eputy Commissioner Paul de Savigny of Geneva Airport Police is intent on destroying the pseudoreligious sect Albatross, which his teenage daughter joined and whom he has never seen since.

A flight from Moscow, diverted from Zuerich to Geneva, seems routine. But one of the passengers, Ben Lakey, is not. His girlfriend, Sigrid Sorensen, has apparently joined the Suri-sect Albatross during a nine-day journey together from Japan to Europe on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Lakey believes that Sorensen, targeted for conversion by a Suri group on the train, has been abducted or kidnapped and has not joined the sect of her own free will.

Police Commissioner de Savigny, who conceals his personal interest in Albatross, is called to investigate Lakey's claims. Before he can even start, a bizarre event menaces Lakey's flight on final descent to the runway. An old war-time Curtiss seems determined to land head-on to the Swissair-diverted Moscow flight, something Senior Air Traffic Controller Michel Oron has never seen and seems unable to prevent.

de Savigny is convinced that Suri has sent a kamikaze pilot to down the Swissair jet to kill Lakey. His obsession with the destruction of Albatross leads him first to fit the facts to his theories and then, realising his error, to fabricate evidence rather than face failure. The ultimate result is the imminent collapse of his career as a police officer.

In Albatross II, de Savigny recalls, with all the meticulous detail of a police report, the week in February 1987 that sealed his fate and the surprising aftermath.

The following are works by the same author: A King Among Pawns The Price of Enlightenment Helvetia, The Voyage of 100 Days Voices from the Cosmos Natavallia in the Maldives The Human Barnacle Last Train to Polmouth The Water Mill