The President's Plane Is Missing

by Robert J Serling

  “I hope the stupid bastard remembers that Cabinet meetings are off the record,” Gilbert growled. “I’d hate to have the country find out what went on at today’s.”

  “It would be most unfortunate,” Sharkey agreed. “Nels, do you think I was too rough on our Acting President?”

  “You weren’t rough enough. The first Cabinet session after the crash, he was a reluctant virgin. Remember? He didn’t even want to be named Acting President. I think he used the word ‘presumptuous.’ Today, he might as well have brought out the Bible and ordered Van Dyke to swear him in.”

  “I feel rather sorry for him,” the Secretary of State said. “He’s a little man in a job that’s too big for him.”

  The somewhat chastened object of their conversation, at this very moment, was talking to Newton Spellman, who had attended the Cabinet session and was now in the oval presidential office, about to get Madigan’s permission for the day’s “lid.”

  “I hope Jim Sharkey doesn’t hold a grudge,” Madigan worried. “God knows, I certainly don’t. I was just trying to be realistic about everything, Newt. Sharkey seems to resent my even calling a Cabinet meeting.”

  “I’m sure the Secretary of State is just tense and concerned, as all of us are, sir,” Spellman soothed. “I wanted to ask you if anything more was expectable today. I’d like to put the lid on and let the reporters go home reasonably early, for a change.”

  “Nothing that I know of. Go ahead.”

  “Fine, sir. Oh, one thing. Mrs. Hahn asked me to tell you that Mrs. Haines has been phoning. Wants you to call her.”

  “Mrs. Haines? Hell, Ruth probably wants to know where her wandering husband is. Well, tell Mrs. Hahn to get her. Good night, Newt.”

  “Good night, sir.” The acting press secretary left the Acting President waiting for the call to the senator’s wife. Spellman was about to go into the press room when, on impulse, he reversed his steps and returned to the presidential office in time to hear Madigan blurt:

  “Thank God, you’ve heard from him. Where the hell has he been?”

  At eight-fifty that same evening, Senator Bertrand Haines stepped off a plane at National Airport—a Royal Canadian Air Force jet, to the wonderment of the horde of reporters tipped off by Newt Spellman that the President’s brother was returning to Washington.

  The first question hurled at him concerned his use of an

  RCAF plane but Haines, looking bedraggled and harassed, shouted back, “Later. Later. I’ll talk to you all later.” An airport official bustled through the crowd of newsmen to advise the senator that National’s VIP lounge had been set aside for a press conference at the direct request of the Acting President, and Haines, reluctantly agreed to meet with the press on the spot.

  The senator was calm by then, but it was a calmness that hid his inner grief and tensions like hastily applied plaster covering up a crack on a wall. Warner Goldberg, whom Damon had assigned to the story, thought Haines looked ten years older. His hands shook as he clutched one of the several microphones planted in front of him, the knuckles turning white.

  “I suppose, gentlemen,” he started out, “some explanations are in order. I first would like to apologize for my inexcusable thoughtlessness in going off on a vacation and not letting anyone know where I was. I particularly want to apologize publicly to Vice President Madigan, who certainly deserved whatever counsel I could have given him during the past few trying days.

  “Habit, I’m afraid, can be a kind of sedative that lulls common sense to sleep. I’ve always been in the habit of wanting to be completely out of touch with the world on one of my fishing trips. They seem to refresh me and, I hope, make me a better public servant when I return with all the cobwebs dusted out of my brain. But I now realize that for a United States senator to indulge in this personal idiosyncrasy, during times of grave crisis, amounts to selfishness.

  “Now, as to my whereabouts, I haven’t been in Maine, which explains the futility of the search—and I apologize to the fine authorities of that state for putting them to so much trouble. I’ve been in northern Canada, miles from any telephone and without any radio to inform me about my brother. What happened was simple. I left Washington on an Eastern Airlines flight and landed in Boston that night, fully intending to hire a car and go to a little lake in Maine which has always been my favorite.

