Sam Fisher

Sam Fisher is a field operative for an ultra top-secret sub-agency of the NSA that anticipates and responds to crises of information warfare.

Samuel Leo Fisher was born and raised in Towson, Maryland. At 17, he graduated high school and went on to attend the United States Naval Academy, where he became an expert member of the intramural karate team. He graduated from the Naval Academy with a bachelor's degree in political science.

While at the Academy, Sam decided that he wanted to be a Navy SEAL. Soon after his commission as an Ensign, Sam began Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) Training, which was followed by basic parachute training at the Army Airborne School at Fort Benning. He then moved on to SEAL Qualification Training. Following his completion of SQT, Sam was placed on board SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One where he earned his SEAL Trident. For his performance with SDV-1, Sam earned the Navy Commendation Medal. Following that, he was assigned to SEAL Team 3 as an assistant platoon commander. While with that SEAL Team, his actions during a combat mission earned him the Silver Star. Sam then spent a year of shore duty on a staff assignment at Special Operations Central Command in Florida, where he assisted in the operational planning of SDV missions.

After six years as a Navy officer, Sam retired from the U.S. Navy with numerous commendations and was accepted into the Central Intelligence Agency. Before Sam could join the Agency, he had to go through background checks, take the entrance exam, and go through a series of interviews and psychometric, numerical reasoning, psychological, psychoanalytical, aptitude, and polygraph tests. Upon passing the entrance and psychological examinations, Bond was accepted as a "Career Trainee." After an orientation period, he was sent to the CIA Special Training Center - "The Farm," Camp Peary for intensive operational training. There, he went through the Basic Operations Course, which trained him in so-called "operational intelligence" or "tradecraft" skills. This means Sam was taught to become a master in the finer points of espionage - everything from recruiting foreign assets to detecting surveillance to clandestine communications methods as well as infiltration and exfiltration techniques. While at The Farm, Bond received exceptionally high marks for physical endurance, logic, and psychological ops exercises.

After training, Sam was given official cover status, which means he became an operations officer posing as an innocuous U.S. government employee under a diplomatic post and therefore with diplomatic immunity if ever caught in an act of espionage. His cover was that of a Defense Department attaché. Although his primary work was recruiting foreign agents and interrogating captured enemy agents, he also took part in paramilitary interdiction efforts against drug smuggling between Myanmar and the United States (resulting in a letter of recommendation from his superior).

Two years into his career with the CIA, Sam transferred to the Maritime Branch of the Special Activities Division. As a paramilitary operations officer, Sam's clandestine and covert duties took him around the world. He was eventually assigned for a few weeks as a senior member of a security detail to a provisional joint CIA-NSA task force investigating cyberterrorism against American interest in Europe. During the task force assignment, Sam's exemplary work and his career profile caught the attention of a few high level officials at the National Security Agency. After four years in the CIA, Sam was recruited into a newly-established top-secret initiative to protect critical U.S. information systems. Dubbed the "Third Echelon", this sub-agency within the NSA was formed in response to the growing use of sophisticated digital encryption to conceal potential threats to the national security of the United States.

For decades the NSA has engaged in the passive collection of moving data by intercepting communications en route. But as communications become more digital and sophisticated encryption more expansive, passive collection is simply no longer sufficient. So hoping to bridge the chasm between simply gathering actionable intelligence and acting on that intelligence, the NSA formed Third Echelon as its own in-house covert operations unit.

Third Echelon marks a return to "classical" methods of espionage, enhanced with leading-edge surveillance and combat technology for the aggressive collection of stored data in hostile territories. Instead of filtering the world through satellites and antennas, Third Echelon field operatives physically infiltrate dangerous and sensitive enemy locations to gather the required intelligence by whatever means necessary. Their prime directive, in a nutshell, is to do their jobs while remaining invisible to the public eye. They're authorized to work outside the boundaries of international treaties, but the U.S. government will neither acknowledge nor support their operations. In other words, they go back to the nitty-gritty world of human spies out there in the field, risking their lives for the sake of taking a photograph or recording a conversation or copying a computer hard drive.

Although he was initially only told that he would be tasked with handling covert missions either too sensitive or too risky for traditional entities such as the Central Intelligence Agency or standard special forces, Sam exuberantly accepted the position. Afterwards he was informed of Third Echelon's mandate.

