The President's Plane Is Missing

by Robert J Serling

  “Pickle?” he ventured.

  “Pickle, mess, snafu—whatever you want to call it. I don’t mind telling you gentlemen, this status of Acting President has been something of a strain and now it appears both the status and the strain could go on indefinitely. Not that I have any ambition to be sworn in as President, I assure you. But I still feel more like a figurehead than a nation’s leader under these circumstances.”

  “You shouldn’t feel that way at all, Mr. Vice President,” Sharkey said with as much sympathy as he could muster. “We all realize the difficulties of your position. There isn’t much we can do about it at this point.”

  “That’s exactly why I called this meeting,” Madigan said. “And that’s why I’ve also invited FBI Director Reardon, Mr. Packer of the CIA and General Geiger, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Plus General Coston, of course, and the Chief Justice. It’s my considered judgment that we can’t continue this way forever. First, I’d appreciate an up-to-date briefing from our two generals, here, and the FBI and the CIA, on any developments in this mystery. Second,

  I’d like to pick your brains, so to speak, on the advisability of declaring Jeremy Haines officially dead.”

  An uneasy silence from every man in the Cabinet Room greeted the Vice President’s words. Madigan sensed unspoken reactions that ranged from disbelief to resentment, but he already had decided to plunge his foot into the ice water of probable resistance.

  “Mind you,” he added in a conciliatory tone, “I said advisability. I’m not saying we should declare him dead. But I do feel, rather strongly, that this distasteful subject should be discussed. Because of that damned flood, we may never find his body. And it seems to me, gentlemen, that we should be asking ourselves if there’s any kind of a time limit for such a step. A sort of a legal minimum for a missing President, so to speak.”

  “The President,” Sharkey reminded him, “may be missing for other reasons than inability to locate his body at the crash site. As we all know, it’s not unlikely he wasn’t even on the plane.”

  “True,” Madigan said, “which is further justification for our pursuing this matter. If he wasn’t aboard, then why hasn’t he come forward? He may have gone insane. He may have been murdered. He may have committed suicide. I’m afraid, gentlemen, that in the absence of any clue as to his whereabouts we might as well start seriously considering the probability that he’s dead. So again, I feel I must put this before you for discussion. And I’d like to ask the Attorney General for an opinion. And then the Chief Justice, if I may.”

  Attorney General Howard Kelly, a broad-shouldered man whose totally bald dome almost seemed to have reflective qualities, simply stared at the Vice President.

  “I don’t have any offhand opinion,” he said slowly. “There’s no real precedent. I suppose we’d have to follow the District of Columbia’s statutes on when a D.C. resident can be declared dead. That’s one year, I believe. I’d have to check into it.”

  “Mr. Chief Justice?” Madigan was feeling the intoxicating exhilaration of Authority and Command, now blissfully oblivious of the reason he had raised the issue. Namely, Hester had raised it herself when he called her to tell her about the flood.

  The Chief Justice shook his head in a gesture that combined disapproval toward Madigan and a veto of Kelly’s suggestion. “The President is not a legal resident of the District,” he said. “He votes in and therefore is a resident of his home state. We would have to consult the authorities in Mr. Haines’s own state on this matter. If they should be consulted, that is.”

  Secretary of State Sharkey could no longer hide his anger. “I would suggest, Mr. Vice President, that this entire discussion is unnecessary at this time. I assume we have many more important things to consider.”

  “And I would suggest, Mr. Secretary,” Madigan said tautly, “there is hardly anything more important than telling the American people exactly how long they are to be without a President. A leader, I might say.”

  “They have a leader in the Acting President,” Sharkey replied—suppressing a strong desire to add “I hope.”

  “I thank the Secretary of State for his expression of confidence,” Madigan said with an attempt at a friendly smile that somehow wandered into a sneer. “As God is my witness, I’m merely trying to dispel the clouds of uncertainty that surely exist not only in this country but among our allies. I cannot emphasize too strongly, as God is my witness, that I do not want to be President of the United States. But we must face reality, gentlemen. We can’t drag this thing on forever.”

