Category Archives: Classic Film

January 8, 2026 · 2:07 pm

My First Novel: Chapters 20 & 21

Chapter Twenty

After the all-clear siren signaled the end of the air raid, Mike went back for another look at the time portal chamber. Had the portal survived? Dust filled the air in the long hallway, and cracks appeared in the concrete ceiling — but none of the bombs had punched through. How many more direct hits could this bunker withstand? Had Dr. Huber survived this latest Berlin bombing run? Was he safe in the Führerbunker? Did he make it that far?

Mike tried not to wonder too much about stuff he couldn’t possibly know. He focused on what he knew: where he was right now – and how to prepare for what might come. Whoever might come. But he had an edge. Nobody entering this bunker would have any idea that an enemy was waiting for them. He had to maximize that advantage. From what Mike could remember, the element of surprise worked wonders in his dream. Even though it was just a dream.

When he went back to the portal chamber, Mike saw that Dr. Huber had clearly anticipated the worst. The chamber was reinforced far more than the rest of the bunker. Huge iron girders framed the walls and held up the ceiling, which was made of thick sheets of steel. That’s why there was no concrete dust inside the chamber. The room housing the portal was an armored fortress. It was the best place to ride out the bombing runs, but way too far from the bunker door. When it opened, Mike needed to be as close to it as he could get. He had to know right away who he was up against.

Mike shined his flashlight across the room. There didn’t seem to be any damage to Dr. Huber’s equipment — or the time portal itself. But what did Mike know? He’d barely passed his high school algebra class. Sensitive scientific equipment like this could be broken in ways he couldn’t possibly see or understand. But everything appeared to be working yesterday.

Was it truly just yesterday? Mike was losing track of time. It didn’t help that the clocks in the bunker had stopped when Huber shut off the electricity. Mike looked at his watch — but it, too, had stopped. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wound it. It was set to Pacific time, but he had no idea what time zone Berlin was located in. The time thing was getting more and more confusing.

Exploring the chamber, Mike was pleased to confirm there was, indeed, a long counter against the wall opposite the time portal equipment. But unlike in his dream, the counter was pushed directly up against the wall, leaving no space for Mike to hide behind it. Careful not to disturb any items on top of it, Mike slid the counter away from the wall, just enough so he could squeeze in behind it, giving him more room to operate. Would Huber notice his counter had been moved? It was a risk worth taking.

Mike practiced crouching down and moving quietly behind the counter, stopping within a few feet of the entrance to the portal. Remembering the shattered glass in his dream, he took a few fragile items off the countertop so they wouldn’t give him away when he popped up over the counter with his TEC-9. At the critical moment, he had to have a clear kill shot.

He also needed a distraction.

Mike went back to the supply cabinets and found two 12-ounce glass jars full of mixed nuts. He dumped their contents into the closest toilet, flushed them, and went back to the portal chamber with the empty jars. He placed them behind the far end of the counter. They’d be there if he needed them.

It felt good to be able to prepare, to do something positive — even if much of what was to come was unknown. Mike managed a smile. Things were looking up. It was time for breakfast. Or was it lunch time? It didn’t matter. Canned mystery meat was perfect for any meal.

For the next three days, Mike honed his routine. He rehearsed his moves in the portal chamber and built his nightly fire in the same place, extinguishing it after a few hours. Then he slept in his hiding place near the bunker door, prepared to be awakened by the sound of sliding and banging metal. He imagined the door opening — and everyone who might come through the door. Would it be all the Nazi brass he saw in his dream? Less? More? How many SS guards would protect them? And how would they be armed?

Mike was planning and practicing for an event that anyone but he, Andy, Gloria – and Huber and Horst — would consider insane: preventing Hitler and his elite Nazi cadre from traveling into the future.

Several times each day, starting at the bunker door, Mike tracked his imaginary prey from the door to the portal chamber, keeping in the shadows. He repeated his movements enough to be certain that he could remain hidden. He removed obstacles that could get in his way, things he might trip over. He rehearsed how to respond if he accidentally gave himself away along the route, practicing how to react in the firefight that would result. Who he’d kill first. And so on…

Once Mike got to the portal chamber, he repeated his routine, hiding behind the counter and rehearsing various gunplay scenarios. He visualized how he might use the glass nut jars to cause a distraction, covering his movements. But his fading dream may have made it look far too easy. When Huber and his Nazi big shots gathered in the portal chamber, Mike would be lucky to get behind the counter without being seen. The odds were stacked against him, despite his preparations.

Mike still hadn’t decided whether he should just kill all the Nazis right there in the bunker if he got the chance – or follow them into the portal and gun them down them after they arrived in the future. Either way, all they all deserved to die. But he also had to stop the militia violence. And he desperately wanted to get back to Gloria, to know if she survived.   

All Mike could do in his impossible situation was to practice his moves and wait for Dr. Huber’s return. Of course, Huber could return any time of day or night. Mike had to be ready for that. A veteran detective, he understood the vagaries of a stakeout. You started with an educated guess – but you had to be ready for anything. At this point, Mike was ready for way beyond anything.

Six days and nights passed. Mike kept track of the time with a pen and paper from the supply cabinets. By now, he’d practiced his routine to the point of muscle memory. He’d been back and forth from the bunker door to the portal chamber maybe fifty or sixty times, tracking phantom Nazis and enacting every violent scenario he could think of. Twice during that time, Mike heard bombs falling in the distance, leveling other parts of Berlin. The tempo of the Allied bombing campaign was increasing. Mike wondered which day would be the one that Dr. Huber finally got Hitler to agree to his mad escape plan.

While Mike worked and waited, he was well fed. The food supply in the bunker would last for months. But every day he spent getting fat and training for his rendezvous with Huber and his Nazi cohort was another day that Gloria could be fighting for her life. Another day those racist militia morons were shooting up the American dream. He was sick and tired of waiting and preparing. Like his fellow Marines on those landing craft in the choppy Pacific surf, he was aching to finally hit the beach and charge the enemy.

Whoever came through that bunker door, Mike felt ready — to die or to kill. He wasn’t a very religious guy, but as the saying went, there are no atheists in foxholes. Still, Mike wondered. Did almighty God give a damn about American democracy? Did he side with the Bund Boys and Oath Takers? Many of them claimed to be god-fearing, Bible-thumping Christians. Mike was just a decorated war veteran with a blemished record as an LA cop — and an indifferent career as a private eye — but he knew for sure he was on the right side of history.

Whether God was on his side remained to be seen.

The next morning, Mike was in his accustomed hiding place in sight of the bunker door when he woke up to the unmistakable sounds of the door opening.

Mike shook off the fog of sleep and prepared for action. His TEC-9 and Luger were fully loaded, his knife strapped to his leg. He watched the door open, his TEC-9 drawn, aiming in the direction of whoever came through that door.

Just as he’d dreamed, Dr. Huber was the first to enter. He went to the console and turned on the lights in the bunker. Mike blinked: his eyes accustomed to days of darkness. But he was well prepared for the lights to go on. His dream had shown him that darkness and shadow were his friends. But who would follow Huber through that door?  

Huber issued a command and a squad of four SS troops took up positions inside the bunker: two less than in Mike’s dream. They were armed not with MP 44s but with MG42 Mausers. Known as “Hitler’s buzzsaw,” the MG42 was a high-powered automatic rifle that had done deadly service in the Battle of Berlin: the very fight currently raging outside the bunker. The Mauser was fully automatic with a 50-round belt clipped to the side of the gun. These four guys could unload two hundred rounds within seconds.

Mike was certainly outgunned, but he liked his odds. These Nazi creeps were unaware he was just ten yards away, aiming right at them. He could drop them all before they had a chance to return fire. But they weren’t the big game. The Nazi honchos coming through the door next were his real targets.

Hitler was next through the door. This time it was no dream. Mike was truly in the presence of the devil himself. Hitler looked tired, Mike thought, and smaller than he imagined. Mike wished he could get closer and look right into Hitler’s eyes. Would he see fear? Desperation? What would he learn about this angry, hate-filled little Austrian corporal who’d managed to kill so many innocent souls and reduce Europe to rubble? Mike couldn’t let this demon flee into the future and make the same horrific mess of America.

Unlike in Mike’s dream, only three of the Fuhrer’s top henchmen followed behind him: Goebbels, Himmler, and Eichmann. Were the others left behind to oversee the final defense of the fatherland? Perhaps the time portal couldn’t transport a larger contingent? Or were these three chosen because they possessed the critical skills needed to inspire and direct the hate-filled American militias: racist zeal and a proficiency in organizing cold-blooded mass murder?

Hitler and his three hateful honchos were all carrying holstered handguns: Goebbels and Eichmann appeared to be packing Lugers. It looked like Hitler and Himmler had Walther pistols. If the SS men stayed behind to guard the door, Mike’s TEC-9 would have a big advantage in firepower when they got to the portal chamber. His hopes began to rise. Mike was ready to deal with a much larger group of Nazi brass. But, like any a combat veteran, he knew not to get overconfident. Shit could get FUBAR at any moment.

The four SS guards remained at the bunker door as Huber, Hitler, and the other three villains proceeded down the long hallway to the portal chamber. So far, so good, thought Mike. Those four 50-round Mausers were out of the immediate equation. He had only four 7-shot pistols too contend with. But, as he trailed Huber and company down the hallway, Mike wasn’t planning to trade gunfire with anyone. His plan was coming into focus. All he had to do was stay close to these five unsuspecting Nazis, stay out of sight, and make his move at the right moment.

Mike remained in the shadows as the Nazis finally reached the portal chamber. There was a charged moment when Hitler and his cadre entered the room and beheld the good doctor’s time machine — for what appeared to be the first time. Could it be that none of them had been in this bunker before? That might be another advantage for Mike, but every step he took next could also be his last.

As he’d practiced over and over, Mike slipped unnoticed into position behind the counter and did his best to keep up with the conversation as Herr Huber went over the workings of the portal. Mike wondered whether he was better prepared for what came next than the Nazis were. He noticed that Eichmann wasn’t doing any talking, wasn’t asking questions like the others. It seemed to Mike that Eichmann knew more about the portal than the Fuhrer and the others.

This time, unlike in Mike’s dream, Hitler wasn’t having anyone draw straws. It was clear that Otto Adolph Eichmann had been designated to operate the time machine controls while Hitler and the other two joined Huber in the portal to be sent into the future. It figured. If Hitler could trust Eichmann to pull of the systematic murder of millions of Jews and other undesirables, Huber could surely count on him to push the right buttons.

Dr. Huber threw a series of switches — and the complex machinery sprang to life. The whole, mad contraption hummed and sparked. Eichmann took his place at the controls. The time had come. Huber, Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler walked into the time portal.

It was game time.

Once the Nazi time-travelers disappeared into the portal, Mike made his move. From his hiding place at the end of the counter, he took one of the glass jars he’d pre-placed just for this moment — and threw it against the doorway leading into the chamber. When it smashed against the wall, Eichmann’s head snapped in the direction of the sound, just long enough for Mike to slip unnoticed into the portal.

By the time Eichmann refocused on his task, Mike Delaney was time-traveling for the third time in less than two weeks.   

Chapter Twenty-One

As in his previous trips through the time portal, Mike didn’t feel any strange sensations — and there were no science fiction movie effects — as he moved from the past into the future. Huber, Hitler and their two criminal comrades were somewhere ahead of him, though he couldn’t see or hear them.

Suddenly, Mike could see the Nazi foursome exit the portal and enter Horst’s brightly lit lab. He hung back in the portal for a moment, obscured by a welcome shadow. He made sure the silencer on his loaded TEC-9 was locked in place. He recalled that, for some odd reason, he hadn’t used the silencer in his dream. It was a useless thought. Mike had to focus clearly now. He moved toward the end of the portal with the stealth of a trained assassin.

As Horst Mueller greeted his time-traveling companions, exchanging stiff-arm salutes and triumphant shouts of “Heil Hitler!” their backs were turned to Mike. They had no idea they’d been followed. Horst’s view of the portal was blocked by his comrades. Intent on greeting his Fuhrer, he didn’t see Mike step out of the portal with his gun drawn.

Grimly resolved and cold as ice, Mike got as close as he could — and swiftly executed Huber, Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels with kill shots to the back of their heads.

The four fell in a heap, and Mike raked their bodies one more time before taking aim directly at the head of the lone survivor: a stunned and quaking Horst Mueller.

“Hands up, Horst!” Mike barked, “Or you’ll die slowly and painfully.”

Just then, Himmler stirred — so Mike sprayed all the fallen bodies with another round of lead.

When Horst tried to take this opportunity to move, Mike fired a burst at his feet. “Stay put, Horst,” said Mike, seething with anger, “I’m not in a mood to dance with you.”

Mike kicked a chair in Horst’s direction. “Take a seat, professor. Let’s talk. And speak English. If I hear another word of German out of you, I’ll take my combat knife and carve you into little pieces. You won’t enjoy it. But I will.

Horst took a seat, soiling his pants.

“Go ahead, piss yourself, pal. That way you’ll know how all those brave men tortured by the Gestapo felt right before they died.”

“I was…not…Gestapo,” Horst stammered. “I didn’t even fight in the war. I was too young.”

“Save that bullshit for your trial, Horst. That is, if I let you live to see one.”

Mike searched Horst for a weapon but found none. “You got any poison, Horst? I know you Nazi bigwigs love your cyanide. Your pal Goebbels over here,” he said, giving that body a nudge with his foot, “He loved it so much he fed it to his six children. Himmler also liked his cyanide, right?”

Mike found nothing in Huber’s pockets but his wallet, a couple of pens, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. “Good,” Mike said with a strained smile, “Now we can talk.” Mike pulled up another chair and sat directly across from Huber.

