The first blow came from a wooden baton held by a man who had no legal right to carry it as a police officer. I was standing beside my dark-gray sedan on my own driveway when he stepped forward, shoved me against the driver's door, and struck my upper arm hard enough to make my knees buckle. Behind him, another man wearing a matching navy police uniform moved closer, blocking the sidewalk as though he was preparing to stop me from escaping. And standing near the porch, smiling with a clipboard in her hands, was the blonde HOA president who had spent six months trying to force me out of the home I'd owned for nearly thirty years.
"Get off this property!" the man with the baton shouted. "You don't belong in this neighborhood!"
I stared at him, struggling to steady myself against the car.
"This is my house."
He stepped closer, bringing the wooden baton toward my chest.
"Then you'll have no problem proving it downtown."
I looked at the badge pinned to his uniform. The lettering was wrong, the insignia was unfamiliar, and the identification patch on his sleeve didn't match any agency operating in our county. His partner's equipment belt was equally suspicious. The two men had polished boots and convincing uniforms, but something about their posture and the way they handled the confrontation told me almost immediately that they weren't legitimate police officers.
I was sixty-eight years old, a retired Black FBI agent with more than three decades of federal service behind me. I had investigated organized fraud, public corruption, violent conspiracies, and criminals who believed a convincing uniform could make people surrender their rights without asking questions. I'd spent enough years interviewing impostors to recognize several of the warning signs standing in front of me. But I hadn't expected two men pretending to be police officers to arrive on my property with a baton, and I certainly hadn't expected them to attack me in broad daylight.
The man raised the baton again.
I lifted one hand, keeping my movements slow.
"Son, you're making a terrible mistake."
He laughed.
"Old man, you have no idea who you're talking to."
I looked past his shoulder toward the street.
A black SUV sat beneath the trees near the opposite curb. Its windows were tinted, its engine appeared to be running, and one of its side-mounted cameras was aimed directly toward my driveway.