Grief and Mrs Stellenbosch are both revealed to be supporters of the apartheid regime and former agents of the South African Bureau of State Security. Believing that the black population would not be able to run South Africa and seeing the rest of the world are against the regime, Grief thinks he would be better suited to rule the entire world, and he cloned sixteen copies of himself during the 1980s using stolen money from the South African government. Grief pays plastic surgeon Dr. Baxter to surgically alter Grief's 14-year-old clones to resemble the boys in the academy. The clones will later take the positions of the boys without their parents noticing. Grief and his clones will take their assets and eventually rule the world, taking over every field of human life when their time comes, as the parents are leaders in their respective fields (Tom McMorin's mother runs newspapers, for example; Hugo Vries' father, Rudi, owns a fifty per cent stake in the world's diamond mining market; James Sprintz's father, Dieter, is a multimillionaire financier; and Michael J Roscoe, as stated, ran his electronics empire, leaving it all to Paul). The parents Roscoe and Ivanov were both killed because they became suspicious of their "sons'" behaviour. Grief imprisons Alex, planning to dissect him alive the next day for a biology class, but Alex manages to escape, using his exploding earring to blow the cell door open. He improvises a snowboard (using an ironing board and his Discman saw) to escape from the academy, but Grief sends two of his guards to take him down. However, Alex manages to outwit the pursuing guards, who are on snowmobiles, and almost makes it to the bottom of the mountain but encounters a machine gun, set at the foot of the mountain previously by Grief as a failsafe, waiting for him. As the man fires, Alex jumps on top of an incoming train to evade the shots but falls and passes out. Alex is taken to hospital in Grenoble, where a visiting Mrs Stellenbosch is told that Alex has died, and she observes a British Army group carrying a coffin, ostensibly containing Alex's corpse, off for repatriation and funeral. However, it is revealed that Alex is alive, thanks to the SAS unit (who were operating in the mountains, following Alex during his escape and radioing for help), and that his death has been faked to throw the academy off-guard.