The only people who have heard of Michael Westen are very, very good at their jobs, some of the biggest players in their field. Yet even then they're only privy to the myth, the legend of the man. They only know whispers of whispers, tales second-third-fourth hand from a cousin's uncle-in-law's business partner's nephew. He singlehandedly turned the tide of Bosnia. He took out an entire Spetsnaz team in a day with no outside help, leaving them somewhere nobody will ever find. He walked halfway across Afghanistan, toppled an international drug lord whose compound was in the way, and routed three different spies of three different countries without even speaking the language.
Nobody, not even the best, knows which is true and which is not. The almost-best know of Michael Westen but consider him to be a bogeyman or a propaganda tool blown out of proportion or a mythical scapegoat. Maybe, they think, if even half the stories are vaguely true, it's a name that deeds of various groups have been attributed to. Very few actually believe him to be one real, tangible man.
Those few who do know there's a man behind the name whisper stories to each other, without regard to formal allegiances because in this instant their only enemy is him. He grew up in an American prison, using his wits to survive in the toughest incarceration that side of the Atlantic, learning his trade from prison guards and drug kingpins and psychotic mass-murderers. He was part of a secret government program to create the perfect soldier, the best of the best kidnapped and brainwashed and trained to be better. He's immortal. He's a robot. Somehow, it all seems plausible.
Within that umbrella of believers is a very small number of men who have seen him, and known him for who he is. Top directors of their agencies call them into meeting so secret they're never recorded and ask for a description that will never be drawn or written down. Each man has a different tale. He's tall – no, short – no, medium height; thin and lean – no, built with blocks of muscle – no, wiry but strong; he's American – no, Irish freelance – no, Belgium psychopath – no, Italian indebted to the US.
There's only one thing they can agree on. He has a scar running down the left side of his face (from a knife assassin – no, from dodging a bullet – no, from attack dogs), curving past his eye that crinkles when he shark-smiles at them.