Roddy Sands
Sands: "Those people scare me."
Grady: "I know but one of them is close enough to take out at once, Roddy. You take that job lad."
- - Sands and Grady taking note of Rainbow's arrival
Rodney "Roddy" Sands is a character that appears in the novel, Rainbow Six. He is second-in-command of a Provisional Irish Republican Army cell led by Sean Grady. In 1999, he took part of an attack on Sandra O'Toole and Patricia Clark at a hospital in Hereford, England.
Biography
In 1999, Sands was among a group of PIRA members led by Sean Grady, acting as his right-hand-man. During this time, Sands and the other PIRA members hid from authorities in Ireland, constantly moving from different safe houses and conducting operations covertly. The group was later contacted by an old acquaintance of Grady, Dimitriy Popov to discuss an operation. Popov subsequently flew to Ireland and had Grady's men meet and take him to Grady's location. Sands was present during the meeting between Popov and Grady. Popov informed them of a new counterterrorist group named Rainbow and that they had been responsible for resolving the recent terrorist incident at Bern, Vienna, and World Park. Popov then divulged further information about Rainbow, including the location of their headquarters at Hereford Base as well as Rainbow's commander John Clark.
Popov proposed that PIRA take Clark's wife and daughter hostage from the community hospital they worked at in order to lure Rainbow out to be disposed of. Grady liked the mission concept as it would help propel their movement but turned it down at first due to the risks involved and their lack of resources. Through further negotiation, Popov agreed to pay Grady six million dollars as well as deliver a large quantity of cocaine to further fund PIRA operations. Grady then told Popov that it would take him two weeks to plan the operation and gather more intelligence. Popov was then given a telephone number to contact Grady before he departed.
Afterwards, Sands told Grady that he thought the mission was too risky. He was then reassured by Grady who explained that it would work out if they controlled the situation and obtained approximately fifteen of the right men for the job. Over the next two weeks, PIRA scouted the area around the hospital to gather intelligence. Grady determined they would break into two groups with one entering the hospital to take Sandra O'Toole and Patricia Clark hostage while the other would remain outside to provide support and launch a surprise attack on Rainbow and the other responding authorities. Grady stated that everyone would use cell phones to communicate with one another and that Sands would be with him in the outside covering group.
A few days later, Popov contacted Grady again and told him that he had gathered the money and drugs and would deliver them personally. Two days later, Popov arrived in Ireland and delivered the money and the drugs to Grady at an old farmhouse while Sands stood outside to keep watch. With the money the obtained from Popov, Grady and his cell purchased large Volvo commercial trucks with canvas covers and transported them to the area just outside Hereford Base. On the same day, Sands and Grady flew together into Britain using false papers. They then traveled to a local pub outside of Hereford to meet up with the other PIRA members.
The mission was launched the next day at 1300. Timothy O'Neal, Jimmy Carr, Peter Barry, Sam Barry, and Danny McCorley entered the entrance of the community hospital posing as delivery men and took John Clark's wife and daughter hostage. They then killed a nearby policeman and took anyone else remaining in the hospital hostage. Meanwhile, Sands and Grady were outside the hospital beside their trucks which held more PIRA members. Using the well-known PIRA codename "Patrick Casey", Grady contacted the police and threatened to kill hostages starting with Clark's wife and daughter unless all political prisoners held in the Albany and Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight were released within the next two hours. As expected, Rainbow immediately responded to the scene by sending Team-1, led by Peter Covington. As they arrived, Sands admitted to Grady that Rainbow's presence scared him. Despite this, Sands resolved to start killing the unsuspecting Rainbow members once they were in place and Grady gave the signal.
A few minutes later, Sands turned to Grady to tell him that Team-1 had positioned themselves near their trucks as the local police superintendent attempted to negotiate, unaware of the fact that the trucks were filled with PIRA members. Grady expressed his disappointment that they only noted six members of Rainbow in-place, prompting Sands to point out that now was not the time to get greedy. Grady then attempted to call O'Neal but found the phone unable to make the call. Sands gave Grady his phone to try again several times but found no luck as local cell service had been jammed by Tim Noonan. Unable to communicate with his people, Grady told the Sands and the other PIRA members with him that they would start their surprise attack in the next few minutes. Grady then headed back to his rental car nearby and nodded at Sands to begin. Grady was the first to fire at Rainbow, followed by Sands and the other PIRA members. This resulted in serious injuries to three members of Rainbow including Alistair Stanley and Mike Chin and as well the death of another operative from a shot to the head. Sands noticed one of Team-1's snipers Mortimer Houston react to this in the distance and fired several rounds at him, successfully hitting him in his right shoulder. Unfortunately for Sands, he was immediately noticed by Team-1's other sniper Fred Franklin who fired a round at his head, killing him instantly.
Grady witnessed Sands' death from inside his rental car and floored it, signaling the PIRA members outside to escape. Despite their efforts, a majority of the PIRA members were killed or seriously injured during the escape. Grady himself crashed his vehicle after being fired at by Jack Nance and was subsequently captured and flown to the hospital at Hereford Base for medical attention. Grady was later interrogated while under the the influence of anesthetic and was disheartened to learn of Sands' death all over again from Paul Bellow.