  “Drag what on forever?” Sharkey asked with open rudeness. “If Haines were sick, unable to perform the duties of office, you’d carry on for him as long as necessary. You have the same responsibility in this case. He happens to be missing, not sick, and that’s why we have an Acting President. Until we are positive he’s dead, this subject is moot.”

  “I agree,” the Vice President said, again with forced cordiality. “Except that everything seems to point to his being dead. Which is why I’ve brought the matter up. General Geiger, would you or General Coston have any enlightening information on this phase? The investigation, I mean.”

  The towering chairman of the Joint Chiefs crossed his long legs and nodded at the Air Force chief. “I’ll let Bob answer that, Mr. Vice President.”

  Coston glanced at his superior reproachfully. He had welcomed the summons to the Cabinet meeting with all the nervousness of a pilot ordered to land a B-58 supersonic bomber on the shortest runway at Washington National. He possessed the military man’s inherent distrust and dislike of politicians and, having just been through the harrowing meat grinder of a press conference, he did not relish running the gamut of a Cabinet interrogation.

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Vice President, I have nothing new to report,” Coston said unhappily.

  “Well,” Madigan said, “perhaps you can brief us on the significance of this flood business. I gather from the news dispatches over the White House tickers that search operations have been suspended. Is that correct?”

  “Correct, sir.”

  “For how long, General?”

  “I wish I knew, Mr. Vice President. Water’s still too deep for any digging. Depends on how fast things dry out. Even when we resume, Lord knows if we’d find much. The flash flood not only drowned wreckage but washed some of it maybe a mile or more away. It’s sure delayed things, that’s all I can tell you right now.”

  “General Coston,” Madigan said, “I don’t want to assign you to any limb, but I think we’d all appreciate your own thoughts on the prospects of finding the President’s body. Assuming he was on the plane.”

  Coston gazed at the ceiling for a second and the Secretary of State, sitting only a few feet away, noticed that the airman’s eyes were bloodshot. He wondered how much sleep Coston had been able to grab since that awful night, and he felt a throb of compassion for this dedicated officer.

  The general hesitated. “In view of the preceding discussion,” he answered dryly, “you’re putting me on quite a spot.”

  “I realize that, General,” Madigan said. “But I think the Cabinet would benefit from your considered opinion.” Coston lit a cigarette before replying, the act giving him time to compose his words carefully. “Okay, I’ll tell you exactly how I feel. First off, I’m convinced the President wasn’t on Air Force One. When we start digging again, I figure we’ll be looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, only it’s a needle that wasn’t there to begin with. You asked me, Mr. Vice President, to judge the situation if we could assume he was aboard. In that case, I’d have to say that we should have found some trace of him by now.”

  “That’s in the category of pure theory, isn’t it?” Secretary of Labor Gilbert put in. “Some bodies you haven’t been able to identify. That of the President could . . .” He paused, as if unwilling to bring up the indelicate possibility of Jeremy Haines’s body being dismembered. Coston grasped his embarrassment.

  “Let me
put it this way, sir. We’ve been unable to identify five bodies. Four of them were crew members and the fifth, well, that’s our mystery man. But he has been identified, in a negative sense. In other words, we know he wasn’t the President. However, when I use the word ‘unidentified’ I’m referring to our inability to point to any body or piece of a body and say, ‘That’s Colonel Henderson or that’s part of Major Foster.’ ”

  Someone at the end of the long, circular Cabinet table involuntarily sucked in his breath at Coston’s blunt phrasing. The general continued in a matter-of-fact tone that was more chilling for its very impersonality. “Now, I said before I don’t think we’ll ever find Mr. Haines’s body because I don’t think he was on board. I base this, first, on the evidence that the unknown passenger probably was posing as the President. Second, we have found enough portions of bodies to add up to the four crew members—so many torsos, so many arms and legs, and so forth. I apologize for possibly indulging in some unpleasant language but we haven’t found any, uh, leftover portions. Is my reasoning clear?”

