Virginia Box is an agent for H.A.R.D.
This extremely sexy female agent is dedicated to the defense of the free world and willing to give her all to that end. She just doesn't want to give it to her libidinous boss, Baird Rodd, who routinely has his hands into all sorts of missions around the globe and all over her body whenever she reports to work. In the first book, she strapped on a gun before sitting down with her boss to discuss an assignment, just because she thought she might need the protection. His roving hands notwithstanding, Virginia Box has been an operative for well over a year and has already amassed an impressive track record of accomplishments.
The headquarters for H.A.R.D. is in the Lookout Hotel, a functioning inn in downtown London which caters more to those wanting to rent by the hour than by the day. Only 27 of the roughly 100 rooms are actually for rent, however, with the rest being offices for the intelligence bureau. Those 27 rooms, though, earn enough money to help finance the bureau's operations.
We learn little of the background of Ms. Box but we do gather from her activities that she is an excellent driver who likes to go fast and a highly skilled fighter who can hold her own in most struggles. She is sharp-witted and sharper-tongued. She is blue-eyed, brown-haired, and possesses legs to die for, or from. The top floor of a tall office building is her personal apartment, gotten because the owner wanted her more than he wanted the huge income he could get from it and she has it luxuriously outfitted. She is on very friendly relations with her Russian counterpart and sometimes arch-rival, Ima Kissoff, a woman who would like to become even friendlier but Box does not swing quite that far, according to her.
The author must have had a difficult time devising an intelligent name for the agency that has the initials H.A.R.D. The best he came up with was Hemisphere Administration for Regional Defence.