Burn Notice Characters

A commandante in the Venezuelan military who was supervising a checkpoint on a key road that was occasionally traveled by John Kessler, the Director of Operations of the Organization. He had been trained in the '80s in Cuba by Russian military so was receptive to talking about helping Michael Weston (under the alias of Vasily Andropov) with the capture of Kessler. Unfortunately, Kessler's security foiled the attempt and it isn't known whether Puente was killed during the operation.

The current chairman of the house intelligence oversight committee, a sleazy politician and who Madeline Westen “always wanted to slap” because of his continual “obnoxious good old boy shtick.” Former spy Paul Anderson had a copy of his signature on a letter to a Marine General urging illegal deployment into Bogota in 1988 where 14 marines were killed in action. Cowley recognized what a screw-up it was so when they caught a 2-star diverting money he blackmailed him into accepting blame for Bogota in exchange for a dishonorable discharge instead of 5 years’ time. Only after M, Sam and Anderson tricked him to his own house and saved him from a Russian wet-works team did he finally agree to help Anderson get a new identity; but, only after he saw that he would become a hero and might run un-opposed next year. (51)

As a last resort, Sam came up with the idea of placing the thumb-drive in Cowley’s vote-seeking hands. Madeline told him that “I guess we are good people to talk to” when she got him to leave a fund-raiser and talk to Sam. As typical, he refused to believe anything Sam said until Sam told him some private things his intelligence committee hadn’t made public. Then, also typical, he didn’t listen when Sam told him that the FBI had a person on the list within it; so, got an APB for “protective custody” put on him. He didn’t agree to help until Sam pointed out how it could affect his next election. Then he was able to get some military unit to take down Vaughn’s men and apparently had something to do with M being questioned and “welcomed back” by “You” (played by Dylan Baker). (62)

An arrogant, tom-boy cop whose tactic is to be a “stalker with a badge.” She is so in your face that one of her criminal suspects was able to get a restraining order against her. She dogged behind MW until he had to take measures to cut her off.  She was so “clean” that Sam couldn’t find any way to blackmail her off their backs; so, she became an unwitting “client” to see if helping her solve a case would do it. It did, and there became an uneasy truce.

A security guard at the prison where a friend of Sam’s was finishing out an 8 year sentence for money laundering. His brother was in another prison and was used by La Nacion, specifically a thug named Cruz, to blackmail him into doing dirty work around the prison. Sam and Jesse found out and blackmailed him into helping them rid the prison of Cruz.

A pompous manipulator who used his position in the (who can remember - a lot of water related official sounding boards and committees) to ply free lunches out of Sam before he would supply the names of the area’s leading companies in agriculture – on of which they believe is the cover being used by Carla.

An arrogant police lieutenant who had prematurely closed the case on the disappearance of detective Kevin Baruchel preferring to believe the false evidence planted by Baruchel’s partner, Pete Jackman. When Michael Westen and Sam had found the truth, he then still refused to listen until Sam disarmed him and told him that he could crucify him if he wasn’t satisfied with what he saw Jackman do. Jackman tried to plant the cocaine, which he had previously stolen, back in Baruchel’s house and was arrested. He finally apologized to Sam.

An unwitting secretary to the investment scam, being run by her boss Nick Madison, which bilked Josh Wagner's charity, 'Help at Home,' out of all their money. She was also caught up in a hostage situation when Wagner came demanding his money back at gunpoint. Initially angry with MW and Sam, who had come to rescue Sam's buddy Wagner, she became more incensed at Madison when she learned the truth and decided to join Sam's testimony which pinned the blame for the situation on Madison when SWAT came to arrest someone.

A smirky clerk at a post-office box company who was approached by Jesse and Fiona to obtain the street address of 'Cobra,' the many Jesse was trying to track down. She very arrogantly told them no until Jesse noticed that she didn't have a rin on her finger and had photo's of children without their father. She fell for their revised con that the 'Cobra' was really a dead beat dad and they worked for 'Dead Beat Dad Finders' and gave them his address.