  “As I left the plane and was walking over to the car rental counter, I encountered an old friend—I’d rather not give you his name because it’s immaterial and because he feels as badly as I do—I encountered this old friend who was about to fly his own aircraft up to Canada for some fishing. To make a long story short, he invited me to go along and I accepted. We went to his bachelor quarters in a Boston suburb, and later took off from Logan International Airport for Canada about 4 A.M. That would have been about a half hour before the news about my brother was made public. Well, that’s about the whole story. I cannot find adequate words to express my sorrow for what has happened. I’m not conceited enough to claim that my presence in Washington would have made much difference, but at least it would have prevented some of the speculation I understand has existed because of my actions.

  “Now, I’ll be happy to answer any questions. Warner, I’ll let you go first.”

  “Senator, we have reason to believe that Eastern listed you as a no-show on the nine o’clock flight to Boston. Yet your wife saw you off and you obviously went ahead with your travel plans. Could you clear this up?”

  “Well, I’m afraid I have another habit which seems to have contributed to unnecessary confusion. I honestly don’t like to fly under my own name. The airlines make a fuss about a senator, for which I don’t blame them. But as a member of the Senate Aviation Subcommittee, I frequently travel incognito so I can observe things like cabin service, baggage handling and so forth. On this occasion, I had informed my secretary that I intended to take Eastern’s nine o’clock flight to Boston. She naturally assumed I wanted a reservation and made one under my name. I didn’t know this and unfortunately I failed to tell her I preferred to make my own for this particular trip, which I did. I went to National Airport that night with my wife and checked in under the name I sometimes use. No airline personnel recognized me and obviously Eastern figured I just didn’t show up for the flight. The FBI, by the way, also was aware of this no-show business and I gave them the same explanation I’ve given you. My wife, by the way, was in the airport coffee shop while I was checking in and didn’t know I wasn’t traveling under my own name. Next?” A Scripps-Howard reporter wanted to know when and how Haines learned of the crash.

  “We had flown today from our fishing site to Montreal and I bought a newspaper. I saw a reference to the President’s being missing. I phoned my wife immediately. She notified the Vice President, who contacted me at the Montreal airport and gave me all the known facts as of this hour. He made very quick arrangements for a Royal Canadian Air Force jet to fly me here. I’m most grateful to the Canadian government.”

  “Senator,” asked the Evening Star, “you’ve indicated there have been some rumors to the effect that you were the so-called mystery passenger aboard Air Force One. Now that you’ve shown up, alive and healthy, I’m glad to say, do you have any idea about this unknown person?”

  “None whatsoever. I don’t have the foggiest notion.”

  “Do you believe the President is dead?” the New York Times asked.

  “No, I don’t. I—please hold your questions and let me finish—I don’t believe it because I don’t want to believe it. I have nothing on which to base this except sheer hope. And I suppose that’s the best way to put it. I’m hopeful, rather than optimistic. Actually, I don’t know any more about this entire situation than you do. As I said earlier, Vice President Madigan has been kind enough to brief me on what’s known up to now. I can’t speculate, guess or theorize any better than anyone else.”

  The Chicago Tribune got in the next one. “Senator, as the President’s brother you were fairly close
to him. Did he give you any clue or warning or the slightest indication of a planned disappearance?”

  “He did not.”

  “Well, when was the last time you saw him?”

  “The same night Air Force One left for Palm Springs. I went to the White House about eight o’clock to say good-by to him. We also discussed some personal matters.”

  “Did the personal matters involve the Palm Springs trip or anything that might throw some light on what happened?” asked the Washington Post.

  “What we discussed was just what I said—personal. Nothing to do with the trip or international matters or anything like that. You might say it was a conversation between two brothers, rather than a President and a senator. I’d rather not comment beyond that.”

  “Did the President seem worried or upset or, uh, not himself?” This was from the AP.

  “He was tired but cheerful. I thought myself he was a little preoccupied, but that’s standard for a President these days.”

  “He said nothing unusual? Nothing that might hint of something in the wind?”

