International Contract Agency

In the Hitman (computer game series), the International Contract Agency (aka "The Agency"), is Agent 47's employer. The Agency's motto is Merces Letifer (Latin for "Lethal Trade").

File:Merces letifer.jpg

The logo of the Agency. "Merces" is the Latin word for trade, profit, reward, "Letifer" stands for lethal. A free translation: "Lethal Trade".

A clandestine organization providing assassination and mercenary services, The Agency is well-funded and its reach is worldwide. Credited assassinations have taken place in the Americas, the Pacific Rim, and Eurasia; it is rumored to have a presence on the other continents as well. No proof or trace of the Agency has ever been documented.

Its targets are usually high-profile, heavily guarded individuals untouchable by any other means. Although politically neutral and ethically amoral, the Agency prefers the higher profits that come from global stability, and thus they often work for status quo nations against criminal organizations and terrorist networks. However they still primarily render its service to the highest bidder, eliminating established politicians and generals, given the right amount of currency.

There is evidence to suggest that The Agency is European in origin, and possibly British. The shape of the Agency's logo is the same as the MI5 logo pre-1955 and it displays an Imperial Crown atop a skull and crossbones. It is flanked by the initials D.K., perhaps standing for Danske Kongelige, or "Royal Danish", implying that the organization might, like its designers, be Danish. The standard also shows the letters OII, or rearranged, IOI, short for IO Interactive. Whether this is meant to stand for anything else, or is simply deliberate self-reference remains to be seen.

The border of the emblem resembles the All-Seeing Eye of masonic tradition. Most versions of the mythical illuminati incorporate this symbol as well, meaning the ICA might also have Crypto-Masonic or Illuminati origins.

In Hitman: Blood Money, Diana Burnwood addresses a contact as "Your Majesty" over the telephone; this could be Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, or possibly Margrethe II of Denmark, as Diana was calling from Copenhagen at the time. Then again, the contact could be another monarch or an individual using a royal title as a codename. Whoever the contact is, he or she already had knowledge 47's prior to the call.

The Agency's reach is long; it seemingly has contacts within every major Western intelligence agency (FBI, CIA, MI5, etc), and has apparently taken contracts from certain members of the U.N. organization in the past.

Organization

The Agency seems to use a sort of independent cell structure, where the leaders in the inner circle never have any contact with their hirelings.

The Agency uses "Controllers" like Diana Burnwood as go-betweens with its agents. These contractors then provide its freelance operatives like Agent 47, with electronic correspondence and mission briefings. Contractors also sell intelligence briefings on the subjects of missions to their agents for the fee of USD 1,500 per file. In the first game weapons had to be purchased from the Agency themselves (probably taking into account difficulties in moving firearms), whereas in the following games the player selected from a choice of which weapons they had so far collected which they wished to bring with them on the mission. In Hitman: Blood Money, the Agency would (for a fee) retrieve any of the five "custom" weapons the player had left behind in a mission, as much for continuity's sake as anything else.

Codes are used on transferred documents to instruct the agent in how to handle the messenger. This is shown in Hitman: Blood Money where "Code Red" written on a package delivered to 47 indicated that he had to eliminate the courier.

Policies

In Hitman: Codename 47, the Agency originally had a policy of never accepting more than one job from the same client. The Agency seemed to abandon this policy in Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, where the main plot involved the Agency taking multiple jobs from the same client.

The policy is also not followed during the Mississippi missions in Hitman: Blood Money, in which Diana says, "Another mission from our Mississippi client." This "frequent customer" is generally accepted to be Margeaux LeBlanc, the bride in the mission Till Death Do Us Part. The typical explanation for this is that in the aftermath of the final Mississippi mission she is revealed to have received millions in inheritance after the deaths of her husband (Hank Leitch), father ("Pappy" LaBlanc) and father-in-law (Skip Muldoon), the targets in the two Mississippi missions, and the fact that she was "strictly off limits" in Till Death Do Us Part.

In Hitman: Codename 47, The Agency discouraged civilian casualties due to the media attention it generated. In fact, the Agency would dispatch "cleaners" to eliminate any of its contracted assassins if too many civilians were executed.

This policy was reversed in Hitman: Silent Assassin, where excessive civilian casualties were not penalized, with the exception of the after mission "rating" the player receives (ranging from "Silent Assassin" to "Mass Murderer"), which, in the second and third games affects whether or not they receive an otherwise unavailable bonus weapon.

In Hitman: Blood Money, the policy was changed again, with The Agency fining Agent 47 for every civilian or law enforcement casualty (not including "accidents", of course). Cleaners could also be dispatched in that game, although their purpose was to remove any evidence and recover any of Agent 47's lost or abandoned equipment rather than to eliminate him.

The ICA has a general policy of not working against former clients, but this rule is shown to be flexible in the second game, when 47 is dispatched against Sergei (His employer throughout the rest of the game) in response to a high-paying job from the UK.