Point Blanc - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Michael J. Roscoe dies. Then, after getting into trouble with a drug dealer and the police, Alex Rider is assigned by MI6 to investigate the deaths of billionaires, Michael J. Roscoe in New York and General Viktor Ivanov on the Black Sea. Each of them had a son attending Point Blanc, an academy in the French Alps run by a South African scientist, Dr. Hugo Grief, and both died under mysterious circumstances. This may seem like a coincidence, but Alan Blunt is suspicious, and sends Alex to investigate. Alex's cover is that of the son of a supermarket magnate, Sir David Friend. Alex initially spends a week as a member of Friend's family and is required to memorize as much detail as possible about his cover. However, during his stay with the family, he receives a hard time from David's daughter Fiona. Alex even finds himself shot at by Fiona's friends when they go out shooting, only for Fiona to claim that it was "just a bit of fun". The next day, when Alex and Fiona are out horse riding, Fiona falls off her horse in the middle of a railway tunnel. Alex goes back in on his horse and just manages to retrieve Fiona and jump off a bridge into a river before they are run over by a high speed train. Which causes Fiona to apologize for her harsh behavior.

Grief's assistant Mrs. Stellenbosch, arrives at the Friend's house by helicopter. Smithers meets with Alex undercover as a farmer and provides him with some equipment and gadgets (including an electric saw disguised into a Sony Discman, an mini grenade disguised as an ear stud, a bulletproof ski suit, infrared ski goggles, and a single-shot tranquilizer gun disguised as a Harry potter book). Stellenbosch is about to take Alex to the academy, but Fiona, due to the fact she doesn't know he's a spy but becomes suspicious, is about to expose him but is shot with the tranquilizer from Alex's book. Alex is taken to a hotel in Paris, where his dinner drink is drugged. His bed is then transported where Mrs. Stellenbosch has Alex stripped completely, photographed, examined, and measured. After the examination, Alex's clothes are put back on and he is returned to his hotel room, without him ever realizing what had happened.

Upon arriving at Point Blanc, Alex meets the founder Dr Grief and later a student who goes by the name of James Sprintz as well as a group of other boys he gets to know through the week such as Hugo Vries, Tom McMorin, and Joe Canterbury. James thinks something is wrong with the academy because the other boys were rebellious before and then suddenly became complacent. During his showing Alex around the school, James reveals to him his plan to escape the academy. After sneaking out of his room using the Discman, Alex witnesses a boy being forcibly dragged downstairs and is convinced it is James. Yet Alex later sees James unharmed in his bedroom. The following day at breakfast, James' attitude towards his plan to escape seems to have changed. Alex climbs a chimney to examine the forbidden third and fourth floors. He discovers that the third and fourth floors are accurate replicas of the first and second floors respectively (for instance, replicas of the boys' rooms, with TV screens monitoring their behavior downstairs). Alex signals MI6 using the CD device provided to him by Smithers. This signal is received by the MI6 office, where Alan Blunt and Mrs. Jones debate whether to move in on the academy immediately. Blunt decides to prepare a unit on stand by.

Upon further investigation, Alex finds some boys locked in a basement jail, including James and the son of Michael J. Roscoe, Paul. Alex learns that James was indeed dragged downstairs and was replaced by a replica. Alex reveals the truth to James and Paul, his identity and the reason why he was sent to Point Blanc. Mrs. Stellenbosch is told of this after someone overhears it via a bug planted in the cell and knocks Alex unconscious, has him handcuffed to a chair, and turns him over to Dr. Grief, who then reveals his plan to take over the world, named "Project Gemini".

In the 1980s, Grief cloned sixteen copies of himself in his home country of South Africa (where he greatly supported the apartheid regime). While the real boys are at Point Blanc, a plastic surgeon named Baxter surgically alters Grief's 14-year-old clones to resemble them. Soon, the clone and the real boy are swapped. The replica rooms are used by the clones to imitate the boys' behavior so the parents will not notice that they have been swapped. When the parents die and pass on their inheritance, Dr. Grief will take the assets from the clones. Eventually, he will be the most powerful man in the world, and reinstate apartheid globally.

Grief imprisons Alex, planning to dissect him alive the next day for a biology class. Alex uses his exploding ear-stud to escape his cage. He improvises a snowboard (using an ironing-board) to escape, but Grief sends his guards on snowmobiles with machine guns to take him down. During the pursuit, one snowmobile crashes into a tree because it could not fit through a small gap that Alex squeezed through. Another guard is knocked in the head by Alex's "snowboard" and ultimately falls. Alex almost makes it to the bottom of the mountain but a machine gunner previously prepared by Grief is waiting for him. Just as the man is about to fire, a train approaches in the way. Alex jumps on top of it but loses his balance, falls and passes out.

Alex is taken to a hospital in Grenoble, where a visiting Mrs Stellenbosch is told that Alex has died. However, it is revealed that Alex is alive, and MI6 then sends him out again with a team of SAS soldiers (among them is Wolf, an SAS soldier introduced in Stormbreaker) to help liberate the school. In the school, the SAS team take out several guards and go down to the basement to save the imprisoned boys. An on-going fire-fight ensues as the team encounter more guards. Wolf demands Alex to stay back. Alex goes into the dining room and sees Dr Grief about to escape in a helicopter. However, Mrs Stellenbosch appears who is surprised and disappointed that Alex is still alive. Despite Alex's efforts to fend her off, she overpowers him and pins him against a wall. She pulls out a gun and just as she points it at Alex, Wolf appears. Wolf is shot three times by Mrs Stellenbosch but manages to shoot the woman himself with his machine gun. Mrs Stellenbosch falls out a window. Alex prevents Dr. Grief escaping by driving a snowmobile up a ramp and crashing it into Grief's helicopter, jumping off at the last second.

Alex is debriefed by MI6 and Mrs Jones tells him that all fifteen clones have been arrested. Alex later goes home where Jack Starbright informs him that his school headteacher wanted to see him. Alex goes to his school and to the headteachers office and is startled to find a clone that resembles him, who avoided capture and escaped. Indeed Dr Grief earlier told Alex that he produced sixteen clones. The clone tries to shoot Alex, causing a fire in a laboratory. Alex runs up to the roof, only to be followed by the clone. The two fight ending with one of them falling into a hole in the roof following an explosion. It is later implied in Skeleton Key and confirmed in Scorpia Rising that it was the clone who fell.