The Chaos Agent by Mark Greaney

Artificial intelligence is a societal buzzword. AI is the amalgamation of numerous technologies that, when successful, allow the AI agent to learn and modify its actions. The tech is so new and still scattered. Now if someone with a futurist’s vision could unify the tech . . .  

Let’s say someone has kind of figured out how to integrate the tech. That might be the savior or destroyer of the world, depending on what the AI learns and applies. Let’s say there are a couple dozen different ‘modules’ of tech needed to fully realize AI’s potential. To ensure one’s place at the top of the pyramid, the geniuses behind each module would need to be eliminated.

Over the span of about 1 week, billionaire tech geniuses are dying by accident, ‘natural causes’ or just plain murder.

Courtland Gentry (aka ‘the gray man’) and Zoya Zakharova are staying a couple steps ahead of the CIA and the SVR hiding out in Guatemala. One of Zoya’s former mentors reaches out for help in guarding a Russian AI genius in transit to Mexico City, but the genius is struck down. A day before and after finds others killed in Vegas and Canada. Each hit was carried out by a highly skilled shooter who has equally skilled oversight provided by an expert drone pilot.

The video captured at the Mexico hit is sent back to a control center in Malaysia where facial recognition identifies Zoya. She is traced back to Guatemala and the AI of the control center (‘Cyrus’) decides that she and her companion need to be eliminated. A cat and mouse game ensues with the Malaysia control center following Court and Zoya.

Meanwhile, in the UK a hit on a Kiwi AI genius fails. The Kiwi, Anton Hinton, flees the UK for one of his protected labs around the world, this on in Cuba. And you can guess what happens next: Court/Zoya and Hinton kind of butt heads in Cuba. At issues is the future of the tech. Will it be used for the betterment of humanity or does it have the potential to self-actualize and run amok like Cyberdyne in the Terminator movies.

I see that this is the 13^th Gray Man book produced by Greaney. We’ve reviewed a few of them here, all favorably. And this is no exception. A first rate action-thriller. The Chaos Agent is a wild ride of deception, murder, and some serious passages of action tying up multiple scenarios around just where and how AI will best be pursued. It had been a while since I last read a Greaney book so I streamed The Gray May (with Ryan Gosling). Not sure how much that helped but it did show the extent to which Greaney will go to portray action. Let’s just say, be prepared for a wild ride over the last 25% of the book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance reviewer copy of the book. Their website was offline for maintenance so I can’t say when in 2024 it’ll be available.

East Coast Don