Bret Steele is an agent with S.T.U.D.
The acronym stands for the Special Territories and Unique Development which "some bright boy at the top thought up ... as a euphemism for the kind of hard-core, knee-in-the-groin jobs no other insurance company would touch", according to Steele. It is a division of a large global insurance company known as Unlimited Insurance.
Very little is known about Steele. He certainly claims no great ability in anything, even bed, but he does have a knack for fulfilling any requirement the job throws at him. Unlike other characters in the erotic spy-fi sub-genre, Steele is not an expert in sex. He is just someone who tries extra hard. He claims that before he started work for United he was "a nice, decent guy" but after this association with the kind of people that S.T.U.D. dealt with has seen him "contaminated, defiled, debased, deflowered, violated, and rendered generally impure."
To be honest, Bret Steele is not really a spy - he's an investigator for a world-wide insurance company. Still, he is included in numerous lists of spy series and his world-wide work would certainly qualify him for a dabbler in international intrigue.
There are two characters of some recurring interest in the series. Carter B. Franklin is the annoying dispatcher at Unlimited tasked with handing Steele his assignments and perpetually complaining about the expense reports that Steele hands in after each case. Paradise Jones is the beautiful girl from W.I.L.L.I.N.G. (Western Integrated Long Lease Insurance Nonpayment Group), who joins Steele on two of his assignments.