Anthony Horowitz is pretty creative in coming up with new ways to keep bringing an increasingly reluctant Alex back to M16.

But a simple card game between them rapidly leads to a duel to the death - one that could result in the destruction of an entire country. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.The journalist gets a taste of what life would be like if he ever mentioned the name Alex Rider again.

During the journey, Sabina's father, Edward Pleasure, tells Alex about their host Desmond McCain: the story involves how McCain was found, as a baby, abandoned in a bag of McCain's Oven Chips (which is where his name comes from), his time as a professional boxer, becoming a property developer and MP for the Conservative Party, imprisonment for fraud, and apparent conversion to Christianity and founding a charity.But a simple card game between them rapidly leads to a duel to the death – one that could result in the destruction of an entire country. McCain meets him and tells him, over a dinner of ostrich that night, about his plan: to bring about a biblical plague that will destroy half the continent of Africa to earn billions of dollars, pounds, euros and other currencies through a fake charity appeal by First Aid (showing the Elm's Cross video), arguing that his plan comes from a lifetime belief that money is power and respect. To destroy the population of Africa would make Mccain a very rich man because he would be able to scam people out of their donations. The bad guys stopped Alex on his way to school, chopped his hair up, stuck him in a wheel chair, chucked some ugly glasses on him, and drugged him just enough so that he’s paralyzed, his mouth is hanging open, and acting all brain damaged. Jack congratulates Alex that it's his fifteenth birthday shortly and promises him that MI6 won't ever use him again.