Rainbow Six (book)

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Rainbow Six is a techno-thriller written by Tom Clancy. It is a part of the Jack Ryan series, but focuses on John Clark, Ding Chavez, and a fictional multi-national counter-terrorist squad named Rainbow, rather than Jack Ryan and national politics. The novel was inspired in part by the early stages of the game of the same name, and the game and novel were written largely at the same time. However, the game had to be completed first, therefore the novel features a different ending.

The Novel

The NATO countries have collectively organized an elite counter-terrorist squad, composed of the best soldiers from each nation's military, named Rainbow. Based in Hereford, England (real-life home of the SAS), the team is led by John Clark (who had the idea for Rainbow), a recurring character in the Rainbow series of Clancy's novels.

Rainbow is immediately thrown into several counter-terrorist missions in quick succession, though fortunately after several months in which to train and develop as a cohesive unit. In three separate incidents, Rainbow triumphs, killing the terrorists who've taken hostages without any loss of innocent lives (in the attack) or injuries to members of the team. They quickly become renowned worldwide.

However, the surprising pace of terrorist incidents has caused Clark to be suspicious; also, the terrorists involved in each incident are typically older, inactive terrorists not seen in many years. Later, Clark discovers that an ex-KGB agent has been investigating Rainbow.

The cause of the sudden outbreak of terrorism is radical eco-terrorists, who are coincidentally owners of a large and successful biotechnology firm. They engineer a modified version of the ebola virus, codenamed "Shiva", that lies dormant for six months; they also engineer a vaccine for themselves. Their plan is to infect the world, killing everyone but their selected few, who will rebuild the world in a scientifically and environmentally friendly way. They've hired the ex-KGB agent investigating Rainbow, named Popov, and instructed him to contract the terrorist incidents Rainbow has so adroitly handled, to increase awareness of terrorism in order to get a security contract for the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

Later, Popov contracts members of the IRA to ambush Rainbow on their home territory, to remove them from the equation of their impending attack. The ambush is successful, crippling Rainbow, leaving the way open for the deployment of Shiva at the Olympics.

As a reward, Popov is taken into the eco-terrorists' project, and when he learns of their plans, contacts John Clark directly to stop the plan. Fortunately, Ding Chavez and a few other members of Rainbow are onsite at the Australian Olympics as security consultants, and are in place to stop the person who was going to infect the stadium's cooling system.

Having failed to destroy civilization with their plague, the eco-terrorists retreat to their refuge in the Brazilian rainforest, which they'd planned to do anyway, hoping to negotiate a deal to return to the U.S. in a few years. Rainbow, under John Clark's leadership, deploys to the rainforest, first killing the terrorists' tiny armed force, then stripping them naked and burning the facility to the ground, leaving them without any of humanity's inventions to help them attempt to survive in nature.

Criticism

The novel has been criticised by many readers (as evidenced by reader's reviews on Amazon.com) for a number of implausible plot devices indicative of poor research by the author. One major one is that the weather in Sydney in September, when the Olympics were held, is usually very temperate. Therefore, the idea that a water fogging cooling system would be installed, and in use, at the main stadium for the Olympics was viewed as very implausible (although the book does explain that the weather is unseasonably hot because of El Niño). In fact, in the novel, it appears to be summer in both hemispheres simultaneously. Amongst other implausibilities in the portrayal of various foreign countries that the book is set in, the idea that a Spanish theme park would feature a ride on a Stuka dive-bomber is also widely viewed by the reader reviewers as ridiculous.

Clancy represents quantum computing as a quick way to break 128-bit encryption. As of 2001, a year after the setting of the novel, the best known quantum computer had just seven qubits, and the largest number successfully factored this way was 15; even if a group such as the NSA had a quantum computer anywhere near as powerful as 128-bit encryption requires, its existence would be a very closely guarded secret. Further, Clancy treats quantum computing as if it were a programming technique that could be used on a conventional supercomputer; this is not the case.

Regardless of such criticisms, the novel has sold millions of copies around the world.

ISBN numbers

• ISBN 0606172076 (prebound, 1998)
• ISBN 0399143904 (hardcover, 1998)
• ISBN 0399144137 (hardcover, 1998, Limited Edition)
• ISBN 0375703241 (paperback, 1998, Large Type Edition)
• ISBN 0425170055 (1999)
• ISBN 0425170349 (mass market paperback, 1999)