- Anna Grímsdóttir: "You must be Sam Fisher. I'm Anna Grímsdóttir."
- Sam Fisher: "Third Echelon lead programmer."
- Anna Grímsdóttir: "You've done your homework."
- — Anna Grímsdóttir and Sam Fisher meet for the first time in the monitoring room of Third Echelon's training ground.
Anna Grímsdóttir is the Technical Operations Officer for Fourth Echelon, a special missions unit commissioned by the POTUS, and the National Security Advisor under President Caldwell. Initially, Grim was Communications Lead (Technical Operations Manager), later Chief Technical Analyst, for Third Echelon. Her job was to provide Sam Fisher with technical support while he was in the field, addressing any high-technology issues that he encountered during operations. A skilled hacker, Grim fronted the remote intelligence retrieval operations that Third Echelon conducted prior to inserting field operatives (i.e. Sam Fisher), if required. She was also responsible for direct technical operations through Fisher's OPSAT (OPerational SATellite Uplink) connection to computer terminals in the field. Along with Sam, Anna is a central character in the Splinter Cell series.
Biography
Anna Grimsdóttir in 2004
Early life
Anna Grímsdóttir was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts. Being a second generation American, her mother immigrated to the U.S. alone from Akureyri, in northern Iceland. She had once mentioned to Fisher that while he was fighting overseas in the Persian Gulf War, she was in the tenth grade.
Grim dropped out of St. John's College in the mid-1990s and worked as a programmer in different private communications firms contracted by the U.S. Navy. She was recruited into the NSA in the late-1990s, and rose quickly in rank as the Internet became more and more important to national security. Grímsdóttir then moved on to Third Echelon, where she was put in charge of a small team of programmers responsible for providing technological, cryptographic and data support as part of the Splinter Cell program and assist field agents via their interface with the high-tech components of their missions. Grímsdóttir has helped Third Echelon with her work as a civilian computer/SIGINT (SIGnals INTelligence) technician throughout several different missions including the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999[4], the Checkmate incident in 2003, the Georgian Information Crisis in 2004, the Indonesian Crisis in 2006, and the Cyber Attacks/East Asian Crisis of 2007. She was also one of few people able to communicate with Fisher during missions. She was an extremely useful asset for the agency during the information warfare attacks that took place in 2007.
Third Echelon
Late 1990s: Recruitment
Grímsdóttir is a second-generation American and a college dropout. She had been studying computer science at St. John's College in the nineties, but decided she could program rings around her instructors. She worked for several different communications firms contracted by the U.S. Navy. She had been recruited at the ground floor of Third Echelon in the mid-1990's by Lambert himself, and had worked as a programmer and eventually became the technical director. She was one of Third Echelon's original employees, and he has known her for a long time.[5][6][7]
1999: NATO bombings of Yugoslavia
2003: Checkmate
2004: Georgian Information Crisis
Grim watching Sam's training
On August 7, 2004, Grim met Sam Fisher face to face for the first time, after he discovered her in the observatory room in the CIA Training Farm in Camp Peary, Virginia. She introduced herself, and discussed her past with Second Echelon.
Soon after Grim went on psychological leave in Hawaii for a year.[8]
2006: Operation Barracuda/MRUUV Incident
Grim returns from psych leave following the death of acting technical director Carly St. John to help Fisher track down Carly's murderer (Mike Wu) and members of "The Shop".
2006: Indonesia Crisis
2007: Cyber Attacks of 2007/Crisis in East Asia
Grim in 2007
Grim, Lambert and Sam in the HQ during The East Asian Crisis.
The Masse Kernels, initiated by Douglas Shetland, starts a Blackout. Abrahim Zherkezhi and Bruce Morgenholt are the only ones who saw the Masse Kernels. So, Fisher is sent to infiltrate Zherkezhi's Penthouse. Grim reveals to Sam who "Dvorak really is. Along with Irving Lambert and William Redding, Grim gives Sam briefing before the start of every mission.
2008: Fallout
2009: The Fisher Investigation
Grim uncovered Director Lawrence Williams' tampering of Fisher's files. When Director Williams confiscated the disc where she kept evidence of the file modifications, she helped Fisher infiltrate the NSA's headquarters to reach Williams' office in order to get the disc back. Grim only appear in cutscenes in Essentials, same as William Redding.
2008/9: Korfovka Mission
2009/10: The Search for Sam Fisher/Doppleganger Arms Factory Conspiracy
Eighteen months later, Grímsdóttir became the director of Third Echelon in the interim between Director Williams and Tom Reed.[9][10]
2011: Third Echelon Conspiracy
Grímsdóttir meets Fisher at Price Airfield.
