Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image chapters 10 & 11

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.

Last time, our Legion Of Commie got together to finalize their plans to restore the Soviet Union.

This time we’re looking at two chapters. Chapter 10 comes in at four pages and Chapter 11 at just under four and a half. Including space for chapter numbers and that calendar system they use that comes out to almost nine pages, a fair chapter count, and I have time to review that much this week.

We’ll be spending these two chapters stateside, with the first in New York, which I’m betting focuses on the bagel gang, and the other in Washington, DC, meaning more of the Superdopes. Op-Center didn’t have to deal with crap at home except for each other. This time they’re going to have to deal with home and abroad with their evil twins, and without their leader. These might be interesting stories separately, and later on after we really get these guys into a level of competency (assuming it isn’t the fact that this is a new program in this universe that is at part responsible for their mistakes, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt). I still say neither would work for their second adventure, and yet we have both situations. It might all work out, but I have my doubts. Let’s dive in to the two chapters and find out.

Chapter 10: Sunday, 8 PM, New York City

The “bagel brigade”, as they end up being called, has a multistep plan to get explosives to the other agents. While we don’t “see” the explosion or the results the way we did the Korean explosion in the last book (are bombings just the norm in this franchise?), we do hear some of the event and aftermath in the tunnel they move away from. A car bomb is used, and you have to wonder if some of the homemade explosives used in minor bombings (well, minor in relative turns–I’m sure the people at the Boston Marathon bombing for example wouldn’t see it as “minor”) went through a similar delivery method, in bits through the bagel deliveries and then brought together from the various locations. It’s a well thought out plan, the type you worry might influence someone in the real world. We all thought 9/11 would only exist in fiction, too.

I’m just trying to figure out if the guy who activated the bomb is going to be killed or not? There’s a line at the end where he thinks that his life is worth giving up for “the cause” and that he isn’t expected to live. And yet before that the narrator discusses how they have him in a false beard and wig that will be burned at the safehouse and he won’t be identified. Unless he’s planning to be burned with them, so lucky thing the chapter ends here.

Chapter 11: Sunday, 9:05 PM, Washington, DC

Half of this chapter is focusing on Mike Rogers, and the man has all the tough guy stereotypes he could ask for. He like John Wayne movies, as well as listing Laurence Of Arabia, El Cid, and how he was hoping to watch Khartoum, a Charlton Heston British war drama based on actual events. A lot of dying in a blaze of glory, and possibly not winning anything in the last one’s case, save a middle finger to an invading army. He also has numerous girlfriends, goes to the shooting range, and he’s visiting with an old Vietnam buddy when he gets the call about the bombing. The man really is a walking cliché.

We also learn that Op-Center was about to test a new satellite that could disrupt electronic devices as small as desktop calculator, and you know that Chekhov’s Gun is going to show up before this story is over. Mike is also told about the British agents’ deaths while investigating Commie Op-Center, and some actual good news. After the explosion, one of the Op-Center remote investigators pieced together all the bagel shop orders by working backwards from the bombing and finding those places from the previous chapter. Paul’s been informed, but whether he leaves things to Mike or gives up vacation we don’t know yet.

For all the heck I give (and probably will give) Mike, he does seem to take the job seriously, and is worried that this being a Russian attack might start World War III…which for all I know is also part of the Legion Of Commie’s plans. It would be one way to convince the former Soviet countries to come back in or to force them back in for their own safety. I don’t think it would work, but I already saw the flaws in chapter 9 last time. I may think he’s the wrong guy for this particular job but at least he isn’t excited about being in a war. He will be willing to do go down fighting to protect the country, but as long as that isn’t his goal he might actually be useful. Still hoping Paul returns in time, sorry to him and his family.

Next time we’re back to one chapter and back to St. Petersburg, Russia. I guess we’ll see what Commie Op-Center is up to next.