The story so far:
Nero's PUNISHER: DEAD MAN'S PARTY casting and preview
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=26270
Nero's PUNISHER: DEAD MAN'S PARTY vol. one
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=26463
Nero's PUNISHER: DEAD MAN'S PARTY vol. two
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=26790
Nero’s PUNISHER: DEAD MAN’S PARTY vol. three
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=27092
Nero’s PUNISHER: DEAD MAN’S PARTY vol. four
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=27483
Nero’s PUNISHER: DEAD MAN’S PARTY vol. five
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=28144
Nero’s PUNISHER: DEAD MAN’S PARTY vol. six
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=28880
Nero’s PUNISHER: DEAD MAN’S PARTY vol. seven http://www.comicbookmovie.com/news/?a=29356
SCENE TWENTY-EIGHT:
Night has fallen in the Bronx. Shotgun moves his men into position preparing to breach the small garage Frank has been using as a safe house. Ramirez stands at his side tucked into a thin alley across the street.
Ramirez:
Think he’s home?
Shotgun:
Considering we’re not in the middle of a shit storm yet, I doubt it. I’ll be damned if I’m going in there first, two million or not. Let those dumb bastards take whatever he’s got waitin’ in there. We can mop up.
The Cartel’s men, all dressed as NYPD ESU officers, scuttle into position at the entry points. Once ready they glance to Shotgun who gives the “Go” signal. One thug kicks the front door and makes it a step through the doorway when a charge mounted in the darkness explodes hurling shredded chucks of steel belted radial at him. The blast hurls him back out the door on his ass. He screams; hot rubber and wire fragments are embedded in his face and upper torso. A similar thump and shouting is heard from the rear of the building. Men pour into the structure and for several moments there is silence until suddenly gunfire erupts. For a moment Shotgun and Ramirez seem poised to enter the fray when suddenly there is a sucking of air and a thunderous whomp as a second larger booby trap is apparently sprung. There is a belch of dense flame that roles from the depths of the garage, the smell of burning diesel fills the air as the interior goes up in flames. Several men run from the building unscathed two emerge half a second later engulfed in flames.
The survivors and Shotgun dash to near-by vehicles and take off.
Shotgun looks to one thug in the back his van. The man is singed and soot covers his face and clothes.
Shotgun:
The [frick] was that?
Man:
Place was clear, but there were signs that he was wounded, blood all over the bathroom. No sign of him now, but he has been there recently. The coffee pot was still on. Everything was fine until some idiot panicked and fired at a target cutout. Half the team opened up. Next thing I know one of the men in the garage lets out a yell to get out. I didn’t stand around to ask why. Stench of diesel, Castle probably rigged the station's reserve pump to blow. Idiots must have triggered it.
Shotgun:
[frick]ing Castle. Cops will be crawling up our ass in a minute, get us the hell out of the Bronx.
Back in the warehouse in Red Hook, Micro labors over his computer screens rummaging through Port Authority and MOTBY records.
Franks voice over narration from his War Journal [PWJ] plays over the scene below:
Punisher War Journal: Saturday, January 26, 1985
My left arm is swollen to bursting and sharp pains are rocketing up and down from my hand to my shoulder every time I flex the torn muscles in my forearm. The pain I can deal with. The asshole that shot me with enough horse tranquilizers to stop Sea Biscuit and then chained me to a chair for six hours I can barely stand.
---He says his name is Linus Lieberman. He says he just wants to help. Given the circumstances I’m in no position to refuse. Those who have helped me in the past are being made to suffer for it. "A Dead Man's Party," the cartel calls it. Charlene, dead and Soap near death or dying. I can’t let it distract me right now. Not with men like J.R. Walker out there. All I can do is focus on the routine, focus on the task at hand; kill them all.
---One thing this guy has brought to the table is an arsenal out of my wildest wet dreams. All the bones are here, I just need to add the meat. Military hardware, the real deal, not just some second hand SMGs and assault rifles I can steal off some backdoor gun runner’s dead carcass or crack house's stash. Couple all that with some techno voodoo and the man could be useful.
