"Take a look at this," Vinnie said as he continued typing. Scott watched the head, Spook's head, come alive. The lips were mov- ing, as though it, he, was trying to speak. "I can give it a voice if you'd like."
"Will that help?" Scott asked.
"Nah, not in this case," Vinnie said,"but it is fun. Let's make sure that we got the right guy here. We'll take a look at him from every angle." The head moved to the side for a left pro- file. "I'll make a couple of gross adjustments, and you tell me if it gets any better."
They went through another hour of fine tuning the 3-D head, modifying skin tones, texture, hair style and a score of other subtleties. When they were done Scott remarked that the image looked more like the Spook than the Spook himself. Incredible. Scott was truly impressed. This is where taxpayer's money went. Vinnie called Tyrone and by the time he arrived, the color photo- graphs and digital maps of the images were ready.
Scott followed Tyrone down one corridor, then another, through a common area, and down a couple more hallways. They entered Room 322B. The innocuous appearance of the door did not prepare Scott for what he saw; a huge computer room, at least a football field in length. Blue and tan and beige and a few black metal cabi- nets that housed hundreds of disparate yet co-existing computers. Consoles with great arrays of switches, row upon row of video and graphic displays as far as the eye could see. Thousands of white two by two foot square panel floors hid miles of wires and cables that interconnected the maze of computers in the under- ground control center. There appeared to be a number of discreet areas, where large computer consoles were centered amidst racks of tape or disk drives which served as the only separation be- tween workers.
"This is Big Floyd," Tyrone said proudly. "Or at least one part of him."
"Who or what is Big Floyd?"
"Big Floyd is a huge national computer system, tied together over the Secure Automated Message Network. This is the most powerful computer facility outside of the NSA."
Quiet conversations punctuated the hum of the disk drives and the clicks of solenoids switching and the printers pushing reams of paper. The muted voices could not be understood but they rang with purpose. The room had an almost reverent character to it; where speaking too loud would surely be considered blasphemous. Scott and Tyrone walked through banks and banks of equipment, more computer equipment than Scott had ever seen in one location. In fact the Federal Square computer center is on the pioneering edge of forensic technology. The NSA computers might have more oomph!, but the FBI computers have more purpose.
Tyrone stopped at one control console and asked if they could do a match, stat. Of course, anything for Mr. Duncan. "RHIP," Tyrone said. Scott recognized the acronym, Rank Has Its Privi- lege. Tyrone gave the computer operator the pictures and asked him to explain the process to Scott.