Providence

Diana Burnwood (Supreme head and thirdConstant)

Leo Kazantsev (Head of Providence)

* Past:

Arthur Edwards (Supreme head and second Constant; formerly)

Janus (Former Constant)

Constant (Chief Controller and second-in command):

**Providence** was an extremely powerful shadow government that controlled all of the world's affairs, having influential operatives all over the globe. They are the main antagonists of the *World of Assassination* trilogy.

Starting as a collaboration between three influential dynasties, and later, Cold War spymaster Janus, Providence was formed in 1945 by Thomas Carlisle, Douglas Ingram and Eckhart Stuyvesant--the first iteration of the Partners. The second and last known Partner collective consisted of Marcus Stuyvesant, Carl Ingram, and Alexa Christine Carlisle, the founders' descendants.

## History

### Origins

Providence formally began in the aftermath of WWII (as early as 1945) when Thomas Carlisle assembled two of his old college fraternity brothers, Douglas Ingram and Eckhart Stuyvesant, at his family's estate in Dartmoor, England to pool their families' already-vast corporate influence into a secret society that could effectively govern the world behind the scenes. These three "Partners" of Providence likely interacted with their various human assets themselves before recruiting Janus, a legendary KGB spymaster, as their first "Constant" (a second-in-command manager of Providence).

Leadership of Providence was steadily transferred to new figures in the late 1980s and early 1990s, resulting in three new Partners: Alexa Carlisle in 1988, Carl Ingram in 1994 and Marcus Stuyvesant at a much later point in time, along with a new Constant, Arthur Edwards, in the 1990s.

### Cold War

In the 1960s, Janus secretly recruited the renowned Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer to create obedient clones that were able to kill without remorse. With the backing of Thomas Carlisle, his genetic experiments started at the Institute for Human Betterment in Brasov, Romania, a former youth correctional facility. Two young test subjects, Subject 47 and Subject 6, made a pact and escaped from the institute before coming across a small farming community. They were taken in by a family, but in the following morning, they were tracked down by Janus' men. The family, as well as any other witnesses, were murdered and the two subjects brought back to the institution where they were punished.

In the 1980s, Alexa Carlisle and Janus played both side of the Cold War to Providence's advantage. At her behest, Ort-Meyer transformed the institute into a bonafide assassination service, and the clones, including 47 and 6, would be instrumental in helping Providence further achieve its global goals, like taking over entire countries such as Paraguay in 1985. As they became disillusioned with the experiments and their purpose in life, 6 and 47 vowed to take down their creators, but their assault on the Institute in 1989 failed and Subject 6 was thought dead.

The destruction of the Institute forced Ort-Meyer to relocate the program to an asylum in Satu Mare. At Carlisle's insistence, Subject 47 and the remaining clones had their memories and emotions wiped to prevent the possibility of any additional incidents. Unbeknownst to Ort-Meyer, Janus, or any other members of Providence, Subject 6 had survived and escaped the Institute into the real world, where he'd eventually plot Providence's downfall thirty years later.

### *HITMAN™* Events

Subject 6, now known as Lucas Grey, was working as the head of security for Milton-Fitzpatrick when he discovered that his employer, CEO Eugene Cobb, was a Providence operative. Accepting that he would never truly be free from Providence, he plotted to eliminate Cobb and wage a silent war against the shadow government. Grey learned that Cobb was not just a regular member of Providence, but a key-bearer, one in possession of a key that allowed access to the organization's secret archive in New York, containing information on Providence's assets and operatives. Armed with this knowledge, during a business trip across the pacific, Grey assassinated Cobb before stealing his key and allowing the plane to crash into the ocean as a supposed accident. However, the archive's vault required a pair of keys to open, and Grey would go on to create his own militia to aid him in his efforts to destroy Providence.

Later, Providence's efforts across the globe curiously began to fail. In a small coastal town of Italy, the Ether Corporation, a front for Providence, was secretly working on the Ether Virus, a DNA tracking biological agent designed to discreetly assassinate people of interest. The virus was destroyed, and bio-engineers Silvio Caruso and Francesca De Santis were eliminated to ensure that the virus could not be replicated. Not long after, Providence attempted to stage a military coup in Morocco. Led by Army General and Providence operative Reza Zaydan, Providence plotted to overthrow the Rabat government by inciting the country's population into riots and staging the coup in the name of national security. However, both Zaydan and Claus Hugo Strandberg, the banker that had enraged the Moroccan people, were eliminated and the riots consequently subsided. The Constant, refusing to believe the two incidents were coincidental, took to New York alongside Milton-Fitzpatrick's newest CEO Alexander Fanin to inspect the vault, only to discover that it had been ransacked.

