Black Widow (2014 series) #9

Black Widow parachutes onto the unregistered oil tanker used by Chaos for a communications relay. She searches the ship and finds nothing. Then a plane lands on the deck and discharges Crossbones and some henchmen from his Skull Squad; he sends them to search the ship. Natasha sneaks up on him but he knows she’s been there the entire time, having tripped all of the sensors. They fight, she gets a wire around his neck and one of his gang draws a bead on her and then…bang. The henchman is killed by the Punisher. Punisher and Widow are surprised to see one another. After binding Crossbones, Castle explains he hitched a ride with Crossbones and has killed several of his Squad who were planting explosives around the ship. He estimates she has four minutes and fifteen seconds to finish her business on the ship before the bombs go off. As the clock counts down, Natasha hurriedly searches the ship for information about Chaos. She exchanges gunfire with the Skull Squad members left. Then she discovers a hapless schnook who knows nothing about anything, he is just doing his job. She grows angry and prepares to shoot him in the kneecap to get some answers but she is stopped by Castle, who can tell the man is telling the truth. Castle takes the man back aboard Crossbones’ plane, Nat continuing to question the poor guy. They take off and on the dot, the ship explodes. In anger she approaches Castle flying the plane and draws her gun….

The next day, at SHIELD HQ, Natasha is reporting to Maria Hill with Tony Stark standing by. Nat has learned nothing about Chaos. What Hill knows is that they can hack SHIELD’s security database which Stark, who designed the system, insists is impossible. While Nat ponders the next move she receives a phone call from someone calling himself an old friend, informing her that Isaiah Ross is his prisoner….