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.

Well, we had two chapters last time as we focused on Op-Center. We’re overdue to go back to Commie Op-Center so it looks like that’s where we’re headed this time.

I really did poorly time when I’m going over this book. I didn’t know that there would be a Russian/Ukraine element before I started reading. Obviously I knew this would be one of those “the commies want to restore the USSR” stories because the Cold War made for more interesting bad guys. Not everyone is Russia was a bad person. It’s just the government was being run by bad people. The US press back in those days fawned over Mikhail Gorbachev, which is why I find it interesting they hate the guy currently trying to restore the Soviet Union. I have theories, but that’s getting even more into politics, and while going over this novel means current event discussion is kind of inevitable, I’m still trying to keep it out of discussions, harder as it is with activists playing storyteller and failing.

Plus we live in a time where being patriotic has sadly become less celebrated even on Independence Day. When this novel came out it was still considered a good thing, as was fighting against communism as an enemy of the people. Communism claims to be for everybody but forced equality is a lie because you can’t force equality and expect growth, and because there is still inequality. The people in charge enjoy more freedoms and better lives while the workers have terrible lives. “Bread lines” in the old Soviet Union wasn’t a joke, it was a reality guys like Gorbachev and Putin never worried about. You have no rights, no chance for personal advancement for you and your family. Fighting against that is a good thing, and you can see that the trio behind Commie Op-Center and the various planned attacks are not working in Russia’s best interest, but their own. Like most elitists they can even fool themselves into believing it, but ask someone who grew up during those days or the modern commie countries, and they’ll tell you why they left.

With that padding done, it’s time to get back to the book and see what the bad guys are up to.

Monday, 8:00 PM, St. Petersburg (Russia)

We haven’t talked a lot about Commie Op-Center because it wasn’t live yet. Now it is, and as Orlov checks out his active group we can see a lot of differences between it and the regular one. Describing the space makes it already sound like a budget version of Op-Center. There’s only one major operations room, with all the back-ups in reach. There are security precautions, and some pretty decent ones, though if you need a codebreaker to know what someone else is working on, and the two top guys have half the password, what happens if one of the top two is sick?

We also see a difference in how things operate. Admittedly, US Op-Center does have it’s internal squabbling but it was only when they got over it and finally started working together that they were of any use to the Korean incident of the first book. Here we see people vying for position. One guy goes over Orlov’s head and reports to Dogin that they’re ready…except they’re really not. They have things online, they’ve hacked their opposition and the police and everything else, but nothing is tested yet. There’s still too many chances for something to go wrong as they work the bugs out. Or rather they SHOULD be working the bugs out.

However, Dogin is sure they can handle everything without really checking, a sign of hubris that could be part of their downfall. He wants them to track a plan headed to Tokyo and then Vladivostok. It’s apparently also part of his plan, but we don’t know what yet. It’s not Striker they’re following. Orlov is not happy with any of this. There’s already divisions as each group and individual get power for themselves, he doesn’t have all the information he needs (making me wonder if he’s even part of Operation: Restore Communism), and nothing’s been tested for glitches in the system. This could all go totally wrong, and like Paul Hood, Orlov seems to be the only competent person there dedicated to the cause and country. This could be an interesting little train wreck.

That puts us around a third of the way through the book. Next time we’ll meet who’s on that plane.