unfolded them, and spread them out on the table. She was briefly

distracted by her brandy, but eventually, after imbibing and inhaling,

she exhaled smoke and started reading from her neatly typed notes. 'Name: John Wilson. Born July 6, 1870, in Montezuma, Iowa, to

Ca.s.s and Ira Wilson, both listed as farmers. Attended elementary

school in Montezuma then high school in Des Moines. Stunning

reports from both schools for his academic achievements though all

agreed that he seemed to have few friends and cared only for studying.

In the fall of 1888, when he was eighteen years old, he signed on at

MIT reportedly, shortly after his mother died and his father sold their

farm in the Corn Belt and moved back to Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts,

his hometown. At MIT, Wilson studied aerodynamics, with particular

emphasis on the wind-tunnel experiments that took place in the

Engineering A Department. In 1893 the same year his father died

Wilson's reports, in which every subject is listed as "exemplary," thus

setting a college record, gained him entry to Sibley College, Cornell

University, where he studied experimental engineering. By 1895 he'd

obtained his bachelor of science degree in aeronautics and left Cornell.

The university records don't say where he planned on going when he

left but they do reveal that between 1896 and 1897 he returned

frequently to the university to attend the lectures of Octave Chanute.' She stopped reading and raised her eyes from the notes. 'Anything else?' Bradley asked.

'No,' she replied. 'At least not until he turned up, in the fall of

1930, to work for six months with Robert H. G.o.ddard, whom we all

know and love as the controversial rocket scientist and a later, if more

renowned, MIT graduate.'

Bradley wrinkled his brow. 'Did you say 1930?'

'Yep.'

'You mean there's nothing on this guy from 1895 to 1930 a

period of approximately thirty-five years?'

'Not so far. He appears to have wiped his own tracks clean. We

don't know what he did for a living following graduation, but we do know that he frequently returned informally to Cornell to attend Chanute's lectures, given throughout 1896 and 1897. Then, when Wilson was twenty-seven years old, he dropped out of sight completely

and he didn't reappear until 1930, when he worked for six months with Robert G.o.ddard, before disappearing again, as completely as he'd

done the first time.'

'That's incredible,' Bradley said, blowing another cloud of smoke.