Mara Duncan is an agent with the CIA.
The four recorded adventures we have of her activities for Langley are part of a bigger-picture series of global significance which would not normally be made part of this compendium but her role is of such importance that I felt she deserved her page. These activities take place a couple years in the future.
We first meet Duncan while she is assigned to the Agency's Thailand Station in Bangkok and has been there a short while; she was still getting used to live in that bustling metropolis that was 'home to hundreds of spies from nearly every nation on earth'. She is using as her cover there being "a local sales rep for an American medical-equipment manufacturer". When she is summoned to talk with the Head of Station, she is said to be fidgeting nervously "clearly anxious and probably excited at the prospect of a new assignment", an attiude that Head remembered from long ago when he too was new. Her record might disagree.
Tall and large-boned, Mara had an almost playful nature, a natural outgoingness that [her boss] always associated with jocks. Her personality would have made her an excellent recruiter, though it wasn't hard to guess why she had been moved into that area - she was far from ugly, but she wasn't a knockout either, and her height would be considered a negative by old hands, especially in Asia. Spies wanted to be seduced, or so the theory went; few men were attracted to a woman who could just as easily whip them as seduce them. As it was, she'd proven herself an excellent PM, or paramilitary officer, though at times a bit aggressive, as her last supervisor in Malaysia had written. Her boss did not agree with her review's "rambunctious" description.
In the ensemble adventures where Duncan is a primary participant, there are numerous other people who also play important roles but in Duncan's life, two that stand out at:
Josh MacArthus - a scientist and researcher sent to the Vietnam region to investigate, document, and later report on Chinese activities in the region.
Zeus Murphy - former Special Forces captain now a Major advising the Vietnam People's Army. Duncan and he met when she "had rescued [him] from the jungles of Vietnam after he'd been caught behind the lines. They'd fallin love during the ordeal".