Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image chapter 22

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.

Our chapter for this installment is short, only four pages. That’s too short to combine with the two normal-sized chapters surrounding it and I have little time today. A short chapter will work this week. Maybe being short will allow it to avoid last chapter’s mistake of having more flavor than anything interesting, even if the short moment it did continue the story showed a rare moment of competency for our heroes.

It’s back to Commie Op-Center, and so far their impression as the enemy has been up for debate. Sure, they’ve managed to take out two better characters agents but you can already see that egos and self-interests are already going to ruin Dogin’s ultimate goal so I feel like I’m waiting to see those issues ruin them before they can be a good threat, especially if regular Op-Center is going to get their act together and prove to be the organization they should have been in the first book. We’re only around 1/3 into the book, so it’s a bit early to see the instruments of their demise this early. Already there are factions brewing and if our heroes can finally overcome their own issues, it’s going to be an easy victory. With last chapter’s padding they’re going to have to convince me they’re a serious threat and that our side is going to be the protection the world needs from World War III and the return of the Soviet empire.

That’s all the padding I can do for the homepage, so I guess we’ll jump right into tonight’s chapter.

Chapter 22: Monday, 9:30 PM, St. Petersburg, Russia

It’s going to confuse me if they do a chapter in Florida.

Well, it seems the plane from two chapters ago did take on some damage thanks to our Jack Lord admirer. You did good, “Jet”, by damaging your namesake. Too bad you didn’t get to live to see it. Orlov, not knowing what he has to get through, goes to people he actually trusts to get the package through. There’s no way to get another plane because his contact has to deal with getting supplies to the west, probably the planned Ukrainian invasion that makes this book more timely than I planned, but he can get a train if Orlov can get someone to operate it. Orlov’s next call is to his son.

You know, if it turns out Orlov really doesn’t know what Dogin’s goal is I could get to like him. If he does, then I have to wonder what a decent guy like this is doing pushing the return of the USSR, communism, and the KGB. We see him trying keep tied to his allies, whose support he earned during his cosmonaut days. The contact for example is a man whose daughter wanted Orlov’s autograph and he kept Brezhnev waiting because signing that autograph for his nation’s future was more important. That’s not something that is a welcome reason to someone like Brezhnev, and the narrator even tells us Orlov remembered how irate he was for Orlov doing so.

We also get another example of how small Commie Op-Center is underneath this museum. The radio room is so small that Orlov can barely get in the door because of all the people on their units on duty. Meanwhile, the radio guy he talks to is also someone Orlov trusts and wishes he had more of because of his skill and competence. He’s able to hear about the plane landing and inform his superior, forget protocol, but is good at his job. I really want some of these guys to be dupes not looking to restore their country to evil or just be that convinced of the lies of the past. I know that not everybody sees “good” and “evil” the same way and may actually believe the communistic system is right, but I want to like Orlov, not pity or hate him.

Next time we go back to DC and Orlov’s opposite number. I wonder what they know about all this by now?