Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image chapter 37

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.

In our last chapter our infiltration duo got their marching orders. This week’s chapter is a bit short compared to most chapters, but at five pages it still qualifies as review length, plus I’m also short on time this week.

This week takes us to the Russian/Ukrainian border, and this is where the timing of the book becomes unintentionally timely. As I write this in 2025 there is still a war going on as Vladimir Putin has decided to attack Ukraine. Okay, I’m going to push through the stuff I hear from everybody and give you my opinion on the current situation just to get it out of my system and pad out the intro. Forgive me for getting political on this one, though I warned you way at the start of this edition of Chapter By Chapter that there would be times I’d have to. Well, welcome to that time. If you aren’t interested, skip to the chapter mark and we’ll get to the review proper.

Look, we know why certain groups got on Ukraine’s side, and sadly it’s not because they’re in the right even though to a point they are. The extremists among the Democratic Party had used “Russian collusion” as a failed attempt to overturn or damage Donald Trump’s first presidency, which turned out to be a load of bull on top of other loads of bull like the so-called Steele Dossier. Another one was an alleged call in which Trump was demanding the Ukrainian President dig up dirt on Joe Biden, though that was in doubt after the actual transcript was released. Instead he was trying to learn if Biden was interfering with an investigation of his son, Hunter. It was a whole big thing. This was before the 2020 election, as Biden was a frontrunner for the Democrat nomination. We all know how that went down.

So using both Russia and the Ukraine against a candidate they hated for ruining their chance at the first woman President being a Democrat (maybe choose better women, guys), they kind of had to take Ukraine’s side. Admittedly it is wrong for Russia to go after Ukraine and we know that Putin is just trying to absorb it back into a new USSR (funny that the Democrats, Hollywood, and other liberal groups used to love the Soviet Union when I was growing up), which should be stopped. Meanwhile, Zelinsky’s attitude really isn’t scoring him any points with anybody. Ultimately I’m only on Ukraine’s side because I don’t want the Soviet Union and communism restored to Russia not only for their sake but to avoid a second Cold War. Now here I am reading a book from 1995 that has a similar situation with no way of knowing what would happen decades and century turn (1995 is 20th, while we live in the 21st). NONE of that has happened, so I’m curious how this will be approached where there is no political connection to it. This is a story based on what Jeff Rovin and the creators saw and where things could go for the sake of entertainment. There is no agenda other than to entertain the target audience, which thus far hasn’t included me as much as I assumed it would when I bought this book so many years ago. With all that out of my system, and for any of you still reading (I appreciate your continued patronage), let’s see how 1995 tackled this idea.

Tuesday, 2:30 AM, Russian-Ukrainian Border

Half of the chapter is discussing the events that led to Russian strengthening their military. At first it seemed odd that they were starting with Nazi Germany going back on their peace treaty and trying to force their way into Moscow. As it went on it became a bit clearer that the writer was setting up just how Dogin and General Kosigan was able to get these soldiers to do what they wanted. Russia decided the best defense was a good offense, to keep the war out of Russia. We in the US were similar after the Pearl Harbor attack, and until the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993 we were successful in that, and it wasn’t until the 9/11 attack that the same terrorist group got a second strike in due to lack of communication between government and military groups that we dealt with it again.

After a failed battle in Afghanistan, and I’m not historian enough to know the details of that event to even look it up, there were Russian troops who were looking to get into a “good” battle where they came out on top. Dogin and Kosigan got them into the position they wanted to pull off this coup attempt via distracting everyone. Remember, that’s the ultimate goal, making me now wonder if Putin isn’t plotting something similar in the real world. Maybe he read this book and got ideas. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Thus is the power of storytelling, for good or evil. In Putin’s case? Definitely evil, and the same for Dogin. So they set up their bombing, riots from the Polish commie clubs happen, Poland calls for help, and Kosigan heads in. Why Poland didn’t call in-universe Russian President Zhanin l couldn’t tell you. And of course Kosigan is “unable” to take Zhanin’s call because of radio silence. I get the feeling whoever answered the phone is part of the plot, and Zhanin (finally making an appearance in this book) can sense there’s a plot…which he might have been more aware of and prepared for if Op-Center had warned him. I still think that was a mistake.

This is one time I don’t have a problem with the history lesson because it answers an important question for the story: how did you trick the troops into being part of a coup attempt against their own leader? You simply have to find the right chumps. Meanwhile, the terrorist act seems to be working. Where this goes we’ll find out next chapter. We still have over a third of a book left to go.