“I know all the crazy shit that you and Huber were up to with those militia nuts. Plus, you shot my girlfriend. Did you know that? She’s that pretty, older lady you shot with your Luger. I’m the guy who shot you in the shoulder. Looks like you’ve been healing nicely over the past week.”

Mike gave Horst’s bandaged shoulder a squeeze. Horst winced. “Now, before I call the cops, you and I have some stuff to talk about. Your dreams of a new Reich are dead, pal. As dead as your buddies on the floor. But I’ve been chasing you creeps back and forth through time for a couple of weeks now, and there’s some things that the detective in me has just got to know.”

“There is nothing I can tell you,” Horst replied, attempting something like bravery. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Aw, come on, professor. I came through your damned time portal, didn’t I? In fact, I went through it three times. From 1951 to 2008, then to 1945 and back again. That’s why I’m here – and all your Nazi pals are dead! Damn it, Horst, I’m telling you a lot more than you’re telling me – and it’s pissing me off!”

Mike placed his TEC-9 up against Horst’s forehead, his anger rising to a level he was struggling to control.

“What do you want me to tell you?” Horst pleaded. “I did my duty to my country. I did what I had to do.”

“You’re an American, Horst. This is an American university. Cal Tech paid for your time-travel experiments, right? But they had no idea what you were actually up to, did they? You got your Nobel Prize as an American. Yet you and Huber plotted to bring Hitler and these Nazi shitheads to America. For what? To lead a fucking race war?”

Mike pushed the muzzle of his gun harder against Horst’s skull.  

“I was there, asshole! I was at Murphy’s Ranch when you and the good doctor riled up those militia wackos – and gave them all those AR-15s! You know what that makes you, Horst? A traitor. And do you know what happens to traitors? What would the Gestapo do in this situation? This conversation would be over, wouldn’t it Horst?”

“I told you. I was not Gestapo…”

“Cut the crap, Horst! Don’t make me any angrier than I am now!

“What do you want to know, Mr…”

“Screw my name. You don’t need to know it. Just answer my questions. How in the hell did you get away with it? After you sent Huber and me to 1945, why didn’t the Pasadena cops shut your crazy operation down? They were banging on your door, for chrissakes. My girlfriend was lying wounded outside! Two dead militia assholes were stinking up your hallway, and a trial of blood led right to your lab – because I shot you! And yet, they let you go right back to work. Why was that? How could that possibly happen?”

Realizing his situation was hopeless, and with more than a vestige of Aryan Nazi pride, Horst explained that Mike’s bullet had only grazed his shoulder. “There was some dripping of blood, but no serious damage. I bandaged it easily and cleaned what little blood fell on the laboratory floor. That was before you must have arrived. And so, when the campus police came to my door, I did not appear to have been shot. I assured them that I had been far too absorbed in my work to be aware of anything that might have been going on outside my laboratory.”  

Horst went on. The Cal Tech cops called for backup, but his Nobel winning reputation convinced the Pasadena police that he truly had no idea who the dead men outside his door were. Nor did he know anything about a woman being shot near his building. “I told them that whatever those unfortunate men and that old woman were involved with, if indeed they were in league at all, it was a mystery to me. They gave me their cards and left me alone. I have not heard from the authorities since then.”

“So, there was no reason to resort to Plan B?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mike ground his gun barrel into Horst’s temple. “I heard you talk about a Plan B, pal. Don’t fuck with me. I’m exhausted and pissed. Huber told you that if the cops got into this lab, you were supposed to destroy the portal – and Hitler and his goons would travel through the Berlin portal and emerge in Berlin on today’s date.”

“Correct,” said Horst with an air of disdainful superiority. “Herr Huber’s Plan B called for them to be transported through the Berlin portal. The same one you came through. But I, myself, considered that a most unlikely scenario. For the bunker and portal to still exist in 2008, it would have had to survive the Allied bombing and the fall of Berlin undamaged and undiscovered. It was far more likely that the Americans or Soviets would have destroyed it — or stolen what equipment they could salvage to advance their own technological superiority. I never wasted any thought on Plan B.”

Dr. Huber warmed to the subject of his own brilliance. “Moments ago, when the Fuhrer stepped gloriously out of my portal, he was delighted to find himself in the United States. He was not trying to sneak his way through the Berlin of the future — then find a way to somehow get to America. Instead, he shook my hand and congratulated me. He called me a Hero of the Fatherland. So, Dr. Huber was in no position to chastise me for ignoring his mad Plan B.”

Even in Horst’s dire situation, he could manage to swell with pride. The pupil had outperformed his teacher. He’d proven himself to be a better scientist and tactician than Huber. He was the superior Nazi egghead in service of his Fuhrer.

“The cops may come back here with more questions,” Mike reminded him. “And when they do, they may want to know what a stinking pile of infamous dead Nazis from World War Two are doing in Physics Lab #7.”

Horst wasn’t concerned.

“The police have no idea about any plan for the Fuhrer to lead a race war in America. They would think it crazy. Far-fetched. It would only be your word against mine, yes? And who are you? Are you a Nobel Prize winning physicist? Are you anybody at all?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am!” Mike snapped, his patience wearing thin. He pointed to the dead Nazis. “It matters who these guys are.”

“True,” said Horst, with a triumphant smile. “If the authorities identify these men that you’ve just killed in cold blood as Adolph Hitler and his closest associates, it will prove that I’ve mastered the physics of time travel. I will no doubt win a second Nobel Prize.”

At that moment Mike realized that, as brilliant as he was, Horst was truly a madman.

Mike now knew what he needed to do. “Sorry, Horst,” he said flatly, “None of that’s gonna happen. You just sit tight while I call a friend.”

It wasn’t proper police procedure. It might have been against the rules of war. But nobody had ever been in Mike’s position before. He took out his iPhone – which now worked – and called Andy Pafko.

“Andy, buddy. It’s a long, crazy story, but I’m back in 2008…”

“No shit. How in the…?”  

“Not now. Just tell me, is Gloria okay?”

“She’s out of the hospital, Mike. She lost a lot of blood, but she’s gonna be fine.”

Andy started in with more questions, but Mike cut him off. “Listen Andy, I’ll explain it all later, okay? I’m in Physics Lab #7 at Cal Tech. You can find out where I am on your phone, right?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, Mike, I can locate you.”

“I need you to get here right away with at least three sticks of dynamite, some of that C-4 shit you were talking about, and a couple gallons of gas. Wear your old police uniform – but take your name tag off. And don’t let anyone see you.”

“But Mike…”

“No time for questions, Andy. Just get here with the pyro, okay? And come in uniform. With no name tag.”

“Uniform? I haven’t worn one in twenty-three years, Mike. I’m a geriatric fart in a fucking wheelchair!”

“Shit, that’s right.” Time travel was screwing with Mike’s head. “Is there anybody else we can trust to bring me that stuff?”

“I can drive, Mike, I just can’t walk.” Andy was eager to play his part. “I can take the explosives over to you in my van. I’ll bring you my old police uniform, too.”

“Yeah. I’ll need ‘em both: the pyro and the uniform. Drive up as close as you can, and I’ll come out and get them.”

“I’ll be there within the hour, Mike. Hang tight and stay out of trouble.”

“Trouble? You’re a funny guy Andy. Call me as soon as you get here.”

“Roger that. Over and out.”

Mike hung up. Horst looked crestfallen. He realized that Mike was going to destroy his greatest scientific achievement.

“Don’t try to be a hero, Horst. You’ve already told me all I need to know. Nobody but a handful of freaks think you Nazis are the heroes. Ever see ‘Hogan’s Heroes’? You goose-stepping freaks have been a joke for decades.”  

While keeping his TEC-9 aimed at Horst’s head with his right hand, he took out Horst’s Luger with his left. “You remember this gun, Horst? You shot my girl with this Luger. I’ve had it for a while now. Haven’t even fired it. Looks like you even designed your own silencer. Those early silencers were real long and cumbersome, weren’t they? Hard to conceal. But yours is some real cloak and dagger stuff. Nice work, pal.”

“There are still seven rounds in your Luger’s clip. If you don’t mind, Horst, I’m gonna use up four of those bullets right now.”

Without waiting for Horst to object, Mike fired a silent round from Horst’s Luger directly into dead Hitler’s head. Then he did the same to Huber, Himmler, and Goebbels. “Now, there’s just two bullets left. What should I do with the last two shots, Horst? What would the SS, the Gestapo — or you do?”

His eyes wide with a rising fear, Horst pleaded, “You wouldn’t. Not in cold blood. I’m your prisoner. Let the police…”

“Let them do what?” Mike glared, grim and determined, as hard as he’d ever been in battle. “Accept your bullshit again? Get mesmerized by your shiny Nobel Prize? After all, who am I? Am I anybody at all?”

In this crucial moment, Mike set humanity aside. Or was he saving it?

He’d sort out the big questions later. Right now, he was wrapping up this case the best way he could. Keeping the Luger trained on Horst, Mike offered his TEC-9 to Horst.

“You ever watch old Western movies on TV? We can make this like a Wild West gunfight.”

“I have no time for old movies,” Horst replied with all the defiance he had left, “You are indulging in a kind of heroic fantasy, yes?”

“Fuck fantasy, professor,” Mike barked. “Take my gun or I’ll kill you right now. If you take it, you’ll still have an outside chance of getting out of this mess alive.”

Mike pressed the Luger to Horst’s right temple as the frightened Nazi scientist took Mike’s TEC-9, fumbling with it in his trembling hands. Before Horst could put his finger on the trigger, Mike shot the Nazi genius clear through the head with his own Luger at close, suicide-like range.

Mike wiped the Luger off with a cloth from a nearby table and placed it in Horst’s dead right hand. He found the keys to the lab in Horst’s coat pocket, then made sure the lab door was locked.

While waiting for Andy to arrive, Mike stripped the bodies of all the dead Nazis, except for Horst. He emptied a large bin of laboratory supplies and stuffed all their uniforms, IDs, weapons, shoes, medals — everything they carried or wore — into the bin. Then he dragged their bodies into a pile.

It was ugly work, but he’d done nasty stuff like this before: after a battle, when he helped prepare fallen comrades for burial. But unlike these Nazis, who’d all died neatly in one piece, he often had to gather the bloody fragments of his Marine buddies. This was easier. And for Mike, this grisly task was almost therapeutic. That’s what war does to a person.

And this had been war.

It was barely an hour before Andy finally called Mike and announced his arrival.

“Hey, Mike — I’m parked outside Horst’s building. Come and get this stuff before I get a visit from the campus rent-a-cops. I got it all packed in a duffel bag.”

“Be right there, Andy.”

Mike unlocked the lab door, then locked it behind him. Luckily, the hallway leading to the lab was empty. Horst was certainly not going to conduct any classes on the day the Fuhrer was supposed to arrive. Mike raced down the hallway and up to Andy’s van. “Stuff’s in the back, Mike. The doors are open. Grab it and go.” Mike took the duffel bag out of the van and closed the doors.

“Beat it, Andy! I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

“Good luck, pal,” Andy said as he drove away. “Light ‘em up!”

Mike returned to the lab, unlocked the door, locked it behind him — and got down to business. He dumped the gasoline on the dead bodies, then placed the dynamite and C-4 inside the portal and under all the machinery in the lab.

As Mike did this, he knew that he’d never return to 1951. He’d never get back to young Gloria. They’d never have a family. But fuck it. Gloria had survived Huber’s gunshot. He’d cherish every last moment they could have together. She was still the same girl. And he was still nuts about her.

Once all the pyro was in place, Mike got dressed in Andy’s LAPD uniform. It didn’t fit very well, but Andy remembered to remove his name tag. It wasn’t great, but it would have to do. Nightfall was approaching, so his costume didn’t have to be perfect.

Mike locked up the lab again, walked back down the hallway – and pulled the nearest fire alarm. He went outside the building and watched as students and teachers evacuated. It must be the weekend, he figured, as less than a dozen people exited the building. Dressed in Andy’s LAPD uniform, Mike was empowered to ask questions and determine that everybody was out of the building. He explained there was a dangerous gas leak in one of the labs and that the area should be cleared immediately.

Everyone complied. So far, so good.

Mike returned to Physics Lab #7, unlocked the door, and carried the bin full of Nazi uniforms and regalia into the hallway. Before he stepped out of the door, he lit a pack of matches and tossed them onto the gasoline that was pooling on the laboratory floor.

As he left the building, dragging his bin of Nazi regalia with him, the fire inside Horst’s lab raged. Explosions could be heard as Mike slipped into the shadows, leaving the scene as sirens signaled the approach of fire trucks.

Horst Mueller was not going to win his second Nobel Prize. But America just might be saved from a second Civil War.

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January 2, 2026 · 1:56 pm

My First Novel: Chapter Nineteen

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.

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December 30, 2025 · 11:41 am

My First Novel: Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Mike walked about three hundred feet down the hallway, nearly out of matches, when he was lucky to find some shelves stocked with office supplies. The reams of typing paper would make good kindling, but he’d need something more substantial to build a decent campfire. Of course, the wooden shelves would serve that purpose. For as long as they’d last.

In the darkness, his spirits rising, Mike dismantled the shelves, stacking them in a pattern he’d perfected during his years in the Boy Scouts. Next, he crumpled up wads of typing paper and stuffed them between every gap in the stack. When Mike was finally satisfied that his campfire would pass muster with his old scoutmaster — he struck a match. The blaze lit up the bunker nearly a hundred feet in every direction.

Mike’s momentary joy in the firelight was tempered by the thought of Dr. Huber coming back to find a campfire raging in his bunker. Then again, when that big iron door opened it made a hell of a lot of noise. If Mike heard that racket, he’d put out the flames and make it look like Allied bomb damage. Or something like that.

