Synopsis

Captured, tortured, and left for dead. Pieced back together with experimental tech, can this courageous soldier prevent a cataclysmic war?

Loyalty runs through Michael Cooling’s veins. Abandoned by his father as a kid and devoted to his mother, the highly decorated Navy SEAL gladly leads a mission to extract two Ukrainian generals held by Russia. But after falling into the hands of a brutal Russian officer and nearly killed, the heroic patriot ends up comatose in a hospital bed… and unknowingly paralyzed.

Determined to escape a wheelchair-bound existence, the wounded warrior undergoes surgery to integrate an untested hi-tech endoskeleton into his ravaged human flesh. And as he trains tirelessly to adapt to his new synthetic body, he develops an unprecedented strength and speed he hopes will help him crush those who would see the USA fall.

Yet as old hatreds come home to roost, will his newfound powers be enough to stop the world being brought to its knees?

Artificial Agent is a gripping technothriller. If you like resilient heroes, vicious villains, and exploring what’s truly important, then you’ll love J.W. Jarvis’s nail-biting tale.

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Review

If you grew up watching The Six Million Dollar Man or Bionic Woman, this book will have familiar overtones. Its blend of sci-fi and thriller makes it an intriguing tale that might keep you on the edge of your seat.

Michael is a SEAL who is proficient at his job. Although they tend to stay under the radar, he is given an award that thrusts him into the spotlight. This is a downfall because of a certain Russian General who wants to take him down. When injured in a botched mission, his life takes a different twist with AIonics. This is the advanced form of bionics of the past. We also learn that his father was given bionics in the past, which explains a lot of Michael’s past.

Some “take no prisoners” women added flair and depth to the story. Jasmine is a woman with whom I wouldn’t mind being friends. Katya is not a person I would want to meet in a dark alleyway. She is lethal.

While I know this sort of technology isn’t available yet, I imagine it is right around the corner. If it does happen in the future, the implications could be deadly. The one upside is that the cost will make it unattainable for most.

I enjoyed following Michael as he adapted to this new technology. However, it also reminds us how dangerous AI can be with misinformation. We give this book 4 paws up.

Excerpt

The prologue

The room was completely absent of light. Small flashing LED lights provided brief illumination and appeared to be coming from electronic equipment left in standby mode. During the brief half-seconds of red light, he gathered he was in a makeshift medical clinic room. In the corner was a utility sink with dark stained towels hanging from its edges. His initial thought was blood stains, but hard to tell with the limited light spectrum. The faucet dripped once every nine seconds. The calculations one engages in during idle contemplation. A chill filled the room, accompanied by a damp and musty smell. Airflow was non-existent, which caused the floors to feel moist under his bare feet. To increase blood flow for warmth, the man’s naked body stiffened as he flexed his muscles. This offered respite from the cold, but pain as the thick, scratchy sisal ropes around his legs and chest dug into his skin more. He was grateful they kept his underwear on, which shielded his backside from the cold metal chair. They bolted the chair to the concrete floor, preventing movement or escape. Not his first precarious position. This time felt different.

Despite the pounding in his head, his memory remained clear about the betrayal during this mission, putting his team and himself in danger. It hurt to think, but he had to contemplate the future. Keeping him alive had a purpose – extracting information. He considered they would try to use sodium thiopental for an interrogation technique, but little did they know that his training helped him build up a tolerance to the “truth serum.” They would give up and use other methods before hitting his tolerance level to be effective. Perhaps they would then move to waterboarding, a type of interrogation that caused a sensation of drowning. Even that would be fruitless, as they had drowned him purposely during training countless times, one of which had resulted in his heart stopping for eight minutes and requiring defibrillation. Anything after ten minutes can be fatal.

He hoped that he would have enough strength to over-power his captors while they set him up for one of their torture tests. Most “frogmen” had received training in Krav Maga, but the commander had also received training in Systema. The Russian military used Systema, a martial art, since the 10th century. He knew his opponents would counter his moves with their local combat training, giving him the advantage of anticipating it. Blood seeped from his head to his neck as the door unlocked and echoed in the room. A single-bulbed fluorescent light above him turned on and started flickering from its aged ballast. As the door opened, the dim yellow glow cast over the two figures entering the room, one with a large silver metal briefcase. They were men of Eastern European descent wearing white and tan camouflage uniforms; the type worn to conceal a trooper in a snow-laden forest. With a weight easily pushing almost three bills, the bigger of the two men had a muscular build, except for his midsection, where he had some extra weight. The type of growth men past their prime have difficulty losing, especially on a steady diet of starchy potatoes. Both men had full beards, the larger man’s was mixed with gray hairs. The thinner man was apprehensive to make a move without a cue from the bigger man. Apparently, the larger man was in charge.