As a field operative of Third Echelon, Sam was told that he would be supported by a remote team. He would be used in situations where more than one operative - even though highly secret - would arouse too much attention. His job would be to infiltrate secure installations, seize critical intelligence, destroy dangerous data or equipment, and neutralize the enemy as needed, without leaving a trace. The doctrine of Third Echelon is that although killing may compromise secrecy, the choice between leaving either a witness or a corpse is no choice at all. This unconventional status would allow him to disregard any law, agreement, or framework of ethical behavior in order to accomplish a mission. As Third Echelon's Operations Coordinator, Colonel Irving Lambert, told Sam, "all means are acceptable." For example, he may kill in combat or by assassination, may torture or kidnap people, may deploy on U.S. soil, and may even spy on other U.S. government agencies. However, if he were to ever be captured or killed, the U.S. government would disavow him - either by claiming that he has gone rogue (i.e. a "splinter cell"), or by denying that he was affiliated with U.S. intelligence at all.

For his first assignment as a Third Echelon operative, Sam was dispatched to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The CIA had lost contact with Alison Madison, a CIA operations officer who was monitoring widespread communication shortages plaguing Georgia. A second officer, William Robert Blaustein, was inserted into the Georgian capital T'bilisi to locate Madison, only to drop from contact four days later.

Fearing for the lives of American CIA officers compromised at the hands of a suspected terrorist effort, Third Echelon activated Sam to locate the two and evaluate the situation. During his investigation Sam discovered that Blaustein and Madison were killed for getting too close to information Georgian president Kombayn Nikoladze needed to protect. Nikoladze had been waging a campaign of systematic ethnic cleansing and mass murder against the neighboring Muslim population of Azerbaijan in an attempt to seize that country's vast oil resources.

NATO intervened in the situation and pushed most of the Georgian commandos from Azerbaijan, with only a few well-hidden cells remaining. One of those cells, entrenched in an oil rig on the Caspian Sea, was exchanging data with the presidential palace in Georgia via a secure network. Hours after a successful U.S. attack on the oil rig, Nikoladze went underground and retaliated by initiating an information crisis in the U.S., using advanced computer algorithms developed by Canadian computer hacker Phillip Masse to wreak havoc upon America's electronic infrastructure. Sam was dispatched to hunt down Nikoladze and stop the crisis.

Third Echelon analysts were eventually able to trace communications between Nikoladze and the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar. Sam discovered that Nikoladze was working with rogue Chinese general Kong Fei-Rong to develop nuclear weapons.

In a desperate act of defiance against the U.S., Nikoladze arranged the immediate, live webcast executions of the captured U.S. soldiers. Sam, however, was able to rescue the captives in time. Following the rescue, Nikoladze returned to the Georgian Presidential Palace in order to retrieve a nuclear suitcase bomb codenamed the "ARK", which was later placed on American soil. Infiltrating the Georgian Presidential Palace, Sam assassinated Nikoladze, ending the information crisis and stopping Georgia from detonating the ARK.

Shortly after those events, the U.S. established a military presence in the nation of East Timor to train that country's military forces in their fight against anti-separatist Indonesian guerrilla militias. Foremost among those Indonesian militias was the Darah Dan Doa (Blood and Prayer), led by Suhadi Sadono.

Charismatic militia leader Sadono, once trained by the CIA to help fight Communist influences in the region, had grown resentful of the U.S. support of East Timor. Sadono initiated a suicide bombing and follow up attack on the US Embassy to Dili, capturing a number of U.S. military and diplomatic personnel including Douglas Shetland, CEO of the private military company Displace International. Shetland had served as Sam's commanding officer in SEAL Team 3.

Sam was sent to infiltrate the embassy and gather intelligence on the Darah Dan Doa. He succeeded in his mission, and the U.S. Embassy was retaken by Delta Force. However, Sadono escaped and the U.S. launched a military campaign on Indonesian soil in an attempt to hunt him down, much to the protests of the Indonesian government.

Sam ultimately learned that Sadono had masterminded a scheme known as "Pandora Tomorrow," by placing a series of biological bombs (ND133s) equipped with weaponized hantavirus on American soil. Every 24 hours, Sadono made encrypted phone calls to each of the bomb carriers to delay the release of the virus. If he was killed or detained, the virus would be released and millions of Americans would die. Because Sadono was fighting on the front lines in the conflict, the U.S. couldn't risk killing him, and was forced to withdraw its forces.

Sam was sent to infiltrate Darah Dan Doa strongholds in order to learn the location of the hantavirus bombs. He was assisted in this endeavor by Shetland and Displace International. Sam ultimately learned the location of the bombs, and other Third Echelon field operatives were sent in to neutralize them, bringing an end to Sadono's threat against the United States.

Third Echelon decided to capture Sadono alive instead of merely assassinating him, due to the problems created when Sam assassinated President Nikoladze.

Although Sam managed to capture Sadono, Third Echelon learned that a rogue CIA officer, Norman Soth had acquired the last hantavirus-armed ND133, and intended to detonate it at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Soth had participated in Operation Redbeard, establishing US-friendly guerrilla cells in Indonesia to fight Communism. One of these cells was the Darah Dan Doa, led by Suhadi Sadono. However, the U.S. government pulled support of Operation Redbeard and ended up supporting the Timorese, leaving Soth on his own. Soth eventually went underground and aligned himself with Sadono and the DDD, becoming Sadono's chief bodyguard. However, Soth had no interest in Sadono's cause, and merely wanted to strike back at the U.S. federal government for betraying him years earlier.

