Nicole Porter is an agent with the CUC.
That acronym stands for the Clean Up Crew which Porter describes to her husband, Dan, as "an organization of international operatives, working outside the constraints of government oversight, though often within their employ. We do generally clean up the scene, but that's to remove evidence of our real purpose. The real kind of cleaning up we do involves removing individuals that have run afoul of those who pay the fee we charge them for that privilege."
As a colleague of Porter would go on to tell Dan, the CUC dealt with the covert arms of several world governments, with the targets being those the power-that-be identified as a threat to their security. "In many cases, these government do not want to leave the DNA at the scene, so to speak. They need to appear completely uninvolved".
Additionally, there was the other source of work which was referred to as "private justice". "There are many, far too many cases of people who have been horribly wronged, and who have not been given the assistance and support promised to them under the law. Loopholes, deep pockets... those sorts of things allow of lot of really shitty people to get away with a lot of really shitty things. There is an entire branch of CUC that monitors that sort of stuff".
Porter was doing this explaining to her spouse because, though they had been married for over twenty years, this is the first he had heard of her "real" job. Up until this disclosure, which came after Dan happened to find a dead body in the trunk of his wife's car and was understandably inquisitive, Dan Porter had believed the CUC was quite a bit different than it turned out to be.
When Porter first met the man she would eventually marry and have children with, she explained that she had a desk job with the CUC which had the important albeit unpleasant sounding line of work of "removing the gore after crime scenes and suicides". Crimes, especially physical ones, can get very messy and suicides are often as well. Cleaning the areas and removing all signs they had been there is a very specialized task requiring lots of experience and the right equipment and chemicals.
The CUC had franchises all over the world and it was Porter's job to drop by for visits routinely to make sure their paperwork was in order and that the different locaitons were maintaining the quality the CUC expected. She was forced to make periodic trips to countries all over the world but she never was gone long and Dan and the kids, now grown, got used to her popping away for a few days here and there.
Of course, as Dan discovers as he found that surprise in the trunk, Porter did a whole lot more than just count the paperclips. For instance, that troublesome corpse in the car had a bullet hole between his eyes and Porter put it there. And she would eventually fess up to having put such holes in other people over the years. During their courtship she took the frequent assignment and continued to do so up until she learned she was pregnant. After the children started arriving, she slowed down considerably but once they reached their teens, Porter went back to full-time employment.
Which is where we find her, right after Dan found that pesky body.