A lieutenant in the Miami Police Force over the SWAT team who responded to a hostage call where Josh Wagner was trying to get the charity he ran's money back from an investment scammer, Nick Madison. Unfortunately, Sam Axe was friends with Wagner and MW was friends with Sam and were inadvertently involved. M did solve the case, and retrieved Wagner's money, and identified Madison's accomplice, and showed Madison's unwitting secretary the truth, and helped Casey arrest the REAL crook; but, just not know the whole story. He told M that he should probably be thanked for saving the situation, really attempting to shmooze M into saying how, with his history of fondness for explosions, the safe got blown out of the floor. He didn't learn that either.

'A delightful coronor's assitant who is about to lend me his keys,' according to Fiona who was in his country, the Bahamas, with Jesse, attempting to identify an unknown body which might be the 'contact' Jesse was attempting to find. Obviously, Jesse and Fiona worked a con on him to obtain his keys to the morgue. He identified, and almost caught, Jesse coming out of the morgue, but not quite.

The warden of Allarod Federal Penitentiary where Fiona Glenanne is being kept, pending her trial for murder (terrorism). Although a bit slow on the uptake, she did hear about Fiona's run-in with inmate Doneski, and brought her in for a chat. She actually had decided to give Fiona 'protective custody' because she was a 'high-profile' inmate and move her to 'cell block 9.'  To do that, however, would have only been a 'temporary fix' as far as Fiona was concerned and prevented her from tracking down who was really trying to get her killed. So, when Fiona respectfully declined the offer Mills quipped that she may not last until her first visitor came on Wednesday next – Michael Westen.  She also quipped that she didn't know how Fiona had gotten visitation privileges this quick.

A huge guy. A bounty hunter who went up against Fiona in trying to capture Thomas McKee who was accused of stealing a huge diamond broach. Physically he was more than a match for MW and was only subdued by Fiona smashing one of her snowglobe's over his head from behind.  In the end MW proved that McKee was innocent and caused the real crook to be captured. And Fiona just couldn't help but needle Wayne about it.

An FBI agent who gave chase to M after the bridge blew up allowing Simon Escher to escape. He came on the scene as M was gently choking another agent to sleep and chased M to the docks. He shot at M trying to kill him while he was hot-wiring a ski-doo. M shot back but he then claimed to Madeline as he interrogated her that M had tried to kill him. Madeline retorted that if M had actually been trying to kill him he’d be dead! He screamed at Madeline about all the killings and terrorism that M had done saying that “people get burned for a reason.” He did not succeed in getting Madeline to cooperate and eventually had to tell her that M had been captured, “for 20 minutes,” then “someone” came with clearances to take him away.

A CIA agent who characterizes herself as a 'determined bitch' and who requested the assignment to be Michael Westen's 'handler' after his former handler Max was killed. Pretty much cut from the same Burn Notice character template as 'Carla,' she was also assigned to investigate Max's death and began by playing cat and mouse with M trying to entrap him into saying something she could use to charge him with murder. Although she welcomed M to 'the team,' her demeanor left us wondering if she could be one of the 'undead' of the Organization who burned him in the first place. She carried out several operations using the 'burned spy' to the CIAs advantage and was saved by him more than once. Despite that, when she finally became aware of Mike being at the place of Max's murder, she seemed to go brain-dead and frantically arrested him completely unwilling to even listen to alternative explanations. It was only Michael and his friends solving her case for her, with a cut and dry confession on tape, that got her to unwillingly accept that he 'might' be innocent.

 

Still assigned to be his 'handler,' it was only through interrogating him for increased security clearance and several other missions that got her to mellow in her treatment of him. Eventually, she came to know the skill and bravery of all of Michael's friends such that she actually listened, believed and assisted them when Anson framed Fiona as well as tried, again, to frame Michael for murder. The 'true' friendship began when the whole team helped her find and capture her fiancé's murderer. Actually, Anson Fullerton 'found' the guy – but who knows he may have actually been the one who orchestrated the whole thing. She 'paid back' with her career when she helped try to find the killer of Mike's brother Nate. She had to show her face and be recognized in order to complete the con with Jesse, and now is reassigned to a counterfeiting task force in Mumbai.

