John Skeevers was an aeronautics engineer who worked for Lockheed and helped develop the SR-71. He contracted cancer and claimed his work on stealth technology poisoned him. Fred Timbrook fly-fished with him and put Philip onto Skeevers. In April 1982, posing as "Ted", a Vietnam veteran, Philip pays Skeevers a substantial amount of money to learn that the secret of RAM was microscopic iron balls suspended in paint.