Sam infiltrated LAX, killed Soth and his group of terrorists (disguised as airport workers and security guards), and prevented the detonation of the last hantavirus-armed ND133.

After that adventure, Sam was dispatched to locate Bruce Morgenholt, a missing computer programmer who worked on deciphering Phillip Masse's algorithms, which were designed for information warfare attacks. Morgenholt had been captured by a Peruvian separatist group called "The People's Voice", led by Hugo Lacerda. Masse was a genius far ahead of his time, and the algorithms he used to launch his attacks on the United States had been extensively studied by the United Nations. The resulting Masse "Kernels" were being touted as the superweapon of the 21st century. Sam was tasked with making sure they did not fall into the wrong hands.

During this time, tensions were running high between China, North Korea, and Japan, following Japan's formation of an Information Self Defense Force (I-SDF). Considering this to be a violation of the Post-World War Two Constitution, Chinese and North Korean forces established a blockade in the Yellow Sea against Japanese shipping. Because Japan and the I-SDF are allies of the United States, the U.S. dispatched its Navy cruiser, the USS Clarence E. Walsh, to the Sea of Japan. The U.S. hoped this show of strength would get China and North Korea to back down.

Meanwhile, Sam arrived too late to prevent Morgenholt's death. He was also unsuccessful in stopping the release of the Masse Kernels. Sam was told to go on board the Maria Narcissa to kill Hugo Lacerda and track the weapon deliveries so Third Echelon could find out who they were dealing with. After completing the mission, unknown parties used the algorithms to black out Japan and the Eastern Seaboard, including New York City. Japan had previously suffered similar attacks that crashed its economy, and Admiral Otomo of the I-SDF contacted the U.S. government and warned them that North Korea and China were probably responsible. Meanwhile, following a lead discovered in a bank in Panama, Sam traveled to New York to investigate Abrahim Zherkezi, a man who worked with Morgenholt. He found out that Displace International was protecting him. He broke into the Displace International offices and learned of one Milan Nedich, later identified as "Milos Nowak", a Bosnian war criminal. Sam found that Nowak secretly relocated Zherkezi to Hokkaido.

Sam traveled to Hokkaido and met with Shetland, who claimed that Nedich was clean. Regardless, Sam infiltrated the hideout that Zherkezi was being held in. There, Sam killed Nedich after a brutal fight, and witnessed Shetland murdering Zherkezi. Shetland escaped and went underground.

Meanwhile, the U.S. show of force backfired when the Clarence E. Walsh was sunk by a North Korean anti-ship missile, initiating a war between North Korea and South Korea/United States. Since North Korea claimed the missile was launched unintentionally, Sam was sent to the Korean peninsula (including the South Korean capital city of Seoul), to determine if North Korea was truly responsible for sinking the Clarence E. Walsh, or if the Masse Kernels were involved.

Sam eventually learned that the entire war had been orchestrated by Displace International. They used the Masse Kernels gained from Zherkezi to hijack North Korea's missile systems, and sink the Clarence E. Walsh, in order to draw the U.S. into a war from which the company could profit through its status as a leading American defense contractor. Sam also realized the mastermind behind the entire plot was none other than Douglas Shetland. Ultimately, Third Echelon sent him to spy on a meeting between Shetland and Shetland's unknown accomplices, who shockingly turn out to be Admiral Otomo of the I-SDF. At the meeting, Shetland betrayed the I-SDF, and a firefight subsequently broke out between Shetland's soldiers and I-SDF assault troops. Amidst the chaos, Sam pursued Shetland to the roof, where, after a tense standoff, Sam killed Shetland.

Even after Shetland's death, one loose end remained. Admiral Otomo had acquired a copy of the Masse Kernels from Shetland, and attempted to return Japan to Imperial rule by blackmailing the Japanese government high official. He threatened to use the algorithms to launch a North Korean missile against a Japanese city. Because North Korea would be supported by China, and Japan would be backed by the U.S, the incident would spark World War III. Although Otomo's I-SDF black ops forces managed to fight off the Japanese Army troops sent to stop him, Sam infiltrated the I-SDF's secret underwater base and managed to put an end to Otomo's plans. Otomo attempted to commit seppuku (suicide), but Sam saved his life and captured him. Otomo stood trial at the UN and took full responsibility for the entire Korean crisis, returning stability to the Far East.

After his actions in ending that crisis, Sam was promoted to the position of a "senior field operations agent". His exemplary work has made him Third Echelon's premier operative.