Monthly Archives: January 2026

Chapter Nineteen

Mike’s nagging hip complained bitterly as he settled into a reasonably comfortable corner within sight of the bunker door. He switched off his flashlight and stuffed it into a pocket bulging with batteries, then watched as the fading strip of sunlight over the door gave way to darkness. Night had come to his first day in Berlin. Tomorrow would be January 2, 1945. He had to be ready for anything. He sat down with his back against the wall, face toward the door — and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

At some point after he lost consciousness, the loud metallic sounds of the bunker door opening woke Mike up with a start. He had no idea what time it was. The strip of sunlight above the door suggested early morning or an overcast day. Dr. Huber had come back sooner than he’d expected. The Nazi genius had evidently been persuasive.

As the door’s bolts and bars slid loudly into their unlocked positions, Mike made sure his two pistols were fully loaded. His knuckles whitened as he gripped his TEC-9, focusing on the door as it slowly swung open, spilling daylight into the chamber, and casting shadows that kept Mike hidden as he waited to see who came through the bunker door. 

The first to enter the bunker was Dr. Huber. He went to the console next to the door, flicked some switches, and turned on the lights.

Mike blinked. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. A moment ago, darkness and shadow were his friends. Now, he had to avoid detection. He regretted that he hadn’t settled on a clear plan of action for when Dr. Huber returned. He thought he’d have more time to figure out what he would do. But that didn’t matter now. It was always going to come down to who walked through that door — and what happened after that.

Huber barked some commands in German and a squad of six SS troops took up positions in the chamber, three on each side of the doorway, standing stiffly at attention. They were armed with Sturmgewehr 44 submachine guns — what the GIs called MP 44s. That was a ton of firepower. Mike’s guns were no match for what those SS guards were packing.

Mike figured there may be at least as many Krauts stationed outside the bunker door. It was only a guess. There was so much he couldn’t possibly know. One thing he was certain of, however, was that the first bastard who walked through the bunker door after Dr. Huber was the Fuhrer himself.

Mike was staring at Adolf Hitler.

He was overwhelmed with emotion. Mike had a clear shot at the Fuhrer. He could kill the sonofabitch right now — five months before the war ended — and possibly save millions of lives. With Hitler dead, cooler German heads might sue for peace. Was that what he should do? Mike had barely finished that thought when seven more uniformed men arrived, all Nazi leaders, draped in medals and dressed as if on parade. Huber closed the door behind them.

From what Mike could make out from his hiding place, some of the seven were officers carrying holstered Lugers like the one he had stuffed in his pocket. The odds against Mike had just gotten longer. Though he had the drop on all of them, this was no time for a bold but foolhardy shootout.

Mike wished some Allied bomber would drop a 500-pound distraction on the bunker and shake things up. But the skies over Berlin sky were apparently clear today, as Huber led Hitler and his henchmen toward the chamber where his time portal waited to carry their Nazi evil fifty-seven years into the future.

The SS guards remained stationed at the door, concerned about threats from outside the bunker. They had no idea that Herr Huber had picked up a stowaway on his journey into the past. That gave Mike an advantage — at least for the moment. He kept out of sight, moving in the shadows, tracking this unholy crew as they followed behind Huber and their Fuhrer.

Mike recognized the faces of Hitler’s cadre: faces every veteran of the war knew. These were infamous men, featured in newsreels, newspapers, and magazines. Some of them sat in the dock at the Nuremberg trials, accused of hideous crimes against humanity. These were the twisted, ruthless Nazis who would lead gun-crazy, right-wing American militia nuts like the Bund Boys in a new civil war.

The seven trailed Hitler and Huber in a well-spaced column of twos, their eyes focused straight ahead. They knew where they were going. Some of them may have been in the bunker before. Perhaps they’d already seen the time portal.

