Matt 'Mace' Mason is a soldier in the British SAS.
He is not a spy; he is a warrior and a very, very good one. He just seems to be called upon to do some very covert special operations in places where the Army was normally not expected or allowed to be or in situations where it required a person trained in infil-action-exfil tactics. Mason was such a person.
He is 34 years old when we first meet him and for the past 18 years of his life, since he was 16 and knew he was done with school and needed a way to avoid the path to prison he looked to be on in Northern Ireland. "He'd beaten a grown man half to death when he was nine years old, which wasn't the last time he'd been in trouble either."
Mason has just requested an extension to his tour of duty in the Middle East. It was not because he particularly loved the hot and uncomfortable temperatures or the constant "hurry up and wait" lifestyle all military men get used to enduring - long days of absolutely nothing to do followed by longer hours of exhaustion trying to stay alive by stopping others from doing the same. No, Mason was not wanting to go home to his wife, Kerry, and the children; his offspring that he loved but where he did not feel comfortable.
Mason will find when life hands him - hurls, really - a particularly sour lemon such that even when his days with the Regiment are brought to an end far sooner than he would have expected and certainly never wanted, the need to do the same sort of clandestine work to protect himself and his loved ones does not go away.
Luckily for him and not so favorably for those who cause him trouble, Mason never forgets what it takes to not only survive but to win.