What else could he do?  

Now that he could catch his breath and relax for a moment, Mike allowed himself to feel how exhausted he was. He’d made the right decision. The odds were slim on chasing Huber through the streets of Berlin. Rather than trail his prey, Dr. Huber would have to come back to him. It was a good situation for a detective. Mike was certain he was right where he should be.

As he rested by the fire, he tried to imagine Huber’s frame of mind – and more importantly, Hitler’s. Mike knew that at this point in January of ‘45, Hitler and his regime were on the ropes. The Allies were driving east toward Germany. In four months, Berlin will finally fall to the Americans and Soviets. Nazi Germany will be defeated, and Hitler will die by suicide.

Unless something crazy happens to disrupt that history.

Competing thoughts ran through Mike’s mind. He could mark the passage of days by keeping track of that sliver of sunlight above the bunker door. He had to explore every inch of the bunker. He had to find the lights and turn them on — or at least the lights in the room where the portal was.

Where would he hide when the Nazis came back? Whatever Mike did — he had to sleep close to the bunker door or risk being surprised by Huber’s return.

He had to be ready. But ready to do what?

Mike wasn’t entirely sure what to do when Huber showed up with whatever top Nazis he might round up. He knew that Hitler had built his Fuhrerbunker beneath the streets of central Berlin. Probably not far from where Mike was hunkered down right now. That was likely where Hitler and his senior staff were housed at the moment, brainstorming ways to stop the Allied onslaught. With the Fuhrer still clinging to fantasies of victory, Dr. Huber would be walking into a desperate situation.

Mike wondered if Hitler was already aware of Huber’s time-travel plan. Did the Fatherland’s most brilliant scientist convince the Fuhrer that, if Berlin should fall, he could carry his mad dream of world conquest more than sixty years into the future? Would Hitler be willing to abandon his capital city beforethe Seigfried Line was broken? Would he run away before Berlin fell? And if the Fuhrer didagree to escape through the time portal, how many of his inner circle would join him? And how long would it take for Huber to round them all up?

Mike could only guess at the answers. He and his Marine buddies would have considered such questions to be way above their pay grade. But Mike had no superior officers calling the shots in this battle. There were no orders to follow other than his own.

He wouldn’t be able to settle on a plan of action until Huber returned. Not until he knew exactly who and what he was up against. But Mike was certain about one thing. He was hungry.

Mike had breakfast early that morning with Gloria, but it felt like days ago. Had it truly been just hours ago? Hopping back and forth through the decades was taking a toll on Mike’s sense of time and place. He was worn out, but he couldn’t afford to sleep. Not yet. There was too much to be done. And finding food was at the top of the list.

He threw a few more shelves on the fire and scanned both walls of the long hallway stretched out ahead of him. The hallway didn’t seem that long when he was chasing Huber and the bombs were bursting overhead. About forty feet from the fire, Mike could make out what looked like a row of floor-to-ceiling cabinets. Using a flaming shelf as a torch, he headed toward them. Four ten-foot-tall cabinets stood side by side. Together, they were about twenty feet in length.

Relax, Mike told himself. There might not be any food inside. Still, his heart sank when he found the first cabinet was filled with more office supplies: typing paper, file folders, envelopes. All perfectly combustible. If Mike was trapped in this goddamn bunker for weeks or months, he’d have plenty of fuel for his fires. But he wouldn’t last long enough to burn all that fuel if he didn’t have some fuel of his own.

The second cabinet held an ample supply of first aid kits and other emergency medical equipment. Again, very handy. If the next Allied bombing run dropped a 500-pounder through the roof, Mike might wind up in dire need of first aid. That is, if he survived the blast. A weary grin crept across his face. Being blown to smithereens would be better than slowly starving to death.

The third cabinet brought salvation.

Mike was delighted to find a healthy stockpile of food. The fourth cabinet was also a food pantry. Both cabinets were crammed with chow meant to stand the test of time: every kind of preserved and canned food, from vegetables to meats. Jars of pickled and dried fruits, cans of condensed milk, jugs of water, and bottles of wine, beer, and bourbon. This was clearly a bunker built to accommodate the needs and tastes of ranking officers and other high rollers. Mike wouldn’t starve. He could wait here for months. He hoped he wouldn’t have to.   

Mike didn’t care how any of this stuff tasted. None of it could be any worse than the K rations and canned Spam he’d eaten for months while fighting on one blasted Pacific island after another. Or that damned chocolate brick known as D rations: chock full of calories, but hard as a goddamn rock. Everything in these cabinets was edible. That was all he needed. So, he feasted.

If it took Dr. Huber a while to gather his Nazi pals, Mike would grow fat waiting for them.

After eating his fill and allowing himself a warm beer, his thoughts turned to the next task at hand: finding out how to turn on the lights and get back to the time portal. If he couldn’t get the lights back on, he’d have to keep using improvised torches. That would be a real medieval pain in the ass, he thought, as he walked down the long hallway, burning shelf in hand.

Mike was delighted to find an open door leading to a small men’s room. The urinal and toilet didn’t need electricity. They both flushed perfectly. Mike took advantage of his discovery. It had been a while. Relieved, he retraced the steps he took after exiting the portal and chasing after Dr. Huber.

He’d been through a time portal twice now. Both times he’d lost track of where he was while inside the portal. It was an indescribable feeling. He had no sense of being transported anywhere until he found himself suddenly outside the portal. In both cases he became aware of his new surroundings only after he got smacked in the face with some branches at Murphy’s Ranch — and found himself under bombardment in this bunker. He never thought to look back and see where he came from. He was looking ahead, focused on following Huber as closely as he could.  

Mike’s mind wandered. He couldn’t help thinking about what life would’ve been like if he didn’t follow Huber through the portal at Murphy’s Ranch. He and Gloria would’ve been married before too long. He’d have cleaned up his act, quit the private eye game, and become a solid citizen. A husband and father. Maybe he would’ve worked at Zack’s with Gloria and her mom. He could’ve tended bar and been the bouncer when needed. That way he and Gloria would always be together, and she wouldn’t have to worry about him working odd hours on dangerous cases.

The thought of working odd hours brought a wry smile. Now, Mike was working odd decades.

But what should he do when he found the portal? Should he destroy it before Huber got back? Should he leave Hitler to his eventual suicide four months from now? Or should he lie in wait and gun down all the lousy Nazis that showed up – then destroy the portal?

Of course, if Mike destroyed the time portal, he’d never get back to Gloria. He’d never know if she survived Horst’s bullet. He imagined traveling through the portal back to 1951 and marrying young Gloria. He fantasized about their wedding night – then shook himself. This wasn’t about him. It was about stopping a second American civil war.

Without an operational portal, he’d be just another lost soul trying to stay alive in war-torn Berlin. A guy whose German was piss poor, carrying an ID that made no sense in January of ‘45. He was in an impossible situation. And what about Huber’s “Plan B”? Did they have another portal somewhere in case the one in this bunker was destroyed? It seemed far-fetched. But what about this case wasn’t far-fetched?

It occurred to Mike that going back through this portal was his only shot to get out of this crazy mess. But how could he do it? How many passengers would Huber take into the portal with him? Would he have a new assistant to operate the damn thing? Would they station guards around it? And, if so, how many? Could he manage to secretly follow the Nazis into the portal — then kill them all after they came through at Cal Tech?

Given the two dead militia assholes Mike had left on Horst Mueller’s doorstep — and the trail of blood leading to Physics Lab #7 — what where the chances that Horst and his time portal were still in business? Was the lab now a crime scene, cordoned off and under police guard? Did Horst talk? Or did he kill himself like a loyal Nazi dead-ender before the cops busted through the door? Did he destroy his portal before it could fall into enemy hands? Would Horst have done that knowing it would leave Huber and Hitler with no way to escape the fall of Berlin – and inspire their glorious Nazi crusade in America?

Then again, Mike reminded himself that the Pasadena cops would have no way of knowing what Horst was up to in Physics Lab #7. After all, Horst was a local celebrity: a Nobel Prize winner. He was a big important man at Cal Tech. All those gizmos in his lab would be far beyond the comprehension of the cops arriving on the scene.

Horst might’ve explained his gunshot wound by pinning the blame on the same unknown assailant that had killed his two bodyguards. Hopefully, Mike’s bullet had passed through Horst’s shoulder and ballistics would be inconclusive. Maybe they hadn’t even found the bullet. In either case, the cops would ask Horst a lot of questions, but they’d have no reason to mess with Cal Tech’s expensive and obviously important laboratory equipment.  

As Mike walked down the hallway in search of the time portal, he remembered a conversation he had with Gloria just a few days ago. That night at Zack’s she said she knew why he went through the portal at Murphy’s Ranch. She said he did it because he wanted to solve the mystery. She was right. And she was still right. Mike was working one of the craziest cases in history. And as impossible as it appeared to be right now, he wanted to wrap this case up. Somehow.

As for his darling Gloria, Mike recalled a favorite line of Bogey’s from Casablanca. “I’m no good at being noble,” he told Ingrid Bergman, “But it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” He and Gloria were just two people — but the sentiment was the same. Thinking too much about her wasn’t going to help him make the best decisions right now. In this lousy bunker, Mike had to lead with his head – and not his heart.

He walked down the hallway at least fifty yards before he reached the chamber that housed the time portal. His flaming shelf had burned dangerously close to his hand, so he scanned for something else to ignite. He spotted a wastebasket full of discarded paper and other trash, set fire to it, and used the light of those flames to get a better look at the room. Where were the light switches? If he couldn’t get the lights on soon, he’d be plunged back into darkness – more than a hundred yards away from the bunker door.

He’d be in sad shape if Horst suddenly returned.

The fire in the waste basket was almost out as Mike groped along a wall in the gathering gloom. His hands arrived at a series of switches. Six of them. He toggled them all back and forth to no effect. Had Huber overridden all the electricity in the bunker when he closed the door and left? It was yet another sinking moment. The odds against Mike were getting longer.

The light from Mike’s basket fire grew dim as he moved through the room as though on a night patrol. He tied to keep calm and focus on the next step, feeling carefully along every surface, not wanting to upset anything. All this stuff might be needed to get back to 2008.

Just before the basket fire died out, Mike’s hand landed on his salvation: an angle-headed flashlight just like the one he’d carried in the Marines. The flashlight’s beam was still strong enough that Mike could search the portal chamber thoroughly. Further exploration confirmed that Dr. Huber had, indeed, shut down the bunker’s electrical system. Mike went back to the office supply cabinet and stuffed as many flashlight batteries as he could into his pockets. Then he headed back down the hallway toward the bunker door. He tucked himself into a hiding place for some much-needed shut-eye, less than twenty feet from the door through which Huber had left – and through which he might return at any time.

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December 11, 2025 · 9:37 am

My First Novel: Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Trying to enter the building Horst had just entered, Mike turned the door handle. It was locked. Of course, it was. Dr. Horst Mueller wasn’t an idiot.

Time was wasting. Mike looked to his right and saw a first story window about fifteen feet away. Beneath it was a large dumpster. It was a chance.

Climbing up onto the dumpster, Mike saw that the window was open a crack. If he could climb through that window without being detected, he could outflank anyone who might be guarding the front door. He needed some luck right now. America needed some luck.

He wedged his fingers into the space at the bottom of the window and pushed upward. The window moved, making a loud squeaking noise. If anyone but a fool was on guard, he’d surely come running toward that sound. But Mike had no choice but to shove the window open, crawl through it, draw his TEC-9 – and blast his way through to that goddamned portal if he must.

But nobody came into the room.

Mike glanced at his phone. The tracker showed Horst was somewhere to Mike’s left. At least that’s where his overcoat was. What floor Horst was on was impossible to know, but Mike knew which direction to go. He checked his TEC-9’s clip, just to be sure. Save for the one slug he put into Horst — Mike was loaded and ready for battle. But, if he got into a gunfight, he’d never be able to sneak up on Horst and Huber. The situation called for getting in close – and quiet.  

With his gun in his right hand, Mike reached with his left and drew his Marine commando knife from the sheath strapped to his shin. He’d drawn lots of blood with it in the Pacific. It was his good luck charm. He’d never left home without it.

Mike could see about twenty feet down the hallway to what looked like it might be the door that Horst would have staggered through. But he didn’t see any guards. That was odd. He figured Horst and Huber would have employed some kind of armed security — and surely their paramilitary pals would be more than happy to provide some muscle.

He couldn’t just rush in like some gung-ho Marine and hope things went his way. He had to know what he was up against. Looking down the hallway, a shadow darkened the wall, followed closely by a second shadow. Both shadows looked to be armed with long guns. The bastards had guards after all.

Moving silently and surely down the hallway, Mike knew he had the drop on these guys. But gunshots would alert Horst and Huber. Mike had to keep the element of surprise — observing the rules he learned on night raids in the jungle. Go in quietly. Get it done quietly. Get out quietly.

Mike saw the guards just seconds before he and the two shadows converged at the front door. He was bigger than either of them, but they were wearing body armor and carrying long guns. They didn’t look like grad students. They looked more like the militia nuts he saw at Murphy’s Ranch.

Flying bullets were random and chaotic. This was a time for what hardened commandos like Mike called wet work. Close-up, physical combat.

He took his commando knife from its sheath.

As the two guards walked past him, Mike bolted from his hiding place, swept in low behind them with his knife — and hamstrung both men. Before they could cry out, he slit their throats. Butchering them without an ounce of remorse. This wasn’t a police matter, or some sordid little case for a private dick. This was war.

But where were Horst and Huber? And how close were they to bringing Hitler and his pals into the future?