Walking just behind Hitler’s right shoulder was Albert Speer, the man in charge of Nazi weapons production. Huber’s time portal would certainly qualify as a top-secret weapon. Speer was also the regime’s chief architect. He designed and built some of the Reich’s most important buildings, including the Nuremberg stadium where the big Nazi rallies were held. Nuremberg was also where Speer would be sentenced to life in prison for his use of slavery and forced labor. What a fucking asshole, Mike thought.

Some of other bastards were even worse.

The man off Hitler’s left shoulder was von Ribbentrop, Nazi Germany’s foreign minister and one of the Fuhrer’s closest confidantes. Mike couldn’t remember his first name – but his face was splashed across every front page in the world when he became the first Nuremberg defendant to be hanged for his crimes.

Behind Speer and von Ribbentrop were a couple of devils in the flesh: Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels.

Bormann became Hitler’s chief deputy after Rudolph Hess took off on his ill-fated solo flight to Scotland and wound up a POW. Bormann was the guy you had to go through to see the Fuhrer. He had the final say on legislation and total control of the German public. If Dr. Huber doesn’t send him into the future, four months from now he’ll kill himself here in Berlin.

Alongside Borman was the master of Nazi propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. He controlled every aspect of German media, selling fascist ideology, the fatherland, and the Aryan master race to the “good Germans” who believed his lies and looked the other way as the atrocities – and the bodies — piled up. He’s destined to kill his six children and commit suicide along with his wife the day after Hitler blows his brains out. Unless Dr. Huber’s time machine can save him.

The next pair were Göring and Himmler.

A bear of man, nearly six-foot tall, Hermann Göring was the founder of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. He also commanded the Luftwaffe. If Göring was looking to escape, it was a clear sign there was no longer an air force strong enough to defend Germany from Allied bombers. If Dr. Huber’s magic time portal is a bust, Göring will be sentenced to death at Nuremberg — and swallow cyanide before his execution.

To Göring’s right was Heinrich Himmler, the sadistic butcher who commanded the murderous Waffen SS — and ran the Gestapo, too. No job was too dirty for Himmler, a man without a soul. He, too, will kill himself after the fall of Berlin. Unless he can escape to the future – and carry the fight for fascism to America.

The last man in line was maybe the worst: Adolf Eichmann. All Mike needed to know about Eichmann was that he was a big shot in planning and carrying out the Final Solution: the mass murder of millions of Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, and anyone else he and Hitler deemed undesirable. Mike knew guys in GI units that liberated Eichmann’s death camps. Their stories made him sick. Mike wished he could carve Eichmann up with his knife. Slowly. Dying just one death wouldn’t be enough for a monster like him.

Mike trailed this hateful bunch as they marched down the hallway to the time portal. He had no trouble staying with them while keeping out of sight. So far, it all seemed too easy. He still wasn’t entirely sure what he would do when they all reached the time portal. He yearned to get back to Gloria, but these Nazi creeps had to be stopped. He couldn’t let them join up with the militia nuts who were already shooting up his country. The stakes were as high as they could be. And Mike’ situation was as crazy as it could get.

As Huber and his cohort arrived at the time portal, Mike slid behind a chest-high countertop across from the portal, squeezing himself between the counter and the wall. On the other side of that counter, the Nazis stood marveling at Huber’s time machine. Huber began to give instructions. Mike followed what Huber was saying as best he could, but without Horst Mueller around, Huber had no reason to speak any English.

Mike snuck a peek from his hiding place. It seemed crazy, but it looked like Hitler was having his goons draw straws. From what Mike could make out, the guy who drew the short straw would stay back and operate the portal. Had they all been trained to do it? Was this the best way to choose? They’d need Huber to guide them into the future, and, of course, the Fuhrer wasn’t drawing a straw — but this part of Huber’s plan seemed oddly random.

Mike had to get closer to the portal if he wanted to follow them into the future. TEC-9 in hand, he worked his way silently toward the end of the counter, less than five feet from the entrance to the portal. But his silence was broken when Mike banged his knee against the counter, giving it a jolt – followed by the sound of glass smashing on the concrete floor!

