"As we race toward the climax of this whole series, I wanted to have a character in the mix who doesn't want to save the world or save anybody...[N]ot only is he absolutely committed to his goal of destroying the universe, he can't be reasoned with or talked out of it. There is no way to bargain with Rastor...no-one he loves or cares about who can be held against him...[H]e's...ruthless and a genocidal maniac."
— Matthew Reilly himself on General Garthon Rastor, interview at the end of The Two Lost Mountains
Matthew Reilly is not subtle when it comes to his villains, as the following examples demonstrate.
This is only for works that are confirmed, or at least implied, to share a continuity. Other examples can be found elsewhere:
- Cobalt Blue can be found here.
- Interceptor can be found here.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Temple
- William Race, in present-day 1999, faces two groups of Western Terrorists aiming to acquire a working Supernova, a powerful bomb known as a planet-killer:
- Oberstgruppenführer Odilo Ehrhardt was a lieutenant at Auschwitz who in the present is still a rabid Nazi and head of the group known as the Stormtroopers. Ehrhardt demands a ransom of $100 billion dollars, ultimately intending to cripple the US economy. When he learns the ransom won't be paid, Ehrhardt kills the only person who knows the disarm code for what he thinks is a working Supernova and sets up a Sadistic Choice for William Race: Either the Supernova would destroy the world—with Ehrhardt perfectly willing to die if he can take the world with him—or, if Race somehow manages to disarm the device, the world would be saved but this would trigger another mechanism which would explode and kill Race.
- Earl Bittiker is the head of the Republican Army of Texas, while Troy Copeland is a key member. Bittiker was drummed out of the Navy SEALs for rape, while Copeland is a nuclear physicist who is having an affair with a member of the group who is unaware of Copeland's true affiliation. Having succumbed to a doomsday cultism, Bittiker leads his men to steal the powerful idol to power the Supernova, resulting in multiple fatalities. When Bittiker manages to obtain the idol due to Copeland's help, Copeland without a second thought murders the woman he was having an affair with, but not before taunting the woman's husband before shooting him. Bittiker ultimately intends to completely erase the world for the sole satisfaction of seeing it burn.
- Alberto Santiago's 1500s story: Hernando Pizarro, brother and lieutenant of Francisco Pizzaro, is a sadistic psychopath of a Conquistador who leads his forces across the Incan Empire. Women are forced into brothels and enslaved, children sold into slavery, men tortured and maimed with Hernando having entire villages tortured or massacred for the sport of it. Locating the priest Alberto Santiago and his friend Prince Renco who have taken the idol, Hernando intends to recover it and then torture the two slowly to death simply for the inconvenience.
Scarecrow (USMC Captain Shane Michael Schofield) series
- Area 7:
- USAF Lieutenant General Charles Samson Russell, call-sign "Caesar", is secretly the head of the elite 7th Squadron at the secret base Area 7—which also contains the Sinovirus, a Chinese bioweapon, as well as its vaccine. Caesar is also a top member of the secret racist Air Force society the Brotherhood. Putting into motion a plan he had been working on for 15 years, when the US President visits Area 7, Caesar activates a transmitter attached to the President's heart. If the President's heart stops, or if he fails to match his palm print to the nuclear football every 90 minutes, over a dozen bombs located in the airports of a dozen US cities will go off. Willing to give the President a "final chance", Caesar has 50 7th Squadron members face off against the President's Secret Service detail, which, unbeknownst to Caesar, also includes Shane Schofield, call-sign "Scarecrow", and several of his Marines. Eventually, the President explains Caesar's plot: The cities that would be destroyed would all be Northern cities, as "Caesar wants an America without the North". Then, Caesar, with both the Sinovirus and its cure in his possession, could use the Sinovirus to rid America of its "human waste products"—how he refers to the Black population. Finally, even when the Sinovirus is no longer an issue, Caesar still has a transmitter attached to his own heart, and is planning to die, which would set off the bombs.
