Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image chapter 15

Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapter for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

The back and forth continues. Last time we checked in with Commie Op-Center and today it’s regular Op-Center.

Here’s a problem for me when it comes to these longer books. At some point I run out of ways to open these articles, usually near the end of the book. This book, however has a lot more chapters, 78 to be exact. Even merging the smaller chapters means this is going to go a long time and I’m already trying to think of things. We’re barely a quarter (and still under) of a way through this book and I need something interesting for people coming in on the homepage of the site when the post first goes live. Even with the usual intro text about how the article series works, I feel like I should say more than I’m capable of at the moment. And so much of this book could be cut down if the flavor text would stay on point. Informing the character is great, some trivia about the area helps set the scene, but the only people I expect to see again after this story is the regular Op-Center crew in D.C. so it feels so unnecessary to pad out a novel.

Ah, well, I guess that’s good. Let’s get into today’s chapter.

Sunday, 10:15 PM, Washington, D.C.

It’s back to the President’s office as the heads talk. We have one dude who sounds like he wants to nuke Russia from orbit and dance on the irradiated corpses, and despite my jokes it’s not Mike Rogers. Of course his solution does involve Striker, Op-Center’s military team, but I’m getting ahead of myself and hoping Rogers actually stays at Op-Center and lets the soldiers soldier this time.

To Rogers’ credit, he is strategizing. The Op-Center team has figured out the secret bagel message (I realize that will make more sense if you’ve been following along) and at least suspect Dogin and Grozny are working together and that the museum TV station is involved. It would have been nice to see that meeting, but this book is long enough as it is. Again, we’re still at around the quarter mark of this book. He also realizes that they can’t just go in and start attacking Russia as they move towards the Ukrainian border, and I have to again swear that I didn’t know this was part of the plot that I grabbed because of what’s currently going on at the Ukrainian border with Russian in 2024. This book came out in 1995. 9/11 hadn’t even happened yet, so when they talk about the Trade Center bombings, they’re referring to the strike UNDER the towers they tried under Bill Clinton’s presidency. It’s even been said that the reason the towers came down from the planes is that the first bombs weakened the supports and for whatever reason weren’t repaired to withstand something like 9/11. If New York had earthquakes, I imagine that might have set them off as well, but I know less about engineering and meteorology than I do international politics.

Rodgers fills us in on much of his current plan…which as any story absorber knows means something will go wrong just for the sake of drama. He wants to send Striker to Eastern Europe as more a show of force than an actual attack. He also wants to factor Dogin and Grozny not realizing the good guys are onto him into foiling those plans. I’m guessing that will be more Paul’s territory since that’s not as much an action move, and Rogers is still a man of action, even if there is a brain in that head after all. After the last book, I’m as shocked as you are.

Could this be the redemption story for Op-Center after all their failings last book? Well, next chapter is going to break the heroes/villains pattern and check in with Paul Hood on vacation. Are they confirming he’s not in this story or is this when he gets involved? Find out next time.