Felicity Willing

Felicity Willing
Character information
Alias(es)	"Felicity Wilful"
Born	--, Western Cape, South Africa
Hair	Dark blonde; pulled back severely and pinned up
Eyes	Deep green
Nationality	South African
Occupation	IOAH managing director, City investment banker (formerly)
Affiliation	IOAH, Unidentified bank (formerly)
Status	Incarcerated
Behind the scenes
Role	Main Villain
First seen	Carte Blanche
Last seen	Carte Blanche

"Those who were hungry were desperate. You could get them to do anything if you promised them food – switch political loyalties, fight, kill civilians, overthrow dictatorships or democracies. Anything. It occurred to me that hunger could be used as a weapon. So that’s what I became – an arms dealer, you could say."

― Carte Blanche.

Felicity Willing was the managing director of humanitarian charity, the IOAH (International Organisation Against Hunger). The character served as the primary antagonist of Jeffery Deaver's 2011 James Bond continuation novel, Carte Blanche.

Biography

Early life

Felicity Willing was raised in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The only child of English parents, her father was a mining company executive. The family moved back to London when she was thirteen. Her rural upbringing in the bush led to ostracization at boarding school. From there she was educated at the London Business School and was subsequently employed at a major City investment bank. It was there that she began a lasting partnership (and brief, albeit manipulative, romantic interlude) with Northern Irish engineer and former Sapper, Niall Dunne. Their shared amorality led to establishing ties with warlords and dictators in sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, Willing became managing director of the National Organisation Against Hunger (NOAH) in South Africa. Ostensibly a non-governmental organisation seeking to combat western "superfarms" on the African continent, NOAH was actually a front organisation which she used to manipulate African nations with the promise of food aid. Eventually, the NOAH became an international charity and was rebranded "IOAH".

Carte Blanche

In the Summer of 2010, Felicity Willing learned about an international blackmail and extortion scheme concocted by waste mogul, Severan Hydt. Code-named "Gehenna", the plan was to steal and assemble classified information via clandestine scanners built into industrial waste-shredders. Sensing a businesses opportunity, Willing anonymously invested ten million into the project with the proviso that Dunne, her tactical planner, oversee how the money was spent. The pair planned to use Hydt - planting false information about him, and ultimately making him the fall-guy if anybody became suspicious about their other projects. Meanwhile, in another lucrative venture, Willing was contracted by the Sudanese (who were funded by China) to bribe Eritrea, Uganda and Ethiopia with food relief in exchange for providing the military force to help them subdue a break-away faction. Sudan's oil resources would end up with China, rather than Britain. GCHQ would subsequently decrypt an electronic whisper about the attack and dub the cryptic event "Incident Twenty".

On 18th May 2011, she accidentally crossed paths with James Bond (under his cover identity of Gene Theron, a mercenary from Durban) during a charity fund-raising event in Cape Town, and they formed a short romantic relationship. Attempting to avert "Incident Twenty", and following Willing and Dunne's trail of misinformation, Bond dismantled Hydt's operation in South Africa - ending with the latter's assassination by the Irishman. The spy felt that something was still amiss and realised that the cryptic "noah" he had been pursuing was in fact the NOAH and its managing director. On 20th May, Bond attempted to lure Willing into a trap by feigning ignorance of her duplicity and revealed his true identity; much to her bitter disappointment. An hour later she intercepted him at the Sixth Apostle Hotel outside downtown Cape Town and held him at gunpoint. With the help of the South African Police Service, 007 successfully set up Willing, extracting a confession and details of the plot. A brief attempt was made by Dunne to rescue her; ending with the deaths of both MI6 operative Gregory Lamb and the gunman. The food was subsequently intercepted and distributed by a legitimate group. Felicity Willing was apprehended and extracted to a black site for interrogation.