Air Force Two, with the vice president aboard, has dropped from radar. Then President Harry Harrison and others also go missing when Air Force One vanishes. The nation’s at DEFCON 1, and despicable Speaker of the House Chambliss T. Parkes becomes the new acting president.

After wreckage from Air Force One is found, Parkes declares the passengers from both aircraft dead from a presumed terrorist strike. The late president’s father, a former senator, asks TV personality and antiquities dealer Brian Sadler, who knew the president well, to help find out what happened to the planes. Sadler agrees to perform a simple task for the CIA in London, where he meets up with Amina “Amy” Hassan, who’s on a CIA watch list along with her billionaire father, Amin.

The situation is dire back in America, as Parkes barely acknowledges the Falcons of Islam, who claimed responsibility for the attack and say that they have sleeper agents in the United States. But the CIA fears that Sadler and his attorney fiancee, Nicole Farber, may be in more imminent danger, as Amin sent a killer to follow Sadler back to Dallas.

Sadler learns of the top-secret Operation Condor and is used by the CIA for his expertise and popularity, and later as bait. The bad guys’ plan, as well as the good guys’ strategy to fight back, feature varying motives and inevitable double crosses.