Cliff Roberts Thriller Box Set

by Cliff Roberts

  Carpelli had turned towards the house just as the two black-clad men lined up to kick in the front door. Slowly, he brought his gun up to fire. He was still struggling to breathe and walk at the same time, so he needed another second to muster the strength to fire. By the time he could manage it, Green had already moved inside the house and Red was starting to move forward.

  As the lightning flashed overhead again, Carpelli fired four times hitting Red in the back twice, the leg once and the head once. Red fell forward onto his partner in crime pinning Green to the floor. This bit of luck allowed Carpelli to catch his breath and to keep moving forward, closing to within fifteen feet of Green.

  When Green twisted around to see why Red had fallen on him, Carpelli fired. He hit Green square in the chest, which knocked the wind out of him but didn’t seriously hurt him due to his body armor. Carpelli began climbing the stairs up to the porch and as he did so, he fired two more times hitting Green in the stomach and the chest again, both areas covered by body armor.

  When Carpelli reached the doorway, Yellow fired at him from the kitchen door leading to the hallway. Carpelli luckily saw him first and ducked behind the exterior brick wall so the string of bullets unleashed at him hit the wall and not him.

  Beals had dropped to the floor as far back from the door opening as possible yet still be able to see down the hallway. When the two black-clad figures burst through the front door, he had fired twice but the shots had gone wide. As he shifted his weight in an effort to steady his aim, the second man fell through the front door on top of the first man.

  Beals was stunned to see a man dressed in blue jeans and a big, bulky sweatshirt, step up onto the porch and fire twice more at the lead man at the front door. He couldn’t tell who it was, due to the night vision goggles he was wearing, but he was sure glad he was there.

  Then, as suddenly as that man had appeared at the front door, another black-clad figure appeared in the hallway by the kitchen door and he was firing at the man outside the front door. Beals hesitated for just a split second but finally fired his gun. He hit the man in the hallway square in the back with both shots from his forty-four magnum.

  Yellow was slammed against the door jamb and managed to fall back into the kitchen, as Blue finished checking the basement and raced up the stairs.

  Yellow remained on the floor after having taken two rounds in the back. One struck him squarely in the armor but the other one slipped through the gap between the plates on the side.

  Blue reached the top of the stairs a moment later and Yellow directed him over the comlink. “Blue, Green and Red are both down. There’s a cop at the front door. I need you to take him out.”

  “Roger that,” Blue replied.

  “Go through the dining room door to the kitchen and when he peeks in, take him.”

  “Roger,” Blue replied as he slid cautiously towards the dining room.

  “Scratch that, I can get him,” Green whispered over the comlink. “I took a couple of rounds to the vest. Red is dead.” Blue stopped at the edge of the doorway to reply.

  “Roger, Green, I’ll spray the doorway so you can get up and moving.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Let’s do it on a count of three,” Green suggested.

  Carpelli knew he was totally outgunned and he made the smart move by backing away from the front door and sliding over the edge of the porch at the side of the house. That way, he would be down low and partially protected by the concrete of the porch, plus he doubted the gunman would be expecting him to have slipped off the porch. He knew he wouldn’t get more than one opportunity to take the guy out.

  The problem was, the gunman was covered in body armor. The only places where he was vulnerable were his feet and his head. Carpelli decided to shoot him in the feet when he stopped to look around after he had stormed out onto the porch, guns blazing. It was the last thing the gunman would expect.

  Carpelli ducked down and waited. As expected, someone sprayed the doorway with bullets and the gunman jumped through the opening. Also, as expected, he sprayed the porch with bullets, believing he’d find the cop standing against the wall of the house.

  Beals managed to fire one shot at the man in the doorway, missing him, and was rewarded with heavy MP5 fire from the kitchen doorway as Yellow sprayed the bedroom door opening with bullets driving Beals back to opposite side of the bed. The corner linen closet which was filled with towels, sheets and blankets did a fine job stopping the bullets from reaching him there.

