The book starts with three events: a freighter of Chinese illegals being destroyed off the coast of America, A South African sugar mill blowing up, and the bombing of a "gentleman's club" in Taipei, China. Paul Hood, Op Center's boss, is canned quickly one morning by the president, and given an ultimatum. Work directly for him at the Whitehouse in a job with no staff and almost non-existent budget and little authority, or go home. He chose to work for the president. Op Center is given to a lady two-star general, and Paul winds up getting right in the middle of the trouble, despite efforts to keep him useless.The three events had a common thread: there were two factions within China warring against each other. Hood is sent to Beijing to help the Chinese prime minister. This was a fairly fast-paced story that kept the tension going throughout. This is a story of how military ambitions and politics in both China and the US nearly cause a war.Very, very good!
Another of Clancy's Op-Center books. Op-center is in turmoil with a change of command, the old head is now working directly for the President and a army 3 star is the new head. Meanwhile the Chinese are ready to launch a satellite with a nuclear power supply and there is an escalating fight between an army general and the intelligence chief. The general wants to move into the future with himself in control and is taking the satellite launch as a pretext to attack Taiwan and the Intelligence chief is old line communist and opposes change. New and old op-center personnel get called on to intervene and thwart the plans. A time filler of a read, moderately interesting.