- Gunther Botha is a South African scientist with deep ties to white supremacist groups. Having worked in an Apartheid era unit to figure out a virus that only targeted Black people across the world, Botha was recruited by the US to figure out a cure for the Sinovirus. Experimenting on living subjects with viruses and helping to create the artificial human Kevin, Botha refines the virus to target Blacks and betrays the US to deliver it to a white supremacist terrorist group to enact his racist ends.
- Lucifer James Leary, aka the Surgeon of Phoenix, is one of the prisoners used for testing at Area 7. Leary's MO was picking up a hitchhiker, taking them to his home, cut off his victim's limbs, and eat said limbs in front of the victim. Leary, who left a piece of the victim's jewelry where he had abducted them, had over 30 kills. When the power goes out and the prisoners are able to escape, Leary takes some hostages, including the Commanding Officer at Area 7; later on, Leary hacks the latter's legs off, with the heavy implication he ate said legs. He almost kills Scarecrow, and plans on "carving up" one of Scarecrow's fellow Marines.
- Scarecrow: Jonathan James Killian III, chairman and CEO of defense contractor Axon Corp., is also a member of Majestic-12, a cabal of billionaire industrialists who dominate global political and economic policy, and plot to fake several nuclear attacks in order to escalate The War on Terror into a second Cold War, as well as to create more business for themselves. Fascinated by anarchy and its results, Killian plans to make the targets think they were struck by their most hated enemies; this included China and Taiwan, and India and Pakistan. Even after the other members deny permission, Killian secretly changes the missiles being constructed to carry out his plan. Killian's plan would culminate by having a supposed Israeli weapon, with an American nuclear warhead, strike Mecca on the start of Ramadan; this would spark worldwide vengeance by Muslims against American citizens and tip the balance into global anarchy. Killian makes a habit of trapping people—including another Majestic-12 member—in a Shark Pool equipped with a guillotine, to see who will kill themselves or each other to spare themselves pain, and after capturing Scarecrow's girlfriend Elizabeth "Libby" Gant, Killian has her beheaded to distract Scarecrow from stopping the plot. Even after Scarecrow is stopped from committing suicide, helps stop the attacks, and confronts Killian, Killian gloats that he will have won if Scarecrow kills him.
Jack West Jr. series
- The Three Secret Cities through The One Impossible Labyrinth: Hardin Lancaster XII, aka Sphinx, is a wealthy man who wants to Take Over the World to rule with an iron fist, and is stated to have been cruel from a young age, blinding a boy at 13 for stealing his sunglasses. Sphinx is behind turning Dion DeSaxe against his father, and, besides being responsible for the death and destruction caused by the Knights of the Golden Eight, later launches a coup against three of the four kings, one of whom is his own cousin, sparing only Dion. Later having Hades killed, Sphinx kills several nuns—including having one Eaten Alive—in order to obtain the Siren bells, which induce sleep. Sphinx and his forces use the bells on many major cities worldwide—causing planes and other vehicles to crash—and Sphinx states that he won't wake up many of the people, giving him a potential body count possibly into the billions. Some of Sphinx's minor crimes include killing Dion's father by horrific beheading; killing the Pope; and, after obtaining an objective in Lhasa, Tibet, nuking it so that nobody else can perform the same objective. Even though Jack beats Sphinx, it is noted that in Moscow, one of the first cities that fell victim to the Siren bells, several thousand people died.
- The Two Lost Mountains & The One Impossible Labyrinth: General Garthon Rastor is a nihilistic madman who even Sphinx calls a "[f]ucking maniac". A former general of the four kings, Rastor was imprisoned because, he claims, he was becoming too beloved by his men, and because of his beliefs. Claiming to believe in the universe-destroying Omega Event, Rastor, who later states he loves killing—men, women, children; he also enjoys "screams of agony"—wants the Omega Event to take place, and will do anything and kill anyone to stop anyone from preventing its occurrence. Rastor later has Jack's mother killed to break his spirit, and later goes so far as to have one of his men blow himself up to try and kill Jack; while this fails, Rastor comes frighteningly close to succeeding in his insane goal.
