Call Of Duty Black Ops

Plot

On February 25, 1968, SAD operative Alex Mason is strapped to a chair in an interrogation room, bombarded with questions by his unseen captors about the location of a numbers station. Mason then recalls several events, as an attempt to answer their questions.

On April 17, 1961, Mason, Woods, and Bowman take part in Operation 40 to assassinate Fidel Castro and assist the CIA sponsored Cuban exiles in overthrowing Castro's communist regime in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Mason apparently succeeds before realizing that the CIA's Cuban rebels are losing against Castro's armed forces. Therefore, he decides to stay behind to protect the extraction plane with Woods and Bowman aboard from an oncoming blockade, before being captured by the real Castro, having shot a double. Handed over to Major General Nikita Dragovich to be held captive at Vorkuta Gulag in the Soviet Union, Mason befriends inmate, former Red Army soldier and World War II veteran Viktor Reznov. Reznov recounts to Mason the identities of their enemies: Dragovich, his right-hand man Lev Kravchenko, and ex-Nazi scientist Friedrich Steiner, who defected to the Soviet Union. On October 29, 1945, Reznov, Petrenko, and their platoon were sent to extract Steiner from a Nazi base in the Arctic. However, they were betrayed by Dragovich, who tested Steiner's nerve gas known as "Nova 6" on Petrenko's squad, killing them. Reznov was spared the same fate when British Commandos, also interested in acquiring Nova 6, attacked the Soviets. In the chaos, Reznov destroyed the Nova 6 and escaped, only to be captured by the Soviets and sent to Vorkuta. The Soviets later recreated Nova 6 with the help of a British scientist, Daniel Clarke.

Having spent over a year imprisoned, Mason and Reznov spark an uprising to flee the gulag. During the escape, Reznov diverts the attention of the Soviet prison guards away from Mason to allow him to escape. On November 10, 1963, Mason meets with President John F. Kennedy, who authorizes a mission to assassinate Dragovich; Mason briefly envisions aiming a handgun at Kennedy. Mason, Woods, Bowman, and Weaver are dispatched to the Baikonur Cosmodrome to disrupt the Soviet space program and eliminate members of "Ascension", a Soviet program giving sanctuary to Nazi scientists in exchange for their knowledge. The team destroys the Soyuz spacecraft, while Woods apparently kills Dragovich in a car explosion with a commandeered BTR.

On January 21, 1968, Mason's team is sent to Vietnam. After defending Khe Sanh from a North Vietnamese assault, they recover a dossier on Dragovich from a Russian defector being held by the North Vietnamese Army in Hue City during the Tet Offensive. The defector turns out to be none other than Reznov, who joins them as they penetrate Laos to recover a Nova 6 shipment from a downed Soviet plane. They are captured by Viet Cong and Spetznaz infiltrators at the crash site. Bowman, after being physically and mentally drained from being forced to play Russian Roulette, instigates the captors and is executed, but Woods and Mason manage to hatch an escape, wherein they are able to hijack an Mi-24 Hind, and cripple the Ho Chi Minh trail before moving on to rescue Reznov from Kravchenko's base. They confront Kravchenko and Woods stabs him, but Kravchenko pulls the pins off of four grenades strapped to himself, forcing Woods to sacrifice himself by pushing both himself and Kravchenko out of a window. In a huge explosion, Mason presumes the two dead.

Meanwhile, Hudson and Weaver interrogate Clarke in Kowloon City. Clarke reveals the location of a hidden facility in Mount Yamantau before being killed by Dragovich's men. Hudson and Weaver move to destroy the facility and receive a transmission from Steiner requesting to meet at Rebirth Island, as Dragovich has begun killing loose ends. Mason and Reznov head there to assassinate Steiner at the same time, succeeding just as Hudson and Weaver arrive. Mason is adamant that Reznov executed Steiner, but Hudson had witnessed Mason carrying out the act alone.

Hudson and Weaver are revealed to be Mason's interrogators. Dragovich has sleeper cells placed all over the United States which, when ordered by the numbers broadcast, will release the Nova 6 gas. As a result, the U.S., now at DEFCON 2 is preparing a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, which would result in the inevitable Mutual Assured Destruction of World War III. Hudson needed Steiner to abort the gas launch, but after his death, only Mason has any knowledge of the numbers station. Hudson reveals that Dragovich brainwashed Mason to understand the numbers broadcasts and assassinate Kennedy, effectively making him a Soviet sleeper agent. The real Reznov never escaped, but died during the Vorkuta breakout attempt, and the Soviet defector in Hue was actually killed before Mason reached him. Mason's visions of Reznov are a result of a dissociative disorder caused by the traumatic brainwashing program. Prior to the Vorkuta uprising, Reznov reprogrammed Mason to assassinate Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner instead. Mason finally remembers the location of the broadcast station: a Russian cargo ship named Rusalka off the coast of Cuba. An assault on the Rusalka begins, with Mason and Hudson infiltrating the underwater submarine base protecting the ship. Hudson calls in the United States Navy to destroy the Rusalka. Mason and Hudson confront Dragovich in the lower levels of the facility, and Mason strangles and drowns him to death before escaping with Hudson. They regroup with Weaver, who declares victory.

Archive footage of President Kennedy prior to his assassination on November 22, 1963 is shown, revealing Mason was among onlookers who watched Kennedy disembark from Air Force One at Love Field. His presence, and Dragovich's taunt before his death, suggest that Mason may have carried out his initial programming. A hidden message that can be accessed in the game's main menu reveals that Woods survived the confrontation with Kravchenko and is currently incarcerated in the Hanoi Hilton.