John Clark (Tom Clancy Character) - Professional Life

Professional Life

Clark originally joined the Navy during the Vietnam War (as John Terrence Kelly) and became a Navy SEAL who participated in several special operations, one of which was the rescue of a naval aviator shot down over North Vietnam. After his first tour of duty, Kelly retired from the service, but is later re-hired by the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Special Activities Division (Special Operations Group) for another mission in Vietnam. At the same time at home, Kelly is carrying out his own war against a drug ring that killed his girlfriend, Pamela Madden. While he succeeds in taking it down, the Baltimore Police Department (including Emmet Ryan, Jack Ryan's father) eventually identifies him as the man who murdered the drug dealers. In response, Kelly fakes his own death and goes to work for the CIA full-time, under the pseudonym "John Clark". (See Without Remorse) His middle name appears variously with one and two 'R's, and the name "John Terrence Clark" does appear in the novel Clear and Present Danger.

Throughout his career, Clark has been through a number of real-life crisis zones. In addition to the Vietnam War, he has also been through the Iran hostage crisis and the Gulf War, plus a number of missions in the Soviet Union, and claims to have "had Abu Nidal's head in my gunsights", but never got the green light allowing him to kill the man (Clear and Present Danger).

He first enters the Jack Ryan universe in Without Remorse, which contains Officer Emmett Ryan with his son Jack. Although he does not appear in Patriot Games, it is later revealed that he was the CIA's liaison with a French black ops unit involved in the campaign against the ULA. He appears briefly in The Cardinal of the Kremlin, during which he extracts KGB Chairman Gerasimov's wife and daughter from Leningrad after the Chairman decides to defect to the United States. This marks Clark's first published appearance.

In Clear and Present Danger, he commands a U.S. Army black-ops unit carrying out a secret war against the Cali Cartel in Colombia. When the government abandons the men for political reasons, Clark and Jack Ryan fly down to Colombia and rescue the survivors. This is the first time he interacts with Ryan.

In The Sum of All Fears, he is Ryan's personal driver and bodyguard. Later in the novel, he is returned to the field for one operation, electronically bugging the aircraft of the Japanese Prime Minister in Mexico City. During the operation, the terrorist bombing in Denver occurs and his mission is changed to intercepting the Palestinian terrorists trying to escape through Mexico, which he does successfully. He interrogates them and secures their confessions, then hands them over the judicial system for eventual Islamic justice (execution by sword) in Riyadh.

In Debt of Honor, he is again a field officer for the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO). At the beginning of the novel, he and his partner Domingo Chavez capture an Aidid-like African warlord, Mohammed Abdul Corp, and bring him to justice. Soon thereafter, they are sent to Japan to assess the national mood of the country—Clark is under cover as a Russian reporter. When the situation turns into a war between Japan and America, they establish contacts with the opposition in the Japanese government and are also used to eliminate a pair of Japanese AWACS planes.

Clark spends the first half of the next book, Executive Orders, serving as an instructor for CIA field officers in training. Early in the novel, Jack Ryan, the new President, issues a presidential pardon to John Terence Kelly for his several murders. This clears his name and personal honor, but he will continue his career as John Clark. Towards the end of the book, he and Chavez are returned to the field and ordered to discover who is responsible for the Ebola attack on the United States, an action they quickly trace to the new United Islamic Republic (comprising Iran and Iraq). With the cooperation of the Russian SVR, they are infiltrated into Tehran, where they laser-designate the home of UIR dictator Mahmoud Haji Daryaei so that Air Force stealth aircraft can destroy the house.

The next year, Clark writes a memo to the CIA expressing his concerns over the rise of international terrorism since the demise of the Cold War, and recommends creating a NATO response team that could be rapidly deployed in terrorist situations. This special unit is created soon thereafter, with its base in Hereford, Britain. It is code-named Rainbow, and Clark is put in command of the unit with the simulated rank of Major General.

In the book Rainbow Six, Rainbow is first put into operation. It responds successfully to three attacks by "Red" terrorists in Bern, Vienna, and Spain. It also succeeds in defending itself from an attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) against its home base. This is eventually determined to have been ordered by a radical eco-terrorist group, which Rainbow tracks down and destroys in the last pages of the novel.

Clark's next appearance is in The Bear and the Dragon, where he is still the head of Rainbow. In the novel, Rainbow is temporarily reassigned from its anti-terrorist duties to the Russian-Chinese war being fought in Siberia. In a joint Rainbow-Spetsnaz operation, he is involved in the destruction of China's only ICBM base. The operation is mostly successful: all but one of the missiles is destroyed, and the last one, while it is fired, is destroyed by the Navy before it can reach its intended target.

Neither Clark nor Rainbow appears in The Teeth of the Tiger, but it is revealed that Rainbow is still operating. Prior to Jack Ryan resigning as President, Clark's Navy Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. During the Medal of Honor ceremony Jack Ryan, Jr. was present in the Oval Office.

Clark returns in Dead or Alive, in which he is part of a Rainbow team that successfully rescues all hostages taken by terrorists at the Swedish embassy in Libya. This proves to be his last act with the CIA, as he is pushed into retirement by Kealty political appointees. He then joins The Campus, an "off-the-books" intelligence agency that Jack Ryan had founded late in his Presidency. Clark is immediately involved with the organization's effort to find and neutralize "The Emir", an international terrorist leader modeled on Osama bin Laden, while also serving as mentor and trainer to Jack's son Jack Jr., a Campus analyst who wants to do field work.

In Locked On, Clark continues his work with The Campus as Jack Ryan Sr. runs for election against President Kealty. The Campus's efforts focus on a new terrorist kingpin based in Pakistan, General Riaz Rehan, who works to orchestrate a coup in Pakistan. While The Campus works to interfere with Rehan, the supporters of President Kealty discover the imprisonment of the Emir and through him, the involvement of Clark, Chavez, Ryan Jr and Caruso in his capture. Kealty's supporters pass the information about Clark's technically illegal activities to the US government, who begins a manhunt for Clark. Clark works to clear his name in Eastern Europe while the remaining campus operators work to foil Rehan's designs on Pakistan.

Outside the novels, John Clark's career continues further in the Rainbow Six video game series. In Rainbow Six: Critical Hour, John retires and passes the leadership of Team Rainbow on to his son-in-law, Domingo "Ding" Chavez. In the next video game, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, although Ding Chavez appears in the game, as Rainbow commander, no mention is made of John Clark.