  “Absolutely nothing. As I told you, our conversation consisted of personal matters, you might say family matters.” Goldberg decided it was time to bring up what he figured Gunther Damon would want brought up.

  “Senator, it’s inconceivable to me, and maybe to the rest of us, that if the President were deliberately plotting some kind of a disappearance act, for what must have been vitally important reasons, that he wouldn’t have taken his own brother into his confidence. I find it hard to believe, sir, that what you discussed that night was nothing but family matters. Any comment, Senator?”

  Haines’s tired eyes seemed to flash sparks of anger and then suddenly filled with tears.

  “I don’t really care what you find hard to believe, Warner. I’ve told you the truth. The President said nothing to me which could cast the faintest light on what’s happened. I only wish to God he had.” His voice cracked as he spoke the last seven words, and it was like the tinkle of breaking glass. Goldberg wished he hadn’t challenged him.

  “I’m sorry, Senator,” the IPS reporter said. “I wasn’t questioning your truthfulness, sir. The mystery’s got us down, too, and we’re just trying to get some answers.” The senator looked at him in a way that accepted the apology without words. Bertrand Haines started to speak, choked off a sob, and walked out of the room. The reporters were silent.

  “He may say he’s hopeful,” the Los Angeles Times finally murmured, “but for my dough there’s a guy who thinks his brother is dead.”

  Gunther Damon moved his chair back from the copy desk slot, stood up and let night editor Bill Utely take over this journalistic command post. The news superintendent glanced at the big electric clock on the wall. Nine forty-five, and the last takes on the Senator Haines story were clearing the A wire.

  He felt tired and yet vaguely restless. Outside, the roar of Fourteenth Street traffic had dwindled to an occasional horn or a protesting screech of brakes. He walked to the window and aimlessly stared across the street at Garfinckel’s corner display space, occupied as usual by an exquisite, original evening gown. For some reason he remembered the few times the department store had displayed something other than special women’s apparel in that corner window at Fourteenth and F streets—such as on the occasions of FDR’s and JFK’s deaths, when large pictures of the two departed Chief Executives were draped in mourning black, illuminated by a single spotlight.

  He wondered when Garfinckel’s would get around to putting Jeremy Haines’s picture in the window, with that dignified collar of Stygian hue. And this journey of thought took him back to the mystery, with its countless unanswered questions and frustrating labyrinth of contradictory clues and theories. Logic tortured by the implausible. Facts cruelly assaulted by the impossible. For every ready, easy explanation, a demolishing counterattack of irrefutable rebuttal.

  Gunther Damon sighed wearily, and went over to Frank Jackson’s overnight desk. “Frank, guess I don’t have to tell you we should go heavy on connecting the senator’s return with that unknown body. You know, blowing up the possibility that the brother was posing as the President.” Jackson was a pleasant-faced, gray-haired man with that inconsistent calm so inherent in many men who labor in the hectic snakepit of wire services. “Sure, Gunther. Say, you look bushed. Why don’t you go home?”

  “I suppose I should. I keep feeling the minute I leave, all hell will break loose again. And once I get home, I don’t think a bulldozer could budge me out of that apartment tonight.”

  Jackson grinned. “So you’re afraid to leave?”

  “That’s about it. You got any problems?”

  “Nope. Layout’s pretty well set. Thought I’d lead the main presidential story with the brother coming back. Chris Harmon’s got a damned good overnighter on diplomatic sources worrying about Secretary Sharkey.”

  “Worrying about him? What’s the angle?”

  “Well, you know Haines wasn’t one of those Presidents who tried to be his own Secretary of State. He leaned on Sharkey. He was a Midwesterner and he wasn’t too savvy on international affairs when he took office. He learned fast, but he learned from Sharkey and he never hid that fact. So the way Chris sees it, and the way Chris writes, the diplomatic corps expected Sharkey to pretty much take over and help Madigan with anything faintly resembling an international problem. Only he apparently hasn’t done much at all. Not a single public statement since Air Force One went down. Not one news conference.”

  “Interesting,” Damon mused, “but not very conclusive. He may be doing a lot of advising on the q.t.”

