User talk:MichaelP978

The story begins at a security conference in London, where a lecturer named Max Webber is telling the audience about a group of eco-terrorists called Force Three. He considers them to be the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world, and this draws the attention of MI6 heads Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt, who are in the crowd. When he leaves, he receives a cell phone call, and it becomes apparent that he has been paid a large amount of money to give this lecture. The voice on the phone warns Webber to be careful, since he is now an enemy of Force Three. The last words are, 'Goodbye Mr Webber,' and suddenly the phone explodes, killing him instantly.

Meanwhile, Alex Rider is about to be released from St. Dominic's Hospital in London, still recovering from the bullet wound he suffered at the end of Scorpia, the previous book. The bullet, which had been aimed at his heart, nearly killed him, but he stepped a fraction of an inch off the pavement, so the bullet hit an artery, ricocheted off a rib, and exited through his left arm. Even so, he was in the hospital for eleven days. Mrs. Jones has informed him that Scorpia is no longer a threat to him, and he is enthusiastic about finally going home. However, he cannot sleep that night, and goes to the reception area for a walk. He sees four Force Three members (unknown to him at the time) walk in, who demand to see Paul Drevin, the boy in the room neighboring Alex. The receptionist tells them his room number, and then Alex witnesses the leader murder the night receptionist, Connor Hackett. Alex devises an elaborate plan to take out the terrorists (whom he has named Combat Jacket, Spectacles, Steel Watch, and Silver Tooth) knocking out Silver Tooth with a defibrillator, Spectacles with an oxygen cylinder, Combat Jacket with a medicine ball, and finally luring Steel Watch toward an MRI machine, where his watch gets magnetized. But before Alex can call the police, a fifth man, the driver, knocks Alex out. When Alex comes to, he is being held hostage by Force Three, who still think he is Paul. He meets Kaspar, the leader, whose head is tattooed with the world map. Kaspar explains that Nikolei Drevin, Paul's eccentric billionaire father, is an enemy of Force Three. Drevin is funding the construction of the world's first space hotel, Ark Angel. In doing so, however, he has made four bird species extinct. Kaspar is about to cut off Alex's finger when Alex manages to convince Kaspar he is not Paul. However, Kaspar decides to kill Alex anyway, leaving him to die after setting fire to a building (one of the Hornchurch Towers) that is going to be demolished.

Alex manages to escape through the ceiling, and by using tightrope walking techniques he learned from his uncle, Ian Rider. He debriefs MI6, then is released from the hospital. At home, Nikolei Drevin calls to express his gratitude towards Alex. He invites Alex to stay at his house. Drevin also mentions he will take Alex to watch a construction stage of Ark Angel being launched. Alex accepts. He gets to know Paul, who is apparently a disappointment in his father's eyes. Paul has asthma and doesn't get to meet other children due to his father. Alex had been told by MI6 that Drevin was a wonderful man, but he soon finds out otherwise.

Alex participates in a go-kart race with Drevin. He sees that Drevin is an extremely competitive man, as he puts Alex's life in danger several times during the race. Drevin is bitter after losing, but forgets the race soon after when he takes Alex to see a soccer match between the team Drevin owns, Stratford East, and Alex's favorite team, Chelsea. The match ends with a brutal missed penalty kick by Adam Wright, Stratford's captain, and Chelsea winning 2-1. At the end of the match, Drevin is furious, and to Alex's horror, he notices one of the members of Force Three in the crowd. Sensing something horrible, he rushes down to the locker room, where members of Force Three are presenting Wright with a medallion made of caesium, claiming to be rewarding him for his work for the team. Before Alex can do anything, though, Steel Watch has a gun pointing at his neck, taking him to a van. Alex manages to escape by using the "the finger" to convince a drunken SE fan to punch him. Alex ducks and the fist hits Steel Watch instead, allowing Alex to escape. But it is too late for Adam Wright, as the medallion he received was made of caesium, which causes it to explode when Wright turns on the shower. Force Three claims responsibility for another murder. Alex goes with Drevin to an island near Barbados called Flamingo Bay (which Drevin owns and has a house on) to watch the rocket launch.

However, when he passes through U.S. customs, Alex is shocked to discover his passport has expired, forcing him to stay at JFK International Airport for the night. But when Drevin leaves, the passport officer, Ed Shulsky, instead takes Alex to a secret CIA base, where he is informed of the true Nikolei Drevin.

Joe Byrne, the deputy director of the CIA and whom Alex met three books previously, in Skeleton Key, tells Alex that Drevin is considered to them to be the biggest criminal in the world. He got rich following the breakup of the Soviet Union through buying oil and other assets. Drevin used his KGB background to take a loan of eighty million dollars from the Russian Mafia, who agreed, but did not have the money, so they turned to the Japanese Yakuza for help. The triads also got involved, and Drevin soon becomes rich after buying Novgerol, a major oil company. He paid off the mafia, Yakuza and triads, and murdered anyone who got in his way. Alex learns that Drevin's money is now behind almost every "dirty deal" done in Europe, involving terrorism, drugs, prostitution, and so on and so forth. The CIA plans to arrest Drevin in one week, but they need Alex's help to make sure Drevin does not escape. He informs Alex that one agent is already inside Drevin's organization, and MI6's Smithers gives Alex an iPod which allows him to listen into people's conversations, an inhaler doubling as a grenade, and a bottle of Stingo, which according to Smithers will attract just about every insect on the island. Alex reluctantly agrees to go to Flamingo Bay, where he meets Drevin's head of security, Magnus Payne, who seems vaguely familiar.

