Desiree Fleming is an agent with the Bureau.
This is not the FBI. but a different agency with the U.S. government, one dealing in counter-espionage and apparently having a large playing field with operations in other parts of the world, like the CIA, and inside America, like the aforementioned FBI. It is headed by "Holly" (no other name given), described as "small in stature, pure white hair sticking up from his skull like oat shoots, pleasant patrician face, a man who looked like he could be any of Washington's big politicos, or anyone's father."
When we first meet Fleming, she has just recently graduated from the Bureau's training and is about to become a full time active agent. She is 23 years old and eager to become involved in something with some action. She is pretty but really does not care one way or the other about it. "For as long as she could remember, she had had total disdain for changing style and fad. She was a champion of comfort. Short hair, easy to clean and manage", she was fond of capri pants and loafers which allowed her to move quickly and freely. This would come in handy a time or two.
We learn early on she is the daughter of the Bureau's most experience and successful agent, one who is there when she has her first mission and who obviously taught her a lot but there is no doubt she is independent and more than happy to work on her own. She shows immediately she has a keen eye for detail and can handle herself under pressure and is not afraid to speak her mind or take her own initiative when she is certain she is right.
She is young but feisty.