Mike moved with purpose in the direction from which the two unfortunate guards had come, his hip complaining loudly. Drops of blood on the white tile floor confirmed he was heading in the right direction. Luckily, the hallway led to just one windowless door. Horst and Huber were likely on the other side. As he got closer, he could hear the muffled sound of electrical buzzing and humming.

Mike’s plan was simple: open the door — surprise the two Nazi masterminds — and pump them both full of lead before they could cause any more misery. Then, he’d place an anonymous call to the cops and get back to Gloria.

Mike gripped the handle on the metal door, turning it as quietly as he could. Again, luck was with him. The door wasn’t locked. The wounded Horst must not be operating at one hundred percent. Whatever timetable he and Huber had for bringing Hitler and his regime into the future would’ve been moved up now that someone was hot on their trail. What if there were more guards on the other side of the door? No matter. Mike’s TEC-9 was on a hair trigger. More guards would only increase the body count.

Mike opened the door quietly and stepped inside — ready to blast away — but there were no armed militia boys to greet him. He crept into a small cloakroom outside a much larger room which bore the title “Physics Lab #7”. Mike could hear the agitated voices of Horst and Huber amid the hum of the time portal machinery.

He locked the door behind him, turning the knob and setting the deadbolt. He wasn’t going to let his prey escape. He crept up close to the laboratory door, listening in.

Speaking in their customary mix of German and English, Huber was telling Horst to shut up about the pain in his wounded shoulder and focus on the work at hand. He called Horst’s impulsive shooting of “some damned old woman” inexcusable. Mike didn’t like hearing anyone talk about Gloria like that, but Huber was right. Horst’s bloody trail would soon lead the cops to those two militia stiffs in the hallway – and right to Physics Lab #7. Mike figured they’d be here inside of a half hour at most.

Sure enough, Dr. Huber was rushing their ultimate plan into action right now.

Dr. Huber went over that plan one more time. Horst was to dial the portal back to January 1, 1945. Huber would emerge from the portal in Berlin and gather Hitler and his top henchmen. If the police started breaking into the lab after Huber is transported to the past, Horst was to destroy this Cal Tech portal. Huber and his Nazi cohort will then pass through the Berlin portal, emerge on today’s date in 2008, and implement plan B.  

Mike understood most of what they were saying. But plan B? The Berlin portal? This was a lot to take in all at once. Could he be hearing this right?

While the two scientists had their backs turned, Huber manipulating dials and Horst taking notes, Mike slipped through the doorway into the lab, ducking out of sight behind some Frankenstein-looking machinery. Should he just kill these creeps now? Destroy their crazy time machine? But what about this Berlin portal? Did Horst and Huber have associates in Germany ready to carry out their plan if for some reason they couldn’t? Plan C perhaps?

As he crouched down, hidden, TEC-9 at the ready, Mike wondered whether it would be a mistake to bump these guys off without truly wrapping up the case: without making sure there’s no way a time-traveling Hitler could escape the fate that history had already recorded? What effect would his miraculous survival and emergence in 2008 have on everything that’s happened in the world since he was supposed to have killed himself in the Fuhrerbunker?

Mike shook his head. These were big thoughts for a guy with less than two years of college.

Just as he did back at Murphy’s Ranch on December 12, 1951 – somehow only six days ago – Mike made a bold decision. He’d follow Huber into the portal. This time into the past. He’d do his best to make damn sure Hitler and his henchmen stayed dead. He wasn’t going to let Gloria take a bullet for nothing. He wasn’t going to let all those gun-toting, racist militia morons rally around the second coming of Hitler. Hell no.

Huber barked final instructions to Horst, who flipped a couple of switches in response. The portal’s machinery hummed at a higher pitch. Raising their hands in salute, the two conspirators exchanged an emotional “Seig Heil!”

Then, Dr. Huber strode into the portal for his trip back to January 1, 1945.

While Horst focused on his time machine’s control panel, Mike crawled unseen toward the portal. Just then, there was a loud banging and shouting at the door. The cops had already arrived! Horst turned his head toward the commotion, freezing for a moment as urgent voices demanded immediate entrance. With Horst momentarily distracted, Mike slipped into the portal.

Ignoring the clamor at the door, Horst turned his attention back to the portal’s controls. He threw one last switch, sending the portal’s occupants back 63 years in time.

As before, there were no sci-fi pyrotechnics inside the portal. Mike experienced no distinct line between present and past. He couldn’t see anything ahead of him. It was as though he was in a cloud. It was surreal. A waking dream.

Mike tried to push away thoughts of Gloria and whether she was going to be okay. He had to focus on staying alive long enough to stop unspeakable horrors from happening. Dr. Huber was somewhere up ahead of him, passing through the portal, moving toward a hideous rendezvous. An appointment with evil.

Suddenly, Mike could see clearly as he emerged from the portal, his adrenaline pumping. He was in the hallway of what appeared to be an underground bunker. Overhead he heard the high-pitched scream of a falling bomb – followed by a blast that shook the ceiling and nearly knock him off his feet. Concrete dust showered him. The smell of cordite was in the air.

Mike was back in the war.

Through the dusty haze and flickering electric light, he saw Huber just five yards ahead of him, getting up slowly from the floor, shaken by the blast. Huber gripped his knee, then began limping down the long hallway. The old scientist never looked back to see if he was being followed. Why would he? He had every reason to think he was alone. And even if he did look back, he wouldn’t see Mike in pursuit. Mike was good at this game.

Upon reaching the bunker’s large, heavy, cast-iron door, Huber sat down and rubbed his injured knee. Outside, the sounds of the air raid continued: the whistling of the falling bombs, the explosions, and the wailing of sirens. It looked like Huber was going to wait until the “all clear” signal sounded before leaving the bunker. It was a good call. It also gave Mike, hidden in the shadows about twenty feet away, a chance to catch his breath and assess the situation.

He had Huber in sight – and the game was on! But Mike had no tracking device on Huber, so he’d have to keep track of his target the normal way. Stalking Huber through the bombed-out streets of Berlin wasn’t going to be easy. For one thing Mike couldn’t trail anybody while dressed in clothes from 2008. He’d have to find something else to wear, perhaps from someone killed in the bombing. Civilian clothes? A uniform? Civies might give him more freedom of movement. If Mike was spotted on the street in uniform, some officer might give him orders he’d have to obey. Orders he wouldn’t completely understand.

Again, Mike wished he’d learned more German growing up.  

Identification was another problem. His California driver’s license, issued in 1948, was worse than useless. It was an absurdity. He’d need to steal an identity. Perhaps from the same corpse who provided his clothes?

Mike’s thoughts were interrupted when another bomb came whistling down, exploding somewhere above the bunker and showering him with another layer of concrete dust. The lights flickered. He was in wartime Berlin alright.

The Allies had been bombing Berlin since ‘43. Mike had read all about those daring daylight raids in The Stars & Stripes when he was at Pearl Harbor, ready to ship out to the South Pacific. It was good news at the time. By ‘45, the tempo of the raids picked up, and large parts of Berlin were reduced to rubble. That’s what was going on up above.

Mike also knew that four hundred miles away in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest, the Nazis’ last big offensive of the war was about to fail. By January 25th – a little more than three weeks away — the Germans will lose the Battle of the Bulge, and retreat to fortifications along Germany’s western border. By April, the Allies will break through the Siegfried Line and close in on Berlin. Russian troops will be marching on the city from the east.

Time was running out for Hitler and his godawful regime. Dr. Huber hoped to throw them a lifeline that stretched into the future. But how did Huber and Horst manage to build a time portal in a Berlin bunker? And does that question even matter now?

Mike thought back to when he was eavesdropping on Horst and Huber at Murphy’s Ranch less than a week ago — back in ’51. Huber had given his protégé fifty-seven years to refine their time portal and build another one in Berlin. As nuts as that sounded to Mike at the time, it now made sense. Horst must have eventually advanced their Cal Tech portal to the point that he could travel back in time months or maybe even years before January of ‘45, ferrying the equipment he needed to build this secret portal in Berlin.

The “all clear” signal had yet to sound. Clearly, old Dr. Huber wasn’t going anywhere for a while, so Mike had a bit more time to think.

It’s possible Huber might’ve gotten permission to build his time portal from the Fuhrer himself. Why not? Hitler always tried to be ahead of the technological curve. He had a secret program to develop Wunderwaffe – high-tech wonder weapons like the supersonic V2 rocket, radio-controlled missiles, and an atomic bomb. If a certified scientific genius like Dr. Otto Huber presented an ambitious plan to build a time machine that would allow the Fuhrer and his top lieutenants to escape the fall of Germany, why not give him a shot?

At this point, Mike was ready to believe anything was possible.

But what would Mike do when the bunker door opened? This wasn’t like storming the beach with a platoon of Marines. Young as they were, Mike and his Leatherneck pals knew what they were going up against on those islands. They’d drilled and trained for it as a unit. They were supported by the navy’s big guns, blasting away at the enemy hidden in the tree line. They didn’t need any ID other than their dog tags — and they didn’t need to find new clothes…

The “all clear” siren began to wail.

For Mike, that siren was not an entirely welcome sound. He would soon be outside, facing lots of unknowns as he tried to stay close to Huber. He wondered if he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he should have stayed with Gloria and made certain she was okay. But how could he and Gloria live happily ever after knowing that he’d allowed the worst person in history to travel through time and lead an army of gun-crazy, racist nuts in a new American civil war? The mass killings were already underway. The Bund Boys, Oath Takers, Aryan Patriots and the rest had started slaughtering those who weren’t like them: innocent folk who didn’t think, worship, or vote like them.

Adding actual Third Reich Nazis to that madhouse mix was unthinkable.     

Mike watched from the shadows as Dr. Huber got up slowly, still favoring his gimpy knee. He punched a few buttons on a console next to the door, which was held closed by a series of bars, bolts, and locks. He heard metal grinding against concrete as the massive door slowly opened. A widening shaft of sunlight came through the doorway, revealing a flight of stairs — and chilling blast of wintry air reminded Mike that he wasn’t in southern California anymore.

Suddenly, he had an epiphany. Dr. Huber didn’t know he was being followed. Had no idea who Mike was or what he looked like. That was Mike’s edge. He had to think and move fast. Race to the door, brush past Huber, sprint up the stairs, hide somewhere on the street — and wait for Huber to emerge from the bunker. Then again, wouldn’t that spook Huber? He didn’t even know whether Huber was armed. Mike had scant seconds to act.

Then, a thought flashed in his weary mind — and he caught himself. What the hell was he thinking? The time portal is in this bunker! Why would Mike ever leave it? That would be the dumbest thing he could possibly do. There was no need to track Huber back and forth on his rendezvous with Hitler and company. They’d all have to come back to this bunker – or there’d be no trip to the future. All Mike had to do was stay here and wait for Horst to return with them.

Mike stayed put as Huber stepped through the doorway into the sunlight — and the door closed behind him with a slam that echoed down the long halls of the bunker. The door’s closing turned out all the lights and triggered a mechanism by which the locks, bolts, and bars all slid back into place, sealing the door again.

Now, Mike had no choice. He was stuck in the bunker for the duration. He’d use the time to plan his reception party for the Nazi honchos. He felt for his good-luck knife strapped to his leg. Still there if he needed it. He checked the ammo in his TEC-9 and Horst’s Luger. There were forty-eight rounds left in the TEC-9 and seven in Horst’s Luger. The only bullet missing from the Luger was now in Gloria’s arm. His thoughts returned to Gloria. Was she okay? Was she alive?

Of course, she was alive. He couldn’t entertain any other thought.

Dog tired, Mike sat in the now-quiet darkness. He thought about the bombing raid: a moving blanket of destruction and death. It sounded like the bombers had made two runs over the area. Those flyboys, he figured, must not be all that threatened by what was left of Jerry’s air defenses. Goering’s vaunted Luftwaffe was short on fuel and losing planes and pilots it couldn’t replace. It was no longer capable of shielding the Fatherland. So, the U.S. Eighth Air Force was piling it on.

One month from now, fifteen-hundred American bombers would hit the center of Berlin in one of the largest bombing raids of the war. Mike didn’t want to be in town on that deadly day.

His stomach grumbled. It was way past lunch time.

An awful question chilled Mike’s blood. What if there wasn’t any food in here? If Huber didn’t come back for days – or weeks — how would he survive? Mike took a deep breath. Panic wasn’t going to help. He had to keep positive. Rather than stalking desperate Nazis through the smoldering ruins of Berlin, he’d hunt for food in the bunker.

He had reason to be optimistic. Bunkers like these were built for survival, right? What bomb shelter wouldn’t be stocked with lots of stuff to eat? But it was nearly pitch-black inside. There was now no light in the bunker aside from a thin line of sunlight above its closed iron door. That thin shaft of light didn’t travel very far into the interior. Mike had hundreds of feet of blackness to explore.

He reached into his pocket and found a matchbook. Knowing he had to use this limited resource wisely, he struck a match — which flared, shedding a faint light down a long hallway. The time portal was somewhere back there in the deepest, darkest shadows. But right now, time travel wasn’t top of mind. Mike needed light and warmth. He had to build a fire, then search for food. Starvation wouldn’t help him complete his mission.

With no idea when Herr Huber might return with the Nazi hierarchy in tow, Mike had to stay alive long enough to prevent the insanity of a Third Reich restoration in America. And hopefully, somehow, he could return to Gloria. All he needed was some light in the darkness — and as much good luck as he could possibly get.

Mike walked slowly down the hallway, lighting a new match every twenty-five feet until it burned his fingertips. Once he got a good look inside the bunker — he’d have a better grip on his situation.

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December 7, 2025 · 5:58 pm

My First Novel: Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Early the next morning, Mike woke up next to Gloria, delighted to be in her bed – but worried sick about everything else. The “Rustic Canyon Shootout” had been on the news all night — and Mike had no idea what his next move should be. Gloria rolled over, stunning in the morning light, and kissed him in a way that crossed all his weary wires. “Let’s talk over breakfast, baby,” she said, soothing him amid the madness.

The television was off as Gloria cooked up French toast, eggs, and bacon while Mike scanned the Los Angeles Times. The headlines screamed that Rustic Canyon had been the scene of deadly mayhem the night before. Two cops and a dozen militiamen had been killed — but nobody was certain what the shooting was all about. Nobody but Mike and Gloria and Andy.

Mike shoveled scrambled eggs into his mouth as Gloria filled his cup with coffee. Mike wished it could just stay this way: he and Gloria waking up together, having breakfast and enjoying each other’s company. It was a pipe dream, of course. Their destiny was anything but clear – and none of this would ever be normal. Normal disappeared back in ‘51. Now, the best they could do was take things one day at a time. Love each other one day at a time.

After breakfast, at 9:00 AM, Gloria drove Mike to Andy’s place.

“You really stirred up a hornets’ nest last night, pal. ‘The Rustic Canyon Shootout!’ Nice, stealthy work, my friend.”

Andy Pafko looked around to see it any of his neighbors were paying attention, then he ushered Mike and Gloria into his house. “Did you get the goods on video?”

“I got the whole meeting,” said Mike, somewhat defensively. “At least I got what they were saying. It was hard as hell to see anything without giving myself away.”

“Looks like you absolutely gave yourself away, partner,” said Andy with a pained smile. “Who shot first? You or the bad guys?”

“The bad guys. I tripped over a bush. They heard the sound and started shooting at me. Luckily, they couldn’t see me.”

“Hope you dropped ‘em all, buddy.”

“I’m not sure I hit anybody, Andy. I was firing blind. I got out of there before the bullets really started flying.”

“Gotta tell ya, pal — the shit truly hit the fan last night. In spades. Have some coffee and I’ll fill you in on what my pals on the force are telling me.”

Mike and Gloria took a seat at Andy’s small Formica kitchen table as Andy poured three cups of steaming hot coffee and launched into a description of the violent events of the night before – just as his police contacts relayed it to him.

“They found a bunch of dead bodies, Mike. Some by the side of Sullivan Ridge Road, some on and around the stairs leading down into that crazy old Nazi compound. And at least four near some cinder block building with a lot of crazy graffiti.”

“Graffiti?” Mike didn’t know the word.

“That wild spray painting the kids do nowadays.”

“That stuff that looks like Picasso?”

“If you say so, Mike. It’s just vandalism.”

Mike knew he was probably the guy responsible for the bodies near the blockhouse. They were lucky shots. He couldn’t see who he was shooting at. All he did was return fire in the direction of the muzzle flashes. Combat instinct took over.

Gloria kept silent until now. She looked at Mike, her eyes narrowing with concern. “How many guys do you think you killed, Mike? And how many were killed by the cops?” She sounded more like his lawyer than his lover.

Mike knew he likely dropped the guys near the blockhouse, and maybe he shot two or three on the concrete stairs – but nobody on Sullivan Ridge Road. The bad guys hadn’t gotten that far before Mike made his escape. The assholes gunned down on the road must’ve been courtesy of the cops.

“Relax, Gloria,” said Andy. “Your time-traveling fiancé isn’t a suspect.”

Andy turned to Mike, hard as stone.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Mike. You, my friend, don’t exist. And even if they could trace some bullets back to my TEC-9 – and odds are they can’t — how could an old guy in a wheelchair get into a gun battle, late at night, hundreds of steps down into a canyon? In that case, my gun must’ve been stolen, right? You’re home free, pal. You’re a freaking impossibility.”

Andy was right.  Mike didn’t really exist. He was here — but his presence was impossible. That was his one great advantage. Horst and Huber were the only other people on Earth who could possibly understand the insanity of Mike’s situation. And they had no clue that he was on their trail.

Andy tuned in the TV to catch up on the latest updates. The “Rustic Canyon Shootout” was still big news. Reports revealed that at least ten members of various right-wing paramilitary militia groups had been killed — and that several cases of high-powered assault rifles were seized in a concrete building on the site of a ruined compound that once belonged to Nazi sympathizers in the years before Pearl Harbor.

“They’re doing their research,” grinned Andy. “Accent on ‘Nazi.’ Let that sink in.”

When Mike heard the reference to “several cases” of assault rifles, he had two thoughts. He had seen at least a dozen cases stacked in the blockhouse. One thought was that the authorities were covering up the scope of the situation. The other was that the militia boys had made off with the rest before the cops shot their way down into the canyon. Mike’s second thought was far worse than his first.

Reporters and experts were speculating that a fight between militia groups may have broken out over possession of all those assault weapons. Mike knew that was bullshit — but he kept the thought to himself. There were lots of questions about where the weapons came from. Mike knew all the answers. But who would believe him?

Andy looked Mike in the eye — serious as a heart attack. “Mike,” he said. “We’re on the verge of civil war.”

Mike was way ahead of him. He gave Gloria a look that was grim, determined, and honestly scared: the kind of look he gave to his Marine pals just before they jumped off the landing craft and waded ashore under fire. She tightened her grip on his arm.

“I hate to tell you, Mike” said Andy, “but this country is seriously FUBAR. And you know what that means. You’ve got millions of self-professed American patriots in rural pockets of this country who get hard thinking about an armed insurrection against the U.S. government. That’s coming from the FBI, the CIA, and the military. All these nuts own guns and, what’s worse, a lot of these douche bags have served in the U.S. military. They took a sacred oath to defend our country – and now they’re all jacked up about overthrowing the government.”

“I know, Andy. I’ve seen them. I’ve heard them. I watched them listening to those old Nazi bastards. They ate up every crazy, racist, fascist thing that Horst and Huber told them. It was all I could do not to open fire and mow them all down on the spot!”

Gloria squeezed Mike’s arm harder than before, grateful her man had kept his cool.

Andy went on. “These nut jobs believe in what they call ‘The Great Replacement’. They say that billionaire Jews are flooding the country with black and Hispanic immigrants who will take their jobs for less pay. They’re scared shitless that colored folk will wind up with the same rights they’ve got. They’ll burn the whole country down before they let white folks become the minority. And they’re dead serious. It’s not a game, Mike. They’re pumped up to where it’s existential for them. A lot of them are ready to go out in a blaze of glory.”

“No shit, Andy. I saw that for myself.”

“So, what did you get on video that’ll help us take these bastards down?”

Mike handed his iPhone to Gloria. She played the recorded video for Andy.

The old cop was stunned by what he saw and heard. It was insane, of course. For a start, the inexplicable presence of Dr. Otto Huber: ageless after fifty-seven years. Even if the authorities could somehow identify Huber, what would they make of his apparent visit to the fountain of youth? And how would they react to seeing a highly regarded Nobel Prize-winning Cal Tech physics professor on the scene?

But, strange as the appearance of the two German scientists was, the incendiary things that they said, the militia yahoos that were gathered, the open threats of violence — and all those automatic rifles waved around — might give Andy just what he needed to get one of his friends at the FBI to dip a cautious toe or two into all this craziness. Especially now that shots had been fired and it was now a big news story. Andy said he’d get the video to a friend in the FBI that very day. He warned Mike to be careful. Mike didn’t need to be warned.

On their way back to Gloria’s, Mike turned on the radio. Suddenly, the madness was horribly worse. The news was reporting that three mass shootings had occurred that morning in towns between Los Angeles and San Diego — Long Beach, Carlsbad, and La Jolla. High-powered automatic rifles were used in each case. The victims were in Hispanic, black, and Asian neighborhoods. The cops who responded were outgunned. Casualty counts were high among victims, responding cops, and assailants. The gunmen appeared to be targeting law enforcement as much as minority communities.

Mike’s heart sank. His clumsy stumble outside the blockhouse had prematurely set all this violence in motion. He saw right away that the militia boys weren’t waiting for Huber and Horst to call the next move. The old Nazi brain trust’s big plans were now out the window. The militia yahoos were getting their Helter-Skelter on without direction from anybody. A lot of pent-up white resentment and fury was exploding with no grand coordination.

But, Mike feared, if those two old Nazis scientists could put their time-travel plans into effect and add Hitler and his cohort to the mix, it might inspire these militia nuts to rally around the Fuhrer — and make things infinitely worse. Mike couldn’t believe he had to think about loony crap like this. Even crazier, he knew he might be the only guy in the world who could keep a lid on all this madness. That old shrapnel pain flared in his hip.

Old wounds meet new wounds.

By the time Mike and Gloria got home cable news was reporting that a black nightclub in Long Beach was attacked, killing fifty people. A security guard gunned down one of the three assailants: a thirty-something white man, dressed in full body armor and armed with an AR-15 and several clips of ammunition. “The motive for the attack is unknown,” said the reporter.  But Mike knew the motive all too well.

In Carlsbad, a popular Mexican restaurant was shot up by as many as three masked men armed with semi-automatic rifles. Twenty Hispanic diners were dead. The gunmen were on the loose. Mike’s stomach was in knots.

But there was more.

In La Jolla, two heavily armed men shot up a marketplace in an Asian neighborhood. Twelve people were dead. Dozens wounded. Witnesses said the gunmen sprayed the crowd with automatic rifle fire. The shooters could not be identified — but Mike knew who they were — and it ate at him. Was this the world that he and his Marine brothers fought their bloody way through the Pacific to save?

As a cop, Mike dealt with lots of murders — nasty and brutal as they were. But those killings were mostly drunken rage, domestic violence, and gangsters fighting their deadly wars over territory. Now, he had to wrap his head around something far worse. Violence on a vast scale. Racist mass murder by white nationalists. He’d fought this kind of crap back when it was called “fascism” and “Nazism.”

His stomach churned. How could he stop the madness?

Mike knew he had to get back on Huber and Horst’s trail as soon as he could. He trusted that Andy would give his contact at the FBI the video from Murphy’s Ranch, but Mike also knew the Feds were usually slow to move, especially where politics were involved. Besides, what he recorded at Murphy’s Ranch was totally nuts. If the Feds ran down the details on Dr. Otto Huber, how could that old Nazi’s presence possibly be explained? They’d want to ask the guy behind the camera a lot of questions. And that guy was not available for questioning.

Mike’s head was spinning. He couldn’t control what the Feds would do or wouldn’t do. But he had to do something – and quick. He couldn’t wait for any official blessing to make his next move. And why should he?  

After all, he didn’t exist, did he?

What stung Mike most was that LA cops had died at Murphy’s Ranch because of his stumble. And too many people had already been killed by those murderous militia nutcases. He couldn’t just sit on his hands. But where to start? He couldn’t go back to Murphy’s Ranch. It was crawling with crime scene investigators.

Where would Horst and Huber go?

Gloria sat at her kitchen table, glued to the TV. A reporter confirmed that three crates of automatic rifles had been seized at the scene of the Rustic Canyon Shootout. Mike’s ears perked up. Just three cases? Where the hell did the rest of those guns go? A lot of deadly firepower was missing.

Mike knew the shooting – and the dying – had only just begun.

Four hours after they left Andy’s house, Gloria’s phone rang. It was Andy. She handed it to Mike. Andy was blunt.

“Mike. Your Murphy’s Ranch video is already stirring up a shitstorm in official circles. They want to know who was behind the camera, but I told them the guy’s operating in deep cover to infiltrate the militias. I don’t know what the FBI’s next move is gonna be — but everybody’s hair is on fire! We’ve got dead cops, right-wing nut jobs, mass shootings across Southern California, and a cache of high-powered rifles. The Feds know there’s a lot more guns out there, and they’re trying to track them down. They’re jumping on it, Mike, but they don’t know what you know.”

Andy made it clear. “They have no clue about this whole time-travel insanity. They’ll never figure it out. How the hell could they? That’s why you’ve got to take the point.”

“Take the point.”

Mike knew what that meant. Take the lead. Walk down a deadly trail into the unknown. Walking point is how that damned shrapnel got lodged in his hip.

“Stick with Huber and Mueller,” Andy implored. “Dog their every step. I can’t believe I’m fucking saying this, but after the gunfight at Murphy’s Ranch, they’ll be stepping up their time-travel plans, right? They’ll be trying to bring their Nazi pals into the future as soon as possible: Hitler, Himmler, Goehring — the whole unholy bunch! We can’t have those Nazi shit-bags coming back. We kicked their asses back in ‘45. No way we want to fight them again on our home turf.”

Andy went on. “You’re gonna get a delivery in the next hour or so. It’s a tracking device. You don’t know shit about this kind of thing, Mike, ‘cuz you’re just a 50’s private dick – but if you can pin a tracker on one of those Nazi bastards, it’ll lead you to their time machine or whatever the fuck it is. It’s down to you now, pal. The Feds are putting out fires everywhere – but they can’t comprehend how the fires started. The video you shot is a clue, but they’ll never wrap their heads around it in time.”

Andy’s words rang in Mike’s ears. The time-travel madness was all too real. Mike was the only guy who had a chance to do something about it. He had to stay on Huber and Horst’s trail. The old Nazi scientists might be momentarily stunned by the undisciplined, random violence of the last twenty-four hours –and that might give him a slim advantage.

It was nearing 2:30 PM when Andy’s tracking gizmo arrived. There was just enough time for Gloria to drive Mike to Pasadena, where he could tag Horst or Huber with the tracker, and follow one of those Nazi bastards to their time machine. He would need more than a little luck.

But that was always the case when a guy took the point.

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December 6, 2025 · 11:39 am

My First Novel: Chapter Fourteen

And now, once again, we present the further adventures of private eye Mike Delaney. Let me know who’s reading!