 

- She ran an operation in Paris in 2003 where an asset, Jansen Tunberg, was 'outed' and killed by her own CIA bosses impatience, incompetence, and uncarring. She and Jansen were to have been married after the mission but instead she had to bury him.

- Tunberg had filed a report about a Syrian satellite installation outside Masyaf.

- Her fiance, Tunberg, was working in Paris under-cover gathering intelligence in the Syrian military. His cover was blown and before the CIA pulled him out he was killed by Ahmed Damour who then began selling Tunberg's information to the CIA himself.

'Bitchy little girl' spy for the CIA who, along with his partner Matt Bailey, nearly got all of Sam Axe's group of victims he was trying to save killed.  They lied to Sam about going for help, made excuses about why they were refusing to take anyone else in the helicopter then were going to leave everyone else to be killed instead of making any effort to help. Sam had to intervene drastically in order to 'convince them to do the right thing' and as a result was nearly court-martialed. [See prequel: Fall of Sam Axe]

 

Five years later they were superiors in charge of the 'handler' assigned to Michael Westen and made every effort to let Sam be killed during a heroic attempt to help the CIA return a stolen Predator missile which had been purchased in Miami by a group of Serbian's. Eventually, without any CIA help, Michael was able to extract Sam from the drug dealers and return the missile  which, amazingly, actually made this incompetent twit angry. As Menaro and Bailey were whining about how difficult it was going to be to try and 'spin' the situation for the police and press Sam told them 'It sucks to be you… but that's as usual.' (68)

 

After Fiona signed her 'asset' agreement with the CIA, under Agent Card's plan, they came to her after they had botched another operation trying to prevent the sale of 'secrets' to terrorists. Knowing their incompetence Michael demanded to be involved and they had the pathetic arrogance to tell him to 'stay out of our way and let us do our job' – to which he responded 'you do your job and there won't be a problem.' True to form they were being duped by a spy/thief who was working a con on them pretending to be their 'asset' when, in fact, she was the one who was trying to get in to Durov's safe and needed CIA help to do it. Unfortunately, for the thief, Fiona foiled her con and captured her. Fortunately, for Manaro and Bailey, Fi and Michael (at gunpoint) saved their ass and prevented their incompetence from getting everyone killed. Then they had the unmitigated gall to try and schmooze Fi into falsifying her report so they didn't look like the incompetents they are – to which she offered 'write whatever you want' and she would sign it if they 'lost her agreement with the CIA, for good.' They only responded 'that sounds doable.' (89)

A soft-spoken and charismatic CIA agent who was sent to interrogate Madeline Westen when Agent Olivia Riley was bent on bringing Michael in 'dead-or-alive.'  Being much less arrogant and antagonistic than any other agents Madeline had dealt with, Harper and his companion were invited in to wait in her kitchen with a glass of lemonade – rather than in their hot car. She was tricked into admitting that she had received a call from Michael that morning but then had to pretend to be hard of hearing to explain why she didn't know what Michael had been trying to tell her. Harper and his partner became so convinced of Madeline's 'hard-of-hearing' that she was able to write down the things that they unknowingly talked about in front of her.

(See agent Lane they seem to be inseperable).

 

He met Sam alone in a bar and was asked to obtain a face-to-face with the FBI director as a favor. Worried that something would blow back on him, he threatened Sam that if anything did 'there wouldn't be enough scotch in the world to keep me off your ass.' Sam agreed so the meeting was set up. However, before it could take place, Anson Fullerton had the FSB list Sam on a document as working with them on a mission at the same time they did Beatriz. So the meeting was cancelled and Sam was being investigated. (78)

