
Black Ops
The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior
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Narrated by:
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Scott Brick
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By:
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Ric Prado
About this listen
A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era.
Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm.
After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA’s headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: Re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism. He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror.
A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies, and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity, and dedication of the Agency’s Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
©2022 Ric Prado (P)2022 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Ric Prado is an American original, a shadow warrior whose combat and street skills actually live up to Hollywood's spy movie fantasies. Any story of his life and his C.I.A. career will stand out in the genre of such memoirs and biographies, not only because of Ric's outsized experiences, but because his adventurous work included some of the most important covert actions in recent Agency history.” —Steve Coll, New York Times bestselling author of GHOST WARS and DIRECTORATE S and winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“Ric Prado is a rare breed of CIA officer—a man as comfortable operating behind enemy lines in disguise as he is strolling the halls of power in a suit. Having interviewed numerous of Prado’s Agency colleagues, I understand him to be a badass paramilitary operations officer and a sharp-thinking member of the Agency’s Senior Intelligence Service elite. Further adding to Ric Prado’s unique and complex character is his ability to discuss his flaws, weaknesses, and struggles, as well as his myriad of strengths. He reminds me of an ancient warrior-poet, the kind who reads haiku before going into battle with a very sharp sword.” —Annie Jacobsen, New York Times bestselling author of AREA 51 and SURPRISE, KILL, VANISH
“Ric Prado is a legendary CIA Operations Officer who gave almost three decades of exceptional service to his country in the most challenging foreign assignments, including the potential risk of immediate physical danger. He has lived his personal and professional life exhibiting the highest standards of character, ethics, principle, courage, and heroism. Ric and I served together in CTC, where he was my Chief of Operations and Chief of Station. He achieved the CIA rank equivalent of military general. No stay-at-home bureaucrat, Ric always sought out and served in harm’s way with exceptional dedication and courage.” —Cofer Black, former Director, CIA Counterterrorist Center
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Finally I get the low down on Delta Force
- By Amazon Customer on 08-15-13
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Zero Footprint
- The True Story of a Private Military Contractor's Covert Assignments in Syria, Libya, and the World's Most Dangerous Places
- By: Simon Chase, Ralph Pezzullo
- Narrated by: Eric Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Armored cars, burner phones, top-notch weaponry, and top-secret missions - this is the life of today's private military contractor. Like author Simon Chase, many PMCs were once the world's top military operatives, and since retiring from outfits like US Navy SEAL TEAM Six and the UK's Special Boat Service, they have devoted their lives to executing missions too sensitive for the government to acknowledge. Chase reveals here for the first time the operations too hazardous and politically volatile to be officially sanctioned by his employers.
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Read Amazon reviews, not Audible reviews
- By Andrew M on 02-22-16
By: Simon Chase, and others
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First In
- An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan
- By: Gary C. Schroen
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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While America held its breath in the days immediately following 9/11, a small but determined group of CIA agents covertly began to change history. This is the riveting first-person account of the treacherous top-secret mission inside Afghanistan to set the stage for the defeat of the Taliban and launch the war on terror. As thrilling as any novel, First In is a uniquely intimate look at a mission that began the US retaliation against terrorism - and reclaimed the country of Afghanistan for its people.
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A Courageous tale
- By DKSTRYKER on 02-19-25
By: Gary C. Schroen
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Ghost
- My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent
- By: Michael R. McGowan, Ralph Pezzullo
- Narrated by: Mike Dawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Within FBI field operative circles, groups of people known as “Special” by their titles alone, Michael R. McGowan is an outlier. Over the course of his career, McGowan has worked more than 50 undercover cases. In this extraordinary and unprecedented book, McGowan will take listeners through some of his biggest cases, from international drug busts to the Russian and Italian mobs to biker gangs and contract killers to corrupt unions and SWAT work. Ghost is an unparalleled view into how the FBI, through the courage of its undercover Special Agents, nails the bad guys.
