I'm not big on knowing numbers and odds, but a few skills just over half-chance, and the rest so low in a dangerous business like espionage seems like an exercise in frustration. And it's usually not the kind of situation where the survivors just get a few more henchmen and try again.

James Bond 007 is an unusual game in that it only has three "levels": Rookies, Agents, and 00 Agents. Rookies have, in maybe 4-5 skills, roughly a 60% chance of success and very low odds in almost everything else. Agents are somewhere in the 90-100% effective in their fields of specialization, and probably about 50-60% in other stuff. 00 Agents are typically around 125% effective in nearly everything, which means that they will always succeed unless the situation is truly nightmarishly hard (or in situations where how well you succeed matters, which is often). It's a bit like the Heroic/Paragon/Epic tiers in D&D 4e, or the levels in Dying Earth.

I am actually a little bit interested in trying the game with Rookie characters, who are much more down to earth and fragile than the nearly infallible James Bond. Spying on enemy troop movements, turning vulnerable civilians into espionage assets, doing surveillance on your own people to detect moles - all of this seems like slow-simmer Cold War stuff, rather than shooting the villain of the week between the eyes with a cigarette-rocket.

Most scenarios recommend using a solo 00 Agent, two regular Agents, or four Rookies, depending on how many players you have. I am not sure how to implement that at the table - maybe play troupe style with a stable of spies.

Was this a solo game previously? I'd read something once about the conflict between the major influence of the genre (Bond) being a loner vs the necessity for games to generally entertain several players, hence teams.

And who was Sternum playing?

Bond. James Bond.

Loubeau is also babbling about creating a photo collage in the style of Man Ray.

It is important to note that he was talking not just about Man Ray, but also about Picasso's "light drawings", which are a bit more contemporary. Because, in addition to being an internationally renowned and smooth-talking gambler, Richard is avant garde.

Who was playing whom? And who was Sternum playing? Was this a parallel mission to something he was doing?

The Story So Far
After participating in Operation: AJAX by deposing Mossadegh in Iran and cementing the Shah's grip on power, CIA agents Felix Leiter and Richard Loubeau are stationed in 1954 Berlin.

There (along with some support staff from the CIA, MI6, and the West Gernman Gehlen Org of recycled SS officers) they are part of an operation to construct a tunnel from the American Sector into the Soviet Sector and tap some underground phone lines. Their cover story is that they are eccentric artistic-photographers. Off hours, they spend a lot of time in an artist colony-night club-casino run by the motherly Frau Elodie Besse.

Their tunnel operation is soon compromised when the British engineering nerd responsible for its construction falls for an East German bombshell. When the nerd can't be talked out of the relationship, Leiter follows the girl back into East Germany, and observes her meeting an East German or Soviet official, "the toad woman."

Meanwhile, Richard Loubeau decides to help Frau Besse, who is worried about one of her pet artists, a heroin addicted painter named Gabi. Richard trails her on the way to her dealer, tries to chat her up, is told to get lost, and is just about to trail her again, when he gets hit on the head by a brick from a four-story building. He is seriously injured.

The next day, the men compare notes, chat with co-worker and Nazi war criminal Franz Cadavus who claims to have a new an important lead which he forbids anyone from investigating. The duo then introduce James Bond to Berlin. (Bond has been dispatched by MI6 to ensure their engineering nerd doesn't give any secrets to the East Germans, ideally by seducing the bombshell spy away from the engineer.)

Bond mingles with the cast at Frau Besse's, beats up a Turkish waiter-assassin with the aid of a urinal, half-seduces the East German agent, follows her over the border into the Soviet Sector, and gets attacked by the toad woman (Rosa Klebb!) who Bond beats half to death with his bare hands. He then finishes his seduction of the girl, and learns that she would have defected to the West long before, except that her mother is being held prisoner in a Stasi prison.

Leiter meanwhile lies to the artistic addict Gabi that Richard is suicidal, and he needs a beautiful German muse to inspire him to artistic glory. After receiving a large amount of cash, Gabi agrees, and divulges that she is a Communist sympathizer for artistic-ideological reasons.

Meanwhile, Richard learns from Frau Besse that the guy who dropped a brick on his head was probably "Metzger," an enforcer for Juergen Fisch, a West German gangster, drug dealer, numbers racketeer, blackmarket guy, and gambler - likely Gabi's heroin supplier.

Leiter and Loubeau resolve to pay Fisch a visit once Loubeau's wound has healed. Loubeau is also babbling about creating a photo collage in the style of Man Ray.