Skye reached for the phone, tearing it apart to reveal it had been bugged. And there was a hidden mic in a drawer. Apparently, Castle had the place wired long before the cops had come to pay a visit to the Grays.
The detective ran outside, seeing a patrol officer getting out of his vehicle. Skye rushed to him.
Skye: "Rookie, I need your vehicle."
"Yes, sir."
"Soap, Budiansky!" Skye yelled as the two NYPD officers ran to the car and hopped in.
The car peeled off, making a right turn and two more lefts before getting onto a main road. Skye took the radio.
"Dispatcher, this is Lieutenant Christian Skye! I need all units at Charlie's Bar and Grill! This is a serious matter, it's Frank Castle!"
Charlie's Bar and Grill:
Aaron Gray was playing billiards with six gang members, all of them Caucasian and dressed in urban wear. Surburbia boys playing gangster. These seven punks were hard to the motherfuckin' core, ain't no bitch in any of these boys.
And they damn sure weren't scared of some ex-FBI motherfucker that was goin' around killing niggas over some handicapped bitch that made that bullshit-ass claim that she was raped.
Fuck that bitch, Lacee West.
And fuck them four punk-asses that was stupid enough to leave themselves open. Aaron Gray didn't give a fuck about nobody but his homeboys, wasn't scared of shit, and fucked up any faggot-ass that got in his way. The way Aaron saw it, if the Punisher wanted to come up in his spot and start some shit, he'd have to taste some blue steel.
Aaron Gray was not a stupid person. He knew who the Punisher and what he was capable of, but he and his boys knew every nook and cranny of Hightstown and as far as he was concerned, they had home field advantage.
"Hey, Suga!"
OG Suga looked up.
"Man, what you gonna do when the Punisher show up?"Aaron asked, smiling.
"Man, I'ma fuck his bitch ass up!" OG Suga shouted, pulling out two silver nine-millimeter Berettas. "The Punisher don't want it! The first thing his ass better do when he see me is run, motherfucker!"
And loud, repeated explosions rocked the air, followed by the sound of glass break and the remaining six gang members scurrying for cover as they saw a bright red hole the size of a tea saucer open up in OG Suga's chest, watching him drop like a broken puppet.
The innocent patrons, including the bartender, rushed out of the bar past Castle, who was holding the Hog: a nickname given to the M60 rifle famous for use in Vietnam. This monster was chambered with seven-six-two millimeter, armor-piercing rounds. Castle went to work, firing toward his right at the bar. One of Aaron's fellow gang members was hiding behind the bar and firing what looked like a relic of a revolver. Unfortunately, the wood didn't do much for cover against the AP rounds. The moans of death were audible to the Punisher's ears.
The third one's head and upper body gave the walls a new red paint job as he exploded out of cover to charge the Punisher.
Two more tried to run for the back door, only to be cut down to absolutely nothing but twitching and bloody hamburger.
Which of course, left Gray himself. And needless to say, this suburban thug had wished he had hit the bathroom before this gunfight occurred. At least, that's what the horrendous stench in the air that Frank was smelling said.
"Aaron Gray," said the Punisher. "Your time has come-"
"Fuck you, Punisher!" screamed Gray.
Aaron Gray was scared shitless and he knew that it was over, that he was going to be killed at the hands of the Punisher. But if he was going to die, he was going to succeed where the Yakuza, the Cosa Nostra, militia, and countless superhumans had failed. The suburban 'banger came out of hiding, a death grip on his M9's trigger, prepared to take the Punisher to the afterlife with him.
"Ready for hell, Punisher?"
As Gray popped out from behind a wall, Castle spent his remaining rounds, cutting Gray in half with a horizontal sweep. His soul, as well as his weapon, were both empty. He threw down the M60, reaching under his trenchcoat for something else. He retrieved a black M1911 (British Service Model), turning off the safety as he walked toward the barely-alive Gray, who was trying to move backward. Castle gave the youth no chance to speak as he pulled the trigger, spending the eight rounds and effectively decapitating the "gangster."
As Castle put away his sidearm, he walked toward the bar's exit, only to be met with white cars. Men in blue uniforms popped out of them, their pistols trained on the Punisher. A white man with a dirty blonde ponytail stepped out of one of the patrol cars with his own pistol out. Getting out of the same was another white man in a brown suit with no tie.
Damn Soap, Castle thought, shaking his head.
But the third man caught Castle's attention the most. A big, hulking bald black man in street clothes with a leather jacket. But not the Barracuda. Worse, because he was law enforcement.
Paul Budiansky, FBI.
"Don't move, Castle," said the ponytailed man, who was coming toward Castle. "Detective Christian Skye, Hightstown PD. Congratulations on getting five of the seven, Frank, but I got my orders to not let you run rampant in this city. Which leaves me to say one last thing: you're under arrest."