*The article contains spoilers from the book: The Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon
The book starts with Commander Robert Bellamy, an agent of ONI (The Office of Naval Intelligence) when he gets called to receive a mission on behalf of the NSA.
He is told that he must locate an unknown number of witnesses of an experimental government balloon that crashed in Switzerland.
What Robert Bellamy finds strange is that he is only given the date of the crash, the place where it happened, and the fact that the witnesses were part of a tour bus, everything else is a mystery.
He is given an unlimited budget and is told to work strictly undercover, so without further ado, he packs his bags and leaves for his mission.
Once he arrives in Switzerland, the first thing that Robert Bellamy does is track down which tour buses were driving in that area, on that day.
Succeeding to get the right tour company, he gets the driver’s name and heads towards his first witness.
After meeting Hans Beckerman (the bus driver), he learns that the mysterious balloon has been a spaceship. Still, after no conclusive evidence, Robert leaves to find the driver of a tow truck after finding out that the bus passengers weren’t all the witnesses.
The second witness found; Robert leaves to locate the one who drove the car that Fritz Mandell towed.
The car was rented under the name Leslie Mothershed, a photographer who took a photo of all the witnesses with the spaceship.
Robert thought he had hit a jackpot on his mission and hurried to Britain to locate him.
Unable to get the photograph on his first meeting with the man, Robert decided to break into his house to get it but that plan turned fruitless when Leslie Mothershed’s whole apartment went up in flames along with him inside of it.
Now at a loss for what to do next, Commander Bellamy almost loses hope when he remembers a hint about another passenger that he got from Hans Beckerman.
He immediately arrives at the University of Bern to question them about any German professors they have there.
Pinpointing the right one, he meets the professor who happens to be good at remembering people’s voices and he helps Robert by telling him the countries where the other passengers are from.
Following that information, Robert left for Rome, where he figured out the witness was a priest.
Although the priest was heavily hospitalized, Robert managed to get clues of the whereabouts of the next witness.
After that, he managed to locate Dan Wayne, a rancher in debt, and William Mann, a ruthless banker.
The next lead had him going to Russia to locate the only female witness, a librarian, Olga Romanchanko.
She gives him a clue for the next witness, who happens to be a lobbyist.
After going back to the US to confirm the witness, Robert hurries to Hungary to find the last witness and finally be done with his last mission.
The man Robert was looking for was called Laslo Bushfekete and he was a carnival owner.
Upon meeting him, Robert learns that there might have been another woman present at the time of the crash, but as it was still unconfirmed, Robert decides to hold back on telling the NSA about that fact.
As he heads back to Switzerland to ask the bus driver about the other woman, Robert finally learns that Hans Beckerman died as soon as he left, along with every single witness that he had identified.
Now finding himself in the middle of an international conspiracy, Robert soon finds that he too is on their list of getting assassinated.
Undercover and on the run from the government, Robert soon finds himself surrounded by enemies so he decides to get the help of a woman named Pier Valli and gets offered refuge in her home.
Although she intended to betray him initially, Pier ultimately helps him escape.
After escaping many close calls on the road, Robert gets into contact with his ex-wife Susan and her new husband who offer their private yacht to help him escape.
Although he didn’t want to get Susan into trouble as he still has feelings for her, Robert had no choice left so he decided to take them up on the offer.
Slipping away from the government once again, Robert decides to get into contact with a good friend of his in Paris, Li Po, who finally tells him the whole truth about Operation Doomsday.
Li Po tells him how aliens are really real and the government doesn’t want to create mass panic, revealing that a man only known as Janus is behind everything, but Li Po also betrays him as he reveals himself to be the Chinese connection.
Killing his friend after a terrible fight, Robert is getting patched up when he has a dream of an alien masquerading as a woman, who endorses him to find her and hand over a piece of the spaceship he had previously picked up.
Now understanding who the other woman at the site of the crash was, Robert resolves himself to call the government and reveal about another witness.
The government is now in a dilemma, and Robert asks for safe passage to Switzerland and to have Janus meet him in person.
The secret services themselves escort Robert as he reaches Switzerland safely, heading straight to the site of the crash that started all of this.
The alien with the form of a woman was waiting for him, and he handed over the part of the UFO he had picked up the last time he was here.
The piece helped the alien get into contact with the rest of her species.
Soon the helicopter with the enemies arrives, and Robert is faced with his ex-wife being held as a bargain by his father figure from the government, Admiral Whittaker who reveals himself as Janus.
But, they’re all saved when the aliens arrive with their mothership. They take Admiral Whittaker, General Hilliard (the one who gave the mission to Robert in the first place), and Monte Banks (his ex-wife’s corrupt husband) to their mothership to teach them.
All the members who started Operation Doomsday have been rounded up and Robert figures he starts advocating to save the planet because that’s what the aliens had come to warn them about.
