Felix Francis - Triple Crown

I handed over the letter of introduction I had been given from the US Embassy in London together with my passport. The guard left me standing outside the pedestrian gate as he went into the guardhouse to check my credentials.

I waited.

There was a large notice on the guardhouse wall that declared that all firearms were prohibited on these premises unless authorised by the Attorney General of the United States. Beside it was another that announced that it was unlawful for more than twenty-eight persons to occupy the guardhouse at any one time, by order of the US Department of Homeland Security.

I was attempting to count the guards, to ensure there were fewer than twenty-eight, when the Gestapo man returned and handed back the letter and my passport together with a FACSA-branded lanyard attached to a rectangular pass with ‘VISITOR’ stamped diagonally across it in large red letters.

‘Use the front door,’ he said, letting me through the gate and pointing across at the building. ‘Report to security inside.’

More security? What are they hiding?

I had to empty my pockets and then pass through a metal detector before I was directed towards the building’s main reception desk where again I had to produce my letter of introduction.

‘Norman Gibson is expecting me,’ I said.

I was asked to wait.

The receptionist made a telephone call and, presently, a man in his late forties appeared from the lifts and strode purposefully towards me.

‘Jeff Hinkley?’ he asked. ‘I’m Norman Gibson.’

We shook hands.

‘Delighted to meet you,’ I said.

‘Let’s go up.’

He used his lanyard pass to activate yet another security barrier and ushered me through.

‘It is like getting into Fort Knox,’ I said.

‘Blame Timothy McVeigh,’ Norman replied.

In April 1995 Timothy James McVeigh had detonated a 5,000lb bomb outside the federal office building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including nineteen young children in a day-care centre. Needless to say, security since then had been greatly beefed-up at all US federal buildings.

‘I’ll fix it so you get your own pass,’ Norman said. ‘Then it’ll be easier for you to get in. Security is a bore but I suppose it’s better than being dead.’

‘Much,’ I agreed. ‘And the threats seem to be ever-increasing.’

‘You’re so right. We have more than our fair share of nutcases who blame the government for everything. Plus we have the anti-abortionists and the animal liberation lot to contend with — both worthy groups, I’m sure, but they seem to attract extremists. And don’t even mention the Islamic militants…’

I thought about the security arrangements at my office in London — or rather the lack of them. There was a reception desk in the lobby by the front door of the building but it was usually unmanned. The main reception for the horseracing authority was on the second floor and that was dead easy to bypass.

We took the lift up and I followed Norman along a corridor and through two more security doors before we reached his office, a glassed-off corner of an otherwise open-plan space.

‘Welcome to the racing section at FACSA,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Who are you with?’

‘The BHA,’ I said. ‘The British Horseracing Authority.’

‘Is that a government agency?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It was set up by the British Jockey Club and is wholly funded by the racing industry. We’re responsible for the regulation of all horseracing in Great Britain.’

‘We could do with something like that here. American racing is still regulated by the individual states, each of them with different rules. Everyone agrees it would make sense to have a nationwide authority but the states are reluctant to give up their power bases. They all think they know best. That’s why we at FACSA act as the de facto upholder of common standards using federal anti-corruption legislation.’

It sounded like a line he’d used often before.

‘But it is a bureaucratic nightmare.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Everything to do with governments is.’

‘The BHA gets no financial support from the British government, nor do we answer to it.’

‘Lucky you,’ Norman said. ‘Now, how can we help you?’

‘I’ve really come only to watch and listen,’ I said. ‘To study how you do things and compare them to our own methods. To see if there’s something for us to learn.’

He nodded. ‘I hope there is, but you have far more racing over there than we do here. Perhaps we should be the ones taking lessons.’

I smiled at him. ‘Maybe there will be something I can spot that would be beneficial to us both.’

‘Fair enough,’ Norman said, although my smile was not reciprocated and I detected a slight annoyance that an outsider was here at all, let alone a foreigner with more experience of racing.

‘I’ll try not to get in your way,’ I said.

‘Good. We’ve not had a foreign observer in this section before. Most go to the FBI anyway, although I think our baseball team had someone from Japan last year.’

‘How many sections are there in FACSA?’ I asked.

‘Lots,’ he replied somewhat unhelpfully. ‘The major sports each have their own — baseball and basketball are the biggest. Then there’s the Olympic Games section. That’s where it all started. There was such a hoo-ha over allegations of bribery to get the Winter Olympic Games at Salt Lake City back in ’02 that the Department of Justice set up FACSA to ensure it could never happen again.’

I had a vague memory of all the fuss at the time.

‘You should have a FIFA section,’ I said with a laugh. ‘That would keep you busy.’

‘We do,’ he replied seriously. ‘We pass our findings on to the FBI as we have no jurisdiction outside the US. Hence it was FBI agents who made arrests with the Swiss police at FIFA headquarters back in May 2015.’

‘Have you been with the agency long?’ I asked.

‘I joined twelve years ago,’ he said. ‘Moved from Chicago. The winters were too long and cold up there.’ He smiled but it didn’t really reach his eyes.

And I knew the real reason why he’d left Chicago.

I’d been up early and studied his personnel file.

He had been a high-flying detective in the Chicago Police Department, promoted young to be commander of the 26th District on the city’s South Side. However, his glittering police career had stalled somewhat when five of his junior officers had been arrested for planting incriminating evidence to secure a conviction. Even though the investigation by the FBI had concluded that Gibson had not known about or been involved in the conspiracy, he had done the honourable thing and resigned.

That principled action had been rewarded by the call to set up the racing section at FACSA.

There was a knock on the office door. Norman looked over my head and stood up. ‘I’ve arranged for you to spend time with one of our special agents, Frank Bannister.’ He waved the man in. ‘Frank, this is Jeff Hinkley, from England.’

I stood and shook Frank’s hand while we both looked each other up and down. He was taller than me by at least four inches, and broader too. He squeezed my hand hard as if to make sure I knew that he was also stronger. He smiled down at me and I smiled back without a waver. If he wanted to play silly games, so be it, but I wouldn’t rise to his bait.

‘Frank will show you the ropes,’ Norman said. ‘Stick to him like glue.’

Frank didn’t look best pleased at the prospect but he was civil enough — just.

He showed me round the office and I met the other staff.

‘Bob Wade,’ one of them said, smiling warmly and offering his hand. ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’ He laughed with a distinctive rapid-fire guffaw.