Jake Mahegan is a part-time agent of Delta Force.
While many people would consider a Reservist as being part-time in the military, myself included, Mahegan has a different sort of on-call connection. His "employment" comes as a result of an occasional summons by his former commander and off-times pain-in-the-neck, Major General Savage, Delta Force commander working out of Fort Bragg.
When we first meet Mahegan he is one year out of the military having been released from their employ under conditions that fluctuated between honorable and dishonorable depending on whom you talked with.
Prior to that he was a Captain with Delta Force. He had joined the service and immediately applied for the Rangers becoming a skilled paratrooper and earning a reputation as an exceptional soldier and leader. When he was asked to apply to Delta, he eagerly did so and was accepted and as always his training took on an even greater level of intensity.
The unpleasant event that terminated his service came on a mission for capture a Taliban leader beheading prisoners on the Internet, a man known as the American Taliban because he was so obviously U.S.-born and bred and now working for the extremists in Afghanistan. His group had napped a bomber and was taking him back for interrogation, certain the man would point the way to main target, when a trap was sprung and most of Mahegan's men killed. In anger, Mahegan has killed the escaping bomber rather than try to stop him and therein lay the reason for the fluctuation in separation. Justified shooting or not was the question. There was no doubt in Mahegan's mind, though.
Being a civilian now, Mahegan is slowly creating a life for himself largely in his home state of North Carolina. Being a Native American from a small town in the Outer Banks called Frisco, he loves the area and enjoys being back.
Unfortunately for this former soldier, that puts him near Fort Bragg and his old commander and makes him available for the odd job that Savage finds for this off-the-books operative.