THE PUNISHER WENT TO HIS VAN quickly and drove off. Two close calls-The Russians and Franklin-were two too many.

A distant part of him had sympathy for Franklin. He was a good cop. Hard core. Tenacious. And smart. Or was it Castle that was too predictable. So predictable, that the enemy knew that killing those old folks and making sure that word went around who it was and where to they could be found.

This was a cunning and ruthless enemy.

They would have to be Punished.

He wondered how the rest of the operation went along.

HELL'S KITCHEN

2352 HOURS

"Look." Widow said. "There's a lot at stake here. We know you don't approve these methods."

"You damn right I don't." Daredevil said angrily. "This has anything to do with Staten Island? Why is SHIELD involved?"

"Look, hornhead. We don't have any fuckin' time for this shit." Fury said. "We're at war. We gotta wrap this up as fast as we can. We need to get shit done and we do it the hard way."

"Murder? Torture?" Daredevil said.

"Sometimes-"Fury started.

"Spare me the trite 'Ends justify the means' speech." The vigilante said. " I heard it enough from Castle. We're not going to change each other's minds. So put that man down, drop your weapons and maybe we can talk this over."

"Matt-" Widow started.

"Save it, Natasha. If it were anyone else than you two, they would have been knocked unconscious and locked up." Daredevil said. "I'm already being more courteous than I need to be. I won't ask again."

"Fuck this." Fury said, pulling out a small remote, still carrying his prisoner on his shoulders".

The following second, Daredevil was holding his head and screaming in pain. He went down on one knee.

Nick Fury walked over to the kneeling vigilante, said "Sorry about this." and kicked him in the jaw.

"Let's go." Fury said.

"I was hoping we wouldn't have had to resort to the ultrasonics." Widow said.

"Yeah, me too. Didn't have a choice. That guy is a stubborn son of a bitch. Let's get the fuck outta here."

Black Widow bent over to the unconscious Daredevil. "Sorry, Lover." And she kissed him gently. Then the spies were gone.

HARLEM

BLING-BLING NIGHT CLUB

2350 HOURS

Things could be a lot worse for Curtis Payton. He had concerns like anyone who moved drugs in the city. He heard about Staten Island and what happened to the guineas. But he beefed up security on his operations, especially the lab where his boys made crack, ice, crystal meth and all sorts of candy for all sorts of tastes.

But at that precise moment, he was in his private office, overlooking his night club, naked, with this sweet piece of blonde, white pussy in his leather couch.

He was used to all sorts of problems, so this new crisis would be taken care of. In his 34 years of life, he'd moved from selling weed in high school to movin' rocks on the block to being King Of Harlem. Wasn't no muthafucka that was gonna move him from where he was.

"Curtis…"He heard the bitch moan.

"Yeah, baby. I'm comin'."

Then, his cell phone rang.

"Curtis…"

"Hold on, baby. Gotta take care of some business first."

Payton took the phone:" Yeah?"

"You, CP, the factory was hit."

"The fuck you mean, it was hit?"

"Just what I said, ain't nuttin' left but ashes!"

"Nigga, you better not be fuckin' with me!"

"The fuck would I make this shit up for?"

"Shit! MuthaFUCKAS!"

"Curtis…"The girl moaned.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch, I got some real fuckin' problems here! Who the fuck did this!"

"I don't know, man, this is fucked up."

Payton thought of the Punisher. This was his style. Or maybe whoever hit the wops at Staten Island. New player, making their move.

"Okay. Okay. Let's get our shit together and figure this shit out. We can fix this. Talk to you later." Payton said, getting a grip on his anger. He paced for a while after hanging up. Put on some pants.

"Sorry I disturbed you on your call." The girl said.

"Yeah, yeah. Look, I gotta-"

Two bullet bodies crashed through his doors. His bodyguards. The girl screamed.

"What the fuck-"

Then armed white men walked in his office. Four of them.

"Who the fuck are you muthafuckas? You know who you fuckin' with?" Payton screamed.

Then silenced automatic burst ripped his upper body apart.

