Ward Lowe is an agent with the PED.
That acronym stands for the Paranormal Enforcement Departments. That is a division of the American Intelligence community that uses powers that are decidedly outside the norm to 'protect' the nation. It could be that all people have these gifts but so limited in scope that they are just tossed off as intuition or a feeling. The agents with the PED, though, are so attuned to the thoughts of others that they know what a target is thinking.
That is a skill very useful in the intelligence-gathering business. The word 'protect' was put in quotes, though, because sometimes protecting means doing very bad things to people who are deemed to be a danger and sometimes those doing the deeming are not such nice people themselves. The question then seems to be who really needs the protection.
Exactly where in that sort of mix Lowe belongs is one of the interesting aspects of the series, at least the first couple of recorded adventures, because there are many in the PED who consider Lowe a traitor to be shot on sight and others who hope he lasts long enough to bring down some very nasty characters.
Working with Ward is his wife, Jan, a woman very gifted like he and with years of experience in the field as well. In several of the recorded adventures she play a more important role than Ward and, to me, is more interesting at those times.
Also important in the series is Lowe's normal partner, a quite capable man named Jack Golightly and little by little we learn more of the interesting life that Golightly had before he became so connected with Lowe.