Frank is busying himself customizing an XM177-E1, the venerable “Colt Commando” equipped with an intigrated flash/sound suppressor. He mounts an M203 grenade launcher and a custom short sling as well as Velcro attachment to lash the rifle close at the side of a National Guard issue ballistic vest. Castle loads two full 100 round Beta-C double drum magazines and four standard 30’s duct taped in over under pairs. Next we see him customize a US Army issue Remington 870 nine shot model 12 gauge. Frank clamps the weapon to the work table in a vise and saws down and sands the butt to a modified pistol grip, then drills a series of small holes on the barrel at 45 degree angles to the sights to serve as muzzel breaks and rise suppressors. To finish, he removes the pump grip and drills holes to attach a mounting bracket for a modestly sized Maglite. Next two Ingram MAC-10s are affixed to slings and sound suppressors are added. Three 1911A1s are laid out two standard, one extended barrel with a silencer attached; a total of six seven round clips of .45 ACP are oiled and loaded. Last, but not least, Frank takes the vest to a nearby table and spray paints his symbol across its breast plate. He stands for a moment staring silently at the death’s head. One set of soulless black eyes staring into another.
Micro:
(Yelling from the other end of the warehouse.)
Got it!
Frank barely glances up from his chore of field stripping and cleaning an Ingram.
Frank:
Where?
Micro walks over in the semi-daze of one who has spent hours staring at a computer screen as they struggle to readjust to the long ignored 3-D environment around them.
Micro:
Here; it’s coming here to Red Hook. The Red Hook Containerport, the Atlantic Basin. It’s [frick]in’ four blocks away. It’s been under my goddamn nose all this time.
Frank:
How do you know it’s here and not [frick]in’ Port Jersey or the South Brooklyn Terminal?
Micro:
Piers 6 through 12 of the containerport aren’t controlled by the Port Authority. They're privately managed by a company called Americo Stepholm Inc, way less official involvement or oversight. The city contracts with them to handle the offloading of road salt at pier 12 for the DOT, guess where the salt comes from.
Frank:
Just [frick]ing tell me, I’m not playing Twenty-freakin’-Questions here.
Micro:
Well the salt comes from Chile. The Tarapaca Salt Flat in Iquique, Chile to be exact. From there it gets loaded aboard ships owned by a company called Columbus Lines, which is owned by a conglomerate, which is owned by high ranking members of the Medellin and Cali cartels. The ship’s logs, maintenance records, and manifests I’ve accessed show these freighters take the salt through the Panama Canal. Now get this some have “mechanical problems” as the pass through the first leg, just those bound for Red Hook and just one every few weeks never the ones bound for New Hampshire or Maine. They stop at the little port town called Gamboa just outside the Canal Zone. My bet is that’s where the drugs are loaded, most layovers last about nine hours, enough time to shift a few tons of salt by hand and drop a shit load of cocaine in there to be buried beneath the salt again. God knows no dog would be able to sniff it out. Once “fixed”….
Frank:
Stop doing the quotation marks with your hands, shit’s annoying.
Micro:
Sorry, habit. Once they’re fixed the ships head through the Caribbean straight to the container port on Pier 12 where it’s offloaded onto the docks by Americo which is owned by another group that has major holdings in Colombia. The dockworkers hook up these pumpers and vacuum out the salt while another group is responsible for cleanup of the holds before the return voyage. What do you wanna bet the cleaners are unloading the coke? So then I checked the dock manifests, there are always three transfer trucks extra on the docks at the time of the unloads of any ship that docked for repairs in Gamboa. Because the trucks weren’t supposed to be loaded they're not checked as they leave the docks. I don’t know where the trucks go from there exactly, but guess who owns the trucking company.
Frank:
Toomey.
Micro:
John James-[frick]in’-Toomey. There's your supply line. Probably takes the coke to a secondary facility to be parceled up and then deliveres it to his cook and distribution centers like the one you took out at The Calvary Heights.
Frank:
You worked all that out in eleven hours?
Micro:
I told you Frank, computers, man. If you can access the right systems and records you’d be amazed the shit you can dig up. You need me, man.
Frank:
When’s the next shipment?
Micro:
3 AM, on the 29th. The ship's called La Nina Maria.
PWJ:
I’ve got the where and the when. Now I just have to figure out how to take out the shipment and kill every mother[frick]er that Sandoval will have waiting for me. Nothing like going head long into an ambush, but like my old drill instructors at Paris Island said, “Sometimes the ambush is inevitable, you just need to turn it on the sons of bitches.” Easier said than done.
