Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image chapter 55

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.

Only one chapter this time. In the previous chapter we saw Striker trying to stop a train while their escape was being put together.

I have to wonder if I’d be complaining about the length so much if I were enjoying the book more. I had no trouble with Death & Return Of Superman or Batman: Knightfall, while one of my first books as a kid was about as long as the Op-Center novels. On the other hand, while an improvement over the first book, Mirror Image still suffers many of the same flaws, and it comes down to the useless trivia. The characters are less annoying compared to the first book (except for Paul Hood and Squires, who were both some of the good characters and possibly the only ones from the series cast). There’s just information that I don’t care about and serve no actual purpose to the story outside of blending history with the Op-Center universe. From what little I know of books like The DaVinci Code, this is a good way to screw people up in the real world, being clueless about history and accepting the altered events for drama as not only book canon but historical facts. Seeing movies that have caused trouble by doing that, I’m not convinced it’s a good idea.

Still, we have a little over 20 chapters left to go over, which even if we get more short chapter combinations will take awhile, so let’s get it over with.

Chapter 55: Tuesday, 3:25 PM, St. Petersburg, Russia

It seems our good general Orlov may have an ally at…you know what? In hopes of things going better, I’m going to start calling it Russian Op-Center now. It’s possible there are enough pushbacks here against what Dogin and his agent in the Center, Rossky, are trying to do. The military commander he’s talking to is on his side and his group is with him, rumors of a coup starting up now beginning to spread. When? How? This is rather absent from the story. The folks at regular Op-Center are putting clues together, but how did it happen in Russia? There’s still dots that doesn’t feel like they’d be connected from their perspective. It’s not like anybody we’ve seen knowing what’s happening has been doing this, as good as a plan as it would be to leak the theories and make the conspiracy cringe a bit. They even suspect the Russian mob connection.

From there, Orlov is able to listen in on a phone combination between Peggy and Rossky. Peggy is pretending she and George are COMINT agents looking into the death and cremated remains of Fields-Hutton to find out if and why he was killed. Rossky and Orlov both aren’t buying it (that is at least why Peggy is here) but then she drops a figurative bombshell. (Have to be specific with this series.) She somehow knows she’s talking to Orlov, that he’s part of a Russian version of Op-Center, and she can get him in touch with their “mirror image” (title drop) as Orlov calls it through the narration. Since he’s wanted to talk to his counterpart he agrees to make a deal in exchange for their prisoner’s return. This could get interesting. Does Rossky have someone in position to off Orlov either to protect Dogin’s scheme or just because Orlov is using his authority?

Well, things are really getting interesting now, but I still feel like we missed something. When did the coup rumors start, and how did the mob connection get figured out by Russian military people? How long as Peggy known about Commie Russian Op-Center and Orlov? We’re missing information here and we’re going back to DC, and presumably Orlov and Paul having a conversation, in the next chapter. We’re still on chapter 55 of 78. We have a ways to go, but things might be going in the good guys’ favor. We’ll see what happens next in the next installment.