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Interesting story, but narration eh
- By Ahdumb on 10-06-18
By: Michael R. McGowan, and others
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Life Undercover
- Coming of Age in the CIA
- By: Amaryllis Fox
- Narrated by: Amaryllis Fox
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Amaryllis Fox's riveting memoir tells the story of her 10 years in the most elite clandestine ops unit of the CIA, hunting the world's most dangerous terrorists in 16 countries while marrying and giving birth to a daughter. Life Undercover is exhilarating, intimate, fiercely intelligent - an impossible-to-pause record of an extraordinary life, and of Amaryllis Fox's astonishing courage and passion.
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Book of the year...
- By Mr Dangerous on 10-16-19
By: Amaryllis Fox
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Lions of Kandahar
- The Story of a Fight Against All Odds
- By: Major Rusty Bradley, Kevin Maurer
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Southern Afghanistan was slipping away. That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his third tour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies were infiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, their strategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATO coalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in its history. The battlefield was the Panjwayi Valley, a densely packed warren of walled compounds that doubled neatly as enemy bunkers.
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'Merica!
- By NKeene on 03-07-15
By: Major Rusty Bradley, and others
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All Secure
- A Special Operations Soldier's Fight to Survive on the Battlefield and the Homefront
- By: Tom Satterly, Steve Jackson
- Narrated by: Tom Satterly
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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As a senior non-commissioned officer of Delta Force, the most elite and secretive special operations unit in the US military, Command Sergeant Major Tom Satterly fought some of this country's most fearsome enemies. Tom is a legend even among other Tier One special operators. Yet the enemy that cost him three marriages, and ruined his health physically and psychologically, existed in his brain. Told through Satterly's firsthand experiences, it also weaves in the reasons for his career-long battle against the most insidious enemy of all: post-traumatic stress.
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- One of those books that truly make a difference
- By henry on 12-21-19
By: Tom Satterly, and others
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Point Man
- By: Chief James Watson, Kevin Dockery
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Chief Petty Officer James "Patches" Watson was there at the start. One of the first to come out of the famed Underwater Demolition Team 21, he was an initial member—a "plank owner"—of America's deadliest and most elite fighting force, the U.S. Navy SEALs. Through three tours in the jungle hell of Vietnam, he walked the point—staying alert to trip wires, booby traps, and punji pits, guiding his squad of amphibious fighters on missions of rescue, reconnaissance, and demolition—confronting a war's unique terrors head-on, unprotected . . . and unafraid.
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Great book with fresh stories
- By melamama on 06-28-24
By: Chief James Watson, and others
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Giant Killers, War Heroes, and Special Forces Legends
- By: David A. Yuzuk
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Veteran police detective and bestselling author, David A. Yuzuk, brings you this gripping collection of spectacular battle stories and trial-by-fire lessons of honor and duty from WWII to Iraq, all in one action-packed volume.
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Fantastic
- By Joe Zakrzewski on 03-10-25
By: David A. Yuzuk
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Razor 03
- A Night Stalker’s Wars
- By: Alan C. Mack
- Narrated by: Alan C. Mack
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The attacks of September 11, 2001, prompted the creation of a robust and deadly special operations force—Task Force Dagger. Alan C. Mack, Callsign Razor 03, led a team of MH-47E helicopters and armed MH-60s. Their two-fold mission–Personnel Recovery (PR) and Unconventional Warfare (UW) involved flying in terrain and weather previously not thought possible. If that wasn’t enough, they pushed the flight envelope of their specially modified Chinooks to the limit and beyond.
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The honesty of the author
- By Daniel on 06-10-24
By: Alan C. Mack
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Civilian Warriors
- The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror
- By: Erik Prince
- Narrated by: Jeff Gurner
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Blackwater is one of the most misunderstood companies of our time. As Erik Prince, its founder and former CEO, writes: "Hundreds of American citizens employed by private military contractors, or PMCs, would lose their lives helping our government wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, only to have their memory tarnished by the unfair and/or ignorant depiction of PMCs as profiteers, jackbooted thugs, or worse."