A quick aside to a hospital in Manhattan shows a waiting room full of police officers, most are milling about talking quietly amongst themselves or hitting on the nurses. In an out of the way corner Lenny the desk sergeant of the 78th precinct stands staring off into space lost in thought.
Detective William Hornsby wanders over to him.
Hornsby:
Tough night, huh?
Lenny:
Yeah, I hate to see it happen to anybody, but Soap always seemed so harmless, you know.
Hornsby:
And why Soap? Who’d he piss off to get shot up like this? The docs said he took at least one shotgun blast to the head and two nine milli. How can he still be breathin’?
Lenny:
On a [frick]in’ machine is how. Hell, if the kid ever wakes up he’ll probably be a drooling pants shitting mess. Might be better of dead.
Hornsby:
Why though, is what bothers me.
Lenny glances around. Making sure they are out of ear shot.
Lenny:
How long have you known me, Bill?
Hornsby:
What, fifteen, sixteen years?
Lenny:
(He looks into the detectives eyes as if to judge his trust before judging him worthy then produces some bloodied papers and a wallet from his pocket.)
I didn’t want Internal Affairs to see this, the kids been through enough without those [frick]s bearing down on him if he ever wakes up. This was all he had on him when I got to him.
(Lenny hands over the wallet.)
Hornsby:
“Lucas Kale?”
Lenny:
And these.
Hornsby:
A plane ticket to London, and what’s this?
Lenny:
If I had to guess an account number.
Hornsby:
Where’s his shield and ID?
Lenny:
Hell if I know, but it wasn’t on him, no gun either. I also found five grand in his coat.
Hornsby:
What the hell was he into? I mean he had to have been running I guess, but Soap never struck me as dirty. And I saw the guys in that van and it sure as hell wasn’t Frank Castle, so what the hell is this?
Lenny:
I don’t know, but do me a favor and keep it under your hat, got it?
Hornsby:
Yeah. Yeah.
Lenny:
If the kid doesn’t make it I don’t want this kind’a shit coming out about him. If he does come out of it he’s got some explaining to do to me.
With that Lenny glances through the glass divider into the critical care unit. There at the end of the unit Soap lies, head bandaged, hooked to a ventilator and all manner of machines.
The next morning Conejo and Toomey sit in the early morning light of the estate in Westchester’s kitchen. Mrs. Toomey serves them coffee before a glance from her husband tells her it is time to discuss business and she scurries off to other reaches of the house.
Toomey:
Walker and the others find anything?
Conejo:
No. They raided three of Castle’s safe houses; two were vacant and long since abandoned, the third was his current or most recent den. All they found was evidence that he was wounded and rather badly given the amount of blood they found. Unfortunately, one of our less competent security members set off a series of booby traps killing three of my men and burning everything to the ground.
Tommey:
So Castle’s still out there. Are we still going ahead with the delivery?
Conejo:
The ship is alread off the Florida coast. Senior Walker believes the delivery is the best time to spring the trap for Castle. Needless to say we are making other arrangements for the shipment, a fishing vessel has been commandeered, shall we say, and will meet the shipment off the coast of South Carolina tonight. They will unload our cargo and take it ashore tomorrow morning at a secluded location on the Chesapeake Bay before disposing of the smaller ship. When Castle makes his move he will find no drugs, and by then he will be deep in the belly of a mid sized freighter, there will be no way out save through Shotgun and our people.
Toomey:
How many man are you sending?
Conejo:
Shotgun, Krieger, Ramirez, around a platoon of our security personnel, roughly twenty-five men all of whom are former military from various nations in the central and south America. We will also be sending in a half dozen other mercenaries that have responded to Senior Sandoval’s invitation.
SCENE TWENTY-NINE:
That night at the Red Hook Container Port, we see the area through night vision as Frank scans, making notes about placement of guards and civilian personnel. After a moment he locks onto a tall dreadlocked black man standing alone looking over the area. Frank tightens his grip on his parabolic microphone as Ramirez walks up to converse with Shotgun.
Ramirez:
Is everything in order?
Shotgun:
I think so. I’ve set up fields of fire from the cranes and pumpers down to the dockside and deck of the freighter when it arrives. Once he’s inside there’s no coming out. Is Krieger en route to the freighter?
