Department Seven was raised in 1941 after the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, ordered the establishment of an ultra secret branch of the existing intelligence apparatus to take the fight to the enemy with a ferocity so brutal it would shake them to their very core. Department Sevens brief was simple, to assemble a team of men who were capable of carrying out extreme acts of violence under the most challenging of circumstances. In Churchill's own words "Dangerous operations are best undertaken by dangerous men so I want cut-throats and brigands of the most bloodthirsty kind who will strike at the black heart of the beast, butchering the Nazis and their allies wherever they rear their ugly heads with no thought for compassion nor quarter".

Operating far beyond the normal remit of secret operations, Department Seven soon established its reputation as an instrument of death, with assassination and sabotage as its watchwords, to be called upon when only the most extreme of measures were required.