Wet Work
100 North Tampa Building, CEO Office, the thing about shatter proof glass... 'SLAM!' Carlo Gnucci is tossed into the window and slides down it in a streak of blood and snot. The thing about shatter proof glass is that one can hit it over thirty-four times and it will shatter you before you crack it. Carlo Gnucci was La Madrina's number one son, her favorite; he was about 350 lbs round but had muscle and right now Red Hood and Punisher making him a window accessory. "The meet Carlo where and when?" Punisher growled.
"Fuccckk youu." Carlo groaned as Red Hood and Punisher popped him off the glass. "Putana!"
"Wrong answer cupcake." Red Hood chuckles as they rear back and toss him back on to the window. Carlo's cheek bones shatter and his eye sockets crack. Teeth give way in a splash of crimson sticking to the window. The Amtrak Station turned out to be a dead end much to the frustration of both Red Hood and Punisher. "We can keep this up all day and night but you will give us the info we seek."
"You are fu…" Carlo groans trailing off
"Do you really think so?" Red Hood pulls out a taser and slams it into Carlo's pride.
"FUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKK!" Carlo screams his voice quivering from the current coursing through his manhood. He soils and soaks himself as Red Hood rips the taser away and grabs him by the lapels. "Alright I give!" Carlo whimpers in a high voice. "Go to the pharmacy on 8th and Crenshaw." Red Hood nods, "You ask for something call Viagra and it will help you go fuck yourself!" Punisher grabs his throat and kicks the window.
Another thing about shatter proof glass, 'CRASH!' one may not be able to crack it but hit it enough times and the frame gives. Punisher holds the now dangling Carlo out the window. "Weak arm Carlo." Punisher state stoically.
"EVERGLADES AT 6PM TONIGHT! Now leave me alone." Carlo shouts pleading into the stone cold eyes of The Punisher.
"As you wish." Punisher lets him go; Carlo screams and impales himself on an antenna through his stomach. He screams as the antenna gives and he bounces off a roof leaving accents of crimson as he falls 42 floors to the cement below bursting like a water balloon sending entrails and various other bodily liquids everywhere. "We got some wet work ahead of us."
"Damn so that what happens when you follow through with it?" Red Hood looks down at the splattered Carlo Gnucci. He gathers up the stash of cash from Carlo's safe. They were running low on ammunition and various other supplies. Red Hood could of restocked using Queen's money but decided not to involve him in any purchases from Punisher's connect on the Black Market.
They regrouped back at Red Hood's penthouse; Punisher had be staying with him due to his HQ and safe house being compromised. Punisher didn't like it one bit, but the bed was nice. "Rack up Castle you can get at least 4 hours in before we make our move."
"Excuse me?" Punisher looks at Red hood like he lost his damn mind.
"It only logical I would too but I got a meeting at Chase. If this goes through I can be independent of my current benefactor." Jason Todd hit the shower he was 48 hours in no sleep. Punisher said nothing but agreed with Jason about the logic.
Four hours later, Jason returned meeting was a success and got the backing he needed. Frank had awoken 30 minutes before he came in, he simply nodded in greeting as Todd put some files into his safe. It was now 3pm. A Jet prop was waiting for them a private airfield via Punisher's tech: Microchip's connect.
It was now 4pm when they landed just outside the Glades. Red Hood was the first to spot La Madrina's goons as they jumped on to a swamp boat. They had little time for prep as they tailed the men. Punisher had spotted several other family recon teams…this was defiantly the place.
Private Airport, Everglades, La Madrina collapsed on the runway as a capo told her of Carlo's fate. "The son of bitch took my son." She wept bitter tears she love him dearly but would never really showed for it brought the best out of him. "I have to see him."
"Madrina there's hardly anything left of him after he was scraped off the sidewalk by the corner." The capo replied as La Madrina grasped his throat.
"WHAT!" She screamed in his face.
"The bastards dropped him off the top floor of the 100 North Tampa Building!" he gasped as Madrina dropped him and cried out cursing in Italian and English. Another don from Orlando met the crying Madrina, he was Tiberiu Bulat, he led the Russian outfit out of Moscow and was also coming up in Tampa's brooding underworld. Tiberiu understood what it was like loosing a child; he had heard the news on the flight over on the DBN. It was fortunate for his outfit but barbaric to bask in it, he had an old world respect in this aspect. For now this was a meeting of the crime families, no one expected anything from one another but no one was going to risk not being prepared.