Ramirez:
Si, he will be arriving shortly to oversee the goods are unloaded and to arrange the placement of the team onboard.
Shotgun:
Good. Castle will walk right into this.
PWJ:
Taking the drugs off makes sense. The last thing they’re going to want is to lose the shipment and once the firefight starts NYPD and harbor patrol will cordon off the area before moving in, they’ll search the ship and seize the cocaine. Unloading beforehand and killing me in the crossfire is the way to go. I still want the shipment. Have to run this by the fat man.
Frank:
(Speaking into his radio)
Fat Man, they're having the goods unloaded somewhere along the ship’s route. Where is it now?
Micro:
Frank, please call me Microchip. That’s what I use as my handle when I hack. Just call me that okay? Right now the ship should be off the coast of northern South Carolina or thereabouts. If they’re going to unload it will have to be as the ship is moving so they don’t throw off the arrival, probably a smaller craft would pull up alongside. Crabber or Sword Fisher would be the right size. They could bring it ashore anywhere along there.
Frank:
So the chances of intercept are slim to none.
Micro:
Yeah, we’re not going to be able to get this one. Are you still intent on engaging?
Frank:
I’ll never have a chance to have all these scumbags in one place again. Do you have any UDT equipment in your stockpile?
Micro:
(Scoffs)Please.
Frank:
Lay it out for me, extra tanks. And all the play-doh you can find.
Back at the estate, Toomey kisses his children goodnight as they sleep. His youngest daughter stirs.
Daughter:
Daddy?
Toomey:
Yes, baby girl?
Daughter:
When we goin' home?
Toomey:
Soon, baby. Soon.
He hugs his daughter, as we see his face over her shoulder there is a mix of emotion in his eyes. There is hatred and fear there.
Toomey slides into bed with his wife, she is awake in the darkness. He spoons her and kisses her lovingly behind her ear before whispering with her.
Toomey:
After tomorrow night we won’t have anything to worry about.
Shonda:
No more Punisher?
Toomey:
No more. Frank Castle will be a bad memory and we can get our lives back.
Shonda:
Are you going to kill him?
Toomey:
No, the men the Cartel hired will deal with him. They’re scarier than anybody I’ve ever worked with. Just watch the morning news the day after tomorrow and you’ll see.
Shonda:
Then they'll own you. You know that, they'll hold it over you.
Toomey:
Baby, I...
He rolls over and stares at the moonlight dancing from the lake onto the ceiling.
The dawn is just breaking as Frank emerges from the waters of the upper bay along the shore line four hundred yards south of the basin hidden from the occupants of Pier 12 by the decrepit cement factory on the point. Frank pulls himself up among the breakers shivering with cold, his lips pale and bluish from his endeavors.
Micro walks casually along the massive stones dressed in a NYPD uniform and carrying a blanket and a thermos, he waves to Frank and points his thumb at the van parked at the end of Coffey Street.
Micro:
We all set?
Frank:
Five hours work in a dry suit, and a mild case of hypothermia says “yes.”
Micro:
Kind of nice when your objective is only a few blocks away from your armory.
Frank:
Don’t get used to things being easy. Did you plant the tracers like I asked?
Micro:
Four magnetic tracers, and charges tucked under the back bumpers of the cars you pointed out. Tracers are already sending a signal to the receiver in the van.
Frank:
Good work. How far does the signal broadcast?
Micro:
About twenty miles, get within that range and you can hone in on it by the strength of the signal.
Frank:
That’ll work. I need two things. One: follow the signal one of these dipshits will lead us back to their safehouse. Two: I need you to inflate the Zodiac I saw in the warehouse and attach a solid outboard.
Later: We see the midday sun shining down on the outskirts of the estate in Westchester as Shotgun and Ramirez arrive home. The men are tired after spending the evening planning their ambush. They slowly trudge into the main house. We see over Shotgun’s shoulder nearly a mile away down the sloping hill and through a small clearing in the trees a van slows and then pulls off the main road. We change view to the cab of the van as Micro smiles a sly smile before snapping a few photos of the grand old manor barely visable atop the heights. He snorts and lights a fresh cigarette before driving away.
