He told her all about Wilson, going into more detail than he had planned, and then added that he was expecting a late-night call from one of Dave Marsh's friends: a lady named Gladys Kinder.

When he stopped talking, Joan rolled onto her hip, to stare directly, steadily at him.

'Be careful, Mike,' she said. 'Don't let this become another obsession. You're easily bored, always searching for new adventures, and I know that you're looking at intelligence work to get you out of the office. But I repeat, please be careful. Don't become obsessed with this mystery man. We have a good marriage, but it's been through its troubles, and most of those troubles occurred when you became obsessed with your work. So please, Mike, no matter how intriguing this man is, don't let him threaten our marriage.'

'I promise I won't.'

Joan went to bed shortly after and he promised to follow soon, but instead sat on, thinking about what she had said and accepting the truth in it. They did have a good marriage, but it had been troubled at times, and in nearly every instance the problem had been caused by his obsession with some job or other and his subsequent neglect of home and hearth. He loved Joan and the children, appreciated what he had, and didn't want ever again to let work, or anything else, take him away from them.

And he was silently vowing not to let this happen when the telephone rang.

'I think I've found our man,' Gladys Kinder said. 'Our mysterious Mr Wilson.'

'Shoot,' Bradley said.

'In 1895, the year Wilson left Cornell, a now-defunct New York financial company, Cohn and Goldman Incorporated, financed an aeronautical company, reportedly to research and, if possible, construct pa.s.senger-carrying airships. While Cohn and Goldman denied repeatedly that they were attempting to build commercial airships as most speculators routinely did in those days I have confirmation that they constructed their factories in Mount Pleasant, near the border of Iowa and Illinois... And according to the company records, the man put in charge of the whole project was a relatively unknown aeronautical scientist named John Wilson.'

Bradley was surprised to find himself releasing the breath he had been unwittingly holding in.

'Anything else?' he asked.

'No, Mike. Those are the only clippings I could find on either Wilson or Cohn and Goldman Incorporated.'

'It's more than enough to go on,' Bradley said. 'Thanks a h.e.l.l of a lot, Gladys.'

Excited and confused at once, he was just about to hang up when Gladys spoke urgently enough to stop him. 'One more thing, Bradley... In checking the clippings, I was also reminded that the following two years 1896 and 1897 were notable for one phenomenon in particular: the great wave of mystery airships. At the time they called them UFOs unidentified flying objects.'

'Why?'

'Because most of the reports indicated that the airships were more advanced than any known to have been constructed at the time. Also, they were reported to be carrying pa.s.sengers, or crewmen. They landed frequently, usually to collect water for their engines, and at such times the crewmen talked freely to anyone who approached them... And the crewman who features most frequently in the reports is a man who always introduced himself as...'

'Wilson.'

'Right.' Gladys chuckled and then turned serious again. 'I'm gonna arrange to have a friend send you the newspaper clippings about those sightings and that's about it, Mike. After this, I'll be on my way to Europe. No more lunches. No phone calls...'

Her voice trailed off into a silence that spoke volumes and left Bradley grieving.

'Gladys, I don't know how...'

'What's domestic life like out there in Connecticut?'

'It's very nice.'

'Yeah, I thought so. Goodbye, Mike.'

'Goodbye, Gladys.'

The phone went dead. Bradley felt very emotional. He forgot to join Joan in bed, but instead went into his study and sat at his desk. He pulled out the notes he had collected on Wilson and started to ponder them.

The next morning, having not slept a wink, he rang General Taylor.

CHAPTER NINE 'I'm Lieutenant Ernst Stoll,' Wilson's new interrogator said when the cell door had closed behind the man and he took the hard wooden chair facing the bed upon which Wilson was seated. 'I am, as you can see, a member of the SS, not the Gestapo, and I work for the technical intelligence branch. Naturally,' he added, waving the papers in his right hand and offering what seemed like a shy smile, 'I know who you are. So shall we begin?'

'What if I say no?' Wilson asked.

'I would ignore you, of course.' Wilson smiled. 'Let's begin, then. I take it, as you're from technical intelligence, that we've made a little progress or, at least, finished with relatively unimportant matters.'

'That's true,' Lieutenant Stoll said, mildly amused by Wilson's impertinence. 'Your background and motivation have been accepted as valid, so I'm here to talk about the work you've already shown us and the work you now wish to do for us.'

'Good,' Wilson said, deliberately keeping his gaze steady, searching the lieutenant's face for what it was hiding, because all faces were masks. Lieutenant Stoll was young, perhaps in his middle twenties, and while he looked diabolically handsome in his gleaming black uniform, his face did not display a confidence to match. Indeed, he seemed a little haunted, a man divided within himself, and was obviously trying to cover his doubts with his dryly polite, distant manner. 'You have a technical background?' Wilson asked him.

'Yes,' Stoll replied with a flicker of pride. 'I studied aeronautical engineering at the Inst.i.tute of Technology in Munich, then rocket technology under Professor Becker at the Inst.i.tute of Technology, Berlin University.'

'Ah!' Wilson exclaimed softly, with admiration. 'Becker! So were you a member of the German Amateur Rocket Society?' 'No,' Stoll said, briefly displaying hurt and resentment, then hiding it by changing the subject. 'I trust you found the previous interrogations civilized?' he asked, looking up from his papers.

'Yes,' Wilson said. 'Perfectly civilized. Surprisingly so.' Lieutenant Stoll raised his eyebrows as if puzzled. 'Why surprisingly so? Is it not what you would have expected from German officers?'

'Given the sounds that have emanated from some of the other cells, I take it that not all German officers are so civilized when interrogating their prisoners.'

Ernst looked embarra.s.sed, then smiled bleakly. 'Ah,' he said, ' that. Well, some prisoners are more troublesome than others, as I'm sure you agree. A little persuasion often goes a long way though I hope that the noise from the other cells didn't make you lose too much sleep.'

Because he had been forced to listen, day and night, to the screaming of those being abused in the other cells or torture chambers of this Gestapo headquarters and prison, Wilson would certainly have lost a good deal of sleep had he been the kind to need a lot of it. As he was not, and as the fate of others did not concern him, he'd had a relatively comfortable time. Nevertheless, hoping to find out more about the situation outside the prison, he said, 'Yes, I lost some sleep, particularly during that day and night two weeks ago, when this whole place turned into a madhouse of bawling and shooting.'

'You mean June 30?'

'Correct.'