Behind the scenes, Lucas Grey had obtained limited knowledge of Providence's operations from IAGO, a spy network, and began anonymously tipping off interested parties of Providence's activities. These people would go on to become clients of the ICA, and multiple contracts were put in place to secretly eliminate Providence operatives. Agent 47, formerly Subject 47, took the contracts, unknowingly being manipulated into attacking Providence. After the destruction of the Ether Virus, Lucas Grey tracked down and executed a second Providence key-bearer, Hajun, who had come to determine the cause, finally giving Grey access to the archive. Following the assassination of Jordan Cross, Thomas Cross, father, and reclusive media mogul was kidnapped during the following funeral and later found shot to death. The murder was no coincidence; the ICA realized that each of the contracts were linked by a mysterious anonymous tip. Naming the tipper 'the Shadow Client', ICA began to hunt down their location.

Providence, upon learning that the ICA was responsible for thwarting their plans, got in contact with Erich Soders, director of the ICA's board, and offered him a deal. Soders was suffering from a rare condition known as Situs Inversus, in which the patient's insides are reversed. In desperate need of a heart transplant, Soders agreed to eliminate the Shadow Client and hand over a full list of ICA's operatives in exchange for an exceedingly rare right-sided heart. Following a trail left by a hacktivist, the ICA discover Grey's militia inhabiting an apricot farm in Colorado, led by Sean Rose. Assuming Rose, an already registered target and known terrorist, is the Shadow Client, Soders pushes the board into asking Agent 47 to infiltrate the farm and eliminate Rose, as well as other prominent members of the militia. However, upon infiltrating the farm, 47 and Diana Burnwood conduct an investigation and find that not only is the true Shadow Client targeting Providence, a presumed myth, but that Erich Soders was a Providence mole.

Erich Soders was discreetly fast-tracked for his critical heart surgery to the GAMA Hospital in Hokkaido, a hyper exclusive hospital. Angered by Soder's betrayal, while also aware that he planned on handing over the list of ICA operatives to Providence, the ICA's board of directors asked 47 to infiltrate the hospital and eliminate Erich Soders. Yuki Yamazaki, a Providence lawyer, was also present at the hospital and subsequently targeted as well.

Later, The Constant intercepted Diana Burnwood on a train and lamented the death of Soders. He then suggested a partnership between the ICA and Providence, as the ICA had been made a mockery of and Providence had lost key assets. Diana wasn't interested in partnering with someone as untrustworthy as The Constant until he offered her information on 47's hidden origins.

### *HITMAN™ 2* Events

A week later, the ICA's board of directors accept Providence as a client and agree to hunt down and eliminate the Shadow Client, as well as their private militia. Based on intel found in the apricot farm back in Colorado, the ICA discover the location of another key member of the militia, Alma Reynard. On behalf of Providence, 47 infiltrates Alma's beach house in Hawke's Bay, primarily in search of any possible leads on the Shadow Client. The search was unsuccessful, however 47 did discover a conversation between Alma and Robert Knox, both the CEO of Konstradt Industries and a member of Providence. Knox, as well as his daughter Sierra had chosen to defect from Providence following an increasing number of militia attacks against their fellow operatives, fearing that they would be assassinated in a similar fashion. 47 eliminated Alma Reynard before exfiltrating.

Following the revelation that Providence members had began to consider defection, the Constant gave ICA permission to take down the militia by any means necessary. Starting with the traitorous Knoxes at the Global Innovation Race, 47 and Diana went on a string of assassination missions in order to cripple the militia. After comparing the militia's attack patterns with global shipping and transportation routes, the ICA learn that the private militia has been quietly transporting their men across the world by making use of the Delgado Cartel's underwater distribution network. In order to neuter the militia's ability to move across the globe, 47 travels to Santa Fortuna to assassinate the current leader of the Cartel, Rico Delgado and his two lieutenants.

