AXE
The agency Carter works for is described as being smaller and far more secret than the CIA, mostly concerned with assassinations. In the first novel of the series, Run, Spy, Run, AXE is described as "the trouble-shooting arm of the US secret services". AXE headquarters are located in the 6th floor offices of a building in DuPont Circle, Washington, DC under the cover of the Amalgamated Press and Wire Service. AXE is purported to contain several different departments with specific functions including Editing (later called "Special Effects and Editing") - headed by Mr. Poindexter - which, among other things, creates false biographies for agents and provides appropriate props (e.g. fake latex fingerprints); Documents - whose role is to plant stories in the media to support specific activities and create false identification and travel documents; Records - which provides background information on suspects; and Operations - which provides logistic support for specific missions. AXE has a branch office near Columbus Circle, New York and affiliate offices in countries around the world.
Agents are given code designations; Carter's N3, which has at least once been stated as standing for Number three, identifies him as one of the elite Killmasters. The meaning of the code N3 is described differently in different novels - sometimes it is Carter's personal designation, other times it is considered a rank, with N1 being the highest, in other novels we are told that Carter is the third Killmaster to have worked for AXE with both his predecessors having been killed in action. David Hawk, described in early novels as looking a lot like Uncle Sam, is the head of AXE and Carter's personal boss. Della Strokes, Hawk's personal secretary, is a character similar to Bond's Miss Moneypenny - flirtatious but serious. Ginger Bateman is Hawk's personal secretary in later novels. Poindexter, AXE's equivalent to Q, runs the Special Effects and Editing department, in charge of weapons, gadgets, disguises, and papers.
Read more about this topic: Nick Carter-Killmaster
Famous quotes containing the word axe:
“The treasures of Cathay were never found.
In this America, this wilderness
Where the axe echoes with a lonely sound,
The generations labor to possess
And grave by grave we civilize the ground.”
—Louis Simpson (b. 1923)
“The scholar requires hard and serious labor to give an impetus to his thought. He will learn to grasp the pen firmly so, and wield it gracefully and effectively, as an axe or a sword.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice,—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe,... if it was dull, it was at least hung true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)