Chapter Fourteen

By the time Mike reached Zack’s it was almost 11:00 pm. Exhausted, he sat on the rocks below the bar’s back deck, as the swells crashed against the shore. He was nearly frozen, but he paused before going inside to see Gloria. The waves had calmed down. But Mike was anything but calm.

He’d made his escape from Murphy’s Ranch, but he’d made a hash of what was supposed to be a surveillance mission. Because of his clumsiness, it turned into a gun battle. Luckily, he wasn’t wounded. But he wondered if he’d hit anyone. If he’d killed anyone. And what happened when the cops finally arrived? Did Horst and Huber get away? And, if they did — what would be their next move?

One thing was sure. Mike had just thrown a wrench into their plans.

His uneasy thoughts somewhat eased, Mike went inside. Gina was behind the bar, serving a half dozen guys. She looked up, saw Mike, and gestured to where Gloria was waiting for him in her booth. Mike nodded and smiled at Gina. He was still struggling with the fact that she was Gloria’s granddaughter. Had Gloria told her anything about him yet? About Gloria and him? That would be some crazy conversation.

“Took you a while, Mike,” said Gloria, as Mike slid into the booth across from her.  “Take your coat off and relax. You look like you need a drink or two.”

In an instant, Gina appeared with a bourbon on the rocks, set it down in front of Mike, and went back to the bar. Maybe Gloria had told her something about him. He took a long sip of his drink. He’d need several more after all he’d been through.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened? Or do we play twenty questions again?”

Mike took another sip and leaned back with a wince. He ached in more places than his hip. “Tonight, baby…” He paused to collect himself, “…was wild. Totally nuts. I’ll try to explain it when we get back to your place.”

“Back to my place? You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

Mike blushed. She was teasing him. Or was she?

“I’m sorry, baby. I just don’t think this is the best place to talk.”

Gloria smiled. Her face betrayed concern, but she knew Mike needed a break.

“Fine. So, let’s just enjoy our drinks and talk about the weather. And how cute you are in your brand-new clothes.” Mike blushed again. “Which you seem to have gotten awful dirty tonight.”

They exchanged a knowing look, then sipped their drinks in silence for a time, until that silence was broken by a loud voice at the bar.

“Holy shit! That’s just down the road! Turn up the TV, Gina!”

Mike and Gloria looked toward the bar. All the guys had put their drinks down and were staring at the three televisions over the bar. All three TV stations appeared to be covering the same story. Gina turned up the volume on one set so loud that Mike and Gloria could hear the news anchor clearly from their booth.

“Around 9:00 pm this evening, police responded to reports of gunshots heard in Rustic Canyon below Sullivan Ridge Road in the Pacific Palisades…”

Gloria reached for Mike’s hand and squeezed it. Mike gave her a quick glance, rolled his eyes, and turned back to the TV.

“We go now to our reporter on the scene, Jeff Calderone, for more details. Jeff? We know that neighbors heard gunshots and called the police. What more can you tell us?”

“LAPD is being tight-lipped at this point, but we can report that several police units responded to the scene – an area known to locals as Murphy’s Ranch. The first units to arrive were met with gunfire coming from the woods on the canyon side of the road, and at least one officer was seriously wounded…”

Mike winced. It was his worst nightmare. That some poor cop might pay for his mistake. The reporter went on.

“Police on the scene returned fire but report being seriously outgunned. SWAT teams were called in, and helicopters trained their searchlights on Rustic Canyon. The copters were fired upon, too. Once the SWAT teams arrived, the police used loudspeakers to call upon the shooters to surrender. Eventually the gunfire stopped, and an armored SWAT vehicle knocked down the fence so a SWAT team in full combat gear could move down into the canyon. Cops I’ve talked to compare it to a war zone.”

Mike wondered what kind of arrests had been made. And how many.

“Two pickup trucks were pulled over about a mile or so from here on Pacific Coast Highway, and several men were taken into custody. It appears that more shots were exchanged before the arrests were made. No word on casualties…”

Gloria was squeezing Mike’s hand so hard it hurt. He turned back to look at her. She looked scared. If she only knew how scared he was. Not for his own safety, but for the cops who came up against those gun-crazy militia nuts. And he feared for his country. It began by accident when he tripped over that stupid bush — but the first shots of a possible civil war had been fired.

The first blood had been shed.

Back at Gloria’s beach house, a half-empty bottle of bourbon sat on the coffee table – and the Rustic Canyon shootout was still all over the TV news. Mike and Gloria sat side by side on the couch, stunned by the breathless reporting of what was fast becoming a national news story. Mike was amazed that every channel soon had its own custom-made “Rustic Canyon Shootout” graphics.

Mike couldn’t believe it. He expected a story in the morning papers. That is, if the writer could get it to his editor fast enough and the type could be set before the presses ran. Back in Mike’s day, which was, incredibly, only several days ago for him — there were only fifteen minutes of TV news a day. And the four TV channels went off the air at 11:00 pm. Now, television never went to sleep. And some channels appeared to be covering the news twenty-four hours a day.

All night long, more details of the mass shooting at Murphy’s Ranch emerged.

At 2:00 in the morning a reporter gave the latest update. At least three police officers were shot in the crossfire. One in critical condition. Sources said that more than a half-dozen armed gunmen were shot in the exchange of fire with SWAT team members along Sullivan Ridge Road and down in Rustic Canyon. Unofficial reports from those on the scene suggest that some of the gunmen were wearing body armor, and that at least four or five were found dead…”

Mike put his arm around Gloria and held her tight. Too tight.

“Relax, honey,” she said, “Let’s turn it off and go to bed. You’ll need your rest for whatever the hell is coming next.”

“I had to defend myself, baby. Those crazy bastards. You should’ve heard ‘em — eating up everything those sick old Nazis were saying. I wanted to kill them all right then and there. Maybe I should’ve…”

Gloria dialed Mike down. “There’s nothing more you can do about any of this tonight,” she said. “We’ll go see Andy first thing tomorrow. He might know more than the TV people do.”

After a few more drinks, Mike and Gloria went to bed. She gave her exhausted lover a kiss — and Mike responded with unexpected enthusiasm. Escaping a deadly gun battle hadn’t cooled his ardor.

“Get some sleep, baby,” Gloria advised, in a voice that made it hard for Mike to do what he was told. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you.”

She turned out the light.

After a few more drinks, Mike and Gloria went to bed. She gave her exhausted lover a kiss — and Mike responded with unexpected enthusiasm. Escaping a deadly gun battle hadn’t cooled his ardor.

“Get some sleep, baby,” Gloria advised, in a voice that made it hard for Mike to do what he was told. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you.”

She turned out the light.

Gloria was right. Mike needed a rest. He hugged her close. Despite the violent insanity he was dealing with, Mike was thrilled to be spending another blessed night with Gloria. The difference in years meant nothing. Being with her was wholly, soulfully satisfying — if only this time-traveling Nazi crap wasn’t part of the bargain. He ached for the years they’d lost.

Aided by the bourbon, he allowed his troubled mind to surrender to momentary oblivion.

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December 2, 2025 · 11:09 am

My First Novel: Chapter Thirteen

Please enjoy the further adventures of private detective Mike Delaney. And let me know you’re reading!

Chapter Thirteen

Gloria drove Mike south down Pacific Coast Highway and turned left on Sullivan Ridge toward the rendezvous at Murphy’s Ranch. All Gloria knew is that she wanted her Mike to nail these sickos and come back safe. After that, they’d figure out the future. When the smoke cleared, and Mike was still standing, they’d sort the crazy age thing out.

Or not. It was way too early to know for sure.

Gloria dropped Mike off near the overgrown gate to Murphy’s Ranch. He was early and there was still some waning sunlight.

“I’ll phone you after the meeting, baby.” Mike took Gloria by her shoulders. Maybe his grip was too strong. “Pick me up on PCH. I’ll let you know.”

“Be careful, Mike. I couldn’t bear losing you again.”

To lighten the mood a little, Mike gave her his best Bogie.

“Here’s looking at you kid.”

Her smile betrayed her concern. “You’re a real jerk. You know that?”

Mike leaned in and kissed Gloria goodbye for the second, and perhaps, the last time. He watched as she drove off. He knew he was nuts to risk losing her again. But, just like Bogie said, this thing was bigger than the problems of two little people.

Mike made his quiet way over the gate and down the crazy concrete steps to the site where Horst and Huber’s rendezvous was set to occur. Andy’s TEC-9 felt heavy in Mike’s overcoat pocket. It wasn’t his weapon of choice. In fact, he’d never even fired it. If he had to pull the trigger, he hoped the damned thing would work. He had his trusty .45 in his jacket, which eased his mind. And his old combat knife was strapped to his shin. Still, he’d rather avoid trading bullets or a blade with these militia guys.

Mike re-traced his way toward the cinder block building where he first encountered Horst and Huber and their time portal. He wasn’t entirely sure how far he was from it, but he knew it had to be close. He wished he was as certain about his mission. Get the goods tonight on Huber and Horst and their militia pals. Sure. And then what?

He reminded himself to focus on the task at hand.

Mike’s job was to get what folks in law enforcement and the military call actionable intelligence: something that would convince the authorities to act. If he could film Horst and Huber handing out weapons to a bunch of militia crazies, it might convince Andy’s friends at the Bureau to move on these creeps.

It was another frigid night, but this time he was wearing a nice warm winter coat and a black ski mask. Gloria had dressed him perfectly. Gloria. It was too easy to let his mind wander to Gloria — and a wandering mind could get him killed tonight.

Mike was surprised to see that there was just a single armed militia guy guarding the building. He was even more shocked when, after a few minutes, that lone guard took a last look around and went inside. Now there was nobody standing guard.

These guys seemed pretty sure that their meeting was a secret. Of course, Mike was early, so maybe the security boys had yet to arrive. For the next thirty minutes, Mike watched from his hiding place as Huber and Horst waited for their conspirators to gather.

The rising moon shed just enough light on the groups as they arrived: young and middle-aged men, all but a few of them lily white. There were lots of beards and camouflage. Some wore more tactical gear and body armor than Mike had been issued in the Pacific. It was like Halloween for grown boys who never stopped playing army. He wondered how many of these dopes had actually served their country in uniform. He knew he’d be disappointed in the answer.

Mike tried to film the arrivals, but the moonlight wasn’t bright enough to see anything but silhouettes on camera. He kept his iPhone camera rolling anyway. Maybe the FBI lab could blow the footage up or something? They probably had some newfangled process he knew nothing about. There was so much that he knew nothing about.

Finally, the meeting got underway.

Mike could hear Horst and Huber greeting the men as they gathered inside. Careful not to be seen, he worked his way to the back of the building, on the opposite side from the door, and crept up close to a window. He could hear most of what was being said, though he couldn’t see who was speaking. The leaders of various militia groups introduced themselves to their Nazi hosts: Bund Boys, Oath Takers, Aryan Patriots, Boogaloo Boyz, and more.

The assembled expressed their allegiance to the sacred task of purging the country of leftists, Godless socialism, Jews, non-whites, and homosexuals. Their goal was to make the United States a white Christian nation – and to do it by force, if necessary. And now, evidently, they thought it was necessary.

While the militia guys were spouting their claptrap, Mike stole a peek through the window and saw that Horst and Huber’s time portal was no longer in the room. Horst must have rebuilt it somewhere else. Maybe at Cal Tech? Not likely. He’d need a more private, remote spot to secretly modify a large machine like that. But that was a problem for another time. Right now, Mike had to learn how the Nazis planned to advance their plot – and use these gun-loving yahoos as pawns in their game.

Horst brought up “Helter-Skelter” again. That got the guys all hot and bothered. “It’s true that Manson failed to ignite a race war in ‘69. But his followers were willing to shed blood to carry out his vision. They were just kids, drug addicts and perverts. If true, clean-living patriots like you men gathered here tonight dedicate yourselves to purging America of the communists, elite intellectuals, and ethnic scum who debase the white Christian foundations of this nation – how can we not achieve a glorious victory!” 

It was a speech designed for a Munich beer hall, and more than one man, aroused with a violent passion, began to cheer. But Dr. Huber, his eyes flaring with anger, raised his arms to quiet them.

“Gentlemen!” Huber hissed, in a steely tone that silenced the room, “We must be disciplined. We must work silently. We must move in the shadows. In the great war, the Allies had a slogan, ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ They were correct. Our U-boats feasted on their shipping because of fools who talked too much.”

Dr. Huber eyeballed each man, stalking through the room like a Gestapo officer sniffing out a traitor in his midst. “We are here to help you, gentlemen. But you must maintain strict order. This is not a cowboy movie. It’s not a sporting event. This is war. We are defending our people against the destruction of all we hold dear — and the righteous anger of almighty God.”

From Mike’s point of view below the window, he could barely see as Huber, with dramatic flair, parted the crowd, revealing dozens of long wooden boxes stacked in the back of the building.

Dr. Huber opened one of the boxes, revealing a cache of weapons unlike any Mike had ever seen before. Horst piped in to say, with pride, that they were “AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifles.” The crowd murmured with excitement. Many of the militia men said they’d seen AR-15s before. Some even owned one. But nobody had seen this many in once place. Again, Huber silenced them.

“Some of you may already know of such a weapon. But I assure you, you’ll soon be armed with many more than you see here. And through the genius of my colleague, Dr. Mueller, all these guns have been rendered fully automatic.”

That brought the crowd to rapt attention. Fully automatic. A gun fetishist’s dream.

Horst beamed at Dr. Huber’s praise. Despite his arrogance, his scientific achievements, and his Nobel Prize, Horst was — on a fundamental level — still Huber’s fawning protégé.

