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2 The Videogames |
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 this series of Clancy novels.
Warning: Spoilers Follow
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 reknowned worldwide.
However, the surprising pace of terrorist incidents has a 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 bio-technology 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, for the purpose of exposing the government's capabilities.
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 Olympic Games in Australia.
As a reward, Popov is taken into the eco-terrorist's 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 terrorist's tiny armed force, then stripping them naked and burning the facility to the ground.
Rainbow Six is also a video game, specifically a First-Person Shooter, and there have been many games within the series, including:
The Novel
ISBN numbers
The Videogames
and other unrelated but similar games made by the same company: