 Rayford Steele is an airline pilot whose relationship with his wife has gone sour;he ponders having an affair with an attractive flight attendant, Hattie Durham. In the midst of a flight to London, a number of their passengers mysteriously disappear, and chaos takes hold as a number of vehicles on the ground and in the air are suddenly unmanned. Meanwhile, Buck Williams, a television journalist, is pondering the rash of sudden disappearances as he works on a report about Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig, an Israeli scientist who has devised a formula that would make any soil on earth easy to cultivate. However, Buck wonders if there s more to Rosenzweig than he first imagined when he discovers the doctor is in cahoots with two multi-millionaires who plan to broker the invention to promote their own agenda of international domination.