Chapter 27

No one thought it would happen. Not the Sheriff’s office, not the Virginia authorities, not the Feds, no one. There was no way any family could be so unlucky as to have been involved with a crime syndicate bent on revenge so much so that cousins would try to avenge the death of their family member, especially when that cousin benefited greatly from the death of that family member.

We were that family, and we were that unlucky. Manuel Dongas’ cousin, Enrique Dongas, was now the head cheese of their little corner of the crime scene in the metro DC area, mostly in Virginia. He was evidently unhappy about being elevated to the level of Jesse. (Hessay?) The boss. The leader. The now recipient of the most wealth being brought in from their illegal dealings in the trafficking of drugs and of people and under the table gambling, and whatever else they were involved in.

We had no notice. Setting off the driveway alarms, they just drove up in two Chevy Tahoes, five men got out, two holding shotguns, two brandishing pistols, and one holding a rifle at port arms.

“We want the girls, señor. The girls that caused the death of Manuel Dongas. We want them now,” was heard coming from the driveway.

Sylvia and Laura were putting lunch together. I was reading a recently released NOTAM, a notice to airmen, the FAA had recently released, and Courtney and Lori were catching up on a soap opera they had been trying to watch for quite a while. Courtney was closest to the front wall, the windows facing the driveway, and Lori was right next to her. Courtney screamed and ran upstairs. Lori came into the office and told me what they heard, then started dialing nine one one from the office phone.

“Yes, I need to report intruders again. Gang members, probably. The ones from back east that were out here not too long ago. No, I can’t hold. I need to run upstairs and find Courtney. Here, Charlie, talk to this lady.” She handed me the phone and ran up to find Courtney and calm her down.

“Hi, this is Charlie Compton. It sounds like we have visitors again. On the video here, I see five guys with guns and two more still behind the wheel of the two big SUVs they arrived in. Send as much help as you can, but we need to take action before one of us gets hurt.”

“Sir, please stay on the line with me.” The dispatcher was spending more time with me than getting us help.

“I’ll do what I can, but I need to arm myself and protect my family. Can you please notify your people to be careful? And to hurry?”

“Laura is by the back door with the kitchen pistol. Let me grab one of those ARs and go watch the front door. Oh, shit. Two of them are headed around the house. I’ll go back with Laura.” Sylvia grabbed one of the AR-15 rifles and a couple of thirty round magazines, then took off back to the kitchen.

Three rounds were fired, slowly, so I knew it was Courtney with her thirty-thirty firing at the guys outside. She wasn’t that quick on the rechambering, but it was steady and methodical. I glanced at the video screen seeing that two of the men were down and the third one out front was running back behind the lead vehicle. Both of the drivers were now out of their vehicles, behind the front wheels with pistols aimed in the general direction of the house.

Then we heard a loud crash and about eight or nine rounds from two different guns coming from the back of the house. At that point I was almost scared shitless. My fears would’ve gotten worse in mere seconds if Laura hadn’t met me in the hallway and explained that Sylvia was watching the smashed in back door with two dead men blocking the doorway. She took out one of them and Sylvia the other, or they both shot them both, or something like that.

“There is some blood on the tiles, but it’s not that bad,” Laura said, shivering. She followed me to the living room area and near, but not in front of, the front door. Good thing, too.

Five or six rounds came right through the ornate main entry door just before we heard Courtney’s thirty-thirty twice more, and the roar of Lori’s shotgun go off twice. I glance out the corner of the window and watched as both drivers were laying in front of their respective vehicles. There were four bodies out front, and two in back. That pretty much accounted for all the visitors, save one.

The last man standing was told, “Put your hands up and drop the weapon. Do it now, or I shoot you. No more questions asked.” It was Sylvia’s voice. She had gone around the side of the lodge and had him dead to rights in the sights of her rifle. I’d have to talk to her about that, as we didn’t know for sure there weren’t any more thugs exiting the vehicles. She was lucky. We were all lucky, come to think of it.

The man kept his hands up, but kept his pistol in one of them, stepping out from behind the lead vehicle, then dropped to his knee, leveled the pistol at what must have been Sylvia, then after three quick shots were fired, two from Sylvia and one from what had to be Courtney, the man’s head came apart and his body fell backwards.

The entire situation was over in about a minute and fifteen seconds. Ten minutes later, two four-wheelers came screaming up to the lodge after roaring down the hill trying to get to us in time to help. The people on the reservation were definitely trying to help. Raul Tremain and another officer were there first, then ten minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy showed up, lights flashing and siren screaming, brakes locked up and tires skidding through the driveway gravel.

The sheriff’s deputy immediately called in the New Mexico State Police with an update on our situation but advised everyone to lay down their weapons and wait. Nothing could be done about the seven dead bodies, and he didn’t see a need to arrest anyone at that point, especially considering our history, but he wanted the state and federal agencies to handle the investigation, considering they were involved before, and had every reason in the world to be very involved now. This was not a local problem. At least this time the rental vehicles weren’t demolished in the gunfire.

An hour passed before a helicopter brought in the FBI and DEA agents from Albuquerque and the State Police arrived in two vehicles an hour later coming out of Santa Fe. We were definitely going to be front page news for a couple of days.

Raul sent his partner back to the reservation, staying with us until we felt safe, and he knew we weren’t going to get jacked up for defending ourselves. He and the deputy were of one mind on that, insisting the situation was one hundred percent self defense and justified, noting that all seven men were armed and unwelcome. The fully automatic, military grade rifle the one man carried pretty much told the story.

Identification of the intruders was a bit murky, but four of them were convicted felons, two had warrants for their arrest on first degree felony charges, Dongas, naturally, was wanted for association and conspiracy in several felony cases. Two of the gunmen and the two drivers were known gang members belonging to a group recently elevated to the level of a foreign terrorist organization. No, we weren’t going to be arrested for the happenings at our ranch that day.

It took thirty-six hours for the crime scene investigators, the coroner’s office, and my contractor to finish cleaning up and documenting the mess. Once they were almost done, a Gulfstream G550 landed on our airstrip, with our permission. I would imagine they would have landed without it, but it was carrying a couple of senior personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as a couple of Justice Department investigators and a DOJ prosecutor. They just wanted another run down on the entire debacle, starting with the night Courtney and Lori had the run in with Manuel Dongas and everything that had happened since. There were also a couple of agents from Homeland Security, Immigration Control Enforcement, since four of the seven dead men were not exactly upstanding American citizens.

Come to find out, Dongas was one of the illegal aliens. While his cousin Manuel was American, barely, Enrique was not, nor were many of his henchmen and family members. There was going to be a lot of fireworks in Virginia and Maryland over the next several weeks.

After two days of questions, answers, and enough pots of coffee and sandwiches to feed a small army, we were finally left alone with the suggestion of cleaning our weapons and considering hiring help with security, although as the lead DOJ investigator said, “It doesn’t really look like you need it, but at some point, it’s going to take a toll on your family.”

We opted not to hire anyone and prayed instead that the Dongas cabal would run out of people that cared enough to come looking for us.

Annalina took that opportunity, however, to reflect upon us that life is fragile, and while the third time may not have been the charm, the fourth time, if there was one, might be one too many, and may not end as well for the people she had fallen so deeply in love with. She decided at that point to insure I was married, legally, and the rest of us were married, spiritually, in the eyes of the Apache people and the great Hascin. She wanted to bear me a child, and absolutely didn’t want it to be out of wedlock. She felt that the spiritual bond would be good enough for her purposes. Two days after the Feds cleared out, she cajoled the other four women into assisting her with the demise of her virginity and to make me her husband.