Now, Horst took the floor.

“These fully automatic rifles will be difference makers in our battles to come. A semi-automatic AR-15, like those many of you patriots already have, can fire four hundred rounds a minute. But a fully automatic AR-15 can fire eight to nine hundred rounds per minute: more than double the firepower of the guns you currently possess.”

“These lethal weapons will help us trigger a great civil war between the white man and the racial and ethnic trash — a battle in which the thin layer of weak, feminized, liberal society in America must confront the holy power of a stout, patriotic, white Christian manhood.”

Horst held an AR-15 aloft and declared, “If only the Wehrmacht and the SS had such a killing machine, we’d have won the war!”

Mike was just a kid when machine guns were outlawed in America. But what Horst held was nothing like the old Tommy guns. A fully automatic AR-15 had firepower Mike couldn’t even imagine. He wondered how it was possible that the bad guys could get their hands on a rifle with more firepower than anything he and his platoon carried on Iwo Jima?

As Mike listened to the back and forth, he was sickened to hear this mob eat up so much Nazi insanity. They’d be happy to storm the White House, guns blazing, and overthrow the nation’s democratic government in order to install a white nationalist regime.

How could such men call themselves patriots?

Mike resisted the urge to whip out his TEC-9 – mow down dozens of these creeps — and make the rest of them hit the deck. He had the drop on all of them. But he held his fire. He was outnumbered. And there was a whole lot more that he needed to know.

Mike kept recording as Dr. Huber announced that, “very soon, the time will come when you’ll be joined by a cadre of great Nazi leaders who will summon you to rise like the brave, resolute Minutemen at Lexington and Concord – to strike a mighty blow against the forces of decadence and moral rot in your beloved nation.”

Mike couldn’t believe that anyone bought this pseudo-patriotic bullshit.

But what was the timeline for touching off this impending race war? How many militias across the country were involved? At what point did Horst and Huber intend to bring back Hitler and his inner circle? And where the hell was the time portal now? Was it ready to go?

It all felt way beyond the scope of a solitary private eye.

Mike listened in as Horst told the militiamen that their AR-15s would soon be delivered to them with lots of ammunition. They were to stand by for the call to action. At that point, Mike decided that he’d recorded enough. It was time for him to get up those hundreds of steps before the goon squad started leaving. But, as he turned to walk away, he tripped over a knee-high bush and collapsed in a heap.

The sound of snapping branches was clearly audible in the still night air – and Mike hugged the ground, laying still, hoping nobody had heard it. He reached into his pocket. Andy’s TEC-9 was ready and waiting.

Mike’s heart raced. Then, voices!

The first guys out of the door had clearly heard something and were headed in Mike’s direction. He couldn’t stay on the ground much longer or he’d soon be surrounded by paranoid gun nuts with itchy trigger fingers. Crawling into the underbrush wouldn’t help. He’d be too slow and too loud. His only option was to get up and move as fast as he could before the approaching voices reached him where he fell.

As soon as Mike got to his feet, three shots rang out. He saw the muzzle flashes. Combat instincts kicked in as Mike drew his Tec-9 and sprayed a silent burst of bullets toward those flashes, then sprinted toward the steps. More gunshots followed him, and Mike returned fire as he ran.

He could hear Horst yelling to cease firing, furious that these idiots were making such a racket. The gunfire stopped after that.

As Mike reached the base of the steps, he could hear agitated voices, perhaps twenty to thirty yards away. Going up the steps would leave him visible in the rising moonlight, so he went up the hill, parallel to the steps, moving fast through the overgrowth. It was slower, but it was safer. Plus, he had the high ground on his pursuers. And lots of ammo in his clip. “Light ‘em up if you have to,” Gloria had said, “I want you back in one piece.” Mike did not intend to let her down.

When he reached the top of the steps, Mike fired one last, sustained volley down the hill. A burst of return fire from his pursuers told him that Huber and Horst were no longer in control. It also told Mike that the enemy wasn’t even halfway up the steps. He still had a chance.

Mike got over the fence and onto Sullivan Ridge Road — and then it hit him: he didn’t have a car! He’d told Gloria to pick him up on Pacific Coast Highway. There was no way he could run down to PCH without being overtaken by the militia boys, frothing at the mouth, eager to run him down with their pickup trucks.

He had to do the opposite of what was expected. After running twenty yards or so down the road, he climbed over the chain link fence and back onto Murphy’s Ranch. He rolled a short distance down the hill and hugged the ground, eyes toward the road on the other side of the fence — his blood pounding in his ears. He watched as a series of pickup trucks raced toward PCH with flashlights scanning the sides of the road. Mike kept his head down. He was 20 feet beneath the shoulder of the road. Headlights played in the bare trees, well above where he lay hidden.

Then, Mike heard sirens in the distance coming up from the coast. Lots of them. The gunshots had aroused the neighbors and the cops had been summoned. Mike felt like he’d blown it. One little stumble over a bush — and the shit had hit the fan.

Mike slithered downhill and began walking in the direction of PCH. The police sirens were approaching — and the militia trucks making U-turns and hauling ass in the opposite direction were no longer on his trail. Nobody had even gotten a look at him. He was just a sudden noise in night. A snapping of twigs. A snapping of twigs that could fire eighteen rounds in two and a half seconds. There were advantages to being a ghost.

Mike had hiked about a mile down the canyon when he heard distant gunshots coming from the direction of the concrete steps. Was that the cops trading fire with the wackos?

Safe now from the chaos on Sullivan Ridge Road, he stopped to call Gloria.

“Are you okay, Mike. I’ve been waiting for your call. Did something go wrong?”

“Don’t worry, baby, you’ll read all about in the papers.”

“Are those police sirens? Are you in trouble?’

“No, honey, I’m perfectly safe. I just wanted to tell you not to pick me up.”

“Just tell me what happened, Mike. I’m worried about you…”

There was a tremble in her voice, as though she might cry. Mike ached. He wished he could hold her in his arms and assure her that everything was alright.

“Meet me at Zack’s, baby. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“I swear, Mike. If you’re hurt, I’ll kill you.”

“Just have a scotch on the rocks waiting for me. It’s been a busy night.”

Mike told Gloria he loved her, kissed the phone, and hung up. It was a long hike to Zack’s, and that old Jap shrapnel was shooting pain through his hip again. But he’d made tougher marches after a firefight — and under far worse conditions. The temperature was falling, but he was warm enough to make the long walk to Malibu. Gloria had dressed him better than Uncle Sam ever did.

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November 29, 2025 · 8:49 am

My First Novel: Chapter Twelve

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.”

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November 25, 2025 · 6:08 pm

My First Novel: Chapter Eleven

Okay, Chapter 11. No, it’s not about a bankruptcy. It’s the latest installment in the adventures of 50’s detective Mike Delaney. I’m not counting “likes” anymore — but I appreciate it when you let me know you’re reading. Enjoy!

Chapter Eleven

Gloria lit a burner on the stove and poured Mike a bourbon on the rocks. She knew he had to be hungry, so she fried him two hamburgers. He sat in her beach house kitchen, dumbstruck and smitten, barely able to put two coherent words together.

“You know, your old apartment building on PCH got torn down years ago,” Gloria said, doing her best to make casual conversation in an insane situation. “That whole stretch is now a bunch of luxury beach houses for the Hollywood high rollers. This whole area, from Sunset and PCH all the way up through Malibu, is now a high-rent district. The working folks like your parents and my parents have been priced out. The good thing is, I can charge more at Zack’s. We’re getting a more upscale clientele. Not just beach bums and seedy private eyes who kiss girls and run off on some crazy adventure.”

Mike knew Gloria was trying to lighten the mood, but he felt the pain beneath the casual banter. He’d only been gone for a couple days — for Gloria it had been a lifetime.    

“When I saw you chatting with Gina yesterday,” she said as his burger sizzled, “I could’ve sworn you looked just like my long-lost fiancé. But I couldn’t believe it. It was impossible. Yet here you are. My old boyfriend, Mike Delaney. The man who vanished.”

Gloria slid one of the burgers onto a bun and put ketchup on it, not mustard. She hadn’t forgotten how Mike liked his burgers. She remembered everything. Gloria set the burger down in front of Mike and leaned in close. “Give me a kiss,” she said, “and then let’s figure out just what the hell we’re gonna do.”

Their lips came together in a kiss that bridged nearly six decades. Mike loved this woman and she loved him. All those lost years didn’t matter. Soul mates were soul mates. That fervent kiss sealed the deal.

Besotted by Gloria, Mike wolfed down both burgers without tasting them. He knocked back a last shot of bourbon and followed a beckoning Gloria into her bedroom.

After fifty-seven years, as she stripped down to her underwear, she was still a vision of loveliness. Mike yearned for her touch — her everything. He took off his dirty clothes. Was this really happening?  

Thirty indescribable minutes later, Mike and Gloria lay spent and satisfied, studying each other’s eyes. They’d just made love for the first time. They were still in love. It was inconceivable — but it was true. They were time-travelling lovers on a mad voyage no one else had ever known. Gloria’s naked body was bathed in moonlight as she sat up and lit a cigarette. She lit another for him. If this was all a dream, Mike didn’t want to wake up. She laid back alongside him.

It was heaven.  

Gloria told Mike the sad story of her daughter, Gina’s mom. Camille was a good girl who married a bad man. Angelo was a handsome, charming scoundrel. A talented trumpet player — and a lousy drunk. He left his pregnant wife and ran off to New Orleans a few weeks before Gina was born. Camille died in childbirth and Angelo was never seen again. Months later, Gloria heard he’d died of a heroin overdose in the French Quarter. She raised Gina as her own daughter until the girl was old enough to know the truth.

The truth, Mike thought. The truth was elusive. He’d spent so much of his life trying to discover the truth: figuring out who killed who, who stole what and how – and now, what the hell were Horst and Huber going to do next?

With those thoughts, and Gloria’s warm body nuzzled alongside him, he fell asleep feeling as good as he could possibly feel.

By morning, the surf had calmed, rolling sluggishly to shore after a turbulent night. It was 7:00 am, and Gloria was up frying bacon and eggs while Mike was still in bed. The smell of breakfast on the stove roused him, his mind still fogged by the booze and passion of the night before. What, he wondered, after all he’d seen and done in the past forty-eight hours, could today possibly hold?

Mike was accustomed to danger — but he knew he had to cling to Gloria now. He stood no chance without her. And he didn’t want one. For her part, Gloria didn’t intend to be a bystander. Her long-lost fiancé had shown up at her bar fifty-seven years after he proposed marriage and disappeared. She wanted a measure of control over what happened next.

Gloria had been up all night thinking about the situation while Mike was sawing logs. Last night was thrilling, but as gratifying as it was, her happiness was now tied to a fugitive from the 50’s. Mike tried to explain everything, but there were only two things Gloria knew for sure. Mike was truly her long-lost love. And he needed a lot of help. As they ate breakfast, Gloria began taking charge. She told Mike that she would do the driving from now on — and they’d use her car.

“You can’t keep stealing cars,” she said.

“Why not?” Mike countered. “They can dust those cars for prints – but even if they manage to make a match, they’ll be looking to track down an 85-year-old man with a taste for classic cars. A guy who disappeared in 1951.”

“True,” said Gloria, dead serious. “But what kind of ID do you have, lover boy? A driver’s license from the Truman administration? You can’t afford to make a single mistake, Mike. You’re a freaking curiosity. If you run a red light or get in a fender-bender, they’ll hold you for days just to figure out who the hell you are and what to do with you.”  

“You’re right, honey,” Mike said, acknowledging the obvious. “But I don’t want you in the middle of this thing. It’s dangerous. It’s insane. These folks are violent as hell – and crazier than you can possibly imagine.”

“Please, Mike. I’m a 76-year-old woman who just fucked my 29-year-old time-traveling fiancé. So, tell me again what I can’t possibly imagine.”

Game. Set. Match.

How could Mike argue with her? Stung by the knowledge he’d lost so many years with this brilliant, sexy, and courageous woman, he regretted the great life he’d missed. But if he and Gloria could work together now, what kind of life might they salvage? Mike recalled a song he’d heard toward the end of the war.

“You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between”

Against all odds, he and Gloria were still in love. Everything else was a question mark. He needed to start finding answers.

Mike told Gloria he had to be at Murphy’s Ranch in Pacific Palisades that night at 8:00 pm. The Nazi scientists were going to meet with some racist militia guys, and he’d learn more about their plot. Gloria’s response was entirely practical. “Shower up and shave, Mike. Then, we’ll get you some new clothes. You look like hell, baby — and you certainly aren’t dressed for winter.”

An hour later, Mike and Gloria walked out of her Malibu beach house. Gloria’s was the kind of place that Mike dreamed of back in the ‘50s — a hip, expensive pad close to the waves. She must be in the chips. Zack’s had been a lucrative enterprise over the years, and Gloria was clearly doing okay. Now, he was complicating her life – possibly putting everything she’d worked for in jeopardy. The last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt in this whole mad enterprise.

Gloria led Mike to the parking lot, and they climbed into her 2007 Toyota Prius. She explained it was a hybrid: one of the first readily available cars that was part gas-powered and part electric. Mike was floored. A semi-electric automobile? What other leaps of science and technology would he confront? Did she have to plug her Prius in? How far could she drive without a charge? Mike felt like an ancient relic. A time portal was one thing. But electric cars?       

Gloria drove Mike down to Santa Monica and bought him some new clothes at a boutique on Wilshire Boulevard. “You can’t go around looking like Sterling Hayden on a week-long bender,” she said. She paid the bill with what she called a “credit card.” No cash was exchanged. She gave them a card about the size of a driver’s license – and they accepted it. What the hell was a credit card? He knew a guy back in ‘51 who had a Diner’s Club card. But that was it. In Mike’s world, cash was king. Clearly, he had to play catch up. The best he could do was take things moment to moment.

