AMSTERDAM AIRPORT HAS DISAPPEARED! BLACKMAIL - The mass of water in its place is the work of the FFF - an Irish terrorist group who want to force Britain's and. SUBTERFUGE - The Dutch call in Detective Lieutenant van Effen - feared interrogator and undercover intimate of the criminal Krakers gang - to sabotage the FFF's plan. DISASTER - If van Effen fails and the FFF get control of the vital dyke, either Holland will sink beneath the sea or Britain will be awash with blood. Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 he joined the Royal Navy. After the war he read English at Glasgow University and became a schoolmaster. The two and a half years he spent aboard a wartime cruiser were to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his remarkably successful first novel, published in 1955. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century, the author of 29 worldwide bestsellers, many of which have been filmed.