The novel commences with twelve nuclear missiles speeding on their way to make contact with a comet, passing by in a relatively close orbit to earth. The ensuing debris and rock matter, destroys almost all the satellites orbiting planet earth. This action is followed from inside NASA headquarters where they are completely perplexed as to why the comet should explode.
 Throughout this action, the reader is aware of an as yet anonymous person monitoring, and obviously responsible for this explosion. A scene is set in London?s Hyde Park where two lovers are enraptured by the lighting up of the night sky!
Concurrently, on the other side of the world from NASA headquarters, where the president is now being informed of the situation by an increasingly embarrassed employee, we are introduced to Inspecteur Dupont, the leading character and anti-hero of the novel. This latter, who is described as being short; large if not fat at one hundred and thirty kilos; bald and alcoholic, manoeuvres his bulk along the slippery ice covered paths in Megève, located in the French Alps. His remit is to hand out parking tickets. He marches up and down the streets, interrupting his vigil with numerous visits to the local café, for a glass of vin chaud (warm wine).
One evening Inspecteur Dupont overhears a quick scrambled conversation on the CB radio band, and wonders what it was. He gets in touch with his friend Renald Roure, who works for Interpol in Paris. They decide that it probably is nothing worth mentioning, but that Dupont should keep his ears open in any case!
Whilst Dupont gets shouted at and insulted by his chief, the president of the united states receives a phone call, from a certain individual claiming to have destroyed the satellites intentionally, and having a duplicate set of identical satellites. So as to ensure world order, and to try to avert chaos, he demands the sum of US$ 10Bn. He subsequently proves that he is responsible for the destruction, by launching a satellite for an inconspicuous TV station. This leaves the United States government aswell as all the major governments in an inextricable situation, and panic erupts in the White House.
Inspecteur Dupont continues his rounds on the streets and almost gives a parking ticket to a car which he then recognises as belonging to Signorina Ilaria de Medici, an incredibly beautiful and rich Italian lady, who owns a chalet on the Mont d?Arbois, one of the most expensive areas in the French Alps. Whilst in the café he meets an old friend who mentions to him that he has heard some trucks in the mountains late one night, when he was staying in his hut by the ski slopes. Dupont decides that he owes it to Renald to go and investigate, even though he just wants to stay in the café, and enjoy his vin chaud!
The NSA security staff and all of the federal bureaus are completely unable to track down the individual and are stumped by their lack of use of satellite technology. The terrorist in turn phones and mocks them tauntingly. Dupont decides that he must meet this woman, the Signorina Ilaria de Medici, and uses the parking offence as an excuse. He goes to her house, hoping to come to a ?reasonable agreement.? Rather, he enters uninvited, and creeps around the house, under the impression that there might be an intruder ? other than himself. He eventually locates the Signorina, as she is taking a shower. He stops and stares, mesmerised for a short while, stunned by the erotic and sensuous beauty that he could see before him. Then, realising what he is doing he runs out of the house in shame!
After a few drinks in the café, he eventually decides to go up into the mountains and investigate those trucks that his friend had heard. He spends the entire day in the mountains, and including a bit of skiing, a bit of drinking, and some day dreaming about the love of his life and her shower, he eventually stumbles across a metal gate, camouflaged and set into a cliff, and into which there lead many tire tracks.
The anonymous phone caller, who has now been identified as of German origin, has demanded this huge amount of money, deliverable in multiple currencies and diamonds, sets a date and location; Miami International Airport, high noon. Dupont phones his friend Renald Roure, and whilst the Americans are setting up and elaborate trap, Renald appears in Megève with a units of commandos. They bring Dupont with them, much against the latter?s will, and storm this cave. Here they find twelve empty missile silos, and are subsequently seen by the German megalomaniac.
The scene in Miami airport is very tense, involving snipers, Marines and Paratroopers waiting for the arrival of someone to take charge of the money. An aircraft carrier is waiting in the Gulf of Mexico, with some F-18 Hornets, and a couple of Apache helicopters are ready and waiting.
Soon a 737 jet appears, and a man strolls out, calm as ice. He demands that the men come out of the hangar where they were waiting, and move their cars over to the plane. He forces one and then two to enter the plane and help load the suitcases of money. Having searched the men, he missed a few knifes.
The president and his team are panicking at the way things are going and try to get the two commandos out of the plane. Their radio transmission is intercepted and the terrorists respond by setting up a smoke screen around the plane. They then start to fly off. The snipers are thwarted in their attempts to stop the plane by their comrades who are now chained to the wheels. The two commandos inside the plane, deciding that they are to die in any case, start to fight, and are quickly killed. However, the president and his team, realising this, order mercy killings, and attempt to stop the plane. They fail and the plane takes off.
