The President's Plane Is Missing

by Robert J Serling

  Gunther Damon had sent his aviation editor to Andrews that morning with the sublimely happy confidence of a horse player armed with a hot inside tip on a long shot.

  When Pitcher returned to report failure, Damon’s reaction also was identical to that of a horse player whose hot inside tip had run an ignominious last. He cursed, moped, paced and then suddenly snapped back into unbridled optimism, an emotional coil spring refusing to lose its resiliency.

  “Well,” he informed Pitcher, “I hope you’re not discouraged because I’m not. I still think he left Andrews sometime during the night. That blasted control tower was probably ordered to keep it quiet.”

  “No dice, Gunther. The tower chief told me they log every flight.”

  “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a secret flight. Those . . . those logs you were telling me about. The Air Force could have flown Haines out of there with a phony destination. Like advising the tower they were taking off for Hoboken or someplace. Strictly a cover-up. Then—okay, what’s wrong with that?”

  “I checked every type of aircraft listed in the departures. Nothing left Andrews that was capable of flying to Moscow. Except maybe a KC-135 and that’s a tanker.”

  “So couldn’t they modify a tanker into a transport?” Damon pressed. “What is a KC-135, anyway?”

  “A version of the 707. Nuts, Gunther, it’s just a big metal cylinder with wings and engines. No windows, even. Don’t you think the Air Force has enough regular long-range transports without putting the President of the United States into a windowless tube for an eight-thousand-mile flight?”

  “Yeh,” Damon conceded reluctantly. “Well, we’re sure back where we started. Jonesy says Camp David was locked up tight. Deader than yesterday’s newspaper. Got any ideas?”

  Pitcher brightened. “There’s always the Senator Haines yam,” he said eagerly. “That’s still promising. We know he didn’t go to Boston on that plane.”

  “You know it and I know it,” Damon growled. “But DeVarian is playing it coy for a while. We’ve got Bob Johnson checking whether brother Bert could have chartered a plane or maybe taken the train. Stan wants to make sure.”

  The aviation writer’s face wrinkled into the incredulous look of a man who had just been advised that Senator Bertrand Haines might have walked to Boston. “The train? Why the hell would he have taken a train?”

  Damon laughed. “Oh, come on, flyboy. Lots of people still take trains.”

  “Not unless they have to,” Pitcher snorted. “I’ll lay five to one Johnson doesn’t come up with anything more than I just did at Andrews.”

  “Your odds are lousy,” Damon said. “I’d give you ten to one. Meanwhile, you got any brain storms on where we go next?”

  Pitcher pondered this briefly. “Nope. Except that the brother angle should look pretty hot if Johnson whiffs on the train or charter plane.”

  “I’m inclined to agree. But Mr. DeVarian has donned his cloak of caution. Well, guess you can go back to your regular grind. I just thought of something.”

  The “something,” it developed, was a phone call to Warner Goldberg of the IPS Senate staff. Damon gave him a quick briefing on what they knew—or didn’t know—about Senator Haines and his fishing trip, and the shoe found at the crash site. He also told him that a query to the FBI on whether the mystery body could have been the senator had produced a suspiciously cryptic “No comment.”

  “What I’m getting at, Warner,” he continued, “is whether you think you could get in to see Madigan at the White House. Privately, I mean. You’ve known him ever since he came to Congress and you’ve always been on pretty good terms with him, haven’t you?”

  “I guess so, Gunther. I used to drop in on him now and then. Felt kinda sorry for him. He seemed lonely. He’s always been accessible, I’ll say that for him. But he’s the President now, or half-President anyway.”

  “Half-assed President,” Damon cracked and was immediately sorry he had said it. The Hill reporters were peculiarly tolerant of members or ex-members of Congress, including the incompetents, the rabble-rousers and the occasional crooks. You could seldom get the average Hill newsman to say that any congressman was all bad, even if the lawmaker in question was known to be a hypocritical slob. Some of the reporters covering Joe McCarthy, for example, had liked the Wisconsin senator while they were simultaneous eyewitnesses to his incredible activities. Congressmen were their chief news sources, and they tended to protect them as a parent will defend ill-behaved children when they are criticized by others.

