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With Frankie what you see is absolutely what you get. She has no time for subtlety or subterfuge, she sees no point in disguising the truth. In fact Frankie spends her life doing the opposite, blowing the lid off of the things people try to hide. Growing up in a life where secrets were sacrosanct and usually came with the caveat of national security Frankie developed a distaste for all that political and military wrangling. Give people the information, if it scares them it scares them but at least you’re giving them the choice of how they live their life rather than manipulating them from behind closed doors. Even when diplomacy would serve her better Frankie’s blunt, a sledgehammer trying to smash it’s way to the truth.

Most of her life Frankie’s been dismissed because of her size and her gender in a field that’s been predominantly male for much of history. Some see her name and assume that it’s going to be a man strolling into a combat zone with them. When Frankie arrives they rarely bother swallowing her shock. She’s learned to kick ass, to be just as tough as any of them in tough situations. It means that she’s been bloodied a few times but it doesn’t stop her from picking herself up and getting right into the thick of things. Stubbornness keeps her going but Frankie knows that one day it’s likely what’ll end up killing her.

Growing up on military bases all over the world Frankie’s become harder on herself than probably anybody else can be. Self-critical at times, she’s also lacking a mental filter or any sense of self-preservation. When it comes to a story she’ll do anything possible to be at the heart of it. She’s certainly not the girly girl her mother had hoped for. She sees nothing wrong with that, although it’s still a bone of contention between her parents. Scars mar her body from her time spent in some of the roughest situations in the world, they mar her mind too, although she’s not the sort to admit to it. Frankie will always slap a brave face on and get back to it, refusing to look back to see just how badly she’s messed up, either literally or figuratively.

Forward is the only way, even if it feels like she has to slog through mud to get there. Frankie knows she could have played on her father’s name to get ahead in the field but she hates nepotism in all forms. She’s creative on her own terms and even if it might open doors for her she won’t go throwing General Hart’s name around. That saying she has inherited her father’s silver tongue and uses it’s razor edge to make her own way in the world. Blunt, opinionated and occasionally judgmental Frankie won’t hold back when she wants to tell you something.




General Hart’s daughter was how Frankie spent most of her life growing up. Born on a base in Okinawa, Japan, she didn’t get to meet her father until she was two months old. He could’ve returned back to base to see her born, rank would’ve allowed for that at least, but Aldo Hart didn’t want to leave his men behind in combat. Pretty noble, sure, that was what Frankie said twenty-four years later when she was interviewed for a ‘Women in War’ segment for Time magazine, but in reality it was a pretty shitty thing to do and her mom Molly sure as hell let Aldo know it when he returned to base. How her mom had put up with her father’s dipping in and out of her life that far was something Frankie never could understand but somehow it worked for her parents. Their marriage had been solid for ten years then and would still be solid almost thirty years later when the world went to shit.

Frankie grew up on that base, and at least a dozen others in the next eighteen years of her life. Her father was a mover and shaker in the Army. Climbing up the ranks before her birth, never slowing down, not even when lesser men had retired around him. He gave time to his family when he could, taught Frankie how to fight, how to run faster than any damn kid when they were living on base in Kaiserslautern. Her mom would’ve preferred her to knuckle down with her studies, maybe taking after her and becoming a teacher or even some sort of business woman eventually. Frankie was having none of it. Her dad had wanted a boy from the only pregnancy her parents would be blessed with, that much had been obvious from the moment he’d returned home from a trip back to America with a baseball mitt, bat and ball when she was three. It didn’t matter that the damn bat was as big as she was, he’d wanted a kid to toss the ball around with while he was actually there on base and not leading his men into some war zone somewhere. She was happy enough to play the role, to be the toughest kid on the field or in the classroom. General Hart’s kid was a bad ass and she wore the label with pride.

At the age of ten General Hart was assigned to Washington, working out of the Pentagon. On the day the terrorists struck New York and the Pentagon itself Frankie should’ve been in school on base but it’d been her birthday the day before and she’d talked her dad into taking her to work for the day, for a ‘school project’. She’d been sitting in the corner of his office for most of the day, messing around with the camera her parents had gotten her for her birthday. Whenever a meeting hit that wasn’t for her ears she’d trail out to her dad’s assistant’s desk, helping to file papers or fix coffee. She was still there when the plane hit and the world exploded around her. They weren’t in the area worst hit but still the world seemed to fall apart around her. With his head bleeding and his shoulder dislocated her father scooped her out from under the assistant’s desk and led a group of them out.. Tears rolled down her face but her dad told her to be brave and take care of his assistant while he went back in. Frankie did what she was told, she always did, but as she sat there with the smoke roiling around her and the scent of blood heavy in the air she started to take photos with that dusty camera and shaking hands.

No ten year old should’ve seen what she did that day or read the reports of what happened. Nobody should’ve done. The tragedy that stole thousands of lives changed Frankie’s mind on her future though. Once upon a time she’d seen herself following in her dad’s footsteps maybe, heading into the army like so many of the other army brats did but that all changed with those photos. From that moment on Frankie’s camera was never out of her hands. They moved on to another posting six months later, another a year after that, with each move her portfolio grew. As a fourteen year old, stuck in Germany again while her father was in Afghanistan Frankie sold her first photos. After that it became a regular thing. By eighteen she’d made a name for herself in certain circles. She could’ve left her parents then, struck out on her own and made a living as a photographer but Frankie wanted more. She’d seen how things were twisted in the press after what had happened at the Pentagon. She’d seen how fast conspiracy theories had spread because the truth hadn’t been out there. She wanted it to change.

She did leave her parents to continue jumping from posting to posting, heading back to the States to study journalism at NYU. Most breaks in school she headed out to see them wherever they were, to poke around whatever her dad was involved in at the time. She never used him to open the door for her but most in her father’s circles knew who she was anyway and Frankie’s pretty sure it was that familiarity with who her father was that got her a spot with a press team going into Afghanistan a month after she graduated, They were warned to play nice, just to reveal what was in the press pack given to them already. That didn’t fly very far with Frankie. Within a week their team was caught up in a firefighter between US military forces and local insurgents. Frankie caught images of one of the soldiers pulling a child who was caught in the crossfire free of the situation and giving him first aid. The photo went viral. After that she had no issues being told what or how to write what she saw.

Another 23 year old might’ve been in over her head but Frankie flourished in the environment, ignoring the jibes of some of the male war correspondents she was travelling with. She never asked for special favours, never lagged behind, never whined, unlike some of them. She flourished and proved it with the stories and photos she was able to tell. Sure, her parents were probably terrified for her but given her father’s long service they knew they couldn’t say anything, just give her the support she needed and wanted. For another 5 years Frankie travelled the world, insinuating herself into every conflict and humanitarian crisis she could find. When she saw a travesty she screamed from the rooftops about it, whether it made her popular in certain circles or not.

She was in the Middle East when talk about the virus first arose, photographing the refugee situation. There were whispers in camp about people coming in sick. From there it seemed to explode, spreading from one country to another, hundreds, then thousands, then millions infected worldwide. There was no cure, although biotech companies were working on it. Borders locked down, press started screaming about what was happening in different regions. Frankie knew she needed out, needed to get to the heart of what was going on. Hearing the words Prism Biotech coming up again and again she did what she’d always hated doing and called on her father’s resources to get a military flight out of Syria. She landed in Lethford just as the military hit the ground. There was no way she could get into Prism itself but her reputation has left her embedded with the Army there, hunting for the truth behind the virus, documenting what’s going on on the streets. Hoping to hell that at some point someone will discover a cure and stop millions dying worldwide.