"Oh…my God…"The girl said.

One of them walked over to her. The others reloaded. He said something to his friends in Russian.

"No." The woman said, her voice ice cold. "I won't go with you."

With lightning speed, she ripped out the man's Adam's apple with her right hand. Before the first man hit the ground, she leaped at another, right foot first and crushed his larynx.

The last two, real pros, overcame the shock of seeing a naked woman kill two men with her bare hands. But then they had their jugulars slit in one swift stroke. The woman had taken her second victim's knife from his gear. And the men died.

She had to move fast. She showered and washed off the blood of her victims of her. And put her dress and shoes back on.

She grabbed one of the dead men's pistols, a 9mm Beretta, and went on her way. She disliked firearms, but they did the job well sometimes.

She went through the back door. Saw the bodies of Payton's men. Then, she was in the alley. She run right in front of the parked SUV. The man sitting in it got out, holding a gun and got shot in the head.

Then, the woman quickly got behind the wheel of the SUV and drove away. She looked at her self in the rear-view mirror. She couldn't wait to remove the blonde dye and her make up and shower again. She wanted to look like herself again.

For now, go back to where Fury set up the meet.

Five dead Russian mercenaries. All in a night's work for Elektra.

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

NEW YORK CITY

MIDNIGHT

"What THE FUCK do you mean, they're not responding?"

Tatamovich was livid.

"Just what I said." Rastovillich said. "Several of my strike teams are not responding."

"So what the fuck does this mean? Did you ask for radio silence, anything like that?"

"They were supposed to get back to me on the radio once they were done."

"So what does it mean?"

"It means they're unable to respond."

"What? What do you mean? You mean they're dead, do you? They're dead, they fucked up, those super troops of yours. Best of the best. They got fucked in the ass by Punisher!"

"Look-"

"I risked everything, I invested all I have in this, and now, I have nothing! Nothing! "

Rastovillich got up.

"Calm down." He said.

"Fuck you!" Tatamovich said.

The mercenary leader grabbed grabbed the mobster by the neck.

"Listen to me, you snivelling little fuck! You didin't lose shit!"

Around, there were a few of Tatamovich's men about to react, but Rastovillich's men also tensed up.

"You didn't lose any fucking thing." Rastovillich snarled. "I lost my men. I lost good friends because you wanted to be the King shit of gangsters in New York City. Because of YOU, I lost some of the finest warriors ever, so you shut the fuck up about your losses!"

The ex-Spetznaz man tossed the gangster aside, coughing and gagging. Then, after a few seconds.

"So now what the fuck do we do?" Tatamovich said.

"Now, we need to regroup and get ready. We need to fortify this place. They could be coming here next."

"Here? How the fuck would they know to come here? Who is 'they'?"

"You moron. We set the trap for The Punisher and launched the attacks on the other gangs at the exact same time. The other teams were intercepted while Castle was fighting for his life. Which means my men were ambushed by others!"

"Who?"

"It doesn't matter. Castle wasn't alone. And there's always a chance he could show up here soon. We have to prepare. You want to leave?"

"No! I want to see that fucker die with my own eyes."

"For once we agree."

SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT

TEMPORARY SHIELD BASE OF OPS

MANHATTAN SKY RISE

The Punisher, Black Widow, Shotgun, Elektra and Nick Fury were all in the conference room.

Fury was standing up and talking.

"Ok. You took a second to get acquainted. Besides, most of you know each other, or know of each other, so let's move on. I think tonight we put a hurt on Tatamovich and Rastovillich. We seriously reduced their numbers. I knew I was right to get set up this little crew of bad asses. Good job."

Castle looked around the table. He knew Shotgun from Viet-Nam and they have met a few times since while on the job. He knew Elektra well. Very well. The Punisher preferred working alone, but if he had to work with others, he would rather do it with some serious pros like these.

He looked at the group's body language. There was something going on between Elektra and Black Widow. Not hostility exactly, but something, like they were sizing each other up. He then remembered they'd both been Daredevil's women. Maybe they hadn't met before.