SCENE THIRTY:
Frank is adrift on a dark sea in the equipment laden Zodiac boat; he peers into the darkness with a starlight scope scanning the horizon.
PWJ:
Punisher War Journal: Tuesday, January 29, 1985.
I put to sea off the breakers at Breezy Point three hours ago, now it’s pushing 2:00 AM and I’m, floating in the middle of the sea lanes between the point and Sandy Hook looking for a freighter called La Nina Maria. The night is overcast and freezing; at least the goddamn snow has stopped. The new night vision scopes are a damn sight better than the ones we had in Vietnam. There she is.
In the green iridescence we see the image of the freighter cutting through the mild chop. Frank turns on the motor and heads on an intercept coarse with the ship. When he is near passed the bow wave he cuts the already silent running engine and coasts toward the stern. He pulls alongside near the portside stern latching onto the hull with a magnetic anchor, then another. Once the Zodiac is secure he dons scuba gear and smaller magnetic gripers which he slides over his gloves, he attaches a large pack to his chest web gear before sliding into the dark waters. He adheres to the hull slowly easing along the keel and then up the starboard side hull to just a few feet below the waterline. Once there he attaches two lines from the magnetic grips to his web gear at the shoulders allowing his hands to work freely. Frank pulls a massive wad of plastique and a time delay detonator. He secures the bomb to the ship using a dome shaped magnetic housing nearly three times the size of a football. He repeats this process on the portside before easing himself back down the keel to the Zodiac.
Frank climbs aboard his boat after a moment spent ensuring the craft was not spotted by anyone on the deck of the freighter.
PWJ:
I have to give Micro credit, the man certainly picked out some nice toys.
After disconnecting the magnetic anchors Castle allows the Zodiac to drift quietly away in the larger ship’s wake. Laying prone on the raft to lessen his profile, his eyes locked to the starlight scope now mounted to the top of his XM177-E1 scanning the deck for any activity. After the ship has sailed out of earshot Frank turns on the motor and heads north for Breezy Point Tip.
At that moment Krieger wanders to the stern to smoke a cigarette, the faint sound of an outboard rumbles on the wind and he looks out into the darkness for its source; seeing nothing he lights his cigarette and walks away humming “Auferstanden aus Ruinen. “
Shotgun is tucked in a tight gap between two containers stacks thirty feet in the air. From here he has a low level panorama of the docks and is still in effective range for his namesake weapons of choice against someone on the sprawling concrete pier below. He sees the lights atop the masts and superstructure of the freighter. Walker glances at his watch; 2:43 AM. He speaks into his radio.
Shotgun:
Stand ready. ETA on the ship is twenty minutes. Castle will make his move near the end of the offload or cause a distraction to clear the Port area of civilians. He’s not going to have a firefight amongst the dock workers and teamsters down there. Keep your eyes open.
Ramirez responds from his position in a sniper’s nest atop one the nearby cranes on the adjoining pier.
Ramirez:
Roger.
Frank drives down a nondescript road in a black van as the camera pans we see a road sign in the background that says, “Valhalla, four miles.” The dash clock reads 3:38 AM. Inside Frank hefts an old fashioned cell phone its receiver connected by wire to a large suitcase sized battery.
Frank:
En route to the target. I should be there and prepped by the time the freighter is mid-offload. Are you sure you can pull off your end?
Micro:
Hey, as long as I’m not killing anybody.
Frank:
Diversion only, trust me.
Micro:
You got it, Frank. Just be sure to stay by the phone for the confirmation and go signal.
Frank:
Will do.
As the camera leaves Frank we see a shot of Micro sitting on a lawn chair on the flat roof of he and Frank’s warehouse with a comically large pair of binoculars on a tripod in front of him, a six pack of beer stuffed in the snow beside him, a hot dog with everything in one hand and his cell brick in the other, at his feet sits a large radio set and a jumble of electric cords snaking to a nearby open skylight. He is bundled in an oversized parka against the cold, a wide smile on his face. He leans back in his lawn chair and opens a can, he holds it up in salute to the lights of the pier several blocks away before chugging it and releasing a resounding belch.
Micro:
Payback’s a bitch, you murdering drug dealing sons of bitches. Cock sucking [frick]ing lady killing hit men pussies.