  Carpelli popped up and fired twice striking the man in both feet causing him to collapse to the porch deck. As he hit, Carpelli fired a third round, striking the man in the forehead and killing him instantly.

  “Green’s down, Green’s down!” Blue called out.

  “Roger that, Blue. I need you to move up and cover me as I move to the bathroom while keeping the front door clear. You can take over my position in the kitchen. We’ve got a man in the back bedroom we have to eliminate in order to go upstairs or search the back rooms. I suspect our target is upstairs,” Yellow shared.

  “Be right there,” Blue replied, stepping back into the kitchen and helping Yellow to his feet. There was a small puddle of blood where he had been sitting.

  “Are you going to make it?” Blue asked.

  “Shit, I’ll make it,” Yellow replied. “I’ve had worse.”

  Things drew deathly quiet as everyone was moving in slow motion exercising extreme caution. In the distance, there was the sound of rolling thunder as another flash of lightning lit up the night.

  Carpelli moved up to the bottom of the steps but didn’t try to climb them. Instead, he stood at the corner where they met the porch deck and prepared to pop up and fire, realizing at the last moment he was out of ammo. He knew the man lying right in front of him had an MP5 which he was sure to have extra clips and all he had to do to be armed again was grab it.

  Slowly, he peeked above the porch deck but found the man’s body blocked his view inside the house. So, he risked rising a little higher. He had to crawl part way on to the porch deck in order to grab the MP5 and pull the man towards him so he could get a full clip out of his pocket.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Inside the house, Yellow took the lead and tried to quickly cross the small hallway into the bathroom but was met by forty-four magnum fire the moment he did. Beals had risked his life to get one shot off before rolling back away from the doorway again. Yellow was knocked down, but he was still able to crawl into the bathroom across the hall from the kitchen.

  Blue had fired in support of Yellow at the same time Beals had fired. But he had done so without aiming. He merely sprayed the doorway. It did, however, provide Yellow with the needed time to crawl into the bathroom while Beals hid from the automatic weapons fire. After spraying the bedroom doorway, Blue swung around and for good measure, quickly fired off a few rounds at the front door.

  Upstairs, Tyler Stone had been awakened by the doors being kicked in and gunfire downstairs. At first he thought it was thunder, but upon hearing the noise again he instantly realized it was gunfire and took up refuge behind the edge of his computer desk as instructed by Detective Beals. Detective Beals had said that would be his best defensive position. He was low to the floor and behind something, so he was concealed, though the flimsy computer desk wouldn’t stop a damn thing.

  If he was quick and fired first, he should be okay. Beals hadn’t bothered to mention that the attackers would most likely be wearing body armor and his thirty-eight caliber rounds would just bounce off.

  When the man in the kitchen had fired at the front door, Beals fired several more shots into the walls around the kitchen doorway forcing the man to jump back from the opening.

  An eerie silence settled over the house for several minutes. The man in the kitchen reloaded or maybe was moving around to the other door where he would have a better shot at whoever was outside on the porch. The man in the bathroom, after crawling inside, still hadn’t shown himself again.<
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  Beals took the lull as an opportunity to reload since he only had six shots and he had fired all six. He slipped back on the far side of the bed and simply dumped the barrel on top the blanket to avoid making any extra noise, then used a speed loader to refill it. In less than three seconds, he was ready to fire again.

  He then moved to the foot of the bed so he could see if someone was coming down the hallway. Being at the foot of the bed put the most distance between him and the gunmen. It proved to be a good move as the man in the bathroom fired several rounds through the wall into the bedroom, shattering both the mirror on the dresser and the window, plus leaving a half dozen holes in the exterior wall. Thankfully, all of the shots were too high to hit Beals, who was hugging the floor.