A CSS agent sent to intimidate MW into “being good” by threatening his family and interfering with his life; ostensibly because of the “security threat” that he was by obtaining a copy of his burn notice. Fiona picked his pocket to take his wallet then M gave it back to him at Carlito's with a public announcement that the 'CSS was a branch of the NSA performing covert intelligence support for the military.'  He broke into Madeline's house and ransacked it until M came. Then he began trying to intimate M by impounding his car and condemning his loft as well as trying to get Fiona picked up on weapons charges and even sam in trouble with Veronica. When M had had enough he had Barry put together documents which looked like Bly had been doing favors and partnering with M all along, and was able to blackmail him into leaving him alone.  Later, he discovered Barry doing something illegal and realized that he could then use Barry to 'counter' blackmail M into giving him all the documents back. Just as M and he were agreeing to “go nuclear” a real villian took them both hostage in a bank heist. He was shot by the robber and M had to stitch him up as well as save them all by subtely sabotaging their robbery to make it look like a series of accidents. After it all - they both just agreed to 'make nice.' Bly found which bank's safe-deposit vault had the robbery attempt for M, and said he would leave M alone. M gave Bly all the forged documents which he had been using for blackmail. He told M that: 'This would make a nice Michael Westen story -- if one were allowed to tell Michael Westen stories.'

 

Despite all that, it was he who volunteered to interrogate Fiona when she willingly surrendered. Back to his old narrow-minded arrogance, he refused to listen to her story and baited her impatience with his patronizing-arrogance and lording his power over her. When she wouldn't fall for his power tactics, he fabricated Michael's death to get her to implicate Michael; even to the point of forging a coroner's report of his autopsy!

FBI agent assigned to tail MW in Miami and used Sam as an “asset” by threatening his pension. He threatened MWs friends and family. After being pulled off the case they continued contact with Sam and both helped and were helped by him. They refused to take MWs report of Gilroy’s procuring a 50-cal machine gun and intent to release Simon seriously. Eventually, they became friendlier to MW and actually sought out his help on a case in which they were “suspended pending review” for letting a protected witness be found by a hit-man. They took credit for MWs rescuing the witness and capturing one of the two hit-men telling M that they “owed him one.” They rousted Vaughn for M and told him that they would put him on the “most wanted” list unless he did what M wanted.  Then they assisted M to be put into prison as a cellmate of one of Sam’s friend’s for a week to prevent him from being killed.

Bitchy little girl spy for the CIA who, along with his partner Gabriel Manaro, nearly got all of Sam Axe's group of victims he was trying to save killed.  They lied to Sam about going for help, made excuses about why they were refusing to take anyone else in the helicopter then were going to leave everyone else to be killed instead of making any effort to help. Sam had to intervene drastically in order to 'convince them to do the right thing' and as a result was nearly court-martialed. [See prequel: Fall of Sam Axe]

 

Five years later they were superiors in charge of the 'handler' assigned to Michael Westen and made every effort to let Sam be killed during a heroic attempt to help the CIA return a stolen Predator missile which had been purchased in Miami by a group of Serbian's. Eventually, without any CIA help, Michael was able to extract Sam from the drug dealers and return the missile  which, amazingly, actually made this incompetent twit angry. As Bailey and Menaro were whining about how difficult it was going to be to try and 'spin' the situation for the police and press, Sam told them 'It sucks to be you… but that's as usual.' (68)

 

After Fiona signed her 'asset' agreement with the CIA, under Agent Card's plan, they came to her after they had botched another operation trying to prevent the sale of 'secrets' to terrorists. Knowing their incompetence Michael demanded to be involved and they had the pathetic arrogance to tell him to 'stay out of our way and let us do our job' – to which he responded 'you do your job and there won't be a problem.' True to form they were being duped by a spy/thief who was working a con on them pretending to be their 'asset' when, in fact, she was the one who was trying to get in to Durov's safe and needed CIA help to do it. Unfortunately, for the thief, Fiona foiled her con and captured her. Fortunately, for Manaro and Bailey, Fi and Michael (at gunpoint) saved their ass and prevented their incompetence from getting everyone killed. Then they had the unmitigated gall to try and schmooze Fi into falsifying her report so they didn't look like the incompetents they are – to which she offered 'write whatever you want' and she would sign it if they 'lost her agreement with the CIA, for good.' They only responded 'that sounds doable.' (89)

