Daniel Knox is an agent with the CIA.
Well, he is a CIA analyst. Not quite the same thing as a field agent. Vitally important to the mission because without intelligent people analyzing data from all sorts of sources and making logical conclusions, the field agent can often be barking up the wrong tree or worse yet, standing under it when the tree fell. Knox is extremely good at his analysis, though he seems to be perpetually behind on his translation duties, perhaps a result of there always being more piled in his in-box.
Knox is an Uzbek linguist, an expert thanks to "having lived in an Uzbek village in the mountains ... in Afghanistan for linguistic research, followed by further study in Uzbekistan when the Taliban grew too powerful". He "understood all dialects of Uzbek and could grasp related languages".
The introduction we have with Knox is very entertaining and quite descriptive of the man. He is nearing the end of his doctoral process, ready to submit and defend his dissertation when friends give him a party to celebrate his finishing, something he is determined to point out to them has not yet happened. His honesty and his modesty is enough to earn him the nickname of Boy Scout but he is insistent that he really an ordinary guy just getting by. That's when two men in dark suits appear at the front door and proclaim, "Doctor Knox, you must come with us immediately. There is a situation, and your presence is required".
It's kind of hard to convince friend you are ordinary when something like that happens.