  Someone was firing again, and Beals assumed it was directed at the front door, though he was so far back he couldn’t see exactly what was happening. He hoped that Tyler remained upstairs as far back from the stairs as possible. He tried to call out for backup on his radio, but all he heard was static. Harcorte had been right.

  The gunshots had been heard down at the 7-Eleven, but the officer in charge of the detail wasted precious time debating if he should act without being requested.

  After all, he lamely explained to the other officers, there was a lot of poaching that went on in this area this time of year and it could be hunters and not anything to do with the protective detail to which they were assigned. He even suggested that it could be thunder associated with the approaching storm.

  When the shots started up again, his subordinates started to run off towards Stone’s house. Only then did he agree they should all go and check it out.

  Carpelli was impatiently waiting for his chance to slip into the house. He slipped a new clip into the MP5 and was about to act foolishly again, by charging into the house, when he heard movement inside.

  “Yellow, are you still with me?” Blue whispered into his comlink, though he could see Yellow was sitting there, not moving.

  “Roger, Blue, I’m still here,” Yellow finally came back.

  “Are you good to go?”

  “Not so much. The hand cannon that guy is packin’ has blown right through my Kevlar. I’m lucky it got me in the side. I’ve now got a hole on both sides. Neither is fatal, but it hurts like hell and I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. What’s our status?”

  “Red and Green are both down and out, but I’m fine.”

  “Do we know where the target is?”

  “Negative. I’m guessing the back of the house or upstairs.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Yellow concurred.

  “How you want to play this?”

  “I’ll lay down covering fire so you can reach the stairs, then head upstairs and take the target out. Wait until I start firing into the back bedroom on the left, that’s where the guy is. You fire on him, too, as you head for the stairs. Be ready when you hit the stairs—we have no idea what’s up there. Keep firing all the way to the stairs. I’ll keep firing into the room to keep him pinned down while you get the target.”

  Just then, there was a lull between thunder claps and both Yellow and Blue heard the sound of sirens. Time had run out and they knew they had to finish this job right now, if they hoped to get out of there alive.

  “Time to go,” Yellow called out and Blue made his move. Blue turned the corner in the hallway from the dining room and opened fire on the doorway of the room to the left. Yellow laid down, coming partly out into the hallway and fired right at floor level into the same room.

  Beals, seeing the figure step out from the kitchen, fired. The bullet missed Blue but managed to blow a large chunk of trim board off the wall next to him. Immediately upon firing, Beals rolled away from the doorway which ultimately saved his life. The opening was quickly bathed in bullets of which surely one or two would have found his head since it was completely exposed as he lay on the floor.

  Carpelli popped up and scrambled up the porch steps. As he reached the top, he saw the black-clad figure in the hall hesitate a moment before turning to climb the stairs. Carpelli fired just as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared. Carpelli, even though he was firing in ‘spray and pray mode,’ fully automatic, had managed to shoot the black-clad figure in the back of the legs and the back of the head as he fell. As he collapsed, the black-clad figure’s hand remained tightly gripping the trigger of his weapon, discharging bullets in a wide arc across the ceiling until the man finally collapsed to the floor, dislodging the weapon from his hand.

  Beals slid towards the door and fired two shots directly into the man’s chest for good measure. The house was suddenly quiet except for the sound of the police sirens outside as the two cars from the 7-Eleven finally arrived. Carpelli dropped the MP5 he took off Green and grabbed the MP5 that Red had dropped. He then charged into the house and took shelter at the corner where the hallway and dining room met. He immediately yelled out, “It’s me Beals, don’t shoot me. Where are they?”

  Beals from behind the edge of the bed and the linen closet replied, “Who’s ‘me’?

  “Harcorte. I thought you’d need some help so I came back.”

  “I think the last one’s in the bathroom across from the kitchen.”

  “Okay, I’ve got him,” Carpelli replied loudly so the guy could hear him.

  Suddenly, Carpelli was confronted by two officers who appeared at the front door, guns drawn, pointed at him. He dropped the MP5 and began yelling, “I’m with you! I’m with you! Beals tell these guys I’m with you.”