The penultimate 'prove myself to the guys' female CIA agent trying to live up to her bull-dog image and bring down the 'infamous' Michael Westen. Where pretty much every female Burn Notice character is built from the same template, Riley is the most narrow-minded, most-arrogant, most-angry, most-belligerent, most-situationally-ethical, most-yappy-dog of them all. She rivals both Anson, Card and Carla in her 'end-justifies-the-means' and 'above-the-law' attitudes and is also probably one of the most street-wise we've seen. She tenaciously badgered Sam in her hunting of Michael with manipulations and threats. She belittled and taunted the agents under her command into a frenzy and ordered them to 'take the shot, take the shot' to kill Michael. However, unfortunately for her, this is Michael Westen we're talking about and her plan didn't only fail but got her captured as well. Like the ultimate fool she is, she continually yammered threats at them.  Bellowing that they were all 'enemies of the United States of America' and that she was coming after them all for the rest of her life – right up until Michael cut her loose along a river bank hours from the road (instead of doing us all a favor and dumping her to the gators) and walked away.

 

She steadfastly and doggedly tracked, traced, maligned, badgered, manipulated Michael, Sam, Madeline and everyone with only the uncanny ability that an antagonist who was told everything in advance by one of the authors. She bugged Madeline's house, bullied her into signing a so-called 'cooperation' paper, harassed and arrested Madeline like a terrorist, badgered and arrested Barry for being a 'known contact' and continually bragged that she was taking them all down. (94, 95)

A less-than-stellar FBI agent who made the mistake of stonewalling Michael about his brother Nate's murder investigation. Sure, he had been ordered by his 'powers that be' to 'close the case'; but, not taking or returning any of Mike's phone calls for over a month got him a 'face-to-face.' He still continued the charade until Mike put his gun in his hand (pointing at the floor) and moved nonchalantly to the front of his face (looking down at him.) He asked 'are you threatening me' and was told 'no' as Mike moved closer still and rested his finger inside the trigger guard. Finally, he gave in and revealed that he was upset when his bosses, without giving any explanation, ordered the investigation stopped and the case closed. Anson had told Nate that he 'knew where the bodies were buried' - and one of them may still be in the FBI hierarchy.

The original 'trainer' of Michael Westen in the CIA. Michael was his 'star pupil' and was who he owed his successful career in the agency to.  He ran Michael through counter-interrogation exercises on one hour of sleep along with other equally difficult tasks to 'toughen him up.' When he found out that Michael was sleeping with a foreign arms trader who he had met under a cover ID, he told him to 'walk away. She'll ruin your life.' He discovered that Michael's cover was in immenent danger of being blown and that Michael wasn't going to leave Ireland without Fiona which would have gotten them both killed. He dropped everything and flew to Ireland to 'extract' Michael, which turned Fiona (who they left in the dark) forever his enemy. He later confessed to Mike that he didn't have anything against Fiona except that his messing around with her reflected poorly on him as a trainer. He has a fondness for yogurt and rewarded Mike with it after sucessful missions. When Michael got burned he summarily froze him out and refused to even answer telephone calls. He never apologized to Michael for it, but merely said: 'there was nothing I could do for you.' (82)

 

After the promotion Michael had gotten him into Operations, for a year he led a joint DEA-CIA task force against the Zeta cartel in Mexico without any success. Several of his agents were brutally murdered and now the cartel was spreading their operations into Miami. He was just going to let it happen because he 'didn't have an agent in Miami' then jumped at the chance to let Michael pull his butt out of the fire again. Michael did capture two tons of Cocaine, get rid of a dirty DEA agent and turn a lead cartel member into a 'cooperating witness.' His promise to Michael was that he return the favor by working to get Fiona out of prison, which he did. First, by getting Michael permission to visit her – thereby quashing her attempted murder; and second, by making her a CIA asset. (85)

 

Literally while he was placating Madeline and claiming that he had always looked after and thought of Mike as 'the son I never had' he was selling out one of his operatives, Tyler Gray, and setting him up to kill everyone who ever knew about Anson. Again, unfortunately for him, this was Michael who was not only able to capture Gray but find out all about Card's nefarious deeds but turn Gray into an asset (almost.) (90)

 

He called Madeline into his office to continue his charade, and tried to 'buddy' her into admiting that she had had some contact with Michael and/or that she had some secret contact information with him. He claimed that there had been a 'snag' in their communications but assured her that everything was, and would be, alright. When Grey finally returned, met with him and told him that 'Michael Westen is dead' he offered 'I'm proud of you kid.' (91)