Mike changed into his new duds, no longer looking like a fugitive from the past. Thank heavens Mike had Gloria now. She was an absolute miracle — with no real idea what she was getting herself into.

Then she brought up a name Mike knew well.

“You should talk to Andy Pafko,” she said. “Believe it or not, your old surfing buddy’s still alive and kicking in Malibu.”

“No shit? Pafko’s still around?”

“Comes into Zack’s now and then. Used to be your best friend, right? A pal from the force?”

“Yeah. I didn’t have too many friends. I was a suspect character.”

“Maybe he can help. He might freak out a bit — but if I can handle it, so can that old bird.”

Andy was the guy who put Mike on Dr. Huber’s trail more than half a century ago. But, after all these years, was there still a connection between them? Andy was already leery of getting too involved with Mike back in the day. How would he react to Mike’s fantastical story about tracking a time-traveling Nazi scientist into the future?

Andy didn’t respond to Gloria’s call at first – but when he finally got back to her, he agreed to meet with her and her unnamed “old friend.”

Andy was now 83 years-old, still sharp, but troubled. He left the FBI after the Oklahoma City bombing in ‘95, depressed by the rise of right-wing, home-grown terrorism and frustrated by the lack of bipartisan political resistance to that threat. Thirteen years later, he was getting sloshed on the sidelines, in no mood to right the wrongs of the world. Gloria knew these things and more about Andy, but she didn’t tell Mike. She figured Andy could fill him in if he felt like it.

Gloria drove Mike to Andy’s place — another Malibu beach house, but not as classy as hers. Andy’s police and FBI pensions helped pay the mortgage on a dowdy, surf-friendly beachfront pad. Andy had always been crazy about Gloria, and not long after Mike disappeared, he made his move. She let him down easy.

Gloria walked Mike up to Andy’s door and rang the bell. As weird as the situation was, she was cool — while Mike’s heart was racing. Was this the right move? Would Andy think they were both crazy? He had to trust Gloria. She was all he had.

A few tense minutes later, Andy Pafko came to the door. Mike was shocked to see his old pal rolling up in a wheelchair. For Mike, it had only been a few days since he and Andy were riding the waves on this very beach. Now, Andy was an 88-year-old guy in a wheelchair.

Mike tried hard to focus on the here and now.

The overall situation was way too unbelievable.   

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November 23, 2025 · 7:35 am

My First Novel: Chapter Ten

Thanks, folks! Glad to know you’re following Mike’s story. It’s always nice to hear from readers! As pharmacist David says in the Prevagen commercials, “That makes my day.”

Chapter Ten

Mike walked along the road out of Griffith Park toward Los Feliz Boulevard looking for his next mount. He felt guilty about stealing another car, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t hitchhike all the way to Malibu. Odds were slim to none that anyone would pick up a ratty-looking guy like him and give him a thirty-five-mile ride to the coast.

The intersection with Los Feliz Boulevard was in sight when Mike spotted his prey: a beat-up Cadillac Coupe DeVille with a license plate reading “CADDY63.” He’d hotwired a few Cadillacs back in the day. Skillfully using his tools, it was a cinch to pinch. He switched plates with the car parked next to the Caddy and was soon on the road.

Moments later, Mike was cruising west on the Ventura Freeway, a road that didn’t exist back in his day. After twenty miles, he took the Las Virgenes exit and drove south for ten miles until he hit Pacific Coast Highway. From there, he was home free. Mike had concerns about driving around in another automotive museum piece, but from the looks of the modern cars that whizzed by, he’d never be able to boost one of them. Once he got this car close to Zack’s, he’d leave it somewhere as a gift to the cops, who would soon be looking for a missing ‘63 Cadillac Coupe DeVille.  

A few minutes later, Mike pulled onto the shoulder of PCH a quarter of a mile from Zack’s and left the Caddy for the police. He walked the rest of the way, dog tired, and reached Zack’s more in need of a drink than he’d ever been in his life. Problem was, he had no cash. As he staggered through the door, he wasn’t firing on all cylinders — but he was glad to see Gina behind the bar. Maybe she’d pour him a beer on credit. He was more than willing to swallow his pride for a swig tonight. He looked like hell. And he smelled bad, too. He’d have to rely on what was left of his minimal charms.

Mike had only a puncher’s chance of guessing what would happen next. It was all way too much. He told himself to focus on the here and now. Walk up to the bar, take a seat, and hope for the best. Flag down the lovely Gina and hope she’s in a giving mood. He felt three sheets to the wind – and he hadn’t even had a drink yet.

Mike settled onto a barstool and waved to Gina. How could be possibly tell her what he’d seen and heard and done this evening? He couldn’t. He couldn’t tell the cops, either. The whole thing was insane. All he could do was get hammered and steel his nerves for tomorrow night’s meeting at Murphy’s Ranch.

It was a busy Saturday night at Zack’s. Gina caught his eye and signaled she’d be right with him. Exhausted as he was, her attention thrilled him. And made him feel guilty, too. His thoughts turned to Gloria.

After serving another customer, Gina greeted Mike and asked what she could get him. Mike blushed and stammered, knowing full well how bad he looked. He needed a beer, he confessed, but he was out of cash. Tapping the dregs of his pride, he asked if he could possibly get a beer or two on credit. Gina smiled sweetly, without an ounce of pity. “Let me talk to my grandma, Mike. She’s the boss. If it was up to me, I’d give you a six-pack on the house.”  

Mike watched as Gina disappeared behind the bar. Soon after, her grandmother came out, stared at Mike in a meaningful, penetrating way, and walked over to the jukebox. She punched in some numbers, and after a beat, some guy was singing…

Won’t you wear my ring — up around your neck?
To tell the world I’m yours, by heck
Let them know I love you so…

Gina’s grandma strode from the jukebox over to Mike. She had to be in her seventies, but she’d clearly been a real looker in her day. In fact, take away the years and she looked an awful lot like his Gloria. She fingered a chain around her neck as she sidled up to him. Like she’d known him all her life.

“Gina says your name is Mike,” she said.

“That’s right…” Mike stammered.

“Call me crazy, Mike,” she said, leaning in close. “Haven’t we met before?”

Mike realized he was staring at her open-mouthed like the village idiot. He lowered his gaze – and saw his ring on the chain around her neck! There was no mistaking it: a little diamond between two blue sapphires. Then he caught the scent of her perfume. Jasmine. Of course! His head and heart were about to explode.

“You know who’s singing this song?”

Mike had no idea.

“Of course, you don’t, Mike. You have no idea who Elvis Presley is, do you?”

He had to admit he didn’t.

“Who won the World Series this year? And don’t look it up on your smart phone.”

It was a standard spy-catching trick during the war. Many a Kraut in a G.I. uniform had been stumped by that question while trying to infiltrate the American lines. Mike didn’t even venture a guess.

“The drinks are on the house, Mike. I don’t know what in this crazy world is going on,” she said, fondling his ring, “but you’re not leaving my bar until you tell me all about it.”

How could he tell her? What could he tell her?

Then again, who else could he tell?

“Gina! Get this young man a beer – and keep ‘em coming. I’ll have the top shelf bourbon myself.” She turned back to Mike. “Join me at my private table.”

Mike followed her to the last booth along the wall that faced the sea. Through the windows, the moonlight caught the whitecaps as choppy waves rose and fell. Mike’s heart was churning like the surf. He was in a drunken stupor and had yet to touch a drop. As she slid into the booth, he knew who this woman was. Who she had to be.

“My name’s Gloria, she said, looking straight through him. “Ring a bell?”

Mike searched his tumbling thoughts for something to say at this impossible moment – but he couldn’t take his eyes off Gloria’s face. As he looked at her, the years melted away. He beheld the girl she’d been all those years ago — though, for him, it had only been a couple of days. How could be possibly make sense of that?

Luckily, Gina arrived with their drinks, granting him a brief reprieve.

Gloria told Mike to take off his jacket, and he did as he was told. “Roll up your sleeves and get comfortable. We’re gonna be here awhile.” Mike obeyed, revealing the Marine Corps tattoo on his right forearm. It was just what Gloria was looking for. She raised her glass.

“Here’s looking at you, Mike. I believe we both could use a stiff drink right now.”

Mike took a long chug of his beer, hoping to steel his nerves. He still hadn’t said anything, but Gloria took control. Hadn’t she always taken control? “We can play twenty questions, Mike. But just a couple will do. Let’s start with this ring. When do you think I got it?”

There was nothing he could do but tell the truth – and hope for the best. “Well, for me, it was — just a few days ago. But for you, it’s been fifty-seven years.”

He searched her face for a response. “Fifty-seven years — and three days.”

Her eyes flickered for a moment, but she went on, calmly and directly. “Four days, Mike. And where was I when you gave it to me?”

“You were behind the bar. But you didn’t wear it until the next day — when you wore it on that chain around your neck.”

She smiled. “You told me not to dip it in somebody’s chili.” She remembered it all.

At that point, there was no holding back. This 76-year-old woman was the girl he’d asked to marry him — and then he vanished. As incredible as the story was, she had a right to know what the hell was going on. She had to know that he didn’t just run out on her.

“I had to break our movie date that night because I was on a new case.”

“You said you had to go to a meeting at 7:00.”

“I did. It’s the truth. But before I left, you went out to the parking lot with me and gave me a great big kiss. It was the greatest feeling I ever had in my life.”

“And after I kissed you — what did I say?”

“You said you’d marry me.”

“And what did you say?”

“I promised we’d get married as soon as I closed the case”

“So, Mike Delaney,” she said with the same warmth she’d bathed him in when she accepted his proposal all those years ago, “Have you closed the case?” She finished her bourbon with a longing, pained smile. “A girl can’t wait forever.”

Gina interrupted with another round of drinks and left as fast as she came. She’d never seen that look on her grandmother’s face.

The look of a young girl in love.

Mike’s weary mind wandered for a moment. If he hadn’t followed Huber through that time portal, he would be eighty-five years old right now, enjoying his golden years with Gloria. Probably sitting in this very same booth…

Gloria patted his hand, snapping him out of his reverie. “Drink up, Mike.” She sipped her second bourbon. “What the hell happened after you drove off that day?”

Mike took a long slug from his beer mug, heaved an exhausted sigh, looked deep into Gloria’s eyes — and summoned the strength to tell her the whole unbelievable story.

He must have talked for an hour straight, leaving out no detail, however small: how he found the strange black brick, traced it to Murphy’s Ranch, and discovered the mad Nazi time-travel plot. How he tracked down Dr. Huber and followed him through the time portal and into the future.

He told her about the meeting with the Bund Boys in Griffith Park and the dangerous plans they had for igniting a race war. He paused; worried that Gloria might think him insane — but she wasn’t judgmental. It was almost as though he was convincing himself that it all actually happened.

He paused only when Gina came by with another round.

Gloria said nothing. Her eyes flared when he recounted moments of danger and teared up when he said how desperate he was to return to her. When he was finished, when he had taken her up to the point where he parked the stolen Caddy and walked into Zack’s that night, Gloria finally asked him a question.

“Why did you do it, Mike? Why did you go through the time portal?”

She was near tears now, struggling under the weight of all the lost years. “Why did you take that risk?”

“Because I had to, baby. I’m a detective.”

He continued in his defense, “I’m not a great one, I’ll admit, but I’m a detective. Maybe I could’ve gotten the drop on Horst and bagged Huber that night. But would that have stopped their plan? I didn’t know, Gloria. I still don’t know.”

“But if you gave Huber to the FBI, you would’ve collected the reward money, Horst would go to prison for harboring a wanted fugitive, and you and I would have spent all these years together.” It sounded like a rebuke, but there was no bitterness in it. Gloria gazed right through him.

“I know why you did it, Mike. You wanted to solve the mystery. Busting Huber before he went through that portal would’ve closed the case – but it wouldn’t have solved the mystery.”

Gloria was right, of course. Mike’s eyes grew wet. It had been a selfish thing to do. He’d gambled their happiness on the unknown: on an inconceivable adventure. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said as the tears came, “I should’ve been thinking about you. About us.” Mike was nearly overcome.

Gina approached the table with another round, but Gloria waved her granddaughter off.

She leaned into Mike, close enough to kiss him. “So, what are we gonna do about it, lover? Cry in your beer? Or work our way through this crazy maze?” She sniffed. Then smiled. “First thing we’ve gotta do is get you a bath — and tomorrow, a new suit. You need a jacket, too. It’s winter, for godsakes.”

“I can’t have my man looking like a homeless bum, no matter what century he came from.”

Mike was amazed. Gloria’s love for him had endured for decades. She told him about the guy she married ten years after Mike went missing: a poor, unhappy fella who soon learned that she’d always be carrying a torch for the detective that disappeared. They gave birth to Gina’s mother, but he couldn’t play second fiddle to a phantom. So, he took a powder and Gloria never saw him again.

Mike had ruined Gloria’s second chance for happiness all those years ago. What could he offer her now?

The situation was impossible, but Gloria didn’t see it that way. She wasn’t shocked by the notion of time travel. She’d seen a lot in her long life. Anything seemed possible. Technology was out of this world. She told Mike that the iPhone he was carrying had more computing power than NASA had when they put men on the moon.

Mike had no idea what NASA was. He wasn’t even sure what “computing” was. “They put a man on the moon?” His bloodshot eyes were wide in amazement.

“When in the hell did that happen?”

Gloria saw that Mike had way too much to learn. She’d have to take the lead.

“I’ll fill you in on the space race later,” she said. “Right now, you’re coming home with me.”

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