At the estate in Westchester Toomey looks nervously at the grandfather clock in the study as the chimes strike 3:45 AM. He looks to Conejo who sits casually at the bar.
Toomey:
When will we know it’s over?
Conejo:
Walker or any that survive will contact us from the choppers when they flee the scene. Don’t worry my friend, Frank Castle is about to walk into a trap involving nearly forty trained men. He will not survive this.
Toomey:
You don’t know The Punisher.
Conejo:
HA! If by some miracle he survives he does not know where we are and even if he did we are only barely less protected than the docks. Nor will we be here for long after we have confirmation of the events. Our own helicopter waits on the lawn to take us to the Westchester County Airport where our plane awaits. By noon tomorrow you and your family will be the guests of Senior Sandoval himself for a few weeks. Let not your heart be troubled, my friend. Your family are ready to travel, yes?
Toomey:
Everyone’s ready to go. They’re sleeping now.
Conejo:
Good, may they sleep soundly. It will all be over soon.
SCENE THIRTY-ONE:
Back at the container port the off load of the loose salt in La Nina Maria’s hold is underway. A crane snakes a large hose into open hatches on the deck and vacuum out the salt which is then deposited on the pier in a massive pile, the sides of which is scooped up by bulldozers and loaded into dumpers to be carried to DOT facilities around the city to be mixed with sand and deposited on the icy streets.
Across the Atlantic Basin on Pier 11 the view shows a smaller storage facility, within it is a cage filled with four massive pressurized canisters labeled” DANGER: CHLORINE. CAUSES BURNS, SEVER EYE HAZARD, MAY BE FATAL IF INHALED.” The view slowly slips below the floor of the building and then through a knot hole in the heavy wooden planks that make up the pier itself. There fastened to one of the hundreds of support pilings is a football sized charge and detonator.
Several blocks away Micro shivers on the roof of his warehouse. He glances at his watch as the second hand ticks over the twelve. 4:00 AM; Micro lights a cigar and leans back in his lawn chair and flips open the safety cover on his radio detonator and depresses the button.
The explosive explodes near the top of the pylon, the blast ignites several flamable containers within the aluminum building blowing the roof and sides off in an instant.
Shotgun jerks in response to the deafening blast and heat wave that follows the flash. The blast is so close to Ramirez it nearly knocks him off his nest atop the vacant pier’s crane. As the plume of smoke and flame rises two of the massive tanks fall from the cloud. One slams down with a thunderous report but merely roles harmlessly into parked equipment. The second tank lands on the concrete edge of the basin itself. The impact ruptures the tank and a pale green fog erupts from the jagged gash and a bleah-like smell fills the air. Several dockworkers see the gas escaping and pull an alarm causing claxons to sound up and down the complex.
Shotgun:
(Into his handset)
What the [frick] was that?!
Ramirez struggles back onto the crane arm’s framework and responds.
Ramirez:
Castle’s diversion, he blew the hazardous materials bay on Pier 11 right under me. There’s a tank leaking gas over here! Go masks on!
Shotgun:
You heard him everybody, Castle is on site. Put on your gas masks and keep your eyes open.
The gunmen’s heads go on a nervous swivel, scanning through the rushing crowds of dock personnel.
Shotgun looks around a smile on his face before he puts on his gas mask. He talks to himself:
Shotgun:
Goddamn, blows open a tank of chlorine. Smart. Very smart. Heavier than air will settle into the basin, but still cause an evacuation for blocks in every direction for hours while the cloud dissipates. Always so worried about getting the poor little civilians outta’ the way.
Back on the rooftop Micro sips his beer as he watches the roiling flames and smoke rise from the docks, he looks through his binoculars. He leans over and rummages in a small box beside him. Pulling out an Army Issue chemical warfare suit.
Micro:
Juuust in case.
Frank Castle pulls off NY22 along a secluded peninsula between the Kensico Reservoir and Rye Lake in Westchester County. He uses bolt cutters to snap the locked chain on a gate blocking a service road leading to the estate’s boat house on Rye Lake. He cosmetically reattaches the chain and drives a hundred yards down the way, before hooking a U-turn and then pulling the van just off the service road onto a level area of dense vegetation. He then camouflages the vehicle with loose limbs before climbing inside the back.
