Stevie unzipped her knapsack and reached inside. “I’ll tell you . . .”
Five minutes later, Kendra and Lynch walked through the stadium’s main concourse, past the food vendors and booths selling event T-shirts and hats.
Lynch looked down at the satellite signal meter Stevie had given him. “So let me get this straight. This won’t necessarily take us to Archie, but it might lead the way to Vlad Korkil.”
Kendra nodded. “Yes, Stevie says if he contacts a certain communications satellite that Archie uses, this signal meter will go off. We then might be able to use this to home in on Korkil’s location.”
Lynch was busy familiarizing himself with the meter’s displays. “Interesting that Stevie picked me to find Korkil instead of her robot.”
Kendra shrugged. “She’s a genius. She knew you were the one who would most effectively deal with Korkil if you found him. You just give off that vibe.”
He was still dealing with the meter. “Vibe?”
“You know, the one with a spot in your high school yearbook for ‘most likely to kill a man.’ ”
“But only the truly bad guys, and only for the very best reasons.”
“I don’t dispute that. And I don’t think Stevie would, either. Which is why she’d love to put you face-to-face with Vlad Korkil.”
“I wouldn’t mind that, either.”
Kendra glanced around, looking for anyone who might resemble Korkil or one of his men. “You know . . . Stevie is going to grow up to be quite a woman.”
“She already is.”
“True. But in many ways, she’s still an awkward teenager.
Did you see the way she blushed and stuttered when Brice introduced himself?
But when the subject turned to her work, she took total control.
It’s like she became a different person.
You can see her becoming a captain of industry in just a few years. ”
“I can definitely see it,” he said solemnly.
“You’re being very condescending. You’re trying to keep me from being on edge, aren’t you?” She was still looking around the stadium. “But when this is all over, I want to do something for her.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I have to think about it. Something to give her a push in the right direction.”
Lynch pulled her aside. “You have a good heart, Kendra Michaels.” He turned toward a vendor and purchased three sets of logo hats and sunglasses. He gave one set to Kendra.
“And is this gift because I have a good heart?” she asked ruefully.
“Not in the slightest. It’s to cut down on the risk of Korkil spotting us before we can spot him.”
“Good thinking. Who’s the third set for?”
Lynch pointed down the concourse, where Stevie was holding her tablet computer in front of her, waving it in different directions as she tried to contact Archie. “Make her wear these and see if you can get her to be a little less conspicuous.”
Kendra was trying to smile. “Remind her that there are at least two men and maybe a robot here who might want to kill her?”
“Exactly. I’ll catch up with the two of you later.”
Jessie and Brice walked through the large backstage area while a band played for the crowd. “This is incredible,” she said. “In the last ten minutes, I’ve seen more stars than I’ve seen before in my entire life. And I’ve seen a lot.”
Brice chuckled. “Your detective agency has probably worked for a lot of them. I’ll bet you know their deepest and darkest secrets.”
“A few.”
He glanced around. “So . . . We’re looking for a robot. How dangerous is it?”
“It could be very dangerous. We don’t know how they’re planning to use it. It could be disguised somehow. If it was wearing a hoodie with sunglasses and a breath mask, you’d never know it was a machine.”
Brice pointed to the left. “Does it look anything like one of those?”
Jessie almost gasped when she saw what he was pointing at. There were six sleek, glossy black robots being readied for their onstage appearance. They shared Archie’s impressive sense of balance, but their design was nowhere near as sleek as Stevie’s. “What are they doing here?”
“They just dance, mostly. I’ve seen them at trade shows.”
The robots were getting a lot of attention from police and security services, probably due to Lynch’s tip. “Archie would fit right in here,” she whispered. “People wouldn’t even give him a second look.” She motioned to Brice. “Come on, let’s keep looking.”
“Come on, Stevie.” Kendra was pulling the young girl down an out-of-the-way corridor next to the restrooms. “You might have better luck down here locating Archie’s Bluetooth signal. We’ve got to try.”
Stevie shook her head. “It’s not working there. There’s so much interference from the TV cameras, the A/V equipment, not to mention eighty thousand cell phones . . . Even if there was a Bluetooth signal to tap, I might have to be right next to Archie to make contact.”
A chime sounded from Stevie’s backpack.
Then another.
Kendra tensed. “What’s that?” she asked.