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Adventurer. Gentleman thief. Soldier of fortune. Secret agent.
John Lyons is an agent for British Secret Service, dealing with threats to the security of the Commonwealth, often using the code name "Lord Ariston".
A great deal of Lyons's past is a mystery, but he claims to have been born on a riverboat in the Congo, in 1874. According to Lyons, his father was a Russian-Jewish mercenary and his mother an English missionary, travelling with Henry Stanley's expedition to find Dr David Livingstone.
Lyons maintains that he was a small boy when his parents and their companions were attacked by mountain gorillas in the jungles of Bwindi, leaving him orphaned in the darkest, wildest place in Africa. Lyons claims that for a year he was living in the Bwindi jungle of southwestern Uganda, relatively unharmed. From the great apes of the region, Lyons learned independence, survival, and the keen development of his senses. He recalls his year in Bwindi as one of the most valuable learning experiences of his life.
He was eventually discovered by a British scientist and returned to civilisation. (This story would later inspire American author Edgar Rice Burroughs to write his Tarzan novels.) Lyons was reunited with his mother, who was currently making her living as a teacher and nurse in Geneva, Switzerland. Lyons spent his formative years with his mother, living in Geneva and London.
Growing up learning to speak several languages, Lyons proved to be a quick study and an avid reader. His mother made his education paramount, particularly in history, culture, theology and the arts. When his mother became the tutor to the son of Austrian sea captain, Baron Rommer, Lyons found himself travelling around the world. The baron had a Chinese servant who trained Lyons in medicine, philosophy, and martial arts.
On a journey by rail, to visit his father's brother in Transylvania, several passengers - including Lyons's mother - were killed by Romanian terrorists opposing Magyarization. The 17-year-old Lyons got his hands on a pistol and skillfully despatched the terrorists, saving the lives of the three Austrian officials the terrorists had targeted. This incident attracted the attention of the Habsburgs.
Lyons impressed the emperor with his intelligence, gift for languages and dialects, masterful mimicry, and combat skills. He was enlisted as a spy to protect the security of the Empire, in which he was involved with several counterintelligence missions in Germany, Russia and Turkey. On a mission in Berlin, Lyons inadvertently uncovered a realpolitik plot to initiate the Anglo-Prussian War, in which all British territories would be secured under the German banner. When he discovered that an Austrian military attaché was a fellow conspirator, Lyons feigned his own death and sought refuge in England.
In Whitehall, Lyons brought news of the German plot to the War Office. Scotland Yard's Special Branch superintendent William Melville immediately took on Lyons as a secret agent and gave him his British identity. Speaking with a flawless Etonian English accent, John Lyons proved to be Melville's top agent in the Empire's defence and the very model of a respectable, English gentleman. Using the code name Lord Ariston (Melville was impressed by his "Spartan" courage and aristocratic manner), Lyons would also frequently don variations of his own name, e.g. Giovanni, Jean, Juan, Ian, Evan, and Johann.
Since joining the Special Branch in 1898, Lyons has operated in Kowloon during the Boxer Rebellion and in South Africa during the 2nd Boer War. Since following Melville over to the British Secret Service in 1903, Lyons has kept a watchful eye on Germany.
Presently, Lyons is assigned to be a travelling companion and bodyguard to a member of the royal family on a secret mission to Cairo.
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