"I am Supervisory Special Agent Jack Tavore. Who's in charge here?" Jack asked loudly while flashing his credentials.
"That would be Captain Luce, sir." A young white patrol officer stepped out of a nearby parked police car, his face barely concealing his panic.
"We only had one patrol car and a rifle, so we've already sent support inside. Captain Luce is in there as well."
Jack gave a brief explanation of their situation. "We're the FBI Wanted Criminal Task Force. We were conducting operations nearby and came over to assist after hearing that officers were injured."
Although CMPD's (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department) badges were different from those of LAPD or NYPD, they weren't all that dissimilar. This patrol officer, clearly a rookie, seemed visibly shaken. He swallowed hard, his eyes scanning the heavily armed FBI agents.
Even though there were only five of them, and two looked more like movie stars than law enforcement officers, their equipment alone made him think the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) had arrived.
The young officer immediately picked up his radio to make a call. Within minutes, a patrol captain, huffing and puffing, ran over. He had a graying beard and a beer belly.
"I'm Captain Humberto Luce. You got here just in time. SWAT said they'll need another thirty minutes to arrive. We've got two officers down over there, and we can't wait that long," Luce said urgently.
The captain's soft ballistic vest barely offered protection against handgun rounds, let alone anything more. He wasn't wearing a ballistic plate, carried a Glock 17 in one hand, and a radio in the other. His hat was missing, and sweat poured down his bald, shiny head.
"We need to borrow your vehicle's radio. JJ will stay back to handle communications."
Jack didn't waste time. Gunfire could still be heard not far away, and it was clear that two high-caliber assault rifles were dominating the fight. By comparison, the CMPD officers' Glocks and M16s sounded almost feeble.
They followed Captain Luce in a crouch, moving along the street's edge toward the active shooting scene. This neighborhood appeared to be a middle- to upper-class area, with clean streets and well-maintained landscaping.
Unfortunately, it had become a battlefield. A white-and-blue police car was parked at the roadside, its hood providing scant cover for an officer pinned down by suppressive fire. The officer held the lone M16 on-site.
Another officer who had been taking cover near the rear of the car was now scrambling across the street, eventually diving into a nearby house.
The homeowner, who had been filming the incident with their phone, had the good sense to unlock their front door in advance. After the officer made it inside, the homeowner bolted out the back door, bullets chasing them into the house as they fled.
Jack noticed that the police car's trunk had been riddled with bullets. He tapped Clay's shoulder, signaling him to analyze the impact points.
"Same high-caliber AR as ours, or maybe an AK. But the gunshots don't sound like AKs," Clay called back over the chaos of gunfire and wailing sirens.
The Wanted Criminal Task Force had arrived even faster than EMS. Jack's eyes swept across the street, noting injured officers receiving first aid. They were likely part of the fugitive apprehension team ambushed earlier.
The gunmen were holed up in a rectangular single-story house with a red roof. Like other homes in the area, it had an attic and small windows. The two shooters had positioned themselves in such a way that their fields of fire overlapped, perfectly covering the front and rear yards. With only one rifle among them, the police were helpless under this suppressive fire.
Under normal circumstances, the police would have sealed off the area and waited for reinforcements. But now, they were forced to return fire because two wounded officers were trapped near the house alongside two bodies of their deceased colleagues.
Jack quickly pieced together what must have happened.
An 8-man team split into two groups of four, attempting to approach the house from both sides of the front yard. The arrest warrant indicated that the fugitive, Terry Hughes Jr., might be armed. To be cautious, they had brought two riot shields.
While the task force wasn't unprepared, they clearly underestimated the situation, possibly due to complacency from the area's relatively safe reputation. No one expected what came next.
The marshals' intel was accurate but incomplete. Not only did Terry Hughes Jr. illegally possess firearms, but he also had high-caliber, fully automatic assault rifles—and an accomplice.
The two gunmen, seemingly anticipating the police's arrival, were well-prepared. As soon as the officers entered the front yard, the two opened fire from the attic, raining bullets down on them.
This scene was reminiscent of the mercenary ambush on Jack's home, except that time, they had used an RPG. Without such heavy firepower, Jack could have held off the attackers from 50 meters away.
The fugitive apprehension team, lacking heavy weaponry, was caught off guard. Their riot shields and vests couldn't withstand the military-grade rounds coming from above.
The two shield-bearers were shot down immediately, and the rest of the team suffered varying degrees of injury. Those on the right managed to retreat thanks to sparse shrubbery, which, while not bulletproof, obstructed the shooters' visibility. Two lightly wounded officers dragged a critically injured teammate to safety.
The left-side team wasn't so lucky. According to Captain Luce, they were pinned down for a full five minutes. One marshal bravely stayed behind to cover a fallen colleague, exchanging fire with the gunmen using only his handgun.
The downed officer managed to crawl behind a small tree but soon lost consciousness. The covering officer was eventually hit as well, barely managing to crawl out of the shooters' line of sight. Neither could be evacuated.
"They're pinned down there. We can't reach them," Captain Luce said, pointing to the shot-up police car just six meters from the injured officers.
Bullets continued to whistle past the downed officers, striking the car, the dirt in front of them, and even the pavement behind them, kicking up dust.
"Ammo! I'm almost out of ammo!" shouted the officer with the M16, desperately signaling for help.
Jack acted decisively. "Clay, cover that officer and get him out of there. Hannah, find a vantage point and provide overwatch."
Hannah, armed with her G28E designated marksman rifle, could shoot with sniper-like precision at this distance. While the area offered poor visibility due to similar-height houses and dense treetops, the nearby attic should suffice for suppressive fire.
Hannah and Clay moved toward the house behind the police car. Hannah took up position in the attic, while Clay bolted to the pinned officer, sliding into cover and pulling him back.
Meanwhile, Jack prepared a rescue plan. Aubrey fetched spare heavy-duty vests and ballistic plates from their Suburban, while Luce's team supplied riot shields and duct tape. Together, they fashioned a makeshift ballistic shield by layering the materials.
The team was ready to act.
(End of Chapter)
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