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This article, John Clark (Video Game), is a stub and may require expansion. Please help out by editing the page.
For other versions of the character, see John Clark (Disambig)

John Terence Clark, born John Terence Kelly, is a fictional character in the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six media franchise. He was the former commander of Rainbow and a former CIA paramilitary operations officer.

Biography[]

John Terence Kelly was born sometime in 1949 in Indianapolis, Indiana to Irish Catholic parents. He attended Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis. His mother died of cancer when he was nine. Kelly eventually joined the Navy during the Vietnam War and became a Navy SEAL. He participated in several special operations, earned the codename of "Snake". One such operation involved the rescue of Admiral Dutch Maxwell's son who was shot down over North Vietnam. Kelly contracted a severe infection from river water which had seeped into scratches from thorns. While recovering aboard a Navy ship, he learned that his father, Timothy Kelly who was a fireman, had died of a heart attack while rescuing two children from a burning building. Following his recovery, he was promoted to Chief Boatswain's Mate. After his first tour, Kelly separated from the military and was recruited by the CIA into the Special Activities Division in 1970.

Later, while assisting in demolition of an oil platform damaged by hurricane Camille, Kelly's wife, Patricia Kelly who was three months pregnant at the time, was killed when a tractor-trailer lost its brakes, hitting her car in an intersection. A year and a half later, Kelly picked up a hitchhiker named Pamela Madden who was a former prostitute and took her to his island. While unloading his boat, Kelly discovered that Pamela was abusing barbiturates, and helped her recover. After returning to Baltimore to meet with Officer Frank Allen of the Baltimore Police concerning the murder of Helen Waters, which Pam had witnessed, he encountered her former pimp, Henry Tucker. Succeeding in outwitting Tucker in a car chase, Kelly parked on a side street. Tucker had called friends who helped him track down Kelly and Pam, and Kelly was shot twice in the head and neck with a shotgun. Pamela was then brutally raped and killed, her body dumped in a fountain. While recovering from his injuries at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Kelly met his future second wife, Sandra O'Toole whom he would father two daughters with, Patricia Clark and Margaret Clark. After being discharged, Kelly learned of Madden's murder and began to plot his revenge. After killing sixteen men involved with the drug ring, Kelly was tracked down by Lieutenant Emmett Ryan of the Baltimore Police. With the help of Admiral James Greer and the CIA he was able to fake his death and become John Clark.

Throughout his career with the CIA, Clark served many roles and participated in numerous operations. 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. He also severed as a CIA liaison with a French black ops unit, giving advice to trainees at The Farm, and extracting KGB Chairman Gerasimov's wife and daughter following the Chairman's defection. In the late 80's, he was involved with U.S. narcotics interdiction efforts in South America. In 1989, he commanded the U.S. Army black ops unit CAPER which was tasked to carry out a secret war against the Medellín Cartel in Colombia. Clark would also become the mentor of one member of the unit, Domingo Chavez. Clark would later meet Jack Ryan during an operation in Colombia to rescue CAPER after the government abandoned them for political reasons.

In 1991, Clark worked as Jack Ryan's personal driver and bodyguard. He later returned to the field to bug the Japanese Prime Minister's aircraft in Mexico City. During the operation, however, a terrorist bombing occurred in Denver. This subsequently changed Clark's mission to intercept the Palestinian terrorists attempting to escape to Mexico. Clark was later reassigned as a field officer for the CIA's Directorate of Operations where he was paired with Domingo Chavez. Both men were able to capture an African warlord, Mohammed Abdul Corp, and brought him to justice. They were then sent to Japan to assess the national mood of the country, with Clark undercover as a Russian reporter. When the situation turned into a war between Japan and the United States, they established contacts with the opposition in the Japanese government and eliminated a pair of Japanese AWACS planes.

A few years later, he served as an instructor for CIA field officers in training. The new President, Jack Ryan, issued a presidential pardon to John Terence Kelly for his several murders. This clears Clarks name and personal honor, but he ultimately decides to continue his career as John Clark. He and Chavez then returned to the U.S. in order to discover who is responsible for the Ebola attack on the United States. This is later found to be perpetrated by new United Islamic Republic. With the cooperation of the Russian SVR Chairman Sergey Golovko, they infiltrated Tehran and laser-designated the home of UIR dictator Mahmoud Haji Daryaei for an airstrike.

A year later, Clark wrote a memo to the CIA expressing concerns over the rise of international terrorism since the Cold War ended and recommended the creation of a NATO response team to rapidly deploy to terrorist situations. His request is granted in 1999 with the formation of Rainbow. Based in Hereford, Britain, Clark was given command of the unit with the simulated rank of Major General and the codename, "Six".

Personality[]

Clark is ultimately professional. He believes in what he's doing and the reasons he's doing it. A perfectionist, he cuts neither himself nor his men any slack. After all, the stakes in what they're doing are too high. He's extremely loyal to his friends, his troops, his family and his country. He's intelligent without being snobbish, practical without being crude and tough without being a brute. Above all, he's about getting the job done as quickly and as cleanly as possible, and he's got no patience for people who get in the way of that goal.

Appearances[]

Novels[]

  • The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
  • Clear and Present Danger (1989)
  • The Sum of All Fears (1991)
  • Without Remorse (1993)
  • Debt of Honour (1994)
  • Executive Orders (1996)
  • Rainbow Six (1998)

Games[]

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Due to the first game diverging from the Rainbow Six novel, the subsequent history of the video game version of Clark differs substantially to his novel counterpart.
  • He is a Medal of Honor recipient along with the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three purple hearts.
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