List of James Bond allies: Encyclopedia II - List of James Bond allies - 00-agents

List of James Bond allies - 00-agents

The 00 Branch of MI6 is considered the elite of the Secret Service. These are agents who have proven themselves capable enough in the field to be entrusted with the licence to kill -- the authorisation to, at their own discretion, commit assassination and acts that might be otherwise considered murder in order to complete their missions, without having to seek permission from headquarters first. The film The World is Not Enough revealed that the 00 Branch has its own area within MI6 headquarters and its own insignia, though it is not known if this has always been the case. 00-level agents report directly to M.

The following list is of the known members of this elite order who have been referenced in officially licensed James Bond fiction: novels, films, video games, and comic strips.

Additional 00-agents are glimpsed in the briefing scenes of Thunderball and The World Is Not Enough, but no additional information about them is provided. The latter film suggests that at least one 00-agent is a woman. There is fan speculation that suggests that M, being the head of MI6, is also 001, but this is not supported by any novel or film, and in fact Raymond Benson references a 001 in his novel, Doubleshot. Likewise, speculation that only nine 00-agents exist (001-009) is contradicted by Fleming himself in Moonraker, and likewise is contradicted by later writers.

In addition to the above, the John Pearson novel James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007 mentions "real life" 00 agents 002 (named Bill Fairbanks as per Man with the Golden Gun), 003 (badly injured in 1951), 008 (died in 1951), 009 (died in 1955 in Hungary), 0011 (died in 1951).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "00-agents", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki