John Feinstein - The Rivalry - Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

“You explained to him that we’re in total control of this building until the president leaves here today?”

“I did. He said, ‘Only Mr. Snyder is in charge of this building at all times.’ ”

Dowling rolled his eyes. He looked at his watch. “Well, we made it to ten o’clock before we encountered our first real idiot. Not bad, considering.”

He walked to the man in the suit, with Stevie a step and a half behind, wanting to hear without crowding Dowling.

“What do you want?” the man said to Dowling.

Dowling pulled out his wallet and flashed his badge. “My name is Peter Dowling. I’m the agent in charge of this detail. My men need to get in this locker room and they need to get in right now .”

The man started to say something, but Dowling cut him off. “The president of the United States is going to be here in less than two hours, so I don’t have time for discussion. If you don’t get this door open in thirty seconds, you will be charged with interfering with the United States Secret Service.”

The dude’s tough look had faded. “Look, give me a minute to check with my boss,” he said, starting to raise his walkie-talkie to his mouth.

“ I’m your boss right now,” Dowling said. “Twenty seconds.”

“Okay, okay,” the man said. He reached in his pocket for some keys and Stevie could see his hands were shaking. “I know I’ll get in trouble with Mr. Snyder for this.”

“Better him than me,” Dowling said. “What do you think the chances are that Mr. Snyder would come bail you out of jail?”

The man got the locker room door open. Dowling waved the cops with the dogs inside and told the other agent that everything else on this level was clear. When the man tried to follow them inside, Dowling stepped in front of him.

“That’s off-limits to everyone except people we authorize to go inside. Once we’ve cleared the room, you can stay outside and continue to guard it with your usual diligence.”

He turned to Stevie. “Come on, we’ve got a delivery to make.”

Stevie had kinda wanted to see Dowling put the dude in handcuffs, but he followed him down the hall.

“We’ll drop off the starter’s gun and go back on the field.” Dowling paused for a moment to talk into his wrist. “Mike, are the officials here?” he asked.

“That’s a yes,” he heard a voice say faintly.

“Their room has been checked and cleared? And their escort to and from the field is set, right?” Dowling said.

“Roger.”

They rounded a corner and came upon a room with a sign that said NO ONE WITHOUT THE AUTHORITY OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE MAY ENTER AT ANY TIME…

An agent on the door smiled as they walked up. He knocked to alert the officials, then opened the door so Dowling and Stevie could enter.

The officials’ locker room was bigger than most basketball locker rooms Stevie had been in. The seven officials were all in their uniforms, and an eighth man, in sweats, was standing in the back of the room.

The man nearest the door approached when Dowling walked in.

“Agent Dowling?” he said. “We talked on the phone. I’m Mike Daniels. I’m the referee today.”

“Nice to meet you,” Dowling said. “I know you’ve met my partner, Bob Campbell, out at Notre Dame. This is Steve Thomas with the Washington Herald . He’s observing.”

“We’ve met,” Daniels said, refusing to look Stevie in the eye. It hadn’t been a pleasant meeting and Stevie found himself starting to sweat a little, but if Dowling noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“Who’s this?” Dowling said, nodding in the direction of the guy in the sweats.

“Oh, that’s Todd-he takes care of our locker room and locks up after us when we go on the field.”

“First I heard of it,” Dowling said.

“I got cleared by your people,” Todd said. “Sent in my Social Security number and all that good stuff.”

“You work for the Redskins?” Dowling asked.

Todd shook his head. “No. Actually, I’m Mike’s nephew. He brings me along on his trips to do all the locker room stuff. One of the Redskins guys showed me around yesterday.”

“Good,” Dowling said. “You mind stepping outside a minute?”

Todd looked at his uncle, who turned to Dowling. “If Todd leaves, then the kid leaves too, right?”

“No,” Dowling said. “He’s writing a story on pregame security and I’ve authorized him to be here. Is there a problem?”

“I’m not a big fan of the media,” Daniels mumbled.

“That’s your issue, not mine,” Dowling said.

Daniels didn’t look pleased, but he nodded at Todd, who walked to the door.

Once Todd was gone, Daniels introduced the rest of his crew-two line judges, the umpire, and the three back judges. Most of the names flew past Stevie except that of one line judge-Terry Ramspeth. When they were introduced, Ramspeth gave him a look and said, “You work with that girl, don’t you?”

“You mean Susan Carol Anderson?” Stevie said.

“Yeah. I was on the crew at Notre Dame. So were Paul, Zach, and of course Mike. We really didn’t appreciate what she wrote about us.”

“Yeah, Mr. Daniels has made that pretty clear on a couple of occasions,” Stevie said.

“She basically called us cheats,” said Paul Lynch, the umpire.

Before Stevie could respond, Dowling held up a hand. “Gentlemen, there’s no time for this right now,” he said. “Let’s focus on the game at hand, shall we?”

Dowling pulled the starter’s gun from his jacket pocket. “Mike, you’re in charge of this, right?”

Daniels nodded. Dowling showed him the four blanks and how the loading mechanism had been disabled. “Keep this with you at all times,” he said. “If it shows up in someone else’s hands, you’re responsible.”

“That’s fine,” Daniels said. “It can’t hurt anyone, can it?”

“No, it can’t. But it could scare the hell out of people-especially with the president around. We don’t need it going off by accident at the wrong time and creating havoc.”

“Got it,” Daniels said.

He shook hands with Dowling.

“Hey, kid, do us a favor,” the umpire said to Stevie. “If we do a good job today, if we’re fair to both teams, you be fair too and write something nice about us. Tell the whole story. Okay?”

Stevie thought that was a pretty reasonable request.

“You got it,” he said, and the man nodded. Daniels was still glaring at him. Clearly they weren’t going to shake and make up. Stevie followed Dowling out the door.

The last of the thirty-two companies of Army cadets were entering the field as Stevie and Dowling rejoined the others on the sidelines.

“They do march better,” Stevie commented.

There was something just a little crisper and more precise about the cadets than the midshipmen. He had thought Kelleher was exaggerating and probably was an Army fan, but now he could see what he meant.

When all the cadets were in place on the field, they snapped to a salute as one, and the PA announcer said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, standing before you are the cadets of the United States Military Academy and members of the U.S. Army Cadet Command. Every one of them has chosen to answer the call to duty. With their salute, they recognize and honor your show of support. These cadets today will lead American sons and daughters tomorrow in defense of our great nation.”

After rousing applause, the cadets began to march off the field and into their seats.

Stevie could see that the stadium had filled up quickly. Soon the teams would come out to go through their pregame warm-ups.

Susan Carol asked Stevie, “So how’d it go with the gun?”