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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 asign 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’snephew. 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