I'm pretty sure intelligence agencies employ some number of adventurers, agent-provocateurs and assassins along with their more staid infiltrators and station c

I'm pretty sure intelligence agencies employ some number of adventurers, agent-provocateurs and assassins along with their more staid infiltrators and station chiefs. The most standard way to do things is having the official agents be the "handlers" of the dirtier, hand-on types but there are plenty of stories things being otherwise. I'd agree we shouldn't glamorize spies, certainly. And actual sociopaths in the cause of order are some of the nastiest people.