Jake Fonko is a freelance agent.
Some might, and should, call him a mercenary, a soldier of fortune, or a gun for hire. He would likely just shrug with any of those. He is safe in his own skin, knowing who he is and why. It is just some times he has no real idea where the next dollar is coming from so if he seems a bit too hasty to take a job, in other words not looking before he leaps, it is because the wallet is empty and the belly is growling.
When we first meet him, he is a decorated member of the prestigious U.S. Army Rangers. In the late 60's and early 70's he was leaping out of planes to land in swampy rice paddies in Vietnam but at our first encounter, the year is 1975 and his boots and feet are finally dry and he really has no great desire to head back to Southeast Asia but the CIA asks his bosses for help and they hand the Agency him.
Over the next nearly 20 years he will have other run-ins with cloak and dagger types. Far more than he would like, actually. Sometimes they will want his help. Sometimes they will be trying to get him killed. A couple of times it will be both. And then there are the other guys, be it Iraqi soldiers, Iranian revolutionaries, Colombian drug lords, or other who would like to see Fonko no long among the living.
One thing that Fonko has going for him that will prove useful time and again is that he is, according to himself, a changeling. By that he means that he can easily blend into virtually any crowd and become ignored; just another face. He is an inch shorter than normal height. His face has no particularly discerning feature, not being handsome or ugly. Though he has a good deal of muscle thanks to a good exercise regimen, he is small boned and therefore not appearing as any threat. He has an olive complexion with brown eyes so except, as he put it, for places like sub-Saharan Africa, he can easily look like he belongs. This is very handy when people are out to get you and people are very often out to get Fonko.