John Levis is an agent with the CIA.
Actually, no, but in reality, yes. He is truth a member of Viper, a five-man team created at the request of the CIA Director, 'Bear' Houghton, and funded by one of the several secret fiscal programs hidden in the massive budget of the Agency. The time is the early 70's and war in Vietnam is going very badly and the Soviet Union seems to be winning the propaganda battle and Red China is huge looming threat and the Middle East is heating faster and faster. The Director felt he needed an edge.
Viper was created anonymously so it could operate the same. No one outside the group except the Director knew how it was created or why. No one was ever supposed to know and the leader of the group, Dave Matthews, made sure that each person on the team knew as well; get caught and no one will come to the rescue.
The newest member of that small group was Levis. He was chosen by Matthews because of his incredible potential and his ruthless approach to any objective. "Levis was becoming an army trained killer, but Matthews would make Levis a world class clandestine assassin for the United States."
Levis is 19 years old when we first meet him. He is average (5'8) in height and a lean 154 pounds. "He was not a big man, but he was fierce. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes, and the skin color that would allow him to pass for multiple races, and yet not standout in the dominate white community that he grew up in." "His father's side was likely English but this mother's side contained an Indian blood line that descended down from the Dakota Sioux of Minnesota...And even though John was not full-blooded, his Indian roots ran deep inside his psyche. He was a modern day Dakota warrior even if others around him did not recognize that fact."