Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) unwittingly becomes involved in a mysterious conspiracy after his girlfriend Leila (Sarah Roemer) is abducted while they are on a cruise ship. Meanwhile, the US President Martinez (Blair Underwood) plans to shut down a top-secret detention center, Mount Inostranka, in Alaska and reveal a cover-up directly tied to its detainees and their mysterious leader, Sophia (Laura Innes), despite the objections of the Director of National Intelligence Blake Sterling (Željko Ivanek). Sean boards a plane and pleads with the pilot, Leila's father Michael (Scott Patterson), not to crash it into the President's press conference in Miami.
As the plane approaches the press conference site, it flies into a vortex in mid-air and vanishes.