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

The view was of a run-down industrial area. To the left of the rustiest warehouse stood a dead maple, representing the only greenery the scene had to offer.

‘It’s hard to beat the beauty of your democratic republic. The abundant nature. The devoted people. The struggle against an ever-crueller world. Someone must dare to take the side of peace and love. A few days ago, your country saved the lives of me and my friend Julius. The least we can do is pay back the favour as best we can. Our services are fully at your disposal. If you would like advice on how to optimize your asparagus operations, there’s no better man for the job than Julius. If you happen to want to prioritize your optimization of whatever enriched uranium you may have lying around, then I’m your man.’

On occasion, people function such that they hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe. The laboratory director nodded, decently satisfied with this truthful description of his country, while he said that the Democratic People’s Republic intended mainly to avail itself of Karlsson’s services, not Jonsson’s. But to be more concrete? The reports said that Karlsson was an expert in hetisostat pressure ? No matter how hard the laboratory director looked, he could not find any confirmation that such a thing existed. Much less any information about how it might work.

Julius prayed to God again.

Allan responded. ‘I remember it from my relative youth at Los Alamos in the United States. The Americans toiled day and night to build that atom bomb, until at last I had to step in and tell them what to do. But there isn’t a single word about that on the internet, is there?’

No. The laboratory director had to acknowledge that there wasn’t. And he understood that this wasn’t only because the internet hadn’t been invented until over forty years later.

‘Hetisostat pressure was created by me, in a secret laboratory outside Geneva. Though it’s not as secret now as it was until just a moment ago, before I talked about it. As you will know, Mr Laboratory Director, the critical mass of enriched uranium of the grade in question is twenty-five kilos – twenty-five point two, to be exact. With my pressure, the neutrons are held in place many times longer, and the chain reaction gets another burst of strength over and over until you have destroyed what needs to be destroyed with a considerably smaller amount of the key isotope. Particularly suitable for someone who prefers to stick the nuclear weapon into a missile rather than carry around a bomb that weighs a few tons.’

Allan had read something about twenty-five point two and sounded sufficiently sure of himself to make the laboratory director equally sure.

‘But in greater detail?’ he tried again.

‘Greater detail? How many weeks do we have? Perhaps the Supreme Leader has no problem being made to wait. Although I think I speak for both myself and the asparagus farmer here beside me when I say that, if we’re going to do this, we’ll have to start with some food and a bed on top of that, or rather, two beds. We may be good friends, Julius and me, but we prefer to sleep separately. Once we’re full and rested I’ll be more than willing, even genuinely eager, to tell you what you want to know, Mr Laboratory Director.’

The hundred-and-one-year-old was a gifted talker. The laboratory director knew what Allan suspected: that Kim Jong-un absolutely did not want to wait a week or two. Or even much more than an hour. A decision had to be made, and soon. The director had been given sanction to supply the two Swiss men with a shot to the back of the head each instead of food and a place to sleep, should the situation so demand. But he also had orders to allow them through if it was likely to be in the best interest of the nation.

So what should he do? It was true that the old man was a chatterbox. It was also true that he’d hit the mark when it came to the critical mass of uranium, and to the decimal besides. And he appeared to be completely assured about this situation.

The laboratory director picked up a cigarette and looked around for his lighter. Julius fished the hotel manager’s from his pocket and offered it to him. The laboratory director thanked him, lit up and took a deep drag.

After another of the same, the laboratory director made his hasty decision. Hasty being the operative word. The Supreme Leader had extended an invitation to the UN envoy and he wanted to bring her and the Swiss man together; the envoy would be landing any minute. There was no time to do anything but decide.

‘We will absolutely run through every part of your pressure system,’ he said. ‘Make no mistake about that. But first I will ask to send you over to the Supreme Leader.’

The laboratory director was displeased at having misplaced his lighter, but pleased that his voice had sounded so confident. Much more confident than he actually was. Or ever would be again, as long as he lived.

He summoned the six nervous soldiers and had them lead the foreigners to a waiting car.

Allan and Julius had made it through their encounter with mortal danger number one on Korean ground, their good health still intact. All that remained was everything else. Now they were sitting on either side of a North Korean soldier in the back seat of a 2004 Russian GAZ-3111, one of the nine specimens the Russians had produced that year before giving up, sending the crap to North Korea, and signing a contract with Chrysler instead.

‘Good day, my name is Allan,’ Allan said to the soldier in Russian. He received no response. He went on to offer the same greeting to the two soldiers in the row of seats ahead of him and was met with the same silence. Then he looked at Julius and said he hoped the Supreme Leader would be more talkative, or it might be a boring afternoon.

Julius didn’t reply, but he thought anyone who could use the word ‘boring’ in their current situation must be missing a considerable part of his common sense. What Julius was doing now, placing his life in the hands of a completely carefree hundred-and-one-year-old, was trying. He breathed heavily as he mentally counted backwards from 999; he had learned that this sometimes helped.

A change in the air told Allan that something was weighing on Julius; what it might be was unclear. As his friend passed two hundred in his countdown self-help, Allan asked if it might cheer him up if Allan read something exciting from the black tablet.

187, 186… No, that question was too much. Julius interrupted himself and opened his eyes. ‘Goddammit!’ he said. ‘We’re going to be world news ourselves soon, if we don’t look out. How about you focus on your fucking hetisostat pressure? In ten minutes you need to have something to say to the man who is in charge of our lives. Can’t you put that bloody tablet down for one second and think about something useful?’

Allan had been looking at Julius, but now he aimed his gaze slightly to the left and out of the window.

‘The “ten minutes” part was wrong. I think we’re here.’

Allan and Julius were led into the holiest of holies, the Supreme Leader’s office, three hundred square metres in area, with sixteen-metre-high ceilings. An oak desk across the room, a briefcase, an intercom, a quill, and a few documents on the desk, four paintings of the Eternal President on the wall, and that was it. The Supreme One himself was not present; the old men were left alone in the room for a brief time after their escorts hurried off and closed the double doors.

‘You could fly a kite in here, if you could just get a cross-breeze from the windows,’ said Allan. ‘Almost a hot-air balloon, too.’

‘Think hetisostat pressure,’ said Julius. ‘Do you hear me? Hetisostat pressure .’