  “Only too clear,” murmured Defense Secretary Tobin. “Very clear,” Madigan agreed. “And in support of my contention that the President is dead.”

  Sharkey tossed at the Vice President a look of utter disgust. “And just how did you reach that conclusion?” he asked.

  “Simple. If he was on the plane, he had to be killed. If he wasn’t on the plane, he would have come forth by now. I.e., he is dead.”

  “There are,” the Secretary of State said slowly, coating each word with undisguised contempt, “a number of possible explanations of the President’s disappearance and the reason or reasons for his silence. Until his death is verified beyond any doubt, I consider this entire discussion not only a waste of time but an insult to the President of the United States.”

  Sharkey had thrown down the gantlet. Frederick James Madigan picked it up.

  “Perhaps,” the Vice President said, “your feelings are indicative of unwillingness to serve in my Cabinet.”

  “This isn’t your Cabinet, sir,” Sharkey snapped. “We were appointed to serve at the will of Jeremy Haines. And I’ll be damned if I’ll resign.”

  “Just a minute, both of you,” Defense Secretary Tobin interrupted. “This is no time for a family fight.”

  “The Secretary of State,” Madigan intoned with pompous dignity, “has cast aspersions on my integrity. I think an apology is in order.”

  Secretary of Labor Gilbert, whose temper had a short fuse and whose vocabulary contained a residue from his early days as an automobile assembly line worker, slammed his fist on the table.

  “I think you’re full of crap, Madigan,” he snarled. “Let’s wait until we bury Haines before we swear you in.” Madigan flushed. Some of the false facade of courage instilled in him by his wife began to crumble. He realized now that the Cabinet’s sympathy toward his difficult position could not be translated into automatic support. With the wavering of incisiveness came an instinctive decision to be Noble. He rose and put his hand out toward the Secretary of State. “Jim, I guess I’m the one to apologize. I’m sorry. I’ve been under a terrible strain. As God is my witness, I’m just trying to do what’s right. What Jeremy would have wanted me to do.”

  Sharkey, surprised at the sudden surrender, accepted the handshake. “No apology is necessary, Mr. Vice President. We also want to do what the President would desire, and that includes giving you all the assistance possible. May I suggest we take up what you proposed at the start of this meeting? Namely, a report from the FBI and/or the CIA.” Madigan nodded in the direction of FBI Director Reardon, who got to his feet with the reluctance of an unprepared schoolboy called on to recite. The Cabinet seemed to let out its collective breath, relieved at the end of the quarrel.

  “There has been some speculation that the unknown body on Air Force One was that of Senator Haines, the President’s brother,” Reardon began. “The FBI has investigated this possibility and is satisfied that the senator left Washington the night of the accident on a planned fishing trip in Maine. Now I—”

  “Just a minute, Mr. Reardon,” the Vice President said. “Perhaps you might phrase this in a different manner. Is the FBI satisfied that Senator Haines was not on the plane?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve already reported to me that the fingerprints of the mystery passenger did not match those of the senator’s. I wanted the Cabinet apprised of this fact.”

  “Yes, sir. We haven’t ascertained the ownership of the prints yet, but they definitely weren’t those of Senator Haines. If I may proceed, Mr. Vice President?”

  “Please do.”

  “The FBI, I regret to say, has been unable to determine the whereabouts of the President. We have checked hundreds of leads, reports, rumors, clues and possibilities. All efforts have had negative results. The investigation is continuing. At this time, that is all I have to report. I’m sorry.”

  “Mr. Reardon,” Madigan said, “the Cabinet might be interested in the whereabouts of Senator Haines. I, for one, am at a loss to explain how a United States senator could remain out of touch this long, in this period of national crisis, and with his own brother missing and possibly dead.”

  “Frankly, Mr. Vice President,” Reardon said earnestly, “so am I. The authorities in Maine have checked every lake, every fishing spot, in the state. There’s absolutely no sign that the senator even went to Maine. We do know he went as far as Boston. There his trail ended. There was no reservation made in his name on any northbound flights leaving Boston, no indication that he rented a car in Boston or took a train north. Obviously, he still isn’t in Boston or he would have heard about the President. But where he is, we don’t know.”

