Frank Woods Black Ops 1 Novels & Stories

This will always be in the back of their minds. The night they almost lost who they were. I spot little Peter from Alan's class and want to cry out loud. I had a feeling father and the business were behind his disappearance but didn't want to admit it or say it out loud. Seeing his face, dirty and scuffed, has me clinching my fists and fighting to grab him and the other children and run. "Now, if you all will watch as they get their first injection…" Before father could continue, the door slams open and men, all dressed in black combat uniforms and boots, run in with guns trained on all of us. Father's eyes bug out of his head and looks straight at me.

I leaned in, and the name on the screen stopped my breath before he even said it out loud, seventeen years of building something out of nothing suddenly feeling as fragile as a single unauthorized login. "Blackwood," Noah said quietly. "It's Blackwood. Someone inside our own company has been on their payroll, and nobody caught it until a seventeen-year-old with a laptop and too much free time decided to go looking."

Men and women once trained to be invisible in light, untraceable in code. The first opened his eyes before Lorenzo spoke. "They said you were dead," the man rasped. Lorenzo smiled. "They say a lot of things." He pressed his palm to the master console. "Initiate Black Cell program. Operation PHANTOM. Loyalty protocol: De Rossi only." The AI replied: Command accepted. Thirteen operatives remain. Preparing for deployment. Lorenzo stepped back. The Wraiths would rise again. But this time, they weren’t Umbra.

“Nest.” “Already on my way,” Frank said. He had no reverence for doors. The Imperial Arms service corridor coughed him into the stairwell, the stairwell coughed him into the twelfth floor, and a glass panel coughed a polite apology when the suppressed round popped it in the corner and let him in. The balcony was a pocket of wind and brass. Frank gloved a casing without thinking and held it to the light. 300 BLK, subsonic. He could smell the powder like a friend he didn’t trust.

The engine of the war machine was roaring to life, fueled by the secrets of a broken girl and the wrath of a man who had finally found a target worthy of his power. ​As the vans peeled out of the fortress and into the American night, Silas’s voice echoed over the comms. ​"Target distance: 30 miles. All systems green. The Vulture is blind." ​Roman looked out at the passing trees, his hand resting on the hilt of his tactical knife. The shell game was over. And Arthur Blackwood was about to find out that when you play with ghosts, you eventually end up in the grave.

Dad grabbed the nurse, throwing her out of the room alongside himself. "Well-done, Emily, you have accomplished your mission." A sinister scent emerged, a wicked laugh echoing across the room. The once blue sky was now a mixture of black and white with the moon reflecting its radiant image. Wails filled the air as a ray of light fell from the sky, hitting a mountain on the other side of town. I groaned, wincing as my hand was scorched by the flaming book. The pages settled, words in red appearing on the pages. "Strigoi, Nosferatu, Jiangshi…"

the man in black added callously, a hint of amusement in his voice. With great effort, Mr. Woods raised his head slowly, his parched throat causing excruciating pain as he spoke. "Water... please," he managed to beg, his voice barely audible. The man in black seemed momentarily taken aback by the genuine plea for relief. After a pause, he relented, opening the cap of the water bottle. "Just answer the question," he demanded. Struggling to find his voice amidst the agony, Mr. Woods pleaded, "I... don't... know. I didn't... know the motive. It wasn't... my idea. I was... just... caught up in everything. Please, believe me."

The world lurches violently. The arena collapses inward with a deafening scream, nightmare and stone and magic imploding into a vortex of shadow. Kael lunges, fury and terror etched across his face. “ARIA!” The darkness swallows me. The bond flares once, then everything goes black, and somewhere in the collapsing remains of the Game… Nyxara laughs.

“Blackwater stands with Ironwood. We will not submit.” I nod once. “Then you have chosen.” We move forward. The assault begins swiftly. Our fighters breach the palisade in three places at once. Shouts rise. Steel clashes. Blackwater’s defenders fight with desperation, but they lack coordination and experience. Our elite force presses hard. I fight at the front. My blades move with cold precision. I do not seek unnecessary death, but I show no hesitation. Wolves who drop their weapons are spared and bound. Those who continue to fight fall.

Retribution was coming. The full extraction wrapped in under ten minutes of pure, controlled chaos. Non-lethal force had minimized unnecessary deaths, but several Blackwood guards lay tranqed or critically wounded on the floors above. The financial war continued raging outside the gates Blackwood stocks still in freefall, the media frenzy exploding as first reports of an “armed incident at the Blackwood estate” hit every wire service in the country.