John Apparite is an agent with American Intelligence.
The agency for whom Apparite works does not officially exist. It has no permanent headquarters and its name, if it actually had one, would never be found on any government record. Its existence is known to only three people in the government, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the CIA, and the Director of the NSA. Not even the President of the United States is aware of the department to provide deniability. The mission for this ultra-secret bureau is to perform those jobs that are far too sensitive or messy to be handled by any official department in case word leaked out. Assassinations of prominent foreign officials and agents, as well as the occasional murder of undesireables, was the primary reason for the secrecy.
Heading the small agency since its creation in 1950 is the man known to his agents only as the Director, an aging man who keeps an unemotional distance from his operatives as he knows 60% of them will die in the service to him.
Apparite is one of the best agents that the Director has. Known as Agent E, he has been with the department for a while as the series starts. He is likely 27 years old. He graduated from college at age 23 and joined the FBI. After a year of service, he was approached to join the fairly new CIA and decided the work sounded interesting. During his training, he repeatedly proved himself tenacious, determined, and resourceful. In addition to his athletic abilities, Apparite has a knack for languages. Though he earned a Bachelors in Biological Services, he was specializing in Romance languages. As of the first book, he was an expert in six languages including German and Russian.
Standing a relatively short 5'6", an inch shorter than the FBI requirements which he had to fool to get accepted, Apparite is in excellent shape and is a deadly weapon when fighting hand-to-hand, as an obnoxious CIA instructor learned the hard way once Apparite had graduated the training academy and was free to respond to the man's taunts without worry of expulsion. The instructor suffered several broken ribs and Apparite was noticed by Dulles, head of the CIA. Since Dulles was one of the men overseeing the ultra-secret agency while running the CIA, he recognized in Apparite a killer instinct that made him more suitable for the other agency than for the CIA. When Apparite was approached, he did not hesitate.
John Apparite is a new man. The man he once was, the man whose parents had died years before leaving him with no known relatives, died in a car crash shortly after graduating from CIA training. The man who accepted the Director's offer, was given the name Apparite by his new boss and told his service would last no less then 4 years and no more than 8. Should he survive that time, he would be given yet another identity and 5 million dollars with which to start a new life. Until then, Apparite works for a man who demands total obeyance and dedication.