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Jarod was at the Soledad Wind Power Research Area in Baja, California, learning about updrafts, air currents and wind sheer, but was gone before Miss Parker, Sydney and the sweepers arrived.

Jarod "Wright" pretends to be a test pilot at Skyvionics Proving Grounds in Arizona to investigate the crash of Ronald Collins' F-16, which resulted in his death. As long as the crash remains on the books as "pilot error" Collins' widow and son will not be eligible for any of the money in his pension plan, which they desperately need.

While watching a DSA of a similar situation to help him solve the mystery of the top gun's crash, Jarod notices a man in the background, talking to Sydney. Jarod learns to read lips at the Clearview Institute and determines that the man is instructing Sydney to tell Jarod that his father loved him very much, but died in a plane crash. Jarod sends a screen capture of the mysterious man to The Centre, asking Miss Parker and Sydney to identify the man. Embedded within the capture is an executable computer program that will allow Sydney to have private video conferences with Jarod. Sydney enlists Broots' help to make the program available to him without Miss Parker knowing, but Miss Parker finds out about it anyway and cuts off a conversation between Jarod and Sydney after Sydney has identified the man from the DSA as "Mr. Raines" but before he can finish giving Jarod any information about his father other than the fact that he was an aviator.

To help assuage Miss Parker's anger with him over the fact that he secretly aided Sydney and Jarod, Broots tells her that Jarod's encrypted transmission used an old ARPA connection, which he was able to trace to Arizona. Miss Parker, a sweeper team and Mr. Raines go to The Tail Fin Bar, on the proving grounds in Arizona, but Jarod is already gone. All that is left for Miss Parker to find at the bar is a picture of Jarod on the "Wall of Fame," the red notebook relating to his time at Skyvionics and a small box with a 6 x 6 piece of Silly Putty inside, which the bartender was holding for her. Imprinted on the putty was a backward headline: "Late Pilot Collins Cleared of Error." Jarod successfully proved that Collins had not been flying his F-16 while under the influence of alcohol, as the head of Skyvionics, Tom Matthews, had testified. The crash was the result of a purposely understated failure rate of Skyvionics new Scimitar chip - an unacceptable rate of 3.1%, which Matthews was trying to hide until after he had made deals with both the military and private industry to use the new chip in all of their planes.

Jarod cleared Collins' name and got his pension reinstated to his family, and successfully petitioned to get Ronald Collins a posthumous commendation for his service during the Gulf War.

While living in a battered trailer near Skyvionics, Jarod meets Mr. Hollis, a man who is so haunted by the horrible deaths that resulted from The Manhattan Project, with which he was involved during World War II, that he sees government conspiracies to spy on citizens in everything around him. Hollis' statement, "Ignorance is a poor excuse for murder," hits Jarod very close to home in regard to many of the simulations he conducted for The Centre.

While browsing a small store across the street from the Collins' home, Jarod discovers Silly Putty and is so impressed with the versatility of the product that he buys a hundred Silly Putty eggs!