Tiberiu helped La Madrina up and passed her a hemp cigar. "To numb the pain Madrina. That fucking imbred swamp cunt of a man took my Gregor from me the same way." The old don lit the cigar as La Madrina took a deep drag and passed it back to him. "We need to end this pig fucker and his little girlfriend." With that said they both with their personal bodyguards got on a fan boat and were off.
It was 5:30pm the meet was about to begin as gators seem to be circling around the crime families in the humid afternoon. The dons and crew of the families forgave each other for the lack of formal wear but it was a blistering 98 degrees and 110% humidity. As the gators circled Red Hood and Punisher were finishing up placing the mines covering potential escape routes. This meet was too good to pass up, it was everything and more than what Punisher had hoped for.
Red Hood simply was in silence as he burst from the water stabbing his bowie into the neck of a Gnucci guard silencing his scream. He then relieved his prey's sidearm R16MP5 Canadian made but would do the job nicely due to the fact it had a suppressor too. The intentional splash caught the attention of a rival family's guard. "Gnucci forever!" Red Hood shouted and fired killing the guard. The shout traveled fast as the rival families radioed in what they heard.
At the meet the rival dons and guards drew their arms and pointed them at La Madrina. "YOU DARE!" Don Miguel Del Toro growled, he was the don of Miami and everything to the south. His family ran the flow of coke and marijuana trade from Cuba to Florida. His temper was as legendary as his ruthlessness.
"We come with hopes to solve our problem and you pull this!" Don Eric St. John. His family ran most of Northwest Florida including its capital of Tallahassee. Club drugs were his racket such as Ecstasy, Spanish Fly and various other date rape drugs and Heroine. He was the richest of the families and the most proper.
"You fools in case you haven't seen the news my son was murdered by our problem!" La Madrina stood her ground.
"Look around you idots. What stupidity this would be!" Don Tiberiu Bulat, the newcomer, he brought from Russia human trafficking of various vicious kinds and shipped according to desire. He didn't give a damn who or what or of what age all that mattered was the money. He was the most despicable and disgusting piece of human waste that every arrived off the boat.
A mine goes off and all is revealed as the crime families are showered with human and animal remains. "He's here" La Madrina says solemnly as she draws her side arm. The other dons shout orders over the radio as mines seem to go off closing off escape funneling them into one place. "He's herding us! Damn him!"
Over a radio Red Hood gives Punisher a SITREP. The families draw closer to the only escape and from the waters like something out of the movie Platoon or Predator, Punisher breaks the surface M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) in hand. He unloads the weapon mowing down the families. From the right flank behind them Red Hood breaks the surface Stoner 96 / Knights LMG (Light Machine Gun) in his hands. Body parts fly as they obliterate them.
By some unforeseen curse La Madrina and Don Bulat live and come out with only deep grazes and minor bruising. "They forced my hand." La Madrina hisses as she and Don Bulat swim to a backup boat the latter prepared.
"As they have mine." Don Bulat spits and climbs on the pilot chair and they speed off.
Red Hood's Penthouse, "She wasn't there and we missed two." Punisher gave the debriefing. Red Hood poured himself a whiskey and down a pain killer. His shoulder had ripped a little and his body wretched from the use of the LMG. Punisher down himself a Jack and poured himself another. The tention in the room was thick no one was to blame and both knew it so they left it alone. War has its small surprises some good, most bad, but that was the price to be paid.
La Madrina and Bulat formed an alliance that day with the other rival families taken out moves were advanced and territory was to be gained. The smaller families that weren't worthy of inviting were literally swallowed whole as the dark alliance advanced. They were made examples of and then fell in line. The East Coast was given to Bulat and the Gulf Coast to Gnucci. There were now only two big fish in the water and they were great white sharks.
La Madrina's Office, Saints and Sinners Club, "Get me Barracuda." She slammed down the phone and poured herself some red wine.
Don Tiberiu's Office, Bulat Compound, Miami, "Ivan time to go to work." Don Tiberiu smiled; Ivan Vassilovitch Dragovsky aka The Russian was hired by the crime boss La Madrina to eliminate the Punisher the first time. He located him while the Punisher was moving out of his latest safe house, still recovering from severe wounds suffered in a previous battle with the Saint Crime Family. Almost unarmed and weak, Frank Castle was beaten severely by the Russian, who took the chance to enlighten Frank about his views on capitalism and American comic heroes and enjoyed the exercise immensely. During the course of the fight, though, the Punisher learns that the hired killer has a serious aversion towards hot things. When the fight ends up in the apartment of Frank's obese friend, Mr. Bumpo, the Russian is stunned when Frank hits him with Bumpo's fresh pizza. Frank then has Bumpo lay on the Russian's head for many minutes. Since then Ivan cut ties with the Gnucci Family and La Madrina in favor of fighting for the Motherland aka The Bulat Crime Syndicate.
