Nick Kudrow

"My wife says my people skills are like my cooking skills: quick and tasteless."

- Nick Kudrow

Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas 'Nick' Kudrow is the main antagonist in the 1998 film Mercury Rising.

He is portrayed by Alec Baldwin.

Film
Kudrow holds the military rank of lieutenant colonel and serves as the commander of the NSA department known as Division. He is also the head of the MERCURY project, the world's most advanced encryption code. When Kudrow learns that a nine-year-old autistic boy named Simon Lynch has deciphered the code (after one of his associates put the code in a puzzle magazine to tempt readers to try and crack it), he sees this as a major liability and orders his second-in-command, Peter Burrell, to kill Simon. Burrell shoots the boy's parents but is unable to find Simon, but he is later found by FBI Special Agent Art Jeffries who takes it upon himself to protect Simon. Later, Kudrow orders Burrell to kill two of his associates when one of them reveals the MERCURY code's existence to Jeffries and the other writes a private letter to him and the Senate Oversight Committee.

Jeffries begins to gather evidence on Kudrow and his illegal activities, but Kudrow poses as a U.S. Marshal with Witness Protection and takes over custody of Simon at the GEX Skydeck of the IBM Building. As Kudrow and Simon are about to board a helicopter, Jeffries appears with an FBI task force led by fellow FBI Agent Tommy Jordan. Kudrow attempts to shoot Simon but Jeffries tackles him to the ground and he drops his gun. As he and Jeffries fight, Simon retrieves the gun and hands it to Jeffries. Kudrow then makes one last attempt on Simon's life by preparing to throw him off the edge of the building, but Jeffries shoots Kudrow in the chest. Mortally wounded, Kudrow plummets from the top of the building and crashes to his death through the glass roof of the lobby.