17

Fargo pushed the menu across the table to Snow. “Order something,” he said.

“I don’t think I can eat,” Snow said.

“There’s a shrimp curry most folks find tasty, dear,” the waitress suggested helpfully.

“She’ll take the shrimp curry,” Fargo told the waitress. “I’ll take number seventeen, with french fries and broccoli.”

The waitress, who wore a large button on her smock identifying her as Minnie, tore off a copy of the order, tucked it under a salt cellar, smiled and left. Fargo raised his Bloody Mary to Snow and started sipping it.

Snow said, “It was real nice of you to come up so quickly.”

Fargo said, “Jeb was my best friend. Which makes you my best friend-in-law. Tell me how I can help you.”

“What exactly do you do at the Justice Department?” Snow asked.

“You want to know what I do at work?” Fargo repeated. He took another sip of his drink, studying Snow over the rim of the glass. She had lost weight, grown gaunt even, since he had seen her at Jeb’s funeral. The scar over her eye had been livid then; now it was a barely noticeable pencil line. “I’m the assistant head of the department’s Criminal Division, if that means anything to you,” he finally said.

“I know this sounds dramatic, but could you get an appointment with the President?”

“Which president?” It dawned on him what she was asking. “You mean the President?”

Snow flashed a pained smile, nodded.

Fargo’s eyebrows arched. “I guess you do need help if you’re asking me about my access to the Oval Office.”

“Answer the question.”

Fargo shrugged. “I’ve been in the Oval Office half a dozen times but I’ve always been riding on the Attorney General’s coattails. He brings me along to answer questions. It’s the kind of situation where I don’t speak unless I’m spoken to.”

Snow’s face screwed up in disappointment. “I was hoping you were senior enough to get in to see the President if you wanted to.”

“Look, I’m not sure where this conversation is going, but if it would help move things along, I am senior enough to see the Attorney General any time I need to. And the Attorney General has unlimited access to the Oval Office.”

Snow brought a cuticle up to her teeth and began gnawing on it. Fargo asked, “What’s this about, Snow?” And he added very gently, “Jeb trusted me. You can too.”

Snow seemed to gather herself, like a runner before the start of a race. “Okay,” she blurted out. “Let’s see what happens.” And in long run-on sentences that broke off only when she came up for air, she proceeded to tell him about the atrocity an agent named Wanamaker was going to commit; how someone she knew had stumbled across details of the operation, which was code-named Stufftingle, while running a top secret Agency eavesdropping program; how he had attempted to head off the atrocity by threatening to leak evidence indicating the CIA was responsible if Wanamaker went through with it; how the Agency had attempted, on three occasions, to eliminate him; how she was desperately afraid they would succeed the next time they tried.

“How are you using the word eliminate?” Fargo asked.

Snow said, “Eliminate as in murder.” And she described the three attempts on Sibley’s life.

“Your friend told you about the fire breather cornering him in the parking lot? About the air being pumped out of the library?”

Snow nodded miserably.

“He told you about the wrecking ball?”

Snow caught the note of doubt in Fargo’s voice. Looking squarely into his eyes, she said with quiet intensity, “He didn’t have to tell me. I was there. It was my head the building came down on.”

Fargo’s attitude changed instantly. “You were there with him? You saw it?”

Snow said, “Maybe now you’ll believe me.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I wanted to but my friend said it was out of the question. He said they would check his story with Washington. He said the Agency would claim he was crazy and come and get him.”

“Tell me again about this atrocity he says the Agency is planning to commit. What proof does he have?”

“He’s hidden some computer printouts of conversations in which the atrocity is discussed.”

“Why doesn’t he take his printouts to the newspapers? Splash it across the front pages? The Agency couldn’t very well eliminate him once he exposed the plot.”

“You don’t understand,” insisted Snow. She felt she was reaching the limits of her patience, of her strength. She decided she would make one last effort to convince him. “My friend is a patriot. He wants to head off the atrocity without dragging the Central Intelligence Agency through the mud, and the United States along with it.”

“Who else besides you and your friend know about this?”

“As far as I know, no one.”

The waitress turned up carrying a tray filled with food. She set the shrimp curry down in front of Fargo and the number seventeen in front of Snow. “Enjoy,” she said.

Snow and Fargo didn’t bother exchanging plates; neither felt like eating now. Fargo pursed his lips, considering the problem for a long while, finally asked, “Is your friend aware you phoned me?”

Snow closed her eyes for a moment. “When I suggested trying to go over the head of the Agency he got annoyed. He thinks …”

“What does he think?” Fargo encouraged her.

“He thinks the President may have authorized the whole thing.” She leaned forward. “Will you help us, Michael?”

Fargo nodded. “I’ll nose around the shop and see what I can come up with. How do I get in touch with you?”

Snow sat back. “I’ll get in touch with you,” she said quickly. She watched him carefully to see how he would take this.

Fargo just smiled faintly. “Do you think your friend would agree to meet me?”

“Depending on what you come up with, I could try and convince him.”

Fargo watched Snow raise a cuticle to her teeth. She badly needed reassuring, he saw. He reached for her hand. “You can count on me,” he told her.

“That’s what I seem to be doing,” she noted uncertainly.