MOLKA

Molka is an agent of the Council.

Molka, whose first name is (so far for me) a mystery, gives us a concise history of herself and how she became an operative with that organization when she said, "I once served in an elite special forces unit. For very personal reasons, I resigned, became a veterinarian, and tried to live out a quiet, obscure life in Tel Aviv. It didn't last long. Azzur, the top recruiter for the Counsel - the Counsel being the nickname for our foreign intelligence service - coerced me into becoming an operative under him in their new Operation Civic Duty, "more often called the Projects Program". A program born from desperation when internal traitors exposed and burned all their experienced operatives. They needed help. Whatever help they could find. Fast.

"They recruited ordinary citizens who held what they deemed a useful skill or skills. Each citizen recruit, or project as they were dubbed, received some quick, very basic operative training before being sent straight out to complete what the Counsel called a task. It sounded desperate and borderline suicidal, and it was. Even so, they found willing projects everywhere: university students, the factory workers, athletes, scientists, housewives."

When she was asked, "I declined at first. I did more than my duty for the country. But Azzur presented me with an irresistible arrangement. If I agreed to do ten missions for him - what he called tasks - the Counsel would give me the name and location of the one who got away with murdering my little sister Janetta. I would be able to satisfy the vengeance consuming me. So, I agreed to the Counsel's offer. I agreed to serve under Azzur. I agreed to become his project. Project Molka."

Molka admits on several occasions that she is not a formally trained covert operative. "They threw me into this espionage game after only a few weeks of training as opposed to the few years that regular operatives might receive." She states that she is learning on the job. From the sound of things, she learns quickly.

Very telling about Molka's determination to get a mission done, as well as the best indication that her missions usually involved people dying, comes in an exchange between her and a particularly nasty individual named Delgado. When Delgado asks her how many of his men did she kill that night, she said she stopped counting at 55. When asked why she had stopped then, she admitted, "I ran out of ammo."

Good Line:
- "The situation passed bad some time ago."

Molka admits that while she was a seasoned special forces operative years before and knew a thing or three about staying alive and making those on the other side not be alive, she did not have much training in spycraft.

That would be a bad thing. Luckily much of what she is asked to do involves kicking butt and at that she is more than adequate; she is proficient.

While she does have some capability at being subtle, much of the time it is like the adage about being a hammer and having each task look like a nail.

I really enjoyed Molka and her approach to things. I like her attitude as well, kind of a 'please just step out of my way'.