  Goldberg’s silence at the “half-assed” remark was confirmation of some resentment, and Gunther decided to make hurried amends. “Well, guess I shouldn’t make cracks like that about a guy who’s on a tough spot, Warner. But I’m trying to nail down this Haines trip business and I figured Madigan might know something. Something he’d be willing to tell a reporter who’s been close to him and good to him, for that matter.”

  Goldberg was mollified, but also mystified. “I’m not sure he’d be able to tell me anything even if he knew it, Gunther. Furthermore, I’m not sure what you want me to ask him.”

  “Do I have to draw you a diagram? Ask him first: has the FBI or anybody else given him evidence that the unidentified body on Air Force One was that of the President’s brother? Then sound him out on what he knows about that alleged fishing trip. It’s a fairly good assumption that the authorities could have been checking up on the senator just as we are.”

  “Gunther,” Goldberg pleaded, “Madigan’s the Acting President. He may be a hack politician to you, but he’s the Chief Executive to the rest of the nation. And to me too. Even if I get in to see him alone, he’ll tell me to go fly a kite when I start pumping him about Haines or anything else connected with this crazy deal. And one more thing, boss man. If he knows we’re snooping around, he’s liable to blow the whistle on all of us.”

  “This already had occurred to Damon. “There’s always that danger,” he countered. “But we can sidestep it. Tell him everything he can give you is off the record. Tell him we’ve heard some rumors about Senator Haines and we wanted to check them out right at the top before we do anything with what we’ve gotten on our own. Make it seem more like a gesture of . . . of cooperation or—hell, make it patriotism.”

  “Well, okay,” Goldberg said doubtfully. “But how much do you want me to tell him? How much should he know that we know?”

  “Play it by ear. Start off by telling him we’re pretty sure Senator Haines didn’t get on any flight to Boston like he was supposed to. Then feel him out. I’ve got a feeling Madigan will open up. Keep me posted, pal.”

  Gunther put down the phone and mentally rubbed his hands in anticipatory glee. The arrival of reporter Bob Johnson, with the news that his own digging had produced a fat zero, added to the news superintendent’s conviction that Bertrand Haines had indeed left Washington that night —not for New England, but for Palm Springs, California, aboard Air Force One.

  Arranging a private interview with the Acting President was not as difficult as Warner Goldberg had feared.

  Confronted with Goldberg’s request, Madigan was at first inclined to reject it as politely as possible. Then he remembered that the IPS man had always been friendly to him when he was in Congress and later when he became Vice President. There also was a desire on Madigan’s part to establish an image as a warm, friendly, thoroughly democratic Chief Executive who was willing to see anybody who had legitimate business.

  This image fitted his self-portrait of a President who combined the humanistic qualities of Andrew Jackson and, of course, Harry Truman. That he was consciously trying to mold himself as a carbon copy of past Presidents was a yardstick of his own lack of stature. Frederick James Madigan, even when he was being decisive and forceful, merely was imitating. It never occurred to him that even in so minor a decision as whether to grant a newspaperman a solo interview he was more of an actor playing the role of how he imagined a President should act.

  Madigan
was well aware that, while an exclusive presidential interview made the reporter so honored most happy, it also suffused the rest of the White House press corps with the smoldering resentment of Captain Bligh’s crew. But Goldberg had assured him, “I’m willing to settle for a completely off-the-record meeting if you’d prefer it that way,” and this took the Vice President off the alienation hook. Anyway, Madigan reasoned, if other reporters complained, he’d just have to grant a series of exclusive interviews and keep all the boys happy.

  Goldberg judiciously asked that he be admitted to the White House via an entrance that would avoid the lobby adjoining the White House press room. Madigan quickly consented, agreeable to any strategy capable of outflanking the hazard of favoritism charges.

  He welcomed the IPS reporter with such excessive geniality that he came close to being patronizing. “Warner, my boy, it’s good to see you. I really appreciate your coming to see me. This job of, uh, Acting President has kept me away from my old friends of the press. Why don’t you sit right down there and we’ll have a chat.”

