Crown Secret Service

The Crown Secret Service which is the civilian counterpart to Army and Naval Intelligence and the primary counter-intelligence arm of the government. Based in the outer Palace in Philadelphia, the service is organised in “cells” in major towns and cities across the nation with the most Special Agent-In-Charge of each cell having wide latitude for independent action. Secret Service agents have Law Enforcement powers and must be citizens (at least Status 1). The Director of the Service is usually a Privy Councillor and answers directly to the Crown.

Many agents maintain cover stories, with alternate jobs, while working in secret. Most are from the nobility, which makes maintaining these covers and having the latitude to “pop-off” for a hunting trip or whatever a whole lot easier. That, unfortunately, has led to an “old boy’s network” attitude and recently there have been attempts to broaden recruitment, not always warmly received by those already in the Service.

The Secret Service really and truly values its secrecy, and recruits a whole range of informants and proxies as force multipliers, who often don’t even know they are working for the Service. Only the Special Agent In Charge of any cell knows who his superior is and individual agents don’t always know who all their peers in a cell are, let alone who agents in other cells might be. All agents carry a token, minted in the Palace, and have codewords and pass phrases to identify other agents if needed.

The current Director is Major-General Lord Arthur St.Clair, Baron Greensburg- a dour man of Scots birth brought to the colonies by his mother as a small child. He is one of the major landowners of the kingdom, owning large estates in Pennsylvania around the town of Greensburg. He served in the Royal Army for many years before being appointed to his current post. Many in high society have remarked on his resemblance to the trading magnate Lord Benedict Arnold, Baron New Haven – the two might be twins in appearance, and this has led to some speculation as to which man’s father is in reality the other man’s father too. Both were, after all, traders plying their ships on the routes between Glasgow and New England in the years before the Event. St.Clair, as befits a man using the posher spelling of Sinclair, is a high-up member of the Freemasons.

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