Rainbow Six is a techno-thriller novel written by Tom Clancy and released on August 3, 1998. It is the second book to primarily focus on John Clark, one of the recurring characters in the Ryanverse, after Without Remorse (1993); it also features his son-in-law, Domingo "Ding" Chavez. Rainbow Six follows "Rainbow", a secret international counterterrorist organization headed by Clark (codenamed "Rainbow Six"), and the complex apocalyptic conspiracy they unravel after handling multiple seemingly random terrorist attacks.
The novel debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the action scenes and suspense but criticized the writing of some characters and its unrealistic plot. It also received some backlash from the environmental movement for its negative depiction of radical environmentalism. Clark, Chavez, and Rainbow later appeared in Clancy's next novel The Bear and the Dragon (2000).
Rainbow Six was adapted into a video game, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, which was developed by Red Storm Entertainment in tandem with the novel and released in August 1998 to critical and commercial success, spawning a highly successful series of video games currently owned by Ubisoft. A film adaptation, set to be the sequel to the 2021 film adaptation of Without Remorse, was announced in 2017 and was confirmed to be directed by Chad Stahelski in 2023, with an unannounced release date.
Plot Following a post-Cold War rise in terrorism, CIA officer John Clark forms a top secret international counterterrorist organization known as Rainbow, based in Hereford. Rainbow consists of two teams of elite special forces operatives from NATO countries, supported by intelligence and technology experts from the FBI, MI6, and Mossad. Clark serves as Rainbow's commanding officer (call sign "Rainbow Six") while SAS officer Alistair Stanley is his second in command; the two teams are each led by CIA officer Domingo "Ding" Chavez (Clark's son-in-law) and SAS member Peter Covington.
Rainbow finds themselves deployed to a bank robbery in Bern, followed by a hostage-taking at a schloss in Vienna committed by Cold War-era German left-wing terrorists. They are also sent to a hostage crisis at an amusement park in Madrid, where Basque separatists demand the release of Carlos the Jackal from a French prison. After swiftly resolving the incidents, Clark and his colleagues investigate the attacks, which occurred within a few weeks of each other.
Unbeknownst to Rainbow, the attacks at Bern and Vienna were orchestrated by ex-KGB officer Dimitry Popov, ordered by biotechnology firm Horizon Corporation's CEO John Brightling as part of his secret radical environmentalist plot, "the Project". Viewing humanity as a "disease" for causing environmental destruction, Brightling plans to wipe out nearly all of humanity using a modified strain of the Ebola virus named "Shiva", created using unethical human experimentation. The attacks were meant to spread global fears of terrorism, allowing co-conspirator Bill Henriksen's security firm to secure a contract for the Olympic Games in Sydney, where Shiva would be released through Stadium Australia's fog-cooling systems, infecting the attendees who would then spread it across the world. A fake deadlier Shiva "vaccine" distributed by Horizon would kill any survivors, while the real vaccine would be introduced to inoculate Brightling's "chosen few" to inherit the emptied Earth.
When Popov discovers the existence of Rainbow when he reviews footage of the police tactical teams that thwarted his attacks, which are actually Rainbow in disguise, Brightling and Henriksen order him to orchestrate an attack on Rainbow. Popov recruits a Provisional Irish Republican Army splinter group to seize the hospital near Rainbow's base in Hereford and take Clark's wife Sandra and Chavez's pregnant wife Patricia as hostages, luring the arriving Rainbow team into an ambush that results in casualties. Nevertheless, they retake the hospital and capture the PIRA cell leader, who confirms Popov's involvement.
Brightling moves Popov to Horizon's remote facility in Kansas, where co-conspirator Foster Hunnicutt inadvertently reveals to him the full scope of the Project. Appalled by what he had unknowingly assisted, Popov kills Hunnicutt, flees the facility, and turns himself in to Clark and the FBI. Popov reveals the details of the Project to Clark (in exchange for not being charged with his activities), allowing Chavez and his team, who had been deployed to Sydney to evaluate security measures, to stop its release at the last minute.
Their plans now ruined, Brightling and his co-conspirators flee to a secret Horizon compound in the Amazon rainforest. Clark personally leads Rainbow in an assault on the compound, easily eliminating their untrained guards and capturing Brightling and the survivors. Aware that Brightling will likely avoid prosecution and will inevitably restart the Project once freed, Clark orders the compound razed, has the Project members stripped of their clothes, and leaves them to fend for themselves in the jungle.
Six months later, Horizon achieves medical breakthroughs under new management, Popov becomes wealthy after finding a rich gold deposit at Hunnicutt's former property, and Clark informs Chavez that no human activity has been detected near the Horizon compound ever since. Musing on nature's disregard for friend or foe, Clark surmises that humanity must be its own worst enemy.