Despite the Delgado Cartel crumbling, attacks against Providence don't subside. More and more CEOs are murdered and causing a global panic. The militia release a hostage tape outing the existence of Providence to the world, which the ICA's analysts promptly begin tracing the origin of. Meanwhile, 47 travels to India to take out the Shadow Client's 'eastern cell'. The Delgado's were also creating fake IDs for the militia, including one Wazir Kale, better known as The Maelstrom. Providence believes that The Maelstrom, Vanya Shah, and Dawood Rangan are behind the murder of one of Providence's latest deceased operatives, the CEO of Ether, and taking them out is among their top priorities.

The ICA tracks the hostage tape back to Romania, and unbeknownst to them, Ort-Meyer's institution. As 47 approaches the barren, dilapidated building, he loses radio contact with Diana, heading in alone. There, he discovers Lucas Grey, the Shadow Client, who manages partially jog 47's memory by reminding him of their pact and convinces him to lay down his weapon. Informing Diana of this revelation, the three meet up alongside hacktivist Olivia Hall and agree to work together to take down Providence. Grey explains the relationship between the Partners and The Constant, stating that the key to taking down the Partners is The Constant and the key to finding The Constant would be his predecessor. Using an antidote stolen by the militia from Ether's headquarters, 47 reclaims the rest of his wiped memories and remembers that the first Constant was Janus.

Providence, as well as the rest of the ICA, are tricked by a false report claiming that Janus was linked to the institution in Romania and was in fact the real Shadow Client, Lucas Grey being simply a figurehead. Janus, as well as an assumed Providence defect, Nolan Cassidy, become the latest targets of the contract. Regardless, the true objective of the mission was to look around Janus' home in the town of Whittleton Creek for clues for when Janus and his apprentice could potentially meet. 47 discovers that Janus is a founder of The Ark Society, an annual gathering of the rich and powerful who prepare for the end of the world and that The Constant makes an appearance each year, presumably in search of new Providence recruits. Despite Janus' supposed betrayal of Providence, members of the Ark Society chose to give him a private wake at the next gathering to respect him. His coffin is tracked to unearth the location of the gathering, which is found to be the Isle of Sgàil.

Meanwhile, the relationship between the Partners and the Constant has been deeply strained, following the numerous operative deaths as well as the believed betrayal of the first Constant. In order to prove his loyalty, Alexa Alice Carlisle demands that the Constant insert a poison chip in his neck as a fail-safe, in case he is captured or goes rogue. Begrudgingly, the Constant accepts. Two months later, 47, Diana and Grey travel to the Isle of Sgàil for the gathering of the Ark Society. Upon discovering that the Constant has been embedded with the poison chip, and that kill switches have been given to both Zoe and Sophia Washington, 47 eliminates the twin sisters while Grey subdues and exfiltrates with the Constant.

The Constant later wakes up, tied to a chair in a ship in the middle of the North Atlantic with the chip surgically removed from his body. Grey and Diana interrogate him, who then explains how Providence came to be and the families that formed it. Unfortunately, the Partners had planned for such an occasion. Obituaries for all three Partners had appeared on the internet, and they had begun transitioning to different identities. The Constant then suggests that they 'follow the money'. As the Partners had only just begun transitioning between identities, their accounts at the Milton-Fitzpatrick Bank in New York would still be intact. 47 and Grey head to New York; 47 steals the data from the bank and eliminates bank director and Providence Operative Athena Savalas to cover their tracks.

The bank data yielded transactions by the Partners made out to Haven, a small corporation operating out of the Maldives. 47 travels to Haven Island to eliminate the three heads of the company who were in the middle of executing their biggest contract yet, presumably for the Partners. With the Haven leads gone, Olivia Hall was able to penetrate their servers and obtain the info on the Partners' locations.