"It ain't a complete shut out." Fury said. "They took out a couple drug labs. They also wiped out Vic Soledad.'s outfit out in the Bronx."

"Soledad was one of the major coke movers on the East Coast." Castle said.

"A great loss for mankind, then." Elektra said.

"Also." Fury said. "They took out a few dozen gang-bangers."

"As good as we are, we need more manpower." Widow said. "Couldn't you spare a few SHIELD agents?"

"I'm working on getting us reinforcements." Fury said. "But like I told you guys before, this is black bag. Even I got bosses. They got wind of me using SHIELD as a government funded vigilante squad, it could be my ass. I'm too fuckin' old to consider career changes and sure as shit don't feel like movin' to fuckin' Florida with all the other geezers. I'm funding this with confiscated money from different Hydra and AIM ops SHIELD shut down. We gotta keep it off the books, which is why I called out to you guys. Well, except Castle."

"So what's next, Fury?" Shotgun asked.

"We have one of these assholes in a holding cell here." Fury said. "We make him talk, see what he knows. We're dealing with some cold blooded fuckers here, people. That trap they set for Castle should be a clue to that."

"What about the cops?" Castle asked.

"I know about the FBI/INTERPOL task force." Fury said. "They're gonna be pissed when they hear about this shit in the news, same as everybody else. But this is a black bag op. We can do shit they can't. This ain't about pride, this is about results."

Fury took sucked in his on his cigar.

"There's gonna be a lot more killing if we wanna win this thing. I wanna know if you're all still in."

"Nick, look at the people in this room." Widow said. "Do you think anyone here has any problem with killing?"

"You got a point." Fury said. "I guess I should rephrase that. Anybody wants out?

You get paid, no harm no foul."

"I ain't got nuttin' on my agenda for a couple weeks, Fury." Shotgun said. "I'm in."

"I want to see this through." Widow said.

"I'm in for as long as needed." Elektra said.

There was a silence. They all looked at Castle.

"Castle?"

The Punisher got up. Nodded. And said.

"Everybody go to sleep. I'm gonna have a talk with the prisoner."

LONG ISLAND

0103 HOURS

"This feels fuckin' familiar." Feinstein said.

"Triad boss is still alive. He lost a lot his bodyguards, though. Heard it was as bad as Staten Island." O'Reilly answered.

"Great fuckin' thing to wake up to in the dead of night."

They made it to yet another estate turned war zone.

"Christ." Feinstein said.

A uniformed cop approached them. "It's pretty bad." The cop said. "Apparently, this place was hit harder than the others."

"Others?" Feinstein said.

His cell phone rang. "Yeah? What? Brooklyn and Harlem and The Kitchen? What? Fuuuuck me. Ok. Yeah."

Feinstein hung up.

"There other places that were hit." Feinstein said. "Same scenario. Dead gangsters. At some places, a lot of dead Russian hit men."

"Yeah." The uniformed cop said. "I remember dispatch was freaking out. Just before midnight. Everywhere was being hit at once."

"Holy shit." Feinstein said. "They were making a big fuckin' move."

"And they were intercepted a few times." O'Reilly said.

"Has to be Punisher." Feinstein said.

"Sure. At one of those places. But he can't be everywhere at once." O'Reilly said.

"So he has help. Usually, he works alone, but this IS pretty fuckin' big. Christ, we gotta worry about a bunch of armed vigilantes on top of that."

"This case is gonna be more painful and nerve wracking than a Ben Affleck film festival." O'Reilly said.

"I hope it doesn't get THAT bad." Feinstein said. "Do we look like a bunch of assholes or what? God damn it. I hate this."

Feinstein's phone rang again. He took it.

"Feinstein here. Yeah. What? Where? Holy shit. Don't move. We'll be right there." He hung up.

"What was that about?" O'Reilly said.

"That was Cleveland Franklin." Feinstein answered." He has a prisoner."

"Who?" O'Reilly asked.

"One of them. One of the Russian killers. In custody in a Brooklyn cop shop." Feinstein answered.