  “Keep your hands up and shut up,” the one officer yelled at Carpelli and he did it immediately. The other officer started to walk across the living room towards the hallway.

  “Don’t go there. One of the bad guys is in the bathroom,” Carpelli warned him.

  “Shut up!” the officer snarled as he stepped closer to the hallway.

  “Harcorte is with us,” Beals yelled from the backroom. “There is a suspect in the bathroom.”

  The officer stopped short of the hallway and stepped back into the living room. The second officer stepped up and whispered in his ear as two more officers stepped through the front door and began checking the bodies for signs of life. Williams was the last one checked and the officer just shook his head signaling he hadn’t made it.

  “Who are you?” one of the officers asked Carpelli.

  “I’m Nate Harcorte. I’m a private detective and I’m on your side. The two guys in the doorway are my doing. Can I pick up my weapon again?” Carpelli asked.

  “Detective Beals, is that you back there?” the officer called out.

  “Hell, yes, it’s me. Harcorte is with us. Let him make the call on the guy in the bathroom.”

  “What? He’s not even a cop,” the officer complained.

  “Shut up before you get yourself killed,” Beals ordered.

  Carpelli scooped up his weapon again and quickly directed one of the officers by the front door to go around on the outside of the house to the side door, step inside and get ready to shoot into the bathroom. He was to wait until he heard Carpelli start shooting though, because the DA wanted the guy alive.

  It took the officer a few seconds to get around to the side door. In the meantime, Carpelli had another officer go through the dining room and set up to backup the shooter in the doorway from the opposite side of the room. He had the other two officers flank him in the living room.

  “You, in the bathroom,” Carpelli started the negotiations, “this is your lucky day. We would prefer to shoot you so many times that you become human Swiss cheese, but we need a witness to testify against the asshole who hired you. If your code of honor will allow you to live with yourself after turning state’s evidence, then maybe we can do a deal that keeps you from becoming a pin cushion for the state’s lethal injection machine and maybe someday you might get to go out for a beer again. Throw out your gun and then crawl out on your belly.” There was nothing, no sound.

  “Did I mention that we have the asshole
anyway and that this is a one-time offer?” Carpelli looked at the officer in the kitchen doorway from the dining room and he pointed to the bathroom and then pointed to his eyes. The officer understood and grabbed a shiny silver frying pan out of the sink. He then held it out at arm’s length at an angle.

  There, in the reflection on the bottom of the pan, was a man sitting on the floor with his back up against the bathtub with a MP5 in his lap. There looked to be blood on the floor next to him. He then stepped back and shared with Carpelli what he had seen.

  “We can sit here and wait for you to bleed to death or we can get you some medical help. In fact, they’ll be here any second and I’ll let them right in, if you surrender. Time’s a-wasting dude, I’ll give you another moment and then we end this,” Carpelli stated, then gave the other officers the hold signal and fired the MP5 he had into the wall by the door. Splinters and drywall burst into the air forming a small cloud of dust.

  “Whoa, who’s shooting? I’m still back here!” Beals yelled.

  “Oops! Sorry about that. My bad, I just got a little anxious. So, where were we? Oh, I know, time to shit or get off the pot. Toss out the gun or become human Swiss cheese. You have five seconds.”

  The gun came clattering out, sliding across the floor into the kitchen. The officer in the doorway now peeked out around the corner of the wall and trained his gun on the suspect. The second officer in the kitchen moved up to the edge of the refrigerator and did the same. Carpelli stepped a couple of steps closer, until he was right outside the door to the bathroom.

  “If that dirt bag does anything other than what I say, put a round through his head,” Carpelli stated as he looked up and saw Beals stepping from the disaster of the bedroom and hallway to join him on the opposite side of the doorway.

  “Okay, now crawl out here on your belly,” Carpelli commanded as he signaled Beals to remain back.