  Goldberg lowered himself rather gingerly into a high-backed chair directly across from the Vice President who, he had to admit, looked surprisingly impressive behind the ponderous scrolled desk. Madigan, just by being in this hallowed room, had seemed to acquire a maturity and dignity so foreign to his normal personality that Goldberg was ill at ease. He had the uncomfortable feeling of a man who had just come unexpectedly face to face with his long-ago divorced wife and discovered she had assumed qualities of beauty and dignity he never knew existed. It still was the Vice President facing him, yet it was a different person.

  Madigan broke into his thoughts. “Now, Warner, what did you want to see me about?”

  Goldberg cleared his throat, conscious that never before had he been nervous in the presence of Fred Madigan. The reporter was a competent veteran of many a congressional session, a small person with a jaw shaped like a battleship prow but with narrow shoulders topping a spindly frame. The effect was like pasting the face of a prize fighter above the body of a concert violinist.

  “Well, Mr. Vice President,” he started out cautiously, “it’s about this disappearance of the President and—”

  “Just a minute, Warner,” Madigan interrupted. “You realize, of course, this isn’t a subject I’m at liberty to discuss with any reporter—even an old friend like yourself.”

  “I know that, sir. That’s why I told you on the phone I’d be willing to make this all off the record. You see, sir, I think we might have come across something which could be news to you.”

  Madigan was instantly interested. “I think I’ve been kept pretty well informed of all developments, but I’ll be the first to admit you boys of the press are most astute. Most astute, Warner. So what exactly have you ascertained?”

  Even at this ticklish moment, the thought flashed through Goldberg’s mind that being Acting President had somehow ballooned Madigan’s vocabulary. He never could remember his having used a word like “ascertained” before, and he almost had to stifle a chuckle. “Sir, we have reason to believe it was Senator Haines who was on Air Force One. Substituting for the President.”

  Madigan smiled, a superior, condescending smile that said the reporter’s bombshell had landed with a dull thud. “That possibility has occurred to others, Warner, including myself, I might add. Before I comment on it, may I ask the basis of your, well, shall we call it a theory?”

  Goldberg was determined to walk a tightrope of discretion in what he would tell the Vice President. “The senator was supposed to have taken a plane to Boston that night. We have evidence that he did not take the flight for which he had reservations, or any other flight. Or a train or chartered plane.”

  Madigan’s face still wore that smile of superiority, but now it was a slightly diluted smile. “Would you care to provide me with the details of your evidence, Warner? All off the record, naturally.”

  “Sir, I guess you’d categorize it more as suspicion than evidence. We found out there was no record of his having picked up his reservation for his flight, no record of his being on any flight, and no record of his having gone to Boston or Maine by any other means unless he drove up there.”

  The smile was gone, replaced by a slight frown.

  “That’s very interesting,” Madigan allowed. “It, uh, doesn’t quite jibe with what I’ve been told on the highest authority. The highest authority, Warner.”

  “And what was that, Mr. Vice President?”

  It was Madigan who was now choosing his words with defensive prudence. “I cannot emphasize too strongly, my boy, that this conversation must be off the record if we’re to share a mutual confidence. Is that perfectly clear?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  “Well then, the FBI has talked to Mrs. Haines. The senator’s wife. She took him to National Airport that night, watched him board, and waited there until the plane took off for Boston. That’s what I meant when I said your evidence didn’t jibe with what I’ve been told by—well, Warner, strictly for your information, what I’ve been told by none other than FBI Director Reardon.”

  Goldberg permitted himself the indulgence of a low whistle. “That seems to tear it, sir. Except that I still don’t understand it. We’re convinced he didn’t take that plane and yet his wife saw him board it.”

  “There is a certain, ah, discrepancy,” Madigan acknowledged. “But it’s not an unexplainable discrepancy. It’s very possible the senator did not use his own name when he got on the plane. Incommunicado, so to speak.”