Characters
Team Rainbow
Executive and support branches John Clark: Commander of Rainbow Alistair Stanley: Deputy Commander Bill Tawney: Head of the intelligence section, former MI6 intelligence analyst Dr. Paul Bellow: Resident psychologist specializing in criminal psychology, FBI agent Tim Noonan: Resident tactical electronics and surveillance specialist, FBI special agent David Peled: Technical staff lead, Mossad agent Sam Bennett: Communications officer, U.S. Air Force major Daniel "Bear" Malloy: Pilot of Rainbow's MH-60K Night Hawk helicopter, United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel Harrison: Malloy's co-pilot, United States Air Force first lieutenant, former 1st Special Operations Wing pilot Jack Nance: Mallow and Harrison's helicopter crew chief, Royal Air Force sergeant Dave Woods: Firing range instructor, British colour sergeant Alice Foorgate and Helen Montgomery: Executive secretaries Katherine Moony: Secretary
Team-1 Major Peter Covington: Team-1 commander, SAS member Miguel "Mike" Chin: Former United States Navy SEAL, Master Chief Machinist's Mate Mortimer "Sam" Houston: Sniper-observer Fred "Freddy" Franklin: Rifle 1-2, former United States Army Marksmanship Unit instructor and Army Ranger at Fort Benning Geoff Bates: Former British SAS member
Team-2 Domingo "Ding" Chavez: Team-2 commander, former CIA Special Activities Division member, Clark's son-in-law, and former Army Special Operations soldier Eddie Price: Deputy Commander, Senior member, former SAS sergeant major, pipe smoker Julio "Oso" Vega: heavy weapons operator, former Delta Force member Louis Loiselle: Specialist, former DGSE member George Tomlinson: Former Delta Force member Mike Pierce: Former 82nd Airborne Division member Steve Lincoln: Former SAS member Scotty McTyler: Former SAS member Hank Patterson: Former Delta Force member Paddy Connolly: Demolitions expert, former SAS member Homer Johnston: Sniper, former Delta Force member Dieter Weber: Sniper, German former GSG 9 Feldwebel
Horizon Corporation and the Project John Brightling: Billionaire chairman of Horizon Corporation, mastermind of the Project Bill Henriksen: Security consultant, head of Global Security, former FBI agent and Hostage Rescue Team member Carol Brightling: Science Advisor to the President, "former" wife of John Brightling (their divorce being a ruse used to safeguard her position, enabling her to pass government secrets to Horizon) John Killgore: Senior research scientist involved in testing the Shiva virus Barbara Archer: Researcher involved in testing the Shiva virus Kirk Maclean: Researcher tasked with kidnapping homeless men and single women in New York City to be used as Shiva test subjects; also a member of the Sierra Club Steve Berg: Researcher tasked with developing the vaccine to Shiva Lani Palacheck: Researcher working under John Killgore, on Shiva transmission study Mark Waterhouse: Recruiter for Brightling Foster Hunnicutt: Survivalist, member of Brightling's "chosen few" Wilson Gearing: Former United States Army Chemical Corps lieutenant colonel, tasked with releasing Shiva at the Olympics David Dawson: Chief of security at the OLYMPUS base, ex-Army Benjamin Farmer: Ex-Marine, security guard for Horizon Dick Voss: Former Army sergeant major at Fort Bragg (Special Operations Training Center), now working for Global Security
Other characters Dmitriy Arkadyevich Popov: Former KGB operations officer let go due to budget cuts, working for Brightling Sandra "Sandy" Clark: John Clark's wife, nurse Patricia "Patsy" Clark-Chavez: John Clark's daughter and Domingo Chavez's pregnant wife, MD Ernst Model: Sociopathic former Red Army Faction member who leads the botched bank robbery in Bern Hans Fürchtner: Left-wing terrorist, recruited by Popov to take over the schloss of a wealthy Austrian businessman Petra Dortmund: Left-wing terrorist, Fürchtner's longtime partner Erwin Ostermann: Austrian financier taken hostage by Fürchtner and Dortmund at his schloss Andre Herr: Former Action Directe member leading the terrorists at Worldpark Sean Grady: Hardline Provisional IRA cell commander who leads the attack on the Hereford hospital Tom Sullivan: FBI agent based in New York investigating Mary Bannister's disappearance Frank Chatham: FBI agent, Sullivan's partner Ed Foley: Director of Central Intelligence Mary Pat Foley: CIA Deputy Director for Operations and Ed Foley's wife Mary Bannister: Shiva test subject who manages to email her father, alerting the FBI
Themes Rainbow Six explores the issue of radical environmentalism. According to Marc Cerasini's essay on the novel, the philosophy of the antagonists are considered as an extreme form of naturalism, based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's view that society's functions corrupt mankind and that "a natural or primitive state is actually morally superior to civilization". The novel shares elements found in James Bond movies: a biological weapon being used to end or rather cull the human race, mad scientists plotting world domination, and high-tech secret bases hidden from civilization. Clancy makes the plot relevant and morally ambiguous by incorporating motivations similar to those of real-life radical ecocentric environmentalists and deep ecologists, such as Pentti Linkola and Paul R. Ehrlich, rather than blanket hunger for power and brash misanthropic resentment. In several regards, critics have noted similarities in the John Brightling population control and humanity view regard to the later-released Agent Smith from The Matrix, Richmond Valentine from Kingsman: The Secret Service, Bertrand Zobrist from Dan Brown's Inferno, and those of Thanos in Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
Development