We were turning a suspicious-looking rental van into a parking lot labeled SECURITY SCREENING. Just two days after the Boston bomb hoax, we were attempting to sneak 2,350 suspicious light-up necklaces into the most heavily-secured event of the year.
"Stay in character," I told my crew, the Super Six, as we approached the security checkpoint. "But be honest with everything you say. You're working for my company, Media Shower, Inc. This is true. You're handing out additional audience lights for the Super Bowl halftime show. This is also true."
"Be honest," said Big Mike.
"Right. Use your real name, address, and phone number. We want this prank to be ethical. Also, it's easier to keep track of a truth than a lie, especially in the heat of a high-stakes prank."
Gallons of adrenaline were coursing through our veins as we slowed to a stop in front of a large LED sign reading SECURITY CHECKPOINT. We knew what to expect: FBI, CIA, ATF, Secret Service, police, bombsniffing dogs, and 3,000 uniformed security guards would be looking for people like us. We had rehearsed extensively for this moment, but urine was trickling down our legs as we approached the first gate.
There were two guys at the first security checkpoint. A young officer with a crewcut and a clipboard walked over to the van. "What are you guys doing?" he asked, peering into the van. Behind him, a lean middle-aged guy scrutinized us closely. He looked angry.
"We're delivering a bunch of additional audience lights for the Prince halftime show," I said.
"Do you have a Vehicle ID?"
I swallowed. I had done so much research, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I briefly panicked that the prank was over before it had begun. "No, we didn't get one," I told him truthfully.
"You didn't get one," he repeated, looking us over. He paused, nodded, then left to talk with the wiry guy for a second.
"Okay, guys," I muttered to the crew, "you may soil yourselves now."
The young Marine walked back to the van and scribbled something on his clipboard. "All right, you'll need to go down there and have your vehicle scanned." He pointed to the five-ton, state-of-the-art X-ray crane at the far end of the parking lot.
"Great," I said, quietly urinating my underwear.
We drove across the parking lot to the crane. A Department of Homeland Security agent stepped over to my window and asked us to get out of the van. The bad news was that we were driving a white unmarked van, and there couldn't be anything more suspicious. The good news was that it had windows, so you could see inside. The bad news was that we had an entire pallet of suspicious white boxes that said SCHMEPSI STREET TEAM.
(Note: Due to trademark concerns, I am prevented from spelling the correct name of the soda pop company. We felt that SCHMEPSI STREET TEAM was good cover, since Schmepsi-Cola was sponsoring the halftime show, and SCHMEPSI STREET TEAM would be the kind of thing that some brainless marketing idiot would think up. During the day, I work as a brainless marketing idiot, so I should know.)
We were taken to a roped-off holding tent while they searched our van. As the driver, I was questioned separately from the passengers, who were sectioned off into their own screening area. Man, did my guys look good. I had ordered them custom khaki polos, embroidered with official Dolphin Stadium logos (not just screenprinted, but embroidered, a detail that cost $800). They had on matching Lands' End black slacks and black shoes. The guys calmly discussed the big game with federal agents, as they ran extensive background checks on all of us.
I looked back at the van, which was swarming with six to eight uniformed Homeland Security personnel, scouring every inch of the vehicle. I had to turn away, both because it looked suspicious if I stared, and because I had to vomit.
I was taken to a female African-American agent, who asked for my photo identification. "Sir John Hargrave," she said, peering at my driver's license. "That name sounds familiar."
"Does it?" I chuckled. "It's not a very common name, except if you're from England. Are you from England?" I asked quickly, redirecting the subject.
At this moment, as if by divine providence, my Treo rang, and I touched on my Bluetooth headset. "Excuse me," I said to the agent, grateful for the distraction. "Hello?"
"Hey Daddy, I wanted to tell you I'm making you a cake."
"Hey, buddy!" I said. "A cake, huh?"
"It's my five-year-old," I whispered to the officer.
"Isn't that nice," she said, writing out a temporary parking permit.
If you ever have to get through a Level One, severe risk, code-red, tightly-controlled, national Homeland Security checkpoint, I highly recommend having a five-year-old on standby. It helps.
The security people could not have been more professional, or more responsible. We talked about this all weekend. Everyone did their job. Nobody did anything wrong. They were absolutely buttoned-up, perfectly solid. If we had been bringing in anything truly dangerous, I assure you they would have found it, and we would have been quietly killed. But for all the substances their high-tech machines can detect, they still cannot detect the scent of prank.
The officer finished writing out our parking pass, and handed it to me. The other guys had to be detained for another fifteen minutes, so I went to the van, pulled around, and watched them through the window, quietly sweating. I could not have been more proud of these guys, playing it cool with the very officers who could destroy them, gaining their confidence, and laying the foundation for the greatest prank ever.
Now that we had a temporary parking permit, things got easier: we went through the next three checkpoints with only brief security stops. Once you have a single credential, further passes get much easier.
During this story, I will share with you many amazing coincidences. One of them was our timing on that first day. We arrived at the service entrance to the stadium at 6:30 p.m., four hours later than expected. We had wanted to do this in broad daylight, which always draws less suspicion than under cover of darkness. Instead, dusk was settling on Miami like a thick, humid blanket.