"No one beats tha Russian!" Ivan slams his fist together to the amusement of the don. Ivan chuckles insanely then exits the compound and is met by Bulat soldiers who open the door of a limo prepared for him. They drive him to a private airport and on to Tampa.
St Petersburg, Florida, just outside the bay, A large man, 6'10, black, over 375lbs of pure muscle wrestles a shark he caught in his boat. He is foul mouth and seems to speak with the vocabulary of a 5th grader. "Yo'u Muthaphuka!" He brutally beats the animal till it stops moving.
Satisfied he smiles revealing seven gold teeth four on top and three in the bottom. Engraved on the four tops are the letters F-U-C-K and on the bottom three Y-O-U. "I's go'na hav m's s'me muthaphukin' shark to'nte b'by." Surrounding the gold teeth are sharpened off regulars, he bites the shark ripping off a solid chunk and swallowing it raw. The blood from the creature drips down his chin the man doesn't bother wiping it. "Y'us D'lishous raw sonbitch but wai's til' I's getz y'u on the muthaphukin' grill. Nigga gonna be eatin' like a king boi!"
The man was known only by the name Barracuda. He grew up in Boca Raton, Florida, the eldest of two brothers and a sister. His father was an alcoholic who, in the night before he abandoned his family, burned Barracuda's hand on a grill while telling him to be "hard as the motherfucking world itself." He got into a fight in elementary school where he shoved his thumbs into a classmate's eyes.
After castrating a would-be attacker while in a youth detention center, Barracuda was recruited by the U.S. Army. As a Green Beret, Barracuda's A-team helped the CIA install Leopoldo Luna, a South American dictator in the 1980s. He was also responsible for drug-running in Nicaragua to fund the Contras and committed atrocities against local villages to ensure no resistance.
When then Colonel Nick Fury investigated, Barracuda humiliated him by making it clear that the CIA and Congress would bury any report, as it implicated too many people. The team went AWOL in Central America after that, though Fury was able to find and assault him five years later. According to his recollection, in another mission in Africa he engaged in cannibalism to prove his masculinity.
After leaving the service, he became a feared gangster. At one point he was arrested at the site of a gangland massacre. He had been snorting lines of coke off a decapitated head. He spent time in jail afterward where he struck a profitable partnership with Harry Ebbing, a corrupt and violent corporate CEO.
His cell rang in a familiar ringtone to the tune of 'A La Maria' "'Cuda" He paused, "Y'us know it b'by." The voice on the other end continued, "Dat' Muthaphuka? Shiiit gonna cost ya extra." The voice continued "It's like dat, shit, keep yo money tight and yo mouth tighter its done." Barracuda cut the line and ran to the top of his boat to the wheel spinning his boat around and back to shore shouting more obscenities with maniacal laughter. The shark he killed slammed to and fro as he made his way towards the docks.
Barracuda entered the Saints and Sinners Club, La Madrina a file waiting for him along with more personal request. The man was dressed like a flamboyant business man with a silver blazer and slacks with a black dress shirt and white suspenders and a shiny leather belt. The blazer and pants had renaissance embroidery throughout and a top his head was a fedora with the same embroidery and a white band.
He made his way o the bar and the bartender poured him a Hennessey on the rocks. "Shit muthaphukas kn'w how to treat a nigga, shit." A guard approached him and lead him up stairs to La Madrina. They didn't bother searching him they knew he was armed and truth be told nobody wanted mess with him. La Madrina spun her chair and faced him fully then slid the file to him. "Bring him here and castrate him then shove them in his eye sockets and sew them shut."
"Shit, did yo' research on a nigga that's bo'd. 'ight bet." Barracuda smiled as he looked at the photo provided. "Y'u a dead muthaphuka, 'cuda got you sent boi! And it smells like my two favorite thi'gs pussay and mon'y." Barracuda clicked his tongue and smiled.
The Russian arrives in Tampa and breathes in the evening air. Tonight he was hunting his prey and will not fail. A car was waiting for him on the tarmac with the key in the ignition. He hopped in and drove off into the night. He had a base of operations in Tampa since working for the Gnucci family. If anyone was smart and indeed most were everything he left would still be there.
END.