Mike had given himself away.

The Nazis were alarmed by the crash, their voices rising. They’d soon whip their guns out and aim in the direction of the sound. There was only one thing Mike could do: shoot first and drop as many of those assholes as he could. He popped up over the countertop and sprayed them all with the full forty-eight-shot clip in his TEC-9. Five Nazis fell in the fusillade — but two others tried to return fire. Mike drew his Luger, got off two well-aimed shots, and killed them both.

Scanning the room, Mike saw Dr. Huber laying on top of Hitler to protect him. They were both unarmed.

Mike heard footsteps running hard toward him in the distance. The six heavily armed SS guards would be here soon. Mike had just five rounds left in his Luger. It was bad math for Mike. Before he engaged in a final gun battle, he had a grisly job to do. He drew his knife.

Huber helped Hitler up and started moving toward the SS men rushing to save them. Mike bounded from behind the counter – and with the same jungle-honed efficiency that cut down those Bund Boys at Cal Tech, he tackled both men, plunged his knife into Dr. Huber’s chest, then sliced Hitler’s hamstrings.

While Huber clutched his chest, gasping and bleeding out, Mike straddled the writhing Fuhrer. Hitler’s eyes were wide with fear as Mike sliced his throat from ear to ear. Sic semper tyrannis, he thought.

The jackbooted footsteps of the SS guards grew louder as Mike ran back behind the counter, ready to make his last five rounds count. He thought of Gloria. He’d never get back to her now. He loved her so much.

As the SS men arrived at the chamber, Mike peeked around the corner of the counter. Two of the guards, momentarily stunned at the carnage, ran to Hitler’s side. Two others looked for signs of life among the fallen officers. The remaining two swept the room, their 30-round MP 44s at the ready, looking to blow away the men who did this. Those two guys were the ones Mike needed to kill first. If they opened fire with their machine guns, he didn’t stand a chance. As it was, his chances were slim to none.

One of Mike’s SS targets moved along the counter toward where he was hiding. As he reached the end of the counter, Mike made his move. Gripping his Luger, his hand sweating, he put a bullet through the Kraut’s head, dropping him and his MP 44 to the floor. Before the other SS men could respond, Mike picked up the dead man’s rifle and blazed away, riddling the others as they tried to return fire. A few of them got off some wild shots, but Mike had the element of surprise, a lethal weapon, deadly aim – and a righteous fury.

The room grew quiet.

After a heavy moment, Mike stood up, surveyed the bloody scene, and taking no chances, sprayed the fallen bodies with every round left in his stolen MP 44’s magazine. Then he took Horst’s Luger out of his pocket and coolly put his final four bullets into the heads of Hitler, Huber, Himmler, and…

Suddenly, a massive explosion overhead shuddered the bunker and shook loose a downpour of dust and debris. Everything went dark.

Mike woke up with a start as another big Allied bomb shivered the bunker. His tired mind struggled to focus in the dark. He switched on his flashlight and saw that he was still camped near the bunker door, far from the time portal. There was just a hint of daylight above the closed door. The Allies were on an early morning bombing run over Berlin.

As the fog of sleep lifted, Mike realized he hadn’t killed anyone. His vivid images of killing Huber, Hitler, and his whole Nazi cadre were just a dream. His deadly heroics were an unconscious fantasy — satisfying in a way, but as useless as his iPhone.

Now that he was awake, he was back to square one, waiting to see who came through the bunker door. If anyone came through that door.

Mike wished he could remember every detail of his dream. It was, after all, sort of a practice run. Was there really a long countertop in the portal chamber that he could hide behind? He needed to go back and give that room a closer look. After the bombs stopped falling, of course.

If he didn’t get killed in this bombing run, he’d have plenty more chances to die in the hours and days to come. Mike smiled at this bit of gallows humor — until another bomb blast dropped a large chunk of concrete ceiling next to him. Just close enough to remind him that his death could come much sooner than later.