  Goldberg decided he would not bother to correct the use of “incommunicado” when Madigan meant to say “incognito.” The improved vocabulary had sprung a leak, but the reporter had no desire to embarrass the Vice President. “What would be his reason for going, uh, for not using his own name, sir?”

  “I don’t know, Warner. Possibly Bert Haines is the type of person who doesn’t want any fuss made over him. And you know the airlines—they’ll roll out the proverbial red carpet for a dignitary like a United States senator. Why, I myself have flown several times incommunicado, for the express purpose of avoiding a lot of fuss and attention.” Goldberg had a strong hunch this professed modesty was pure malarkey, which it was. “That may be the explanation, sir, but there was a reservation made in his name for the 9 P.M. flight to Boston. If he made the reservation under his own name, why go to the trouble of traveling under an assumed name? Of making two reservations?” Madigan shook his head in frank puzzlement. Unless— and the suspicion voiced by Hester suddenly popped into his mind—unless Bert Haines had some kind of ulterior motive in making two separate reservations. One under his name which he did not claim, and another under a different name. How this could be part of an assignation plan he could not fathom, but he had no experience with assignations and maybe the twin reservations were just a male straying-from-the-straight-and-narrow technique.

  “There’s another possibility,-or rather explanation,” he finally said to Goldberg. “One I’m not at liberty to discuss, Warner, but one which I assure you is most logical and which has nothing whatsoever to do with the President’s disappearance. It is rather a delicate matter, of an extremely personal nature, so just take my word for it.”

  This naturally piqued Goldberg’s reportorial curiosity to an unbearable degree. “As you said, sir, this is all off the record. I’d appreciate anything you could tell me . . .”

  “There’s nothing to tell, really,” Madigan said soothingly. “Look, Warner, we’re men of the world. If Bert Haines had a reason for going to Boston under a different name, it must have been a very personal reason, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

  Man-of-the-world Goldberg got the idea but he was not about to leave it. “Am I correct then, Mr. Vice President, in assuming that the FBI is satisfied Senator Haines flew to Boston and presumably still is somewhere in Maine? And that the mystery of his whereabouts boils down to a question of delicacy?”

  “Your assumption,�
�� Madigan sighed, “may not be correct but as far as I’m concerned it’s a damned good possibility. After all, my boy, the FBI isn’t going to lie to the Acting President of the United States. Reardon says Bert Haines was on that plane, period.”

  “Mrs. Haines says he was on that plane,” Goldberg corrected him. “I think you said it was Mrs. Haines who told the FBI she saw him board and then take off.”

  “So what?” The Vice President shrugged. “Ruth Haines wouldn’t have any reason for lying either. Certainly not to the FBI.”

  The reporter nodded in silent, almost reluctant agreement. His mind whirled with unanswered questions and nagging uncertainty. “What still bothers me, sir, is the fact that the senator stays missing when the whole world’s in an uproar because his brother’s missing too. It doesn’t add up. You’d think Senator Haines would have heard about the mess by now.”

  “It would seem so,” Madigan said. “But I suppose it would be easy for a man to lose himself in Maine if he wanted to—and not even have a radio with him.”

  Goldberg decided he had no choice but to play his trump card. “There’s one more thing before I stop taking up your time, Mr. Vice President. Maybe you already knew it, but there was an elevated shoe found in the wreckage of Air Force One.”

  “An elevated shoe? Is that supposed to have some significance?”

  “I don’t know, sir. My boss thinks it may be significant. He thinks the shoe must have belonged to a man impersonating the President. That the unidentified body was that of a person shorter than President Haines, and the shoes were part of the disguise.”

  The thermometer of what had been Madigan’s diminishing interest suddenly shot up again. “I didn’t know about any shoe, Warner, but General Coston told me the unidentified body was that of a man somewhat shorter than Jeremy Haines. This business of the shoe makes sense. It certainly adds, ah, credence to the theory of an impostor.”

  “It does, sir. This is why the boss wanted me to talk to you. He was positive the President’s brother was on Air Force One—because of his failure to show up for the Boston flight and the clue of the shoe.”