Head On: A Novel of the Near Future (Lock In #2)(12)

Medina looked at Barber and nodded. She sighed. “Deputy Commissioner Kaufmann ordered it pulled,” she said. I looked up the name. Alex Kaufmann appeared in my vision, youngish.

“Why?” Vann asked.

“Because he’s stupid,” Medina said, and then held up a hand to preempt Vann’s objection. “I know. But it’s actually the truth. He saw the feed, realized Chapman was dying, and panicked. He ordered the technical director to pull the feed. She wasn’t happy about it but she didn’t have any choice.”

“Who is the technical director?” I asked.

“Giselle Hurwitz,” Barber said.

“Is she here?”

“I think so. She may be back at the hotel by now.”

Vann turned to Medina. “And she’ll talk to us.”

“I’ll let her talk to you, yes.”

“And Chapman’s data?”

“What about it?”

“We’ll need it.”

“Why?”

“Did you miss the entire conversation we just had about the potential for the data to have been compromised?” Vann said.

“We need our own people to look at it now,” I said. “We have to be sure. And we need to see what happened after the feed was down.”

“I’m worried about it getting out,” Barber said.

Vann smiled. “This is your privacy gambit again.”

Barber flared at this. “Look, it’s not just a bullshit line. The last thing we want is Duane’s family to find this data feed floating around with people speculating about it.”

“So you’re not going to put it back up?” I asked.

Barber opened her mouth but Medina quickly put his hand on her shoulder to silence her. “We’ll be returning the game portion of Duane’s feed to the overall data set very soon. We can’t certify the game stats until they are in there. The rest of it I feel comfortable keeping out of the public eye for now.”

“We need all the data,” Vann repeated.

“Giselle will have it,” Medina said. “She’ll give it to you. You can verify it if you want. And, Agent Vann.”

“Yes?”

“Later, if I see it out there in the world, I’ll come find you.”





Chapter Three


The lobby of the Hilton looked like a press conference had exploded inside of it. The lobby itself was filled with reporters and other various grades of journalists looking for someone, anyone, to get a quote from, while outside the lobby, television and streaming journalists and their crews jostled each other for space to do their one-shots.

“This seems excessive,” Vann said to me as we got out of the taxi we took to the hotel.

“It’s the league’s first player death, at the last pre-season game,” I said. “And the league was actively courting new money. It’s national news.”

Vann grunted at this and we went into the lobby through the revolving door. As we came out of the door, a couple dozen sets of eyes looked at us and a second later, through their glasses, identified both Vann and myself as FBI agents, and me as, well, me.

“Oh, here we go,” Vann said, and then we were surrounded by press yelling questions at us.

“Why is the FBI investigating the death of Duane Chapman?” shouted one journalist, as we trudged toward the elevator bank.

“No comment,” Vann said.

“Is there reason to believe there was foul play in Chapman’s death?” shouted another.

“No comment.” Vann jabbed the elevator call button.

“Agent Shane, your father may be investing in the league, is it appropriate for you to be part of the FBI investigation?”

“No comment,” I said.

“Chris, are you dating anyone?”

“What?” I said. “Really?”

“You’re still famous!”

“Jesus. No comment,” I said. Vann grabbed me into the elevator and glared at the reporters to keep them from blocking the doors.

“You’re still famous,” Vann said to me, mockingly, after the doors closed.

“I’m really not,” I protested.

“I don’t think it’s something you get to vote on.”

“I’ll pass anyway.”

“You used to do that every day?”

“I had my share of press gaggles when I was growing up,” I said. “But not for something like this.”

Vann nodded. “A firehose would solve the problem.”

“In the short run,” I agreed. “In the long run it would just make more trouble. Reporters don’t forgive being firehosed.” We exited the elevator.

Giselle Hurwitz was a Haden and her “room” at the Hilton was a charging closet with an inductive floor mat. We met in a conference room the league had reserved for meetings.

“Thank you for meeting me here,” she said, after we had made our introductions and sat. “I didn’t want to bother with the lobby.”

“Completely understandable,” I said.

“Did Medina explain why we’re here?” Vann asked Hurwitz.

She nodded. “You want Duane’s data feed.”

“We also want to ask you about why it was pulled.”