Inside we see Frank check his watch, 4:05 AM. He pulls black coveralls over his wet suit; he then dons his ballistic vest and web gear. Atop this Frank adds three M67 frags, two tactical holsters in which he plants his Colts and four spare magazines. Next he puts on a belt containing four spare 40mm grenades for his M203 launcher. He slides the slings of the MAC-10s over each arm before hooking them under the vest’s epaulets and then lashing them to his sides with a Velcro strap to prevent them from rattling about. His K-Bar is affixed to his left breast strap and a SEAL tactical blade to his lower right leg. He tucks two push knives into the sides of his belt buckle. A satchel is then hooked to his web gear just above his buttocks and a LAW rocket launcher is slung just above that, its ends wrapped in black electrical tap to prevent the MAC silencers from tapping against it too loudly. Finally Frank slides his modified Remington 870 into a holster on his back and slides on a bandolier of 12 gauge shells and six full 30 round mags for his XM177-E1. With that he takes up a position outside the van concealed in the trees, the mobile phone at his side, and rifle at the ready.
Back on the docks Shotgun is growing impatient.
Shotgun:
C’mon Castle.
(Into handset.)
Krieger anything happening on the boat?
Krieger:
(Over com.)
Nein, nichts noch.
He glances at his watch; 4:26.
Shotgun:
C’mon, man. All the civies are out of the way, where are you? Leaving us here like sitting ducks.
(At that a sudden flash of realization washes over Walker’s face.)
Oh, you son of a bitch.
Frank, still in his blind, dials a number on his cell. Micro picks up his receiver.
Micro:
Yeah, Frank?
Frank:
You might want to duck.
PWJ:
Sitting there last night planning out my suicide run on that dock I had an epiphany; passive aggression is still aggression. I hate J.R. Walker with a passion and I have for over a decade, knowing what he is and knowing what he has done in the war, to the people I knew, to anyone that ever got in his way. As much as I want to watch the life leave his eyes while I twist a knife in his heart there are other more important things to do. I don’t need to see him die, just so long as he goes.
At that we see things familiar; the small domes Frank attached to the hull of La Nina Maria and the world goes into slow motion as Frank’s narration chimes in. The events follow along with his tale.
PWJ:
My homemade limpet mine on the hull of the Maria will go off in just the right location, according to the schematics Micro gave me, to break the keel and breach the bitch’s entire hull.
In this moment we see Krieger and his team tossed violently into the steel ceiling of the compartment in which they are hiding, the power on the boat goes out and somewhere in the confusion a flashlight turns on.
PWJ:
The blast wave will ripple through the waters of the basin and slam into the pylons holding up the pier. Seventeen of those pylons are rigged with charges of my own making. Ten pounds of shaped charges with a water pressure displacement fuse. Anyone on that pier is going in the water, if the blast doesn’t kill them the collapse will.
The pier erupts and then tips into the bay, gun men scatter only to be catapulted by snapping timbers and fracturing concrete. Several men are impaled by flying splinters or lashed by snapping cables. As the structure tilts further hired guns are crushed by heavy equipment and massive containers sliding down the capsizing pier. Finally, the massive crane on Pier 12 groans as its supports give way and it crashes down across the remains of the dock.
In the ship Krieger tries to swim as the compartment rapidly fills with water, the only illumination comes from beneath the water as a flashlight clutched in the hand of a dead hitman is kicked about by the drowning men’s thrashing legs. In the wavering light there is a quick view beneath the water we see Krieger has suffered horrible fractures to his legs. He struggles as the water sloshes him hard into the wall as the compartment rolls sideways with the listing of the ship. He fights desperately for any pocket of air he can reach, but finds none. Slowly the air bubbles cease coming from his mouth. We see in the pale light his movements slow then become then become only involuntary jolts and twitches.
Outside the few hitters still able to tread water are choking on the low fog of chlorine hovering over the surface of the water. After a few moments of catastrophic destruction an eerie hush settles over the basin. The air is thick with smoke and dust a pale yellow-green fog hangs over the still frothing water.
The camera pulls back to reveal Shotgun and Ramirez standing at the shattered edge of the old pier safe on the stable newer reinforced concrete portion of the basin. The two figure seem tiny against the massive backdrop of total destruction before them.
Ramirez:
Madre de dios.
Shotgun:
Call in the chopper. I think I know where castle is.