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A different look a Security Contractors
- By Ryan on 01-20-14
By: Erik Prince
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The Main Enemy
- The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB
- By: Milton Bearden, James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
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A masterpiece of espionage history
- By kucherv on 08-21-18
By: Milton Bearden, and others
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The Reaper
- Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers
- By: Gary Brozek, Nicholas Irving
- Narrated by: Jeff Gurner
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Groundbreaking, thrilling and revealing, The Reaper is the astonishing memoir of Special Operations Direct Action Sniper Nicholas Irving, the 3rd Ranger Battalion's deadliest sniper with 33 confirmed kills, though his remarkable career total, including probables, is unknown. Irving shares the true story of his extraordinary military career, including his deployment to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, when he set another record, this time for enemy kills on a single deployment.
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Great story
- By SteveS on 11-18-15
By: Gary Brozek, and others
What listeners say about Black Ops
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- Deronda
- 07-29-23
Tocayo
It’s amazing to me how the world really is such a small place for I came from the same place as Rick and did a lot of the same kind of work I’m grateful to know that such people exist and still fight the good fight.
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- MGV
- 05-07-22
Blown Away
I am a retired military officer with an Intel background. Mr. Prado takes us on a journey. I am in awe and thank Mr. Prado for what he has done to protect his nation. Thank you sir!
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- Reed Ramlow
- 06-07-22
Insider view of CIA black ops over three decades
This is an interesting memoir from a former senior CIA officer who took part in and led so-called black operations. Ric Prado is a true patriot and ardent believer in the mission of the CIA. I do not embrace all his views, but I appreciate his sincerity. We need a robust intelligence service, but the Agency must operate with restraint and within the law while resisting political pressure. I completely endorse Prado’s mantra of organization, for which he credits his father. (I only wish my own sons would pay heed to that.) I also support Prado’s appeal to graduates to consider a career with the CIA. We need the best, brightest, and most dedicated within its ranks. People like Ric Prado.
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- Lew
- 06-05-22
An Extraordinary Life, The Real Deal
This is by far one of the most heartfelt and empassioned memoirs ever written by one of our most senior field operatives at CIA, and also possibly the most candid and generous glimpses into the work and dedication that goes with that impossibly secretive territory. Beautifully written, this account of Ric Prado's life's work across decades and continents is nothing short of spectacular and with all of ( or as much as permitted), the good, bad and ugly without apology or regret but with gratitude and pride. Featuring an all star cast, this book delivers the most honest look at life from the sharpest end of the spear in the US clandestine services and certainly a guide book to those inspired to follow in this line of work. For anyone with the good fortune to have touched the hem of this business anywhere in the world, you'll know without question that this is the real deal. Kudos to Scott Brick for another masterful performance.
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- PL
- 06-30-22
Incredible Story
Very well told story about an agency and it's actions that are usually 'behind the scenes'. Greatly appreciate the author's perspective, experience, and patriotism.
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- Anavidreader
- 07-09-22
Excellent book.
Thanks for your service and sacrifice. The stories are very intriguing and certainly you've accomplished a ton in your career!
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- Chuck
- 01-13-23
Black ops
truly outstanding book. Thank you for your selfless service Ric. very well presented and recorded thank you
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- steve
- 05-16-23
Engaging story and excellent narration
I really enjoyed this book. Ric’s career journey spanning multiple conflicts / crises phenomenal. The author puts all in historical context which adds to the story.
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- Robert Herbst
- 09-07-23
Outstanding , A Must Read for All.
This read tells so much more than most people would ever imagine or believe takes place to keep us free and Strong.
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- michael willis
- 05-09-24
great history on how thc Cia functions around the world
wonderful insight from a true expert in his field. amazing true stories from the past 40 years of international intrigue. Ric is an unsung American hero, thank you for all you have done to make all our lives safer.
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