Once Sam's technical support within Third Echelon and the confidante of former agency Director Irving Lambert, Grim played a much larger role within the new Third Echelon as Chief Technical Analyst. Working closely with the then-new Director Reed, Grim is the agency's conscience, as well as its most effective and ruthless asset. She wields a great deal of influence within the organization, and is referred to as "The Ice Queen" by Andriy Kobin, due to her cold nature. During the conspiracy, Grim manipulated and deceived Sam numerous times, but she always did so with the best of intentions.
While Fisher was in Valetta, Malta, Grim contacted him and warned him of an impending hit by a group of criminals. With her help, Fisher was able to covertly eliminate his would-be killers and track down their leader, Andriy Kobin. However, this was actually a trap set by Grim, as a group of Splinter Cells storm Kobin's mansion and take Sam into Third Echelon custody while he's interrogating Kobin. Sam was taken for interrogation to Price Airfield in Virginia, where Grim helps him escape after revealing that she was working for President Patricia Caldwell as a mole inside Third Echelon and she tells him that his daughter is alive to get him "back in the game".
Throughout the conspiracy, Grim manipulated both Fisher and Reed, which culminated with Grim and Fisher foiling Reed's assassination attempt against President Caldwell. Depending on player's choice near the end of the game, Grim either kills Reed herself or watch Sam get his revenge.[11] As Sam turned to leave, Grim asked Sam to return to Third Echelon, since he is the only one left she trusts. Sam remarked on the irony of her using the word "trust" and walked away.
National Security Advisor
Following the 3E conspiracy, she was promoted to National Security Advisor. At a meeting in the French capital of Paris, she was met by Fisher, who sought information on the KROWE terrorist group. She tried to warn him off, but he was soon captured. Coste called in a favor and she had him returned. Grim then told them that the government was hiring Paladin Nine Security to rescue Lt. Col. William Bradshaw, and she sent in a SEAL team as backup. After the mission was over, she had Fisher tie up some loose ends with Matilda Solomon.
Fourth Echelon
2012: Fourth Echelon and the Blacklist
Grim, Briggs and Sam abroad Fourth Echelon's mobile base, The Paladin
Six months after the events that took place in D.C., Grímsdóttir became the technical operations officer of a new unit commissioned by President Caldwell to replace Third Echelon, called Fourth Echelon, under Sam Fisher, the unit's commander. The unit is currently engaged in efforts to disrupt and destroy a planned series of terrorist attacks against U.S. interests known as the Blacklist. Grim keeps up communications between all parties involved with Fourth Echelon, including the president. Sam and Grim frequently butt heads over the right course of actions during the storyline, with Grim focusing on proven tactics and Sam utilizing more fast-and-loose methods of accomplishing the mission.
Though their history with one another in Third Echelon proves to be a source of tension between the two, Sam and Grim carry a mutual respect for one another. Grim even breaks her usually rigid methods of 'by-the-book' mission completion by ordering drone strikes and supports the teams' decision to ignore the President's orders and proceed to Site F to capture Majid Sadiq, showcasing a growing belief in the need of flexibility when completing operations. During the course of the story, she confronts Sam on his somewhat hypocritical belief that the mission to bring down comes before personal interests, yet only joined with the team due to Sam's friend, Vic Coste, suffering injuries during the events of Blacklist Zero from the Engineers; she implies that Sam's reason for joining was out of a personal vendetta rather than objective justice. By the end of the story, Sadiq has been captured, and Fourth Echelon continues hunting down remnants of the group across the planet, with Grim, after building back up their relationship, continuing to function as the technical operations officer.
Grim in Blacklist is also a side-mission provider, similar to Charlie and Kobin. Her missions, however, require Sam and Briggs to be completely stealthy, and not be detected at all, like some missions in the first two Splinter Cell games: one alarm will fail the entire mission and you will have to start the mission over from the beginning.
2019: Operation Watchman, Bolivia
In 2019, Grim is still serving as a mission handler for Fourth Echelon. She receives an emergency communications request from the CIA's Langley headquarters regarding a stolen data package in transit to Bolivia. She gives the mission to Sam for deployment and secures tactical support from a Ghost Recon fireteam with the aid of CIA case officer Karen Bowman. While Sam is recovering the stolen CIA data, she learns of another emergency from the Joint Chiefs of Staff containing the words "empty quiver," a military term used for stolen nuclear arsenals, which she later relays to Sam after his deployment in Bolivia.