  The Cabinet chewed over this admission briefly.

  “Does the FBI think the disappearance of the senator has any connection with that of the President?” Tobin inquired.”

  “Not as far as we can determine,” Reardon replied. “I would say we have two separate events with no apparent connection. But I hesitate to label the senator as a disappearance case, Mr. Secretary.”

  “There must be a connection,” Tobin insisted. “Two brothers, one President and the other a senator, both disappear the same night and you call this a coincidence?”

  “I didn’t call it that, Mr. Secretary,” the FBI chief remonstrated mildly. “I said there’s no apparent connection at present. We’re still looking into it.”

  “I’d like to ask the CIA’s views on this,” the Defense Secretary pressed. “Are there any indications of an international plot behind this whole affair?”

  Director Julius Packer of the CIA took an enormous curved pipe out of his mouth and sleepily blinked his deep-set eyes. His voice emerged from a huge chest in a kind of hoarse, gravelly rumble. “None whatsoever,” he assured the Cabinet.

  “You seem unusually confident about this,” Madigan noted. “As you know, when all this started we put SAC on a twenty-four-hour alert in full expectation that Russia or Red China might start something, while we were in a confused state. Would the CIA recommend suspending or easing our alert?”

  “That’s a military decision,” Packer answered, “and military decisions aren’t in our province. We can only advise and—”

  “We’d appreciate your advice,” the Vice President told him.

  “Well then,” Packer said, “let me say that we’ve seen no signs of hostile or overt actions on the part of either China or the Soviet Union, and furthermore no evidence that their agents played any role in the events of the past few days. But if you want my personal opinion, I’d keep our bombers and missiles on an instant retaliatory basis. Until further notice.”

  “Precaution, hunch or suspicion?” Tobin asked. “Precaution, mostly. A little bit of suspicion. Certainly no hunch on my part.’ It’s just that, well . . .” The CIA official hesitated.

  “Go ahead, Julius,” Madigan urged.

  “Well, just because we haven’t been able to unearth
anything pointing to a fine Commie hand in all this doesn’t mean there isn’t. I tend to agree with General Coston that the President wasn’t even on Air Force One. And yet, if that’s the case, I can’t understand why he hasn’t revealed his whereabouts. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t add up, and it worries me. We have a totally illogical situation here and maybe we shouldn’t be looking for logical answers.”

  “If the Reds wanted to pull the trigger,” Sharkey observed, “they could have done it in the first twenty-four hours when we were in a state of shock. As far as our Russian and Chinese desks at State are concerned, Peking and Moscow appear just as puzzled as we are.”

  “Their puzzlement,” Packer said, “could be a cover-up. If they were instrumental in arranging the President’s disappearance—or maybe his murder—they wouldn’t be bragging about it openly. I’ll say it again. Let’s keep that alert in effect.”

  Madigan, not a little grateful for the altered atmosphere, looked around the table and found nods of approval. “I so order, General Geiger,” he said.

  The Cabinet meeting droned on to other matters, important items such as the latest Mars space probe and such unimportant items as Secretary of Transportation Harvey Brubaker’s plan to bring the independent Civil Aeronautics Board into his own agency. He had been slapped down the first two times he had proposed it to Haines but decided he might spring it on Madigan. The Vice President liked Brubaker, possibly because Harvey was the only top official in Washington who was basically more incompetent than himself.

  Unfortunately, Madigan’s sensitivity was bleeding from every pore after Sharkey’s attack and he was in no mood to support Brubaker’s obvious attempt at empire-building. He was well aware that most of the Cabinet regarded the Transportation Secretary as Jeremy Haines’s poorest appointment, one stemming from a combination of bad advice and political pressure.

  Sharkey and Gilbert left the White House by the back door, the latter noting with unconcealed sarcasm that only Brubaker had departed via the lobby outside the press room so he could talk to reporters.