By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“And I think—I may be wrong; the intelligence community is so enormous that sometimes I just can’t remember every agency who’s part of it—that we had in here just now just about everybody who should know what’s going on with that airplane. Maybe not all of them. Maybe just a few of them, but certainly at least one of them. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Mr. President,” Dr. Cohen said, “I checked with the CIA and the Air Force again this morning. They are agreed that there is virtually no possibility of that airplane being able to fly here—or, for that matter, to Europe—without being detected. ”

“That’s reassuring, Natalie. And is that the reason, would you say, that nobody mentioned this missing airplane? Or, maybe—I realize this may sound as if I’m a little cynical—was it because they hoped I wouldn’t notice that they have no idea what the hell’s going on with that airplane? ”

“Mr. President,” Hall spoke up, “I’m sure that they—and that means the entire intelligence community, sir—are working on it.”

“Come on, Matt,” the president said. “We know that.” He paused and then looked at Dr. Cohen.

“Remember what we talked about last night, Natalie? I told you when Matt came for supper, I was going to ask him to think out of the box—I have no idea what that really means— about this?”

“Yes, I do, Mr. President,” she said and looked at Hall.

“That I wished I could think about some way to shake up the intelligence community?” the president went on.

“Yes, sir,” she said and paused.

Dr. Cohen was fully aware that the man sitting at the desk across the room was the most powerful man in the world. And that she worked for him. And that meant she was supposed to do what he said, not argue with him, unless she was absolutely convinced he was dead wrong, when she saw it as her duty to argue with him.

And she wasn’t absolutely sure he was right about this. Or absolutely sure he was wrong.

“Are you sure you want to shake them up, sir?” she asked. “Even more than the 9/11 commission report did?”

“If they’re not doing their job,” the president said, “they deserve to be shaken up.”

That, Dr. Cohen thought, is a statement of policy. And I don’t think it’s open for discussion.

“And doesn’t this missing 727 business give us the chance to find out whether they’re doing their job or not?” the president asked. “Something real-world and real-time above and beyond what the 9/11 commission report called for?” He paused. “This could put us ahead of the curve.”

“Very possibly it does, sir,” she said.

“It looks to me, and Matt, like an ideal situation to run an ’internal review,’ ” the president went on, “without it interfering with anything important. And without anybody having to know about it unless we catch somebody with their pants down.” He heard what he said. “Sorry, Natalie. That slipped out. But wouldn’t you agree with Matt?”

So Matt, too, has decided arguing with him about this would be futile?

“What’s your idea, Matt?” she asked.

“As I understand what the president wants,” Hall said, “it’s for someone—one man—to check everybody’s intel files and compare them against both what he can find out, and what the others have found out, and when.”

“Isn’t that a lot to throw at one man?” she asked.

“That’s a lot of work for one man, but I think that if we used even as few as three or four people on this, the question of who’s in charge would come up; they’d probably be stumbling over each other trying to look good; and the more people involved, the greater the risk that somebody would suspect something like this was going on.”

“That’s the idea, Natalie,” the president said. “What do you think?”

I think Matt has resigned himself to there being—what did he say? “An internal review”?—and he wants to keep it small, low-key, and, if at all possible, a secret.

“Have you got the man to do it?” she asked.

“I asked him last night to think about that,” the president said.

“I think I have the man, sir,” Hall said.

“Who?” the president asked.

“My executive assistant,” Hall said.

“That good-looking young guy who speaks Hungarian?” Cohen asked.