The last person to enter the room was a younger woman in a long silver-gray fur coat. The garment would have caused an uproar with PETA for at least three wolves lost their lives in its construction. With the coat hood over her head concealing most of her wavy, blonde hair, she wore bright red lipstick that stood out from her shadowed face. She looked entirely out of place from the other two military figures. There was a scowl on her face as her green eyes locked on the captive. She scanned his muscular body up and down without changing her emotion.

“Are you sure this is him?” The woman had either a Russian or Ukrainian accent.

“Da,” says the large man in his native tongue.

“Shame,” as the woman gave the commander another look up and down, now clearly interested in his masculine form despite the scars, dirt, and dried blood scattered over his torso.

She moved closer to within a foot from the seated man’s knees, still holding her coat together with perfectly mani0cured hands. The oversized fur coat obscured most of the view of the men behind her. She released the coat and crouched to touch the commander’s shoulders with both hands. Beneath the coat was her athletic body, completely naked, with silky white skin and large fake breasts. She straddled the captive and started gyrating on his lap. The warm skin-to-cold-skin contact, and flowery perfume was welcoming to the commander, but he also knew she was trying to get a sexual reaction out of him. It was difficult to resist, but he forced his mind to focus elsewhere. After a minute, she realized her intentions were not working. She pulled off his lap forcefully while slapping him so hard across the face that her nails left three bloody lines on his right cheek. Seconds later, she stormed out of the room, slamming the door.

The more senior officer sighed, then responded in broken English with a heavy Russian accent. “I see you have upset my daughter again. That’ll be the last time you do.”

“What now, GIP?” says the younger military man.

“Open the briefcase.”

The commander thought it was odd that they skipped asking questions and were eager to move on to the torture part. This was not a military operation; it was personal. That probably meant they would not hold back. Despite being in information-extracting hostage situations several times, this new vendetta scenario made the commander uneasy. He had also heard the term “GIP” before in his study of the Eastern European military, but his bruised head and ringing in his ears still present from the hard slap was fogging his recollection. The “G” definitely stood for general, as in the military rank, that he was certain.

“You Americans are all about fireworks, aren’t you?” GIP says with an evil grin.

“Here you are, sir,” the cadet handed him a red paper- wrapped pack with a Black Cat logo on the front.

“You Americans even think you do firecrackers better than everyone else. I got these shipped from the States. Decided you were too good for those Chinese versions. Their dud ratio is like 50%.”

GIP pulled apart a handful of the one-and-a-half-inch firecrackers and lit them at the commander’s feet. A loud noise echoed in the small room as they went off. This forced the commander to dance while sitting.

“Did you see that, Cadet? Not one dud out of 10. Maybe Americans are better than the Chinese.”

The commander spoke up to find out his bargaining power. “What do you want?”

“It’s not what I want; it’s what Irina wants. You know, the blonde woman that you just insulted? Only, you can’t bring her fiancé back now, can you?” says GIP.

The captive discreetly scanned the room for a weapon. “I’m not following.” A ballpoint pen would’ve been a godsend.

“You’re a man that’s good with your hands, right? Let’s see.”

GIP motioned to his helper, who held the commander’s hands while he duct-taped a bunch of firecrackers to his fingers on each hand. Before the commander could plead, the wicks were lit, and the Russians held up their palms to cover their ears. The commander watched in horror as his hands ignited with tiny explosions that sent an intense pain through his fingers, as if he put his hands directly on an open fire for five seconds. All ten fingers had a mix of deep red to charred black skin with open sores at the points where the firecracker was in direct contact with the finger. The throbbing reached a level that would make most men faint.

“Jesus, man, what the hell is this about? I should know why I’m here.” The commander tried to take his mind off the pain.

“Show him the picture, Cadet, while I prep phase 2,” says GIP as his eyes lit up with anticipation.

The cadet pulled a black-and-white photograph out of the suitcase and showed it to the commander. Even in the dim lighting, it was clear why he was under attack. Sometimes, a past mission success catches up in unforeseen ways with soldiers. As the clarity came, Commander Cooling observed GIP pull much larger firecrackers from the silver case. The labels on the firecrackers were M-150 and M-250. The little ATF training he had grimly reminded him that even a smaller M-80 can remove fingers or parts of hands.

About the Author

J.W. Jarvis lives in sunny California but is originally from the suburbs of the Windy City. When he’s not thinking of ways to create inspiring characters and nonstop action stories, you can find him reading, golfing, traveling, or just sipping a hot vanilla latte.

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