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

When Doris Leuthard spent a little too much time drawing a breath before responding, Donald Trump went on to say that he would make sure the EU kicked Switzerland out of the union unless she immediately withdrew all aid to that fool over there.

Now President Leuthard had no idea where to begin. How many mistakes could a presidential colleague make in such a short time?

‘Well, Switzerland isn’t a member of the EU, so it will be hard for you to kick us out, Mr President. Beyond that, I’m not sure your presidential powers extend so far that it can rearrange the European Union’s roster of member states. Incidentally, the sanctions against North Korea are regulated by the UN, and we are a member there. If you’d like to alter that, I’ll have to ask you to call and wake up Secretary General Guterres instead.’

‘But you said you weren’t asleep,’ said President Trump.

Doris Leuthard had enough presence of mind not to get into a conversation with the President of the United States about whether or not she had been asleep at two in the morning. Instead she said she sympathized with his worries. ‘We have no idea who the alleged Swiss man is, but it’s something we’re working intensively to find out. I assure you.’

‘You’d better be,’ said President Trump. ‘And you’ll have to do more than that. The moment you know something, you call me immediately. Is that understood?’

President Leuthard had already been tired; after two minutes on the phone with the American president she was exhausted. ‘When we know, we will take the proper measures. What those may be will have to be dictated by the circumstances. I cannot promise, but neither can I rule out, that I will inform you personally, especially now that you have expressed a wish thereof. The Swiss Confederation does, however, retain the right to come to its own decisions regarding national security.’

President Trump hung up without saying goodbye. He muttered as he logged into Breitbart.com to see if the Swiss knew more than their president wanted to admit. But not even Breitbart seemed to have an ear close enough to the ground.

While Donald Trump was conversing with the terrible woman in Switzerland, two things happened outside his door. Retired CIA agent Ryan Hutton had called the White House and managed, via a few detours, to be transferred to National Security Advisor McMaster. Agent Hutton was almost eighty years old, but claimed he still had both intellect and vision intact. If the lieutenant general wished, Hutton could tell him who the Swiss nuclear-weapons expert in Pyongyang was.

‘Please do,’ said H. R. McMaster.

Well, first off, the Swiss man in question was Swedish and nothing else. His name was Allan Karlsson and he had to be close to a hundred years old by now; during the seventies and eighties he’d been a paid agent of the United States, stationed in Moscow; he’d spent the fifties in a Soviet gulag in Siberia after he had, laudably enough, challenged Stalin. Prior to this he had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his pivotal achievements in the building of the world’s first atomic bomb.

‘Another Swede?’ was President Trump’s first comment. ‘How many of them are there? What is wrong with that country?’

‘He did receive the Medal of Freedom, Mr President.’

‘Sixty years ago, sure. He’s had plenty of time to forget what freedom is. What the hell else would he be doing in Pee-oy… Pyong… P…’

‘Pyongyang, sir. We don’t know. The fact is, we know no more than what was said at the press conference, plus these new pieces of the puzzle from former CIA Agent Hutton.’

‘Two Swedes and a North Korean. That makes three Communists in a row,’ said President Trump. ‘Get that fucking Wallström over here right now, before Sweden takes over the whole world. Was there anything else? I want some peace and quiet for a while.’

Yes, the security advisor had one more thing. It so happened that the NSA had bugged a hotel in Pyongyang. Since the hotel had hardly any guests, there wasn’t much to overhear, but apparently they had just had a hit. There seemed to be regular transports into North Korea of something with the code name ‘asparagus’. The number five hundred million figured somehow. Dollars, one had to presume.

President Trump liked asparagus and was blissfully unaware that the most exclusive variety, served at his many US hotels, was imported from Sweden. The brand was ‘Gustav Svensson’.

‘Five hundred million dollars for asparagus?’ said President Trump. ‘It’s not that good. Find out what that’s code for.’

Allan and Julius met Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström in the breakfast room before the friends’ first workday in the plutonium factory north of Pyongyang.

As the three took their seats, she informed them that the diplomatic passports she’d promised were on their way from Beijing by courier. If all went well, she would be able to hand them over the next morning. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot, but I don’t think there’s anything else I can do for you.’

‘Even this much has made our situation a little brighter,’ said Allan.

Julius just nodded. The minister for foreign affairs was still wonderful, but no one could be so fantastic as to cause him to stop brooding about how his life was almost over and he would never get to see his beloved asparagus again. Or the money it generated.

‘My meeting with Kim is tomorrow,’ Margot Wallström went on. ‘He’s already indicated that he wants me out of here afterwards, meaning that my departure will occur the next day at the latest. Have you had time to come up with a way to sneak out with me?’

‘Have we, Allan?’ Julius wondered.

But the hundred-and-one-year-old’s mind was elsewhere. Instead of responding he said that the black tablet seemed to be in the best possible mood at that very moment. First there was the Polish EU parliamentarian who maintained that women ought to be paid less than men on the ground that they were less intelligent. Speaking of male intelligence, Trump in the United States had just tweeted that one of the world’s most beloved and award-winning actresses was incompetent. And in Brazil, President Temer stood accused of corruption after having replaced the corruption-tainted Rousseff, who had been removed from office after taking over from Lula, who was now waiting to be locked up for corruption.

‘Wasn’t there someone who wrote that humans are to be pitied?’ Allan said, adding that, speaking of Trump, he didn’t quite understand what ‘tweeting’ was.

Julius gazed at his friend vacantly.

The minister said that, given the opportunity, she would be happy to explain to Karlsson the phenomenon that was Twitter, or for that matter let them delve into Swedish literary history. But for the moment, the more urgent matter at hand was whether the gentlemen had some plan for survival.

Allan said that if the minister was so determined to change the subject, then his response would be that ‘plan’ might be an exaggeration.

‘Then, Mr Karlsson, what would you call what you do have, if it’s not a plan?’

‘Nothing at all,’ said Allan. ‘Except problems. And a certain amount of confidence. Mostly problems, or mostly confidence, depending on which one of us is asked.’

Margot Wallström said she was addressing both of them. Since Julius appeared to have slipped into hopelessness, it was up to Allan to speak for them.

It seemed likely that much would clear up once they had completed their first workday at the plutonium factory. After all, sometimes solutions fall into your lap just when you least expect them, most recently when he and Julius were sitting with water up to their knees in a woven basket on the open sea. The water was warm, so they were doing fine in that respect, but they didn’t have much else to be happy about.