Major Winston Yu is one of the members of the executive board of Scorpia, and the main antagonist of the novel Snakehead. He was asked by Zeljan Kurst, another board member of Scorpia, to command operation "Reef Encounter". This involved generating an artificial tsunami to destroy Reef Island and the west coast of Australia by detonating a stolen bomb named "Royal Blue" between two underwater tectonic plates when they are most vulnerable. He was the superior of Anan Sukit, but apparently inherits control of the Bangkok Snakehead when Ben "Fox" Daniels kills Sukit.
Yu suffers from Osteogenesis imperfecta, otherwise known as Brittle Bone Disease. This makes his skeleton highly unstable. It was this disease that forced him to leave the army after four successful tours of duty in Northern Ireland, and into organized crime. Yu is obsessed with the British and has British boats, paintings, and statues. His obsession with the British began when his mother had an affair with a British business man who told her beautiful things about England. When Yu was born, his mother named him after Winston Churchill. He treats every one of his underlings with merciless behavior, but treats Alex gently because he is British.
After his men steal Royal Blue, his plans start going wrong when MI6 tells Alex about Yu and his plot. Yu and Alex escape from the boat The Liberian Star and Yu has Alex kidnapped. Then he is brought to his mansion so Yu could explain himself, and then sends Alex to have his organs surgically removed and used for illegal organ transplanting.
However, Alex escapes his captors and leads Yu to believe he is dead. Alex and a group of ASIS soldiers-including Alex's old ally Ben "Fox" Daniels-subsequently raid Yu's center of operations, an oil drilling platform named Dragon Nine and Alex and Fox eventually encounter Yu and Ash. Fox shoots and kills Ash but Yu shoots Fox, although he is not killed. Alex and Yu have a final confrontation and when Yu is about to kill Alex, a crane collapses inside the control room and the impact breaks Yu's arm, forcing him to flee. In the process he breaks both his ankles as he falls into his yacht, which he then attempts to escape in. While trying to escape, Yu is killed when Alex detonates Royal Blue before due time, sending a huge shock wave which hits Yu and his yacht. Yu's weak bone structure cannot stand up to the force of the explosion and is killed when all of his bones break at the same time.
Yu is portrayed as being a ruthless and merciless killer, a characteristic he inherited from his mother who, when Yu and her were poor in Hong Kong, worked as a paid assassin for the Hong Kong Snakehead. Several of Yu's employees prefer to commit suicide rather than face Yu's punishments, such as Bill Tanner, although Captain De Wynter was killed by him. He is described as being a Chinese man of average weight and height, but with thick white hair. He usually wears expensive suits, always in white.
Read more about this topic: List Of Alex Rider Characters, Main Antagonists
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