The Homeland Security Pageant

But mindful of the presentation component, Boger had brought another, more low-tech prop -- two cardboard toilet paper tubes -- to illustrate how normal virtual reality helmets can offer only tunnel vision compared with his company's high-resolution models.

"You got to have the steak and the sizzle," he said with a sly smile. "You got to entertain them but tell them something substantial, too."

Alexander Asanov, the Russian scientist, took a more gloom-and-doom approach, speaking of a "war with the extremists," in a sober voice thick with accent. "It is a war of ideas. It cannot be won by bullets; so we need to empower our ideas."

Preferably his idea, he added, as he described technology that detects biomolecular threats like anthrax within minutes.

In the end the winner was announced with a sealed envelope and a dramatic pause: It was Falconer, the X-ray man from Atlanta, who ended up taking home the oversized check.

"I don't want to call it luck, because it took a lot of hard work, but on any given day, any of us could have won," he said graciously.

Another $50,000 prize, for the best invention by a Maryland company, went to Boger's virtual reality helmet.

There were smiles all around, business cards exchanged and all through the hotel ballroom a feeling that the nation was now perhaps a little safer.