Юнас Юнассон - The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

Allan could tell that the captain hadn’t yet made up his mind. He gave it an extra go. ‘I believe this is your lucky day, Mr Lackey of a Captain. Let’s do this, for the good of everyone.’

And he promised to tell the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic everything he knew about the technology behind the new hetisostat pressure.

‘Hetistosat…?’ Captain Pak attempted.

‘Almost,’ said Allan. ‘Twice the power for a quarter the uranium, in short. Or, alternatively, the same amount but eight times the power. With my help, you could blow half of Japan sky-high without losing more than a few kilos. Although I don’t recommend it. The Japanese who were still around would be furious, I can tell you that much right now. And the Americans too, I’m sure, although they were once out to do the same thing. With a certain amount of success.’

‘Hetistosat…’ Captain Pak tried again, but Allan hushed him.

‘That’s not something that should be said aloud, Captain, even if you could get the pronunciation right.’

Captain Pak sat quietly in his chair, apparently awaiting Allan’s instructions about what to do next.

Well, first of all the captain must immediately revoke that fussy rule against alcohol. If he wanted to join in and share the champagne with Allan and Julius he could; otherwise he didn’t have to. If by chance there happened to be anything else good to drink hidden in the captain’s quarters, he was more than welcome to bring it out so the champagne wouldn’t feel lonely.

‘Revoke the ban on alcohol?’ the captain said.

‘Be quiet and let me finish.’

Julius closed his eyes as Allan snapped at the man who held their lives in his hands.

Allan went on to say that he would prefer to sleep in a separate room from Julius, as his friend tended to be a noisy sleeper, but in the interest of healthy cooperation he was able to overlook this. The captain should, however – once the bit about alcohol had been dealt with – get in touch with the Supreme Leader; Allan suggested doing so in an encrypted manner.

‘Say that you’ve snagged the solution to all his problems, and that the Democratic People’s Republic shall blossom like never before, thanks to hetisostat pressure and your resourcefulness. The Korean nuclear weapons programme will reach heights you never thought possible. Given the part about the champagne, that is. And the rest.’

Captain Pak made notes on his paper.

‘Het-iso-stat pressure,’ said Allan. ‘Hetisostat pressure one thousand two hundred is between sixty and eighty GDM more than the USA itself can produce. And that is double the pressure of Russia’s capacity.’

‘GDM,’ said Captain Pak, still writing.

‘ Double , Mr Captain. Can you even comprehend such a thing?’

No, the captain couldn’t. Neither could Julius. Nor even could Allan, as it turned out, once the friends were alone once more.

‘I suppose I invented more than I actually needed to,’ he said.

‘Oh? How much was that?’ asked Julius.

‘All of it.’

Captain Pak made no promises as he left the friends’ cabin. No more than that he would ‘process things’.

To some extent he had already made his decision. The situation remained potentially fatal for him, but the potential upsides for the Democratic People’s Republic, and by extension himself, were great. To touch a hair on the head of, or even displease, the man who possessed the solution of the hetisostat-something technique would presumably be very stupid.

The captain felt that he had reached his conclusion. As far as he could, anyway. Soon he would sit down and formulate the to-be-encrypted message to his Supreme Leader. There was only one thing he needed to take care of first.

Ten minutes after the captain had left Allan and Julius to do his processing, there was a cautious knock at the gentlemen’s door. It was an on-duty watch sailor, who, with a greeting from Captain Pak Chong-un, handed over, first, the bottle of champagne, and, second, one of dark Cuban rum. Then he asked in Russian what else the gentlemen would like to drink with their meal.

‘I think we have enough to get by for now, thank you,’ said Allan. ‘If you like you could have our tea.’

The sailor bowed and made his exit. He left the tea. A few minutes later he was back with a meal of stewed meat and rice.

The friends gorged themselves. But the question was, with what would they wash down their food?

‘I think we should start with the rum,’ said Allan. ‘And have the champagne for dessert. Perhaps we could have used the tea to brush our teeth, if only we had brought toothbrushes. We can save thinking up something clever about hetisostat pressures and GDM for tomorrow.’

‘We?’ said Julius.

The encrypted report from the captain of Honour and Strength was absolutely sensational. Kim Jong-un read it himself and drew his own conclusions. He had certain similarities to Trump in Washington in that he was reluctant to delegate tasks in his administration. With the possible difference that Trump drew conclusions without doing the actual reading.

The captain had managed to spell the non-existent phrase ‘hetisostat pressure’ correctly. And he had got the meaningless acronym GDM in the right order. But in the captain’s formulation, the international expert Allan Karlsson happened to become Swiss instead of Swedish.

Perhaps this was lucky, given what was to come. A Swedish foreign minister who wanted to talk nuclear weapons, and an equally Swedish nuclear weapons expert a few days later, might have been too much for a conspiracy theorist’s brain.

Instead the entire situation landed within the realm of likelihood, and Kim Jong-un could see potential.

Honour and Strength would reach the harbour outside Pyongyang in a few days. What if one were to… said Kim Jong-un to himself. And agreed. A PR war was still war. With the help of the UN and the Swiss man, the republic could, within a few days, begin to matter extraordinarily in this area.

The Supreme Leader summoned his secretary from outside the door, with a curt order: ‘Get the Swedish ambassador here.’

‘Yes, Supreme Leader. When, Supreme Leader?’

‘Now.’

‘The Supreme Leader wished to speak with me,’ said Ambassador Lövenstierna when, under an hour later, he found himself in Kim Jong-un’s palace.

‘Not so much with you as to you,’ said Kim Jong-un. ‘I have decided to invite the UN Security Council to informal talks. What was her name again, the one who wanted to come here?’

‘Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström,’ said Ambassador Lövenstierna.

‘That’s right. Bring her here, as I said. Immediately.’

Ambassador Lövenstierna nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Then I ask permission to withdraw,’ he said, for the second time in twenty-four hours.

And once again he backed out of the Supreme Leader’s office. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself.

Unlike their American colleagues, the Germans were not particularly good at outer space. But they were good on the ground – not least when it was African. The German equivalent to the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst , had placed one of its many worldwide non-existent offices inside a hairdresser’s in central Dar es Salaam. Work there was led by a self-involved, unpleasant but capable male agent. For assistance he had a meek, depressed and slightly more capable woman.

Through months of working on a dubious laboratory assistant in Congo, as well as patient network-building in environments where people were particular about portraying themselves as something other than they were, the BND had cobbled together some clear indications that a limited amount of enriched uranium would soon make its way out of Congo, through Tanzania, and on to the south.