Dr. Hugo Grief

"But to rule the world in the twenty-first century requires something much more than military strength. Where does the real power lie? In politics. In prime ministers and presidents... but you will also find power in the Media, in science, in the Internet... modern life is a great tapestry and if you wish to control it all you have to seize it strand by strand."

- Dr Grief

Dr. Hugo Grief is the main antagonist in the second Alex Rider novel Point Blanc.

Origins
Grief was born back when Apartheid was big, sometime in the forties. He was raised to be contemptuous of black people, whom he saw as animals, and he harboured bitter feelings to them throughout his life. Dr. Grief was disgusted at how rebellions against Apartheid by black people soon became successful, and when his native country, south Africa, was given away to Nelson Mandela, he despaired. He thought that black people were ignorant and had no idea of how to run Africa, and he made plans for a comeback and revenge.

Success
In his early twenties, Dr. Grief (not then a doctor) was approached by Jon Voyer, Prime Minister of south Africa, where he was offered a job as Minister of Science. As south Africa, thanks to white corruption, was a corrupt country at the time, Dr. Grief manipulated the government into providing him unethical scientific equipment, most notably political prisoners. In his own words, "the rules that hampered other scientists around the world did not apply to me!" Dr. Grief then personally selected sixteen biologically irrelavent females and personally raped them, setting into motion a chain of cloning programmes from which, ten years before the first cloning programme was completed successfully he first cloned an adult human. Sixteen times. With his ambitions and tenacity.

In the Alps
Dr. Grief stole a very large sum of money from the south African government and moved to France, to the French Alps. He moved into the Point Blanc academy with his clones and waited patiently for sixteen years before they became mature enough to follow his stead at world domination. He hired a doctor named Baxter from London to start altering the clones' appearences and manipulate the whole second floor of the castle into a perfect copy of the first floor and replace all dormitories in the second floor with copies of those on the first.

Project Gemini
It had come to Dr. Grief's attention that families with fortunes had children who were, in essence, troubled. Parents who ignored their children and children with complete disrespect and disappointment for their parents. These children became Grief's targets. Dr. Grief turned Point Blanc asylum into Point Blanc academy and began a business with his partner, Eva Stellenbosch, and together ran the place. The families began sending in their children hoping for a better turnout, and Dr. Grief began altering his clones to resemble the original children. He kidnapped the real children in the middle of the night after around a week's assimilation and then he replaced them with the altered clones, which, as the clones were identical to their originals, made it seem like nothing odd had happened. The only visible "difference" was that the clones seemed much more energetic and hard-working than before.

Catastrophe
Things did not go unnoticed forever; and when a wealthy business president from New York believed his son was not all he seemed, he called MI6, who of course contacted Alex Rider, a teenage agent they had recruited a month ago. They told him the businessman had been assassinated and that around the same time, a Russian general named Viktor Ivanov, whose son was also at Point Blanc, had been killed after an argument with his son, Dimitry. Alex Rider's job was to infiltrate Point Blanc disguised as a student and find out what was happening. MI6 gave him gadgets and although Alex was a litle unnerved by the eeriness and emptiness of the academy, he befriended a boy named James Sprintz, son of a superbillionaire, only to have him replaced by a clone of Dr. Grief (although Alex didn't know this was a clone) with the real Sprintz held captive in the dungeon cells. Alex explored the academy and found the cells. He realized, upon seeing the real boys in the cells, that Grief had made clones of them, and was captured by Dr. Grief who had discovered his disguise and knew he was with MI6. Dr. Grief captured Alex and boasted to him about his plans for world conquest, and imprisoned Alex, only to have Alex escape by skiing down the mountain and reaching MI6, and Alex returned with a load of SAS soldiers who gunned down the guards and rescued the real boys, arresting the clones immediately. In the chaos, Eva Stellenbosch, assistant director, was killed and Dr. Grief attempted to leave in a helicopter. He saw Alex as he flew upwards and smirked, waving goodbye to him, but an angry Alex rammed a snowmobile into Dr. Grief's helicopter, killing the evil scientist and destroying his chopper, sending it crashing into the hillside below.

Legacy
Later that week, Alex was called in to see his principal about his numerous absences. His housekeeper, Jack, said she thought he had just come in and gone out, but Alex was too tired and pissed off to notice. Again, the school cleaner said he thought Alex had just entered. Alex entered nonetheless, and asked the principal what it was he wanted to talk about, but froze when he himself turned round in the principal's chair. It turned out to be the final clone, named Julius Grief, who had escaped capture. Julius was now on the warpath to kill Alex, whom he blamed for the destruction of the Gemini Project and the loss of his "father." Julius attempted to shoot Alex, but Alex, knowing how difficult it was for Julius to kill someone identical to him, backfired onto the rug just as the bullet went off. Julius ran after Alex as Alex ran out of the office, and Alex set off gases inside the science lab to evade and deter Julius. Julius persisted, thanks to his father's determination, and ran up to the top of the school, following Alex. Alex and Julius fought until Alex eventually knocked Julius into a hole, with flames closing in.