Appearances in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell media
Games
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Essential
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands (mentioned)
Novels
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Checkmate
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Fallout
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction (novel)
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Endgame
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Echoes
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist Aftermath
Trivia
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An image gallery is available for Anna Grímsdóttir
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- In Version 1 of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Sam Fisher met Anna Grímsdóttir in a room in the CIA Training Farm, Virginia, on his first day of training for Third Echelon (August 7th, 2004).
- In Version 2 of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (Ubisoft Shanghai), Grim introduces herself to Sam for first time at Andrews Air Force Base on board the Osprey (October 15th, 2004).
- In Essentials (and the novels) Sam Fisher first met Grímsdóttir when he joined Third Echelon in the nineties. According to the manual for Essentials; "Anna Grímsdóttir was a civilian computer programmer and communications specialist in the mid-1990s when Irving Lambert recruited her into Third Echelon." She appears working for Third Echelon during the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia issuing advice on Sam Fisher's mission and in 2003 during the Checkmate incident.
- En-route to Sam's first mission in T'Bilisi in Splinter Cell, Grim injects him with subdermal microchips and a cochlear implant (on PlayStation 2 he already had the implants and used them back in the Pacific ocean before being recalled by Third Echelon).
- Grim frequently jokes about Sam's relatively old age in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.
- Essentials founding of Third Echelon in the 1990s seems to follow the chronology of the Splinter Cell (novel), Operation Barracuda, and Checkmate which states that Third Echelon had been founded years before 2003 (though Sam Fisher was still the original Splinter Cell). Sam Fisher and Irving Lambert had known Anna Grímsdóttir for years (from the time she was brought into Third Echelon). Checkmate states that Third Echelon was founded by presidential executive order several years before 2003. Operation Barracuda states that Grim was one of Third Echelon's original employees, and likely recruited in the nineties.[12]
- In the novels Splinter Cell: Conviction and Splinter Cell: Endgame set around 2009, Grim is mentioned to be the Director of Third Echelon.
- Grim seems to have received some degree of weapon training after she becomes the Director, as she marks & executes the Splinter Cells with Sam near the end of Conviction, also she is armed with Five-seveN when the SEALs board the C-147 Paladin in Blacklist.
- In Blacklist, Charlie Cole replaces Grim as main technical support/hacker for the Fourth Echelon, however Grim still has plenty of programming skill that will help the 4E in the time of need.
References in other Tom Clancy media
- Grim is mentioned to be Director of Third Echelon in The End Begins: Splinter Cell, a short narrative in a news article on the web site for Tom Clancy's EndWar. She's known as the "Grim Reaper".[13] With the release of Splinter Cell: Blacklist, this has been made non-canon in the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell universe.
- She also appears in the novel Tom Clancy's EndWar: The Hunted, as head of the NSA's Splinter Cell program. She, along with Major Dennison, brief Ghost Recon Captain Alexander Brent on their mission to capture the "Snow Maiden". She assigns them two Splinter Cells, the brothers George Voeckler and Thomas Voeckler.
- Grim is mentioned by name during the events of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, where she was responsible for deploying Sam Fisher into Bolivia to recover stolen intelligence by a rogue CIA agent. During Sam's conversation with CIA case officer Karen Bowman at the end of his mission, Bowman mentions Grim having another emergency mission for Sam to carry out regarding stolen nuclear weapons.
References
- ↑ Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 [1]ubisoft.custhelp.com, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell PC manual, page 4
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 [2]ubisoft.custhelp.com, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow PC manual, page 3
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 [3]ubisoft.custhelp.com, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory PC manual, page 4
- ↑ Operation Barracuda, 109-110
- ↑ Checkmate, pg
- ↑ Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Essentials manual
- "Anna Grímsdóttir was a civilian computer programmer and communications specialist in the mid-1990s when Irving Lambert recruited her into Third Echelon. As a key member of the field support team, her job is to maintain secure OPSAT communications and provide information analysis and computer support at a moment's notice. Frequently called upon to perform miracles of research and invasive work and invasive network operations on the fly, she is one of the most highly skilled technical specialists the agency has."
- ― {{{2}}}
- ↑ Operation Barracuda, 110
- ↑ Conviction, pg
- ↑ "Director Grímsdóttir", Endgame, pg 12
- ↑ SMI database in Blacklist
- ↑ Operation Barracuda, pg 109-110
- ↑ http://endwargame.us.ubi.com/article.php?news_id=8702
- "“Director Grimsdottir. This is an honor.” That wasn’t exactly true. Having the Grim Reaper on the line with you meant two things, neither of which was an honor. It meant that what you were doing was top-line priority, and it meant that you were screwed."
- ― {{{2}}}