Daily Archives: November 29, 2025

Moving on to Chapter Twelve. As always, let me know you’re reading. Thanks!

Chapter Twelve

Mike expected Andy to be stunned by seeing a ghost in the flesh, and he was to some extent – but he was also oddly ahead of the game. “Mike Delaney, as I live and breathe,” he said. “Wild as it seems, I was half expecting you.”

Andy held the door open and ushered them in. “Got a call from an old contact on the force. A guy we both used to know. He said they ran the fingerprints on a couple of stolen cars in the past couple days. Seems there’s some 85-year-old guy named Mike Delaney with a jones for boosting vintage cars. This Delaney guy used to be an L.A. cop. Hasn’t been seen since December of ‘51. They’re looking all over for him – but they sure as hell don’t expect him to look like you.”

Andy rolled up to his dining room table and motioned Mike and Gloria to sit. Gloria went into the kitchen instead to make a pot of coffee. She knew Mike and Andy had some catching up to do.

Andy looked straight into Mike’s face. He was a dead ringer for the man he knew all those years ago. With Gloria and those fingerprints vouching for the guy — and seeing his Marine tattoo right where it should be, Andy had to yield to the wild notion that Mike Delaney was an actual, real-life time traveler.

“Okay. It shouldn’t be possible – but somehow, here you are. Mike fucking Delaney. With his old fiancé Gloria, no less. It’s completely nuts.”

“It sure is,” Mike agreed. “And it’s keeps getting crazier.”

For years after Mike went missing, Andy was frustrated with Gloria’s devotion to a ghost – and he was always curious about how and why his old partner had suddenly disappeared. He leaned in closer to Mike as though someone else might be listening. “The last time we were together, bobbing between waves, you were asking me about some Nazi fugitive named Dr. Otto Huber. Does this have anything to do with him?”

“Sure does. I know this sounds incredible, but I followed him through some crazy time portal at this place called Murphy’s Ranch, just a few miles south of here off Sullivan Ridge Road.”

“That Nazi sympathizer joint they rolled up right after Pearl Harbor?”

“That’s the place. Huber and another guy named Horst Mueller built a time portal there.”

“You keep saying ‘time portal.’ Do you mean to tell me…?”

“Andy. I’m dead serious. Look at me. How the hell do you think I got here? They built a fucking time portal. And it works! They’ve got some wild plot to bring the old Nazi regime into the future to start a race war. Hitler, too!”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Andy, I’m here, right? This is no joke. They’re serious about this shit. I tracked them to a meeting last night with some guys calling themselves The Bund Boys.”

“The Bund Boys,” Andy said, looking Mike dead in the eye. “They’re for real. A bunch of gun-loving white supremacists — and they’re not alone. I kept tabs on a lot of these right-wing whack jobs when I was at the Bureau. Eastern Oregon, Idaho, northeastern California, across the rural south and Midwest — there’s lots of paramilitary groups full of radicalized white boys who don’t get laid enough, full of rage and grievance. They hate Blacks, Jews, the government, gays, liberals – anyone who doesn’t think white men are God’s chosen. Mostly they’re a bunch of big-talking, beer-swilling good ol’ boys playing army in the woods. But sometimes they do some real damage.”

Andy sat back in his chair. “Back in ’95 two of these assholes blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. They packed a truck with more than five thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and a thousand pounds of liquid nitromethane. It was like the equivalent of five thousand pounds of TNT. They parked their little gift in front of the building and set it off right as the workday was beginning. They killed at least one hundred and sixty-eight people and wounded nearly seven hundred others. Nineteen of them were just little kids in a day care center. The shitheads planned it as payback for the Feds taking down some armed messianic lunatic’s compound in Waco, Texas.

“I figured the government would start rolling up all these militia nuts after that, but they didn’t. At least not with true gusto. Too many conservative politicians wailing about gun rights and talking that “Don’t Tread on Me” anti-government bullshit. I quit the Bureau not long after that.”

Mike listened intently. A lot had happened since ‘51. There was so much more he wanted to know. So much more he needed to know. But what Andy said next was all he needed to know at that moment.

“You’re onto a dangerous situation, buddy. Don’t underestimate these freaks. The militia movement slowed down after Oklahoma City. It peaked at more than eight hundred groups in ’96 and they haven’t pulled off another big attack since then. But when Barrack Obama was elected the first black President last month, that added new fuel to their fire. Now, there’s lots of incendiary chatter on the internet.”

Mike was still trying to wrap his head around the idea of a black President – when Andy’s last word landed. “The internet?”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re from the way back machine. Today, just about everybody’s got a computer or a smartphone,” Andy explained, holding up an iPhone similar to Mike’s. “They’re all connected by a system called the internet. Gloria can show you how it works when you have a chance.”

