Alan, if Clarence remembered correctly, was David’s middle name.
Wearing one of his theater suits—he had almost a dozen of them, this one gray—Clarence waited with Peggy Greer in a side office for Alan Naile to arrive. The secretary, a pretty girl, but not as pretty as Peggy, had apologized, telling them, “Mr. Naile called on his cell phone that he was detained in traffic. He should only be a few moments. May I get you something?”
As neither Clarence nor Peggy wanted anything but information and help, and neither of those could be provided by the secretary, she left to go back to the outer office.
It had taken Clarence nearly a month to find the means by which to contact Alan Naile, evidently a very private person, and this only after utilizing his ex-military buddies once again for their information gathering talents.
Yet once he got a phone number where Alan Naile could be reached, it was almost as if Clarence had been expected and the appointment was arranged within days.
There was an ashtray. Clarence lit a Winston. Peggy didn’t smoke, but didn’t seem to mind it when he smoked.
In the instant that Clarence pocketed the Bic lighter, the door at the side of the room opened and Clarence almost dropped the lit cigarette from his mouth. It was David’s face, David’s height and build, but this David looked to be about thirty years old, immaculately and expensively tailored, the steel gray suit he wore an obvious Armani.
“I’m Alan Naile, Clarence. And, you must be Doctor Greer.” Clarence stood up. Alan Naile offered a firm, dry handclasp to Clarence, then held Peggy’s hand briefly, almost as if he were about to raise it to his lips. Peggy had remained seated.
Alan Naile had David’s dark, wavy hair; but, unlike David, who habitually kept his hair short and brushed the waves as straight as possible, Alan Naile’s hair was grown out to where it was brushed back above his ears and, at the neck, it went slightly over the collar of his jacket.
Alan Naile got right to the point. “I have debated with myself since I first learned of the time anomaly when I was twenty-one whether or not I’d interfere with it someday, especially since, for the bulk of the time I would be running Horizon, I’d have no knowledge of future history. I even brought my oldest son—my youngest was born nine months ago—to an autographing session at a science fiction convention so that he could meet Jack and Ellen. I knew I look like my great-grandfather, David, quite a bit, so I prepared by growing a beard and getting some fake glasses. It would have been awkward to explain looking almost identical to their son. What was I going to say? Your son is my great grandfather?
“And you’re here because you want my help, perhaps with those experiments Dr. Greer has been conducting with Dr. Rogers. You guys have come up with the same conclusion that I reached as soon as I learned that your experiments with electricity and the helicopter’s disappearance may have been related. It could be done again—maybe.”
Clarence realized that the cigarette was burning his fingers. He stubbed it out and lit another one. “Smoking’s bad for you, Clarence. And please, don’t mind my calling you Clarence, because we are related.” Alan Naile sat on the edge of the desk for a second, and then stood. “Follow me, will you? We’ll all be more comfortable in my office.”
Alan Naile opened the door through which he had just entered, turned into a narrow, carpeted corridor with sconced bulbs providing the illumination. The hallway looked like something out of an old movie, the frosted glass covers over the lights having what his aunt Ellen would have called an art-deco look.
Halfway along the corridor, Alan Naile put a key into a lock and opened a mahogany-colored door. “Please,” he beckoned, letting Peggy, then Clarence, inside ahead of him.
Alan Naile’s office was large enough to hold an intimate dance party. There was a huge, dark wooden desk at the far side of the room that fronted enormous windows with soft-looking white sheers over them; the sheers diffused the sunlight, filtering it.
The desk itself was clearly one belonging to a wealthy and busy man. Several telephones, a computer monitor and keyboard, stacks of files and several notebooks littered the desk in patterns that seemed neither haphazard nor perfectly organized. Either his secretary knew Alan extremely well, or Alan maintained full responsibility for his