### *HITMAN™ III* Events

With the information procured from Haven, 47 and Grey travel to Dubai to eliminate the first two Partners, Carl Ingram and Marcus Stuyvesant, at the Burj Al-Ghazali tower; Alexa Carlisle, however, manages to escape moments prior after realizing that Arthur Edwards absconded with the Partners' controlling shares. Diana tracks her down to the Carlisle family ancestral home in Dartmoor, England, where 47 eliminates her in addition to retrieving her case file on Edwards in the hopes that it may reveal details of his whereabouts. With the Partners finally eliminated for him, Edwards sets his plan into motion and has a private security team of CICADA operatives ambush Grey in an attempt to capture him, but fails when Grey commits suicide--subsequently forcing 47 and Olivia Hall to go on the run. Edwards corners Diana with leverage regarding the 1989 deaths of her parents in the hopes of pitting her against 47, but she initially relents. In turn, Edwards pays the ICA to hunt down 47 and Hall, now in Berlin.

As the new power behind Providence, Edwards attempts to persuade Diana into becoming the next Constant. After exposing the ICA and ending the threat against them, 47 reconnects with Diana in Mendoza, Argentina, where she tasks him with eliminating Don Archibald Yates and Tamara Vidal in an effort to remove the obstacles in her path to become Constant so she can get close enough to Edwards to dismantle his newly reformed Providence from the inside. As part of a ruse to maintain face, Diana poisons 47 after his successful mission, which allows him to get captured by Edwards' team and experimented upon aboard The Mortar, a retro-fitted train en route to a testing site in Mongolia via Romania's Carpathian Mountains. Faced with the prospect of becoming a tool for Providence once again, 47 finally deals with Edwards, which lets Diana expose the organization's operatives to the world. Tim Quinn, Alexander Fanin and others are forced to resign from their positions, essentially dissolving Providence.

## Members

#### Heralds

* William Candler
* Hajun (Deceased)
* Mikhail Kadir
* Yuki Yamazaki (Deceased)
* Nolan Cassidy (Deceased)
* Frank Schmidt (Deceased)
* Eugene Cobb (Deceased)
* Athena Savalas (Deceased)
* Alexander Fanin
* Gustavo Torres
* Geraldine Quill
* Don Archibald Yates (Deceased)
* Tamara Vidal (Deceased)
* Geraldine Quill
* Richard Jones
* Wang YinYuan
* Hira Amala
* Alexandra Stavroula
* Bronson (Deceased)
* Jorge Johnson
* Anne Schmidt
* Theo Xavier Willis
* Roy Albert
* Edward Arthurs

### Other Known Members

* Akira Nakamura
* Sara Edwards
* Blue Seed CEO (Deceased)
* Byron Washington III
* Claus Hugo Strandberg (Deceased)
* Danziger (Deceased)
* Erich Soders (Deceased)
* Erik Olander
* Esteban Montoya
* Haas Rheinhardt
* Lin Xi (Deceased)
* Neleis De Waal (Deceased)
* Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer (Deceased)
* Raoul Salazar
* Rex Larsson (Deceased)
* Reza Zaydan (Deceased)
* Robert Knox (Defected/Deceased)
* Rupert Pierce (Deceased)
* Sierra Knox (Defected)
* Silvio Caruso (Deceased)
* Francesca De Santis (Deceased)
* Simon Deveraux
* Sophia Washington (Deceased)
* Thomas Cross (Deceased)
* Tim Quinn
* Vera St. Martin
* Zoe Washington (Deceased)
* Orson Mills
* Penelope Graves
* Sebastian Sato
* Agent 47 (Defected/Formerly)
* Barry Jackson-Todd (Formerly)
* Omar Al-Ghazali
* Cindy C. Burns (Undercover Spy)
* Zana Kazemi
* Ophelia Eden Perry
* Lucille Patterson
* Alice Clark
* Michael Tolman (Spy)
* Richard Voltaire (Spy)
* Mary Derricks (Spy)
* Emma Carlisle
* Rikki Badcock
* Orson Lukeson
* Kevin Murgatroyed
* Joan Donalds
* Evelyn Crane
* Gulshan Yazdani
* Ken Takeuchi
* Manon Beaulieu
* Lucy Phillips
* Edwina Hillam
* Annabel Jones
* Gustav Reuter
* Ivan Sidorov
* James Burnwood (Assassin)
* Pasty Monaghan

## Trivia

* Providence may be based on real-life secret society conspiracy groups and theories such as The Hashshashin, The Illuminati, The Templar Knights, and The Majestic 12.
* Providence is popularly named after a capital city in Rhode Island.