The President is Missing

The President Is Missing is a thriller co-written by prolific author James Patterson and former United States President Bill Clinton. The novel was published in 2018 and revolves around a dramatic series of events when fictional president Jonathan Duncan faces a cyberattack that threatens to destroy the infrastructure of the US. Through this plot, Patterson and Clinton explore themes including Leadership Requiring Controversial Decisions, Misunderstandings and False Accusations Due to Limited Information, and Loyalty to Patriotic Ideals.

Patterson, the author of more than 200 books, is one of the most commercially successful authors of all time and has earned significant accolades for creating gripping, tightly paced thrillers such as the Alex Cross series (the first book of which is Along Came a Spider) and the Women’s Murder Club series (the first of which is 1st to Die). Clinton was president between 1993 and 2001. The President Is Missing is the first of three novels on which Patterson and Clinton have collaborated to date. They published The President’s Daughter in 2021 and The First Gentleman in 2025.

This guide refers to the 2018 Penguin Random House edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, child death, graphic violence, animal cruelty, suicidal ideation, racism, and gender discrimination.

Plot Summary

Jonathan Duncan is the president of the United States; he trained as a lawyer and served in the military before becoming a politician. About two weeks before the primary action of the novel begins, a cyberattack is flagged by the White House; while the attack is short-lived and does not do any damage, it is clearly intended to preview the full scope of the devastation that the computer virus could wreak. A team immediately begins working to see if they can contain the virus or determine who created it; this impending threat leaves President Duncan deeply afraid of what such an attack could mean for the US. Within a very small circle of his closest advisors, he begins using the code name “Dark Ages” to refer to the virus.

The team suggests that the virus originated with Suliman Cindoruk, a Turkish terrorist and the leader of a group known as the Sons of Jihad. Duncan waits for word of what Suliman wants in exchange for not deploying the virus; when he doesn’t receive a ransom demand, he places a call to Suliman himself. Suliman does not provide any information; a few days later, US intelligence receives word that a group of Ukrainian separatists is planning an attack on a location where Suliman is believed to be hiding. While Suliman’s impending death would typically be good news for the US, Duncan knows that he needs Suliman alive in order to try to understand the impending attack. He orders an American intervention, which leads to Suliman escaping.

Word gets out that Duncan has made a phone call to Suliman and intervened to engineer his escape; since no one can understand why the president would confer with and assist a known terrorist, Duncan is accused of potentially treasonous activity, and preparations begin for impeachment hearings.

Meanwhile, Duncan receives a worrying message from his daughter, Lilly, who is studying in Paris, France: A woman named Nina approached her there, recited the code word “Dark Ages,” and told Lilly to instruct her father to accept a meeting. Duncan accepts the meeting with Nina; he is deeply disturbed because Nina’s knowledge of the code word means that someone within his inner circle has leaked information about the virus and the impending threat. When Duncan meets Nina, she reveals very little information and arranges a secondary meeting for him with her partner, Augie. Duncan hopes that one of them will tell him what they want in exchange for stopping the virus.

On the evening of Friday, May 11, Augie and Duncan are just about to meet with Nina when she is shot dead in front of them. A highly skilled assassin named Bach has been assigned to eliminate them. Afterward, Duncan becomes intensely focused on protecting Augie, who is now his only source of information about the impending cyberattack.

Augie explains that he and Nina are both former members of the Sons of Jihad, but they have broken from the group. They arranged the initial “peekaboo” attack to make the US aware of the impending threat and then traveled to the US to meet with Duncan and help him stop the virus. Nina hoped that in exchange for this help, she would be given amnesty to return to her home country of Georgia. Now that Nina is dead, Augie is missing key information about how to stop the virus.

After being repeatedly attacked, Augie and Duncan make their way to a secure compound in Virginia on Saturday. They are joined by an elite team of cybersecurity experts, including Americans, Germans, and Israelis, as well as the prime minister of Israel and the chancellor of Germany. There is also a Russian presence, although Duncan suspects that Russia may somehow be involved in the Dark Ages threat. The team works desperately to find a way to disarm the virus, which is scheduled to activate before the end of Saturday.

Meanwhile, Bach has secretly followed them to the compound to carry out her assassination, and Suliman is monitoring the situation from Europe. Duncan is also trying desperately to figure out which of his advisors leaked information to Nina. It seems increasingly likely that it may have been Vice President Katherine Brandt, who has been conducting secret meetings with the speaker of the House, Lester Rhodes. Rhodes wants support from Brandt in his efforts to impeach Duncan.

The team eventually arrives at a possible strategy for stopping the virus, but when they attempt this protocol, they activate the virus. It begins to overwrite files and spread to other servers, triggering the impending complete collapse of digital infrastructure in the US. At the same time as this is unfolding, Bach’s support team tries to infiltrate the compound, but they are held back by American security forces. Bach is left alone to carry out her mission.

Duncan also gains access to text messages from Nina’s cell phone, detailing her communications with the source of the leak (though not the identity of this individual). These records reveal that after initiating the peekaboo attack, Nina reached out to the source of the leak so that they could help her arrange a meeting with Duncan. The source provided Nina with information about meeting with the president’s daughter and using the code word to ensure that she would be taken seriously.

After overwriting a few files, the virus mysteriously pauses. Augie and the cybersecurity team realize that the virus will now remain inactive for a window of time, during which a password can be entered. If the password is correct, the virus will be halted, but if time runs out, the virus will continue to wipe out all systems. Duncan and his team frantically try to guess the password; at the last second, Duncan’s chief of staff, Carolyn Brock, comes up with the correct password. The virus is halted and can no longer do any damage.

Meanwhile, Bach has also been captured and taken into custody by American special forces. When the virus fails to detonate on the promised schedule, Suliman realizes that the Russians and the Saudis will kill him for failing to carry out his mission. He attempts to flee but is killed.

With the immediate crisis of stopping the virus resolved, Duncan returns to the White House, where he confronts Carolyn. He explains what he has deduced based on the text-message records and Carolyn’s knowledge of the password (which she had presented as a fortuitous guess). When Nina reached out to Carolyn to ask for her help with brokering a meeting with the president, Carolyn saw an opportunity. She gave Nina the code word ostensibly so that Nina would be taken seriously but also to ensure that Duncan knew that someone in his inner circle had betrayed him (since they were the only ones who knew the code word). Carolyn also obtained the password for stopping the virus.

Her plan was to make it appear that Vice President Brandt was the source of the leak, forcing Brandt to step down. Her seemingly heroic guess about the password at the last second would give Carolyn the chance to assume Brandt’s position as vice president after the foiled plot. Carolyn then betrayed Nina’s location to Suliman, leading him to send assassins after her and Augie. While Carolyn is arrested for treason, Bach is questioned and reveals what she knows.

Meanwhile, Duncan receives further intelligence from the royal family of Saudi Arabia. A splinter group of Saudi royals wanted to dismantle America’s global power, and they paid Suliman and his team to create the virus. The Russians also played a role in supporting this effort. Duncan gives a speech explaining the plot and how it was solved and urging the American people to set aside partisanship in favor of loyalty and unity. He emerges as a strong and beloved leader and soars in popularity.