However, Alex's cover is quickly blown when Magnus tells Drevin Alex is an MI6 agent. Drevin instructs Magnus to kill Alex. The next day, Drevin encourages Alex to go wreck diving. He goes with a guard named Kolo, who locks Alex in an old wreck and leaves him to die. Alex is about to die, running out of air, when suddenly Tamara Knight,(A woman working for Drevin whom Alex likes), shows up with Alex's fake inhaler. Alex uses it to free himself from the ship, and he finds out Tamara is the undercover agent Joe Byrne mentioned. Alex uses the mosquito attractor to distract the guards, and he and Tamara try to alert Byrne's backup team on Barbados. However, Tamara accidentally hits a trip wire, and just as Alex sees Force Three being greeted by Magnus, the pair are caught by Drevin. Tamara is shot in the shoulder and placed in a jail, and Drevin takes Alex to a hangar.

There, Drevin tells Alex everything. He tells him he knows of the CIA's investigation, and knows he cannot destroy it, as the investigation is based in the Pentagon. He also mentions Ark Angel is billions of dollars over budget, and will likely never be finished, and is sucking his wealth dry. He tells Alex that he is placing a bomb on the observation module of Ark Angel, which, along with homing devices, will make the four-hundred-ton space station fall directly on the Pentagon, completely destroying any evidence against Drevin along with the entire city of Washington, D.C.. Then he tells Alex of his most brilliant plan: Force Three. Alex realizes Force Three has been merely invented by Drevin to create an enemy. Drevin was going to stage a kidnapping of Paul, and use his finger to prove it wasn't him. Drevin will blame the destruction of Washington on Force Three, and will conclusively prove it by having the four fake terrorists attempt to ambush Flamingo Bay. He will show their bodies as proof of his innocence. When Silver Tooth asks how Drevin will fake it, Drevin replies "Who said I was going to fake it?" Magnus kills the four fake terrorists with a mini Uzi, shortly before revealing his true identity: Kaspar. Drevin then says that Alex and Tamara's bodies will appear to have been hit in crossfire. He places Alex in the prison with Tamara.

Alex tells Tamara of Drevin's maniacally evil plan, and Tamara gives him shoelaces made of diamond-edged tungsten to break through the cell. Dressed in a guard uniform, Alex makes his way down to the house, where he is shocked to see Paul. Paul was told that Alex was an enemy, but Alex cannot convince him that his father is evil, so he knocks him out with an elbow to the temple. Alex steals a power kite and attempts to fly to Barbados. Three speedboats pursue him, and Alex uses the power kite to knock out one of the men with a machine gun, consequently killing the driver. He uses the speedboat to crash into the other speedboat, and then Ed Shulsky blows up the third boat with a rocket launcher. But just as Alex is about to tell the CIA about Drevin's plan, the rocket is launched.

When he manages to tell Shulsky, the CIA agent tells Alex to stay put while the agents get past Drevin's men and free Tamara. Shulsky tells Alex all they need to do is find the rocket's self destruct button, and the mission will be accomplished. However, Alex disobeys orders and heads towards Drevin's house. Drevin finds him there, about to leave, holding a pistol. He attempts to shoot Alex, but Alex dives out of the way and Drevin instead hits Paul twice. This allows Alex to escape. Drevin, assuming Paul is dead, runs out of bullets and heads for his seaplane to escape. The CIA agents arrive, back from an easy fight, and attend to Paul. Alex points out to them that he attached two canoes to the seaplane's floats. When Drevin attempts to kill Alex with the plane's machine guns, the canoes weigh the seaplane down, and Drevin's plane crashes into the forest and explodes, killing him instantly. Alex thinks the mission is done, but Shulsky tells him that Drevin was the only one capable of pressing the self-destruct button, and the CIA needs Alex's help once again.

The only way to stop the bomb is to move it from its designated spot. If it is moved, Ark Angel will simply explode, without further consequence. After the launch, Drevin had supposedly planned to send an orangutan into space to test weightlessness effects on a human body. Alex is the only one able to fit into the ape's capsule, and so he is told he must go into space and move the bomb. Professor Joo-Chan Sing, Drevin's head of the Ark Angel project, is interrogated and swears he knows nothing, but Alex suspects he is still hiding something. After a brief crash course, Alex is sent into space. He floats into the observation module, but is shocked to find Kaspar there as well, holding a steak knife he took from the the space hotel's kitchen. Alex realizes that sending the bomb into space armed would have caused it to go off before it reached Ark Angel, so Kaspar had been sent up with it so he could arm it when he got there. The weightlessness experiment was set up in order to allow him to get back to earth. Alex manages to disarm him, but Kaspar begins to strangle Alex. Desperate, Alex opens a window facing the Sun, which blinds Kaspar. As he puts his hands up to protect himself, Alex kicks him into the floating knife, which penetrates the back of his head and kills him. Alex then closes the window, places the bomb in the toilet in which he previously vomited into, and goes back in the Soyuz module. Before leaving Ark Angel, he has a glimpse at Earth, realizing this is his only opportunity to ever do so. Ark Angel explodes just as Alex is returning to Earth. Alex lands off the east coast of Australia, bobbing up and down in an escape pod. This leads up to the next book, Snakehead, which takes place in Australia.