Alex Rider Wiki
Register
Advertisement

This is one of the most important people on the island. His name is Magnus Payne and he's the head of security

—Nikolei Drevin introducing Payne

Magnus Payne, also known as Kaspar, is a secondary antagonist in Ark Angel.

Ark Angel[]

The leader of an eco-terrorist organization created by Nikolei Drevin to act as a scapegoat for his plan to destroy the Pentagon in Washington. Kaspar is described as having a map of the world tattooed all over his head. The other members of Force Three are Combat Jacket, Silver Tooth, Steel Watch and Spectacles (nicknamed by Alex after their distinguishing features) and Kaspar is their leader. They are instructed by Drevin to kidnap his son, Paul Drevin, and cut off his little finger. However, Alex interferes by posing as Paul. Kaspar threatens Alex but he manages to convince him that he is not Paul, but he says that he plans to kill him anyway. He traps Alex in a building and sets fire to it, but Alex manages to escape.

When Alex visits Drevin's island, Flamingo Bay, he is met by Magnus Payne, Drevin's head of security. Payne is in fact Kaspar in disguise, and he wears a latex face mask and a ginger wig in order to disguise himself. Magnus then tells Drevin about Alex. After Alex is caught and they are interrogating him before they kill him, Payne reveals himself to be Kaspar. On Drevin's orders, he guns down the four other members of Force Three in order to make authorities believe that they had been behind an attack on Drevin's island. (They later lay them out on the beach as though there was a real battle). Kaspar locks up Alex and Tamara Knight, one of Drevin's former employees, in cages and taunts them before leaving. Kaspar does not appear again until the very end of the novel. After Drevin's death, Alex is sent into space to stop Ark Angel from destroying Washington. He is unaware that Kaspar has already been sent up to Ark Angel to plant the bomb, due to the fact that it would have detonated too early due to the vibrations in the rocket. Drevin sent Kaspar up with the bomb so that he could set it off once it reached the space station. Kaspar sees Alex and tries to kill him with a Sabatier knife, but Alex throws a hammer at Kaspar and forces him to drop his weapon. The pair of them struggle in zero-gravity until Kaspar starts to strangle Alex. Alex then opens a window facing the sun and blinds him. Alex then kicks him and Kaspar falls back and gets stabbed in the back of the head by the knife that has been floating in zero gravity wich he dropped earlier. When the knife pierces him it is described as the knife entering the city of Beijing. This is a reference to the tattoo of the earth around his head with Beijing, China on the back of his head.

Abilities[]

Magnus Payne was gone; Kasper stood in his place

—Payne revealing his second identity as Kaspar

Magnus Payne was highly intelligent. His intellect was sharp enough for him to command Force Three effectively enough to attract the attention of the CIA and MI6. He was a powerful fighter and specialised in hand-to-hand combat, and was able to briefly hold his own against Alex Rider. He was a master of terrorist techniques, but this may have come from Nikolei Drevin's guidance

Advertisement