Ambrose Lincoln is an agent with American Intelligence.
If the designation for his organization is a bit vague, it is likely because at the time of his employment, set in the early days of World War II, the OSS had not gotten formed so there really was no central governmental department per se doing it. Nevertheless, it was being done by somebodies.
Another reason for the vagueness is that Lincoln probably could not remember who he worked for. Not really. Memory is not something he was particularly good at any more. On purpose, actually. That lack of memory is a key element to the life of Ambrose Lincoln. As he puts it to a psychologist hired to analyze him, "Most stories have a beginning. Mine doesn't".
Feeling a bit confused? Imagine if you were Lincoln.
We meet Lincoln in the first recorded adventure as he is attending the funeral of his wife. Most telling immediately is the fact that he "had no idea how she died. No one had told him. He had not asked". Also compelling is the fact that at the service, a woman approached him and "hugged his neck when he arrived. She said she was his mother". Then a tall man lay a hand on Lincoln's shoulder, a man who "said he was Lincoln's father". The three, the lady in the casket and the lady with the hug and the man touching him in sympathy "were his family. He could not remember ever seeing any of them before in his life".
We are told in a blurb for that adventure, "Ambrose Lincoln is one of the government's prized operatives, a trained assassin, a man whose past is continually erased by mind control tactics and shock treatments. His days have no meaning. He no longer fears death. As far as he is concerned, a man without a memory is a man who's already dead". The reasoning behind this seems to be at "a man with an empty past is not afraid of tomorrow. A man who has died is no longer afraid to die. Graveyards are filled with men who were afraid."
We are told elsewhere that Lincoln "had his secrets, but they would remain lost and adrift within some twisted corner of a decaying brain that had been shattered in so many pieces that time would never be able to heal them or put them back together again. Ambrose Lincoln was the Humpty Dumpty man."
For all his problems with memory and knowing who he was and whether he really cared about who or how he might be in the future, Lincoln is one very good operative, highly skilled at taking the life of his target while keeping his own. His memory problems lay with his past, not a bit with his skills.
Good line:
- "I agree with everybody. A man lives longer that way."
- "History does a pretty good job of drawing its own conclusions."
- Regarding the electric shock erasing of his memory after a mission, "Every day Lincoln felt as if he died a little. Every day he could not remember why".