“I learned a little bit about it from an Apple Genius the other day. I thought it was just on my iPhone.”

“You can access the internet from any computer. Thanks to the internet, what were isolated, mostly rural groups of right-wing nut jobs are now able to connect with each other easily. They can spread their propaganda, recruit new members, and share big talk about a coming race war, or a new civil war – various violent fantasies.”

“Fantasies like ‘Helter-Skelter’?”

“Bingo. That’s one of the names for it. So is ‘The Boogaloo.’ Right now, these groups aren’t well organized across the country. They’re fractious and clannish — paranoid about infiltration by the cops and federal agents. But all it would take to make their white nationalist wet dreams come true is charismatic leadership with the ability to pull them all together. Or some kind of triggering event that galvanizes them. Sounds like your Nazi friends plan to provide just the kind of catalyst they need.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Huber and Horst are thinking big. It seems far-fetched that they can time-travel the leaders of the Third Reich – but here I am, Andy. The fact that I’m here talking to you right now makes all kinds of crazy shit possible. That’s why I’ve got to stop them somehow.”

Gloria came back from the kitchen with a pot of coffee and took a seat.

“So, Andy,” she said, filling his mug, “Should Mike take this to the police?”

“Take what? A crazy story about time-traveling Nazis? They’re gonna ask a lot of questions that are damned hard to answer without sounding like a lunatic. How can our 29-year-old hero explain that he’s also an 86-year-old car thief? And what evidence does he have on these guys?”

Andy locked eyes on Mike. “I believe you, pal, but the cops won’t. Not without hard evidence. You get me something solid, something provable – and maybe I can get an old friend or two at the Bureau to dip his little toe into this thing.”

Mike told Andy that Horst and Huber were meeting with some militia guys at Murphy’s Ranch that night and that he was going to stake them out.

“What if Mike got tonight’s meeting on video?” Gloria got Andy’s attention. “He could shoot it on his iPhone.”

“I could do what?”

“You can shoot video on your phone. I can show you how.”

“What’s video?”

“It’s like television, Mike,” explained Andy, “It’s so simple even kids do it nowadays.”  He turned to Gloria. “Show our boy what to do. Make sure his phone is fully charged. The trick will be getting close enough to get good audio.”

All of this was over Mike’s head, but he knew Gloria would fill him in. “Sounds good, Andy. Seeing is believing.”

“And hearing, Mike. Get as close as you can. We gotta hear what these rat bastards are saying. Get me the goods, pal. I’ll say I got it from a confidential source. Somebody who infiltrated the Bund Boys.” Andy scratched his head, a wry smile on his face. “Gotta wonder what the Feds will make of seeing Otto Huber? I mean, that guy should be 107 years old at this point.”

Then, Andy’s expression darkened. He looked at Mike, dead serious. “What’re you packing?”

Mike pulled his .45 out of his pocket.  “My old standby.”

Andy took one look at Mike’s World War Two museum piece and told Gloria, “Your man can’t go to war with that old pea shooter.”

Andy went to a drawer in his living room and pulled out a more modern weapon. He handed it to Mike. “This is a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol, fully loaded with a 50-round magazine. It’ll spray eighteen rounds in two and a half seconds. And it’s equipped with a silencer – so it won’t make much noise. Plus, it’s been scrubbed of any ID. Its serial number is filed off. It can’t be traced. It’s what we call a ghost gun.”

Mike took the TEC-9 in his hand. It was lighter than he thought. He wished he’d had something like it in the Pacific.

“I’ve got some explosives, too, if you need them,” added Andy, like a corner grocer peddling his wares. “Dynamite, C-4…”

“C-4?”

“Yeah. A plastic explosive. It was called Composition C-2 when the U.S. military got it from the Brits around ‘43. C-3 came out in ‘44. Now, we’ve got C-4. Each version gave a bigger bang for the buck. Easy to carry. Easy to conceal.”

“Don’t think I’ll need it, Andy. This is a surveillance mission, right? I want to get in and out quietly.”

“Sure, you do. I’d just love to blow up a big bunch of these assholes, Mike. Get some real revenge for Oklahoma City.”

“I understand, buddy. But let’s take it one step at a time.”

“Okay, Mike, but if any of those militia dirtbags take a shot at you,” Andy said with a devious smile, “open up with that TEC-9 and take ‘em all out.”

Gloria smiled at Andy, then fixed her beautiful, haunting eyes on Mike. She stared at him hard, then whispered in his ear.

“Light ‘em up if you have to, Mike. I want you back in one piece.”

“One loving, fucking piece.”