 

He had Grey go search the loft and told him to torch it. When Grey told him that Michael had evidence that implicated him in Anson's and Nate's death, he decided to set up a frame to entirely blame it on Card. Unfortunately, Michael figured it out and confronted him in his office. While at Michael's gun point, instead of dropping his weapon he shot and killed Grey. Then while he talked to Michael he went around the room using Grey's gun to shoot into the wall and placing it in Grey's lifeless hand. He claimed that he would have never taken the shot at Anson through Nate but that 'the ends justify the means' and Anson had to go because 'he knew what I had goin' on in Yemen, in China, in Pakistan.' Michael let him think he had talked him into agreeing with the set-up so he put his gun away. In a surprise, Michael shot him in the head at the shows end. (92)

A fairly week and ineffective agent who had been failing for months to locate Boston mob boss Brian (the butcher) Quinn after obtaining a 'stoolie' who would give 'evidence.' He had located Quinn's right-hand man, Jimmy Leary, and was going to take him down when he heard that Michael Westen needed a favor obtaining the file on his brother Nate's murder. He gave Mike the file in return for help locating Quinn but when the plan involved a little 'thinking outside the box' he immediately attempted to pull the plug. Sam, fortunately, was there to hold his hand and the operation yielded both Quinn and Leary as well as the whole gang.

A 24 year-old, Sunni Muslim, born 1/11/1962, born in Cairo Eqypt attending the Developing Nations Economic Summit in Miami as part of the Egyptian Delegation (per security file) where M spotted him and asked for a favor. M had saved his life somewhere in the desert so he 'owed him one.'  He makes money on bribes, bid rigging, industrial espionage and was blackmailed into obtaining a copy of the burn directive memo about MW for him - which he did saying 'I've enjoyed our friendship, but don't call me ever again,' then adding 'Michael, be careful.'

A Libyan head spy who MW used to drop the name of the guy who burned him (Phillip Cowan) in Libyan intelligence conversations in order to flush him out and force him to make contact. M gave him the name of the people who had blown up one of their oil fields in return for the favor. Anwar told M that he had a job with them any time he wanted it.

An undercover FBI agent who was trying to infiltrate the organization run by Wallace, a suspected killer/loan-shark. Unfortunately for him, he chose to trash the frozen yogurt parlor run by Jessica, a gambler's anonymous friend of Nate Weston. Her husband had left her with 100 grand debt to Wallace so she asked Nate for help getting Carter off her back. Nate put the squeeze on Michael to help and they instituted a con which blew Carter's cover and nearly got him killed. Michael had to quickly save his life AND get Wallace to gather his records and fall into the FBIs hands.

A polish spy working in the Polish Embassy who hates Russians enough to work with a CIA agent, Fiona, to obtain classified documents about a black ops flight carrying an extremely bad man.

MWs former 'handler' at the time he was burned. They knew each other well and M knew of his lucite plaque with a bullet hole in it which was kept on his desk. In spite of that, he refused to take any of Ms calls which required M to get his attention by sending him a fake pipe bomb laced with just enough fertilizer to set off the chemical sniffers. Finally he made contact with the 'bomb' in his hands.  He still refused to tell him anything except he was out. He did say that he didn't believe the things in the memo but couldn't do anything about it. He merely would only say that M should just “Lay Low.”

A retired spy 'friend' of Jesse Porter's who was contacted by him in order to find out who had burned him. He had an affair, then was blackmailed by Ming Kahnm with photo's and threats to tell his wife, in order to set up Jesse for a kidnapping and assassination. Fortunately, but not for him, MW was able to foil the plot by having Sam blow up a power transformer for a diversion. Cops found his body, later, a mile from the park.  (46)

 

Current Location: Deceased

A Pakistani spy with good connections who landed a great “gig” in Miami. MW used him to obtain information on Carla’s activities in Kurdistan from his intelligence sources. Reluctant at first, M had to blackmail him with photos of himself and Waseem being buddies – which would have cast a cloud over his current assignment and probably caused him to be reassigned.