Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

>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.

“I take these pictures and put them in the computer with a scan-

ner. The digitized images are stored here,” he said pointing at

a a rack of equipment. “Then, we enter the subject’s general

description. Height, physique and so on.” He copied the infor-

mation into the computer.

“Now we ask the computer to find possible matches.”

“You mean the computer has photos of everyone in there?” Scott

asked incredulously.

“No, Scott. Just the bad guys, and people with security clear-

ances, and public officials? Your Aunt Tillie is safe from Big

Brother’s prying eyes.” The reason for Ty’s sarcasm was clear to

Scott. Tyrone was not exactly acting in an official capacity on

this part of the investigation.

“How many do you have? Pictures that is?” Scott asked more diplo-

matically.

“That’s classified,” Tyrone said quickly.

“The hackers say you have files on over a hundred million people.

Is that true?” Scott asked. Tyrone glared at him, as if to say,

shut the fuck up. Scott took the non-verbal hint and they

watched in silence as the computer whirred searching for similar

photo files in its massive memory. Within a couple of minutes

the computer said that there were 4 possible matches. At the end

of the 10 minute search, it was up to 16 candidates.

“We’ll do a visual instead of a second search,” said the man

behind the keyboard. “We’ll start with the 90% matches. There

are two of them.” A large monitor flashed with a picture of a

man, that while not unlike the Spook in features, was definitely

not him. The picture was a high quality color photograph.

“No, not him,” Scott said without pause. The computer operator

hit a couple of keys, a second picture flashed on the monitor and

Scott’s face lit up. “That’s him! That’s the Spook!”

Tyrone had wondered if they would find any matches. While the

FBI data base was probably the largest in the world, it was

unlikely that there was a comprehensive library of teen age

hackers. “Are you sure?” Tyrone emphasized the word, ‘sure’.

“Positive, yes. That’s him.”

“Let’s have a quick look at the others before we do a full re-

trieve,” said the computer operator. Tyrone agreed and fourteen

other pictures of men with similar facial characteristics to the

Spook appeared on the screen, all receiving a quick ‘no’ from

Scott. Spook’s picture as brought up again and again Scott said,

“that’s him.”

“All right, Mike,” Tyrone said to the man running the computer,

“do a retrieve on OBR-III.” Mike nodded and stretched over to a

large printer on the side of the console. He pushed a key and in

a few seconds, the printer spewed out page after page of informa-

tion. OBR-III is a super-secret computer system designed to

fight terrorism in the United States. OBR-III and Big Floyd

regularly spoke to similar, but smaller, systems in England,

France and Germany. With only small bits of data it can extrapo-

late potential terrorist targets, and who is the likely person

behind the attacks. OBR-III is an expert system that learns

continuously, as the human mind does. Within seconds it can

provide information on anyone within its memory.

Tyrone pulled the first page from the printer before it was

finished and read to himself. He scanned it quickly until one

item grabbed his attention. His eyes widened. “Boy, when you

pick ‘em, you pick ‘em.” Tyrone whistled.

“What, what?” Scott strained to see the printout, but Tyrone held

it away.

“It’s no wonder he calls himself Spook,” Tyrone said to no one in

particular. “He’s ex-NSA.” He ripped off the final page of the

printout and called Scott to follow him, cursorily thanking the

computer operators for their assistance.

Scott followed Tyrone to an elevator and they descended to the

fifth and bottom level, where Tyrone headed straight to his

office with Scott in tow. He shut the door behind him and showed

Scott a chair.

“There’s no way I should be telling you this, but I owe you, I

guess, and, anyway, maybe you can help.” Tyrone rationalized

showing the information to Scott – both a civilian and a report-

er. He may have questioned the wisdom, but not the intent.

Besides, as had been true for several weeks, everything Scott

learned from Tyrone Duncan was off the record. Way off. For

now.

The Spook’s real name was Miles Foster. Scott scanned the file.

A lot of it was government speak and security clearance inter-

views for his job at NSA. An entire life was condensed into a a

few files, covering the time from when he was born to the time he

resigned from the NSA. Scott found much of his life boring and

he really didn’t care that Miles’ third grade teacher remembered

him as being a “good boy”. Or that his high school counselor

though he could go a long way.

“This doesn’t sound like the Spook I know,” Scott said after

glancing at the clean regimented life and times of Miles Foster.

“Did you expect it to?” asked Ty.

“I guess I never thought about it. I just figured it would be a

regular guy, not a real spook for the government.”

“Shit happens.”

“So I see. Where do we go from here?” Scott asked in awe of the

technical capabilities of the FBI.

“How ‘bout a sanity check?” Tyrone asked. “When were you in

Amsterdam?”

“Last week, why?”

Tyrone sat behind his computer and Scott noticed that his fingers

seemed almost too fat to be of much good. “If I can get this

thing to work, let’s see where’s the Control Key?” Scott gazed

on as Tyrone talked to himself while working the keyboard and

reading the screen. “Foster, Airline, Foreign, ah, the dates,”

he looked up at a large wall calendar. “All

right . . .shit . . .Delete . . . OK, that’s it.”

“What are you doing?” asked Scott.

“Just want to see if your boy really was in Europe with you.”

“You don’t believe me!” shouted Scott.

“No, I believe you. But I need some proof, dig?” Tyrone said.

“If he’s up to something we need to find out what, step by step.

You should know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” Scott resigned. “It’s just that I’m not normally

the one being questioned. Know what I mean?”

“Our training is more . . .well, it’s a moot point now. Your

Mr. Foster flew to Amsterdam and then back to Washington the next

day. I believe I have some legwork ahead of me. I would like to

learn a little more about Mr. Miles Foster.”

Scott talked Tyrone into giving him a copy of one of the images

of Miles aka Spook. He was hoping that Kirk would call him

tonight. In any case, Scott needed to buy an image scanner if

Kirk was going to be of help. When he got home, he made room on

his personal nightmare, his desk, for the flatbed scanner, then

played with it for several hours, learning how to scan an image

at the right sensitivity, the correct brightness and reflectivity

for the proper resolution. He learnd to bring a picture into the

computer and edit or redraw the picture. Scott scanned the

picture of the Spook into the computer