  “Not according to Chris. He says in this story that Sharkey’s even been avoiding every diplomat in Washington. No sign of any conferences or meetings. There’s one paragraph that says flatly a couple of top ambassadors tried to see Sharkey and got shunted off to the lower echelons.”

  “Is Chris sure about all this? If he hasn’t got this coppered, he’s gonna have one hell of an angry Secretary of State.”

  “I talked to him after he phoned in the overnighter. He says he got the original tip from an Assistant Secretary who told him he hasn’t even been able to contact Sharkey at home since the President disappeared.”

  “Well,” Damon reasoned, “I suppose Sharkey’s in the dark like the rest of the country. He probably didn’t want to see anybody because he didn’t have anything to tell them and he hated to admit it. Hell, the British papers are lambasting the Secret Service for letting the whole thing happen, including the crash. That reminds me, did Pitch do an overnighter on the accident report?”

  “Yep. Good job. Little too technical but I did some paraphrasing in spots where it got too heavy. Pitch’ll probably claim I screwed up the facts.”

  “Our prima donna division occasionally can’t see the forest for the trees,” Damon commented. “I wish I could get our Mr. Pitcher to write for the uninformed public instead of aiming his stuff at airline pilots.”

  “Rod,” chuckled Jackson, “would rather have been an airline captain than a newspaperman.”

  “That’s for sure,” Damon agreed. “But he’s not—and if he gives you any guff about spoiling his copy, lemme know. Well, guess I’ll make a phone call before I go home. Maybe I won’t have to go home.”

  “If you score,” the overnight editor requested, “take time out to let me know where I can interrupt you. Just in case.”

  “Naturally,” Damon said ruefully. “Even my sex life is run by the IPS switchboard.”

  “Quit complaining, boss. On the overnight, you don’t have a sex life. There are times when I wonder if I got my wife pregnant by osmosis.”

  “Or by the milkman,” Damon laughed.

  “Unfortunately for that libelous theory, I’m home when the milkman comes. Good night, Gunther. Oh, before you go, think we should play up that Cabinet meeting?”

  “Nobody seems to know why Madigan called it. Brubaker was the only one who talked afterwards. As usual, he did
n’t say anything. Along about the fourth or fifth paragraph of the main lead should take care of it. Spellman told his briefing it was routine. You see Jonesy’s story?”

  “Yeh,” Jackson said, lighting his fifteenth cigarette of the night. “I kept wondering how the devil any Cabinet meeting could be routine at a time like this. But with Frederick James, anything’s possible. Well, good night again.”

  Damon merely grunted his farewell. He felt that restlessness again and he walked over to the switchboard where he asked Bobby Andrews, with assumed nonchalance, for the list of staff home numbers. Deliberately, he pretended to examine several numbers even as he surreptitiously memorized Lynx Grimes’s.

  He had apologized to her, rather gruffly, for breaking their date when the Board of Inquiry crash report, the flood story, the Cabinet meeting and the Senator Haines arrival had all popped loose, one after the other like a string of exploding Chinese firecrackers.

  “I’m going back to my desk, Bobby,” he said. “Give me an outside line.”

  He dialed her number. She answered after the second ring, her voice sounding lower on the phone than in person. “Lynx? This is Gunther Damon. Did I wake you?”

  “No, I was just watching TV.”

  “Sorry about tonight. Everything hit the fan at once.”

  “I understand. You’ve got a rain check when things settle down.”

  “They’ve settled down a little. I seem to be wound up like a three-dollar watch. How about a quick nightcap at the Willard? I’ll pick you up.”

  She hesitated. “It’s a little late, Mr. Damon. I’m already in my pajamas and I have to be at work tomorrow.”

  “What time?”

  “Well, I’ve got the eleven-to-eight shift tomorrow. I suppose one drink wouldn’t hurt, but I hate to get all dressed again.”

  Damon briefly thought over that inevitable female obstacle course, and tried to hurdle it with an equally inevitable and totally unsatisfactory male solution. “Just slip into a skirt and sweater. Nothing fancy about the Willard.”