John Lee is a hostage rescue expert.
While Lee has not been in the business for that long, he has already amassed an impressive record; when we meet him in the first recorded adventure his percentage of successes stood at 100 and he works very diligently to not let it slide.
Helping him as part of his unofficial 'team' is Phoenix De Maio, a young woman who was without doubt a computer whiz, a graduate of MIT who also happened to be the daughter of one of France's wealthiest industrialists. De Maio is also one of Lee's successes and once she was free from those who had kidnapped her in Marseilles, she "had begged to help him with his work" and after he agreed, "they'd operated side by side ever since, although their relationship often veered away from the strictly professional".
Also part of those helping him is Alexandra Grayson, an "ex-sports agent who handled the business side of things for Lee". And Marcus Hartman, a former US Army quartermaster who is also trying to convince Lee to go hi-tech. And Yukio Mabuni, Lee's weapons and specialist equipment guru who was an officer for a time with the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology and a firm believer in always taking a "technologically-enhanced answer", something Lee definitely was not.
That last part makes it sound like Lee is a Luddite and there is a fair amount of truth but in his defense, Lee's "prior work with the US Air Force's Special Tactics Unit ensured that he was well aware of what capabilities were out there, and how to use most of it" but at this stage of his life, Lee "had gone back to basics" because when things "got down to the nitty-gritty, face-to-face stuff, Lee wanted to keep things old-school. He'd tried the modern way and it wasn't for him".
It is interesting to note that one of the ways that Lee differed in attitude from his team, especially Mabuni, is that Lee refused to kill people. "Not anymore, anyway; hist past had left him scarred and he had vowed never to kill again."
Lee and his team has, as stated, a very impressive track record and he does not have much trouble finding work - or rather it finding him - but he could be doing much better if he allowed more fanfare from his successes but he prefers not. The reason was: "Lee himself was still wanted by the US military for allegedly going AWOL. It wasn't strictly true - Lee had asked to resign after his last disastrous, psychically-damaging mission in Iraq, but had been refused - but he was still a figure of some controversy. The CIA had spread damaging rumors about him, and nobody knew what to believe. The military, the intelligence services and the government said one thing - that he was a deserter of the worst sort - while the popular press, aided by the constant work of Alexandra Greyson, said quite another. While some denounced him as a traitor, others hailed him as a hero. Like most things in life, Lee knew that the truth might well be found somewhere in the middle."
Lee's transition to his current line of work is an interesting one. The son of an American career diplomat and as a result having lived in numerous places around the world, most notably the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, and China. From an early age Lee craved physical activity and that got him training in a wide variety of things: "swimming, diving, athletics, gymnastics, fencing, horseback riding, shooting, skiing, snowboarding, free-running, even skydiving, he did them all". His greatest love was the martial arts where he learned Escrima, Kali, Taekwondo, Hapkido, Judo, Aikido, Karate, and "even a little Ninjutsu". Then there was the time he spent as a young man working as a stunt man for Hong Kong movies. And then the military and the CIA and now hostage rescue.