John Mordred is an agent with MI-7.
"Latter-day beatnik, loner, mystic, linguistic genius; by grudging consensus, MI-7's best agent. 'Best', that is, apart from one little flaw: a stubborn habit of obeying his conscience when the chips are down. He may be very, very good in a crisis, but fatally, he won't necessarily defend the realm." That is how one person describes him and it is spot on.
Mordred is 28 years old when we meet him and has been with MI-7 for some time already, enough to have his boss, Ruby Parker, aka the Red Maiden, consider him her best agent.
He is a blond haired good looking man, tall-ish and rather thin. Though he wanted to look suave and distinguished, wearing a suit from Saville Row, he admitted to himself he instead "looked like a farmer defending a lawsuit". Luckily for his self-esteem, he found such a thought as amusing rather than demoralizing.
Originally recruited by MI-7 as a languages expert and conversant in most of the major ones with a lot of interest in the more obscure tongues from distant lands, he has written several published papers on such matters. It did not take long for his superiors to recognize talent in other areas besides linguistics and he was soon out in the field as an operative.
"He said stupid things at all the wrong moments, and he knew he was doing it. He did it out of a desire to self-destruct which even he didn't get", yet another thought one of his colleagues had on him. He does not suffer foolishness well, not even when done by himself. At one point he mused, "psychological test results prove I belong to that category of spies who, if they try to use sex to get information, are more likely to end up a thrall to the target than to put her in an emotionally obliging position."
Still, for all his faults, which really amount to just a few, he is a determined agent in the field and one that MI-7, and Ruby Parker, has no hesitation in dispatching.