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

Was this bloody Swiss man bringing up the Bible – a forbidden book – during dinner in the Palace of the People’s Republic? Now he had crossed a line.

But Margot Wallström came to his rescue. She broke in and thanked the Supreme Leader for the opportunity to meet in private.

Kim Jong-un nodded, even though he hadn’t promised any such thing. ‘Tomorrow I’m busy with important matters, but lunch the day after might work. And then you may leave, Madame Wallström. Go home and tell them that the world’s leading expert in nuclear weapons is in my hands. That ought to prompt some humility in America. If that characteristic even exists there.’

Margot Wallström took an extra large sip of her replenished wine to calm her nerves as she wondered what would happen if someone were to let Kim Jong-un and Benjamin Netanyahu into the same room. Monumental lack of humour and self-awareness against monumental lack of humour and self-awareness. All that would be missing was Donald Trump as a mediator.

Julius chewed Allan’s ear off all the way from the palace to the hotel. Why on earth had he quarrelled with the Supreme Leader like that?

‘Quarrelled? When has anyone died from a little honesty?’

‘Here people have dropped like flies from honesty over the years! Where’s the sense in it if we do the same?’

Allan allowed that he didn’t see any sense in that particular result. ‘But, please, can you stop worrying about every tiny thing? This will all work out for the best, you’ll see.’

‘How the hell do you expect it to work out? After tonight he’ll never let us go!’

‘He wouldn’t have anyway. I have no intention of helping that chatterbox more than necessary. When that dawns on him, it’ll be best if we’ve left the country. Preferably in the company of that briefcase he’s so proud of.’

‘And how do you intend for us to disappear?’

‘With the help of that charming Swedish minister for foreign affairs, of course. Have you already forgotten?’

‘In greater detail, Allan.’

‘Detail, schmetail.’

Margot Wallström took her limousine straight from the half-surreal dinner at the Supreme Leader’s palace to the Swedish embassy to start the process of producing passports. It wasn’t as simple as cobbling together a passport or two at the embassy. Sweden was Sweden and rules were rules.

The chief of the Swedish passport police wasn’t happy about the call from Pyongyang. He wavered and balked and wavered some more, with a series of formal objections to the minister’s request that he produce two diplomatic passports in extremely dubious accordance with the rules. He said he didn’t understand how the minister could put him on this sort of spot.

It would never do, of course, for Margot Wallström to explain that she had two Swedes to smuggle out of North Korea in the interest of averting a third world war, so she decided to change tack. Thus she informed the chief of the passport police that there was no need for him to understand what he was doing: the important thing was that he did as she said. When the chief of the passport police responded by wondering once more if the minister was seriously suggesting he falsify signatures and produce passports for two people no one at the passport office in Stockholm had even met, she responded with a simple ‘Yes.’ And ‘Diplomatic passports, as I said.’

‘Diplomatic passports perhaps, but as for the rest…’

‘As for the rest, either you do as I say or you do as I say. If necessary I can ask the prime minister to call you and repeat the request. If that’s not enough, I have contacts in the royal court. The king could give you a ring, if you like. And the speaker. Whom else would you like to hear from? Secretary General Guterres?’

The chief of the passport police fell silent. What did the king have to do with this?

‘Please, Mr Passport Police Chief. There’s not much time. The lives of Swedish citizens are at stake. And more lives than that.’

At last he went along with her request, given that it would also be sent in writing along with the electronic transmission of photographs and signatures.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström. ‘But the passports must be produced at once and sent by diplomatic courier to Pyongyang within the hour.’

‘Within the hour? But it’s almost lunchtime.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘What the hell?’ said President Trump, to National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, who had just replaced National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn, who had, of course, turned out to be a security risk.

The issue was that Fox had just put up a clip from a so-called press conference in North Korea, and Breitbart News had followed up with an article on the same topic. And with that, the president knew all that was worth knowing about the issue, except for the whole situation as such.

That bitch Wallström from Sweden had nagged her way to a secret meeting with Kim Jong-something in… whatever the capital of North Korea was called. And then she’d stood up next to him on North Korean TV! How stealthy did she think that made her, that goddamn nutcase? And as if that wasn’t enough, she had hugged, on live TV, a Swiss Communist who was there to upgrade the North Korean nuclear weapons programme.

‘Well,’ said Lieutenant General McMaster. ‘She didn’t hug the Swiss Communist. Breitbart might have been mistaken on that point.’

The president waved away the security advisor’s comment. He would have to twist that Wallström’s nose when she got back, but who was the Communist she’d hugged?

‘Didn’t hug, as I said.’

President Trump spent some moments swearing about the self-righteous Swiss before he realized he should give them a call. He picked up the phone and ordered his secretary to get him a line to the president of Switzerland on the double.

‘And find out his name while you’re at it,’ he said to the secretary, who said his name was Doris Leuthard and, given the first name, was likely a she. ‘Another bitch? You can bet your ass on it. Well, come on, make the call!’

‘It’s two in the morning in Europe, sir,’ said the secretary.

‘Good,’ said President Trump.

It had been a hectic day for President Leuthard. Which had turned into a hectic evening and night. She forced herself to go to bed just after one o’clock, in the hopes of being somewhat well rested by six o’clock the next morning.

She was able to sleep for forty-five minutes before she was woken by her assistant. There was an incoming call from the White House in Washington.

Doris Leuthard stood up, feeling dizzy, but prepared herself. When the President of the United States calls, you don’t just flip your pillow over and go back to sleep.

‘Good morning, Mr President,’ said Doris Leuthard. ‘…Did you wake me? Oh, no, no worries.’

‘Great,’ said President Trump. ‘Because it’s night already in Zürich, isn’t it?’

Yes, President Leuthard could confirm that to be the case. Just as it was in Berne, where she was. But, anyway, why did he wish to speak with her?

Doris Leuthard posed the question and anticipated the answer. Ever since the previous afternoon, the federation she represented had been astonished and appalled that an unknown compatriot seemed to be in Pyongyang. Ever since, she and her Federal Council had been working intensively with their own intelligence service and its networks to find out what was going on.

It turned out that President Trump preferred to shout at his Swiss colleague rather than speak to her. He asked what they were doing and whether she realized the challenge she was giving the United States by initiating a collaboration on nuclear weapons with North Korea. This was completely at odds with the sanctions against the country the EU had ratified.