Just as we arrived, the Super Bowl pregame rehearsal was ending. Cirque du Soleil was the pregame show entertainment, so hundreds of acrobats, jugglers, colorful floats and balloons, and all manner of circus clown, came streaming out of the service entrance just as we arrived.
Lost in this spectacle, it was easy for me to slip past the security station by just pretending I belonged. I make this sound easy, but in fact I was just following the five magic rules for getting into any event in the world:
1. Wear a suit.
2. Wear a Bluetooth headset.
3. Pretend to be talking loudly to someone on the other line.
4. Carry a clipboard.
5. Be white.
I freely roamed underneath Dolphin Stadium, a large circular path that contains the player locker rooms, press conference rooms, food service areas, storage units, and two large, heavily-guarded entrances to the field itself. I quickly circled the stadium twice, locating the perfect hiding place for the 95 boxes: a storage area that was obvious but unobtrusive. On my second pass around the stadium, I saw a Segway charging in an outlet.
Now, I've always wanted to ride a Segway.
I stood there staring at it for almost a full minute. Please, when they make the movie about this heist, please write in the Segway scene. Imagine my team outside, sweating chowder as they try to wrestle the pallet out of the van, looking up and seeing me riding toward them on a Segway. Beep, beep! I don't even know if Segways have horns, but in the movie, they will. I'll smile and wave. "Hey guys," I'll say, slowing to a stop. "I think we won't have a problem getting in."
No. I will not lie to you. We worked so hard on this stunt, telling the truth throughout the caper, and I will tell you the truth now. This is taking enormous willpower, but I did not ride the Segway. I considered it -- oh! how I considered it -- but our mantra was to "play defensively." That meant staying below the radar, being careful, keeping responsible. I passed on the Segway, and simply walked back out the service entrance to find the guys waiting by the pallet, which was ready to go.
Acting as if we belonged was a key strategy in our prank. But we also needed incredible luck, and we got it. At that moment, a group of 75 or 100 young female dancers and gymnasts were going back into the stadium for more rehearsal. Their taut limbs glistened with sweat, their leotard-covered nipples erect in the night air. As we wheeled 50 boxes through the service entrance, believe me that no security guard looked twice, with that gaggle of girls as our cover.
We made it to the holding location, and quickly unloaded the pallet of boxes. We did this calmly and quickly, casually chatting amongst ourselves. We joked. We were very safe and careful. We even left the area better than we found it, by cleaning up some trash. In the movie version, I'll plug the Segway back into the outlet.
On our way out, the team stopped in front of the entrance to the field. This was the entrance the players would use on Sunday, bursting into a televised explosion of 93.1 million people. The energy was already rockstar. Towers of lights, oceans of noise. It was dazzling and thrilling just to be standing behind this goal post, gazing up at the Jumbotron reading SUPER BOWL XLI.
We slowly tore ourselves away, hypnotized by the spectacle, and piled back into the van. "Nice job, everyone," I told the crew. "Now we just have to do that one more time."
The team was exhausted. They had been awake for twenty hours, and had not eaten in twelve. We were all severely dehydrated, but when I asked if people wanted to stop for some food or a blood transfusion, they all said to go on. I knew then that this was the Dream Team of pranksters.
We had to drive back to UPS, get another vanload of boxes, and run the whole drill again. The second trip was easier, however, because everyone already knew us. I mean, what kind of fools would come back with a second load of contraband? What idiots would do that? The tension in the van was so thick that it was difficult to breathe, but we found a little humor went a long way. The guys were so funny, and we were having such fun laughing, joking, and playing down the absolute insanity of the situation. It really did have the atmosphere of a college prank.
"You know," I said as we pulled into the security checkpoint, "this started with putting Saran Wrap on someone's toilet seat. How in hell did it come to this?"
Saturday I took the team to a local stadium and had them run practice drills for the big game on a set of risers. At first, they thought this was overkill, but soon they began to appreciate the full spectrum of things that could go wrong. At the end of our training, everyone felt prepared for various contingencies.
This was the plan: we'd somehow find our way to the hiding place in the Stadium early Sunday afternoon. We would unload the boxes and transport them somehow to somewhere on the 100 level. I knew where we would distribute them -- the boxes were already clearly labeled by section and row -- but I wasn't quite sure where we could store them for several hours without causing panic. A lot of improvising would be needed.
The part that worried me most was the distribution of the packets. I was sure there would be eyes in the sky. They would see a team of unauthorized employees handing out mysterious plastic lights. This was the part that could go terribly wrong; I did not want to shut down the Super Bowl.
The master plan was a ten-page, single-spaced document that we rehearsed extensively. Every step of the operation had a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, and Plan E, should any of this fail. "The object," I drilled into my team, "is not to escalate any situation. The perfect prank would get us in and out without anyone ever noticing we were there."
We role-played for the greater part of the day. I made the team run wind sprints. Then we massaged each others' scrotums, because it releases tension.
Saturday night, as we put the finishing touches on the plan, taking care of dozens of last-minute details, we were flipping between two movies on television: King Kong and Planet of the Apes. When you're dealing with stakes this high, it's hard not to see everything as a sign or an omen. "It's all about the monkeys," I said, referring to my own book, PRANK THE MONKEY, which started us on this crazy caper.
I felt we were in good shape, but I also knew that on the day of the big game, nothing would go as planned.