Dupont is now a local hero, after finding the cave, and is suffering from the pressure of the journalists. He wants some time off, but his chief just shouts at him.
In the Seychelles Islands, Dr. Sandrine Vaz, an eminent marine biologist, has been hired to investigate the deaths of numerous schools of fish around the islands. She is stumped and with her team conducts many experiments and water samples to help her come to a conclusion.
The 737 manages to take off and flies away. A few minutes later, it has not appeared in the vicinity of the helicopters, and panic erupts. They have lost the plane and not even the AWACS flight above them can locate it. Chaos reigns in the White House.
Sandrine Vaz goes exploring off a coral reef that she finds interesting and possible suspicious and finds a camouflaged gate underwater. She is almost killed by the submarine that emerges! When she calls her old boy friend, Renald Roure, this latter decides that there is something strange, but probably nothing serious in this incident. After all, submarines are normally underwater, and there is nothing illegal about having a submarine and a gate. So he decides to send Dupont down on his holiday. He expects nothing to come of it.
The AWACS flight manages to locate an intermittent infrared heat signature from a low flying source, and track it to Orlando air space. The president immediately launches the F-18 hornets to intercept. When they arrive on the scene, however, the AWACS flight has lost the signature over Orlando. So they are out into a holding pattern, waiting for news. Eventually, a radar technician on the AWACS flight makes a brave decision and sends one of the F-18?s to investigate a cross Atlantic Swiss Air flight bound for France. When he catches up to the Swiss Air flight, he finds not one but two planes! The other plane is flying in the radar shadow of the larger plane.
A very tense scene ensues, resulting in the F-18 pilot threatening to shoot down the suspected terrorist plane. Eventually though, they recognise that they cannot shoot down the plane, if not only for the fact that there is all the money on board, but also that they are not sure if it is in fact the terrorist?s plane. The F-18 turns back in failure!
The reader then follows the terrorist, names Helmut Koenig, as he reminisces about his personal ideologies. Discovering that the man is in fact an ardent Nazi, one understands that he has plans to create the Master race, and the Third Reich, where Hitler (his idol) failed, using the money and his own satellites to aid him.
Inspecteur Dupont has at this stage arrived in the Seychelles and is suffering from the heat and humidity. He is further horrified to discover that not only does he have to swim, but he also has to scuba dive, two activities that he has never done in his life! After much coaxing and prodding, Dr. Sandrine Vaz and her team manage to get Dupont into the water, and eventually scuba diving.
The terrorists on the 737 escaping the United States fly across the Atlantic, and over Africa, into the Indian Ocean. Literally into the ocean, as one of the terrorists, Johan, forces the pilots to stall the plane and crash it into the sea. Then as it sinks, the terrorists exit the plane, complete with diving equipment, and rendezvous at the bottom with the ?Severnaya,? a Soviet submarine. Transferring the suitcases from plane to submarine, the money has effectively disappeared from the surface of the world, along with the plane.
Dupont, Sandrine and her team now investigating the area where she had seen the camouflaged gate, they are bewildered at their lack of success, and are interrupted by the sudden appearance of the ?Severnaya.? They are shot at by a torpedo, but manage to survive, but their plane is destroyed, while the submarine disappears into the now apparent gate. They now have to swim many kilometres until they can get past the coral reef and to the island, where there is a scientific community in residence. This journey proves fatal for one member of the team.
Eventually they arrive at the island and radio for help, soon after returning to the Plantation Club, the hotel on Mahé (the main island) where they are staying. They phone Renald, and recount to him their adventures. He, sure that this is the missing link in his investigations, arrives eight hours later, having ?appropriated? a unit of US SEALs stationed on the island. Whilst the president of the united states is facing a lot of public pressure from a disgruntled nation, and is unaware of the activities on the other side of the globe, Renald and a loudly protesting Dupont, along with the SEALs storm the underwater base. Discovering not only the submarine and the money, they also manage to kill Koenig and rescue Sandrine who had been taken hostage. The final scene is very fast paced and exciting, culminating in only three survivors.
The epilogue takes place in the French mountains, where Renald recounts to Dupont that the satellites are still missing. The only clue that he has is an old key that he found tied around Koenig?s neck. Possibly recognising it, Dupont leads Renald to the basement of the tourist office in Megève where they uncover an old wooden door, which leads them into a cavern system underneath the town. In this convoluted system of caverns, they find all the duplicate satellites!