Hades Factor

I enjoy Robert Ludlum’s books as much, if not more, than Tom Clancy’s books. Tom Clancy focuses more on the analysis of intelligence while Ludlum focuses on the gathering of intelligence. Ludlum likes to add a lot of twists and turns to his stories, so you are guessing all the way to the end who is behind the plot and which agent, or agents, are double crossing the hero. In The Hades Factor, Ludlum is true to form and weaves a story that hardly ever slows down to let you take a breath. And all the while reading the book you are keenly aware that there are terrorists right now trying to do exactly what he is describing.

I read the book last year but watched the movie last week. It was a made for TV movie that was three hours long, giving it plenty of time to add a lot of detail from the book. The movie was well made, but the last five to ten minutes just fell apart. I think they wanted to end with a big action sequence but the end was unbelievable and unrealistic. For most of the movie the script was realistic and plausible, but the end left Ludlum’s realism behind, ruining the ending.

The story is about Lt. Colonel Jon Smith, a U.S. Army doctor at USAMRID, specializing in contagious diseases. In the past he has also worked for Covert One, a highly secretive intelligence agency that answers directly to the president and has no official existence. Smith has left the agency but finds himself being drug back in when he starts following the trail of a highly contagious and lethal virus released by terrorists. The terrorists are planning a multi-pronged attack on U.S. targets, including Dulles International Airport and the Hubert H. Humphrey building.

The bio-weapon is a virus that was developed by the U.S. military and was stolen and sold to terrorists. The terrorists have infected their own men in order to transport the virus undetected into the U.S. where they collect the blood samples and make timed aerosol spray “bombs”. The events that play out in the movie and book could easily become tomorrow’s headlines. Early in the movie at a conference on infectious diseases, Smith answers a question about the possibility of terrorists using biological weapons with a chilling reply that there is no way that we can prevent such attacks from occurring. A biological attack of this sort could be far more devastating and widespread than the 9/11 attacks, with tens of thousands killed. It is imperative that our intelligence, military and police agencies work together to minimize the possibility of such attacks.