Tintin Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus are on their way to Sydney for an international conference on space exploration. While their flight makes a refueling stop in Jakarta''s Kemayoran Airport they unexpectedly meet their old friend Piotr Skut (see The Red Sea Sharks for backstory) who is now the chief pilot for eccentric millionaire Laszlo Carreidas. A short time earlier the Captain had erroneously taken the somewhat dishevelled Carreidas for a tramp and surreptitiously slipped him a five-dollar bill which later is taken by the oblivious Professor Calculus making the millionaire laugh for the first time in years. When introduced to Carreidas the Captain inadvertently shakes the hand of the millionaire''s secretary the tall aloof Spalding.Unable to politely refuse Carreidas''s offer of a ride on his prototype private jet Tintin and his friends join the millionaire on the way to Sydney. Carreidas plays Battleships with the Captain defeating him repeatedly by cheating with a hidden closed-circuit television camera and monitor. Unbeknownst to Carreidas and the others Spalding and two of the pilots Boehm and Colombani have been recruited to hijack the plane and bring it to a deserted volcanic island called Pulau-Pulau Bompa in the Lesser Sunda Islands. Skut is not involved in this plot; therefore he becomes a prisoner too. After a rough landing our friends are escorted out of the plane and a terrified Snowy breaks out of Tintin''s arms and runs off. Armed guards shoot at him and a mortified Tintin believes that he has died.