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

‘We have arrived.’

‘Thanks for a pleasant journey,’ said Allan.

Coming and going as one wished was as impossible at the plutonium factory as it was at the hotel. But security was limited to a strict door guard, who inspected everything and everyone who passed in either direction.

‘Good day,’ said Allan. ‘My name is Allan Karlsson and I wonder if you – unlike our driver – might have a name as well?’

The guard assured Allan that he did. But right now his primary objective was to go through Mr Karlsson’s pockets. Nothing inappropriate could be allowed into the plant. Or out of it.

Allan said he hoped he and his friend Julius would not be classified as ‘inappropriate’, because that would lead to problems for all involved. But he hadn’t caught the guard’s name.

‘Good,’ said the guard, allowing the alleged Swiss men to pass.

Allan planned to spend most of the day talking nonsense with the laboratory director who had, some time earlier, replaced the colleague who had passed away. This was the same man who had met him and Julius at the harbour in Nampo the day before.

Allan persisted in wanting to know what people were called, but the North Koreans were playing hard to get.

‘You can call me Mr Engineer,’ said the laboratory director.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Allan. ‘If that’s the way it’s going to be, I want to be called Mr Karlsson.’

‘You already are,’ said the engineer.

Once the titles were sorted out, Allan devoted a considerable part of the day to wasting time. He gave a speech on the importance of keeping the laboratory clean, another about the fact that nuclear weapons were serious business, and a third about how the approaching spring was worth looking forward to.

The engineer grew impatient. ‘Isn’t it about time we got to work?’

‘Got to work?’ said Allan. ‘Just what I was thinking. I was thinking, Now it’s about time we got to work.’

Allan’s acutely incomplete plan was, of course, that he and Julius would leave the country with the four kilos of enriched uranium they’d arrived with. One positive factor was that they wouldn’t have to search for the briefcase because it was no longer on the Supreme Leader’s desk in the palace. Instead it was standing out in the open, against one wall of the laboratory, waiting to be needed.

‘First I will ask permission visually to inspect the uranium I’m here to refine,’ said Allan.

‘Why?’ asked the engineer.

Allan didn’t quite know why, but surely there was a good reason to know what the item you were supposed to steal looked like. ‘To make sure you haven’t been tricked,’ he said. ‘If you only knew how much fake uranium is for sale, Mr Engineer, you would be scared out of your wits. Although perhaps that’s already the case.’

‘What is?’

‘That you’re scared out of your wits. Well?’

The engineer shook his head at the possibly senile expert and went to fetch the briefcase. He placed it on the laboratory counter and opened it.

Enriched uranium has a high density and isn’t terribly dangerous from a radiation standpoint. What Allan could see was a package the size of a brick, encased in a thin layer of lead. He measured its length and width. ‘Twenty-eight by twelve centimetres. That should mean around twenty-seven by eleven inside the lead. That is perfectly correct! My congratulations, Mr Engineer.’

The engineer was surprised. Not so much by the pronouncement as how quickly it had come. ‘Have you already concluded your inspection? Don’t you want to open the package?’

‘No. Why would I? The measurements are correct. Now let’s just weigh it, to be on the safe side.’

Allan took it to the laboratory scale a few metres away.

‘What would the correct weight be?’ asked the engineer.

Allan didn’t respond until he saw the number on the scale.

‘Five point twenty-two kilos. Exactly right, if we include the eight-millimetre layer of lead. My double congratulations, Mr Engineer. You seem to be a man who knows what he’s doing, after all.’

The engineer didn’t follow. ‘After all?’ he said.

‘Let’s not quibble over words. Why don’t we put the briefcase back where it was, and then perhaps we can finally move on? We have a lot to deal with and far too little time.’

The engineer wondered inwardly how it could have become his own fault that they weren’t getting anywhere.

‘So, where were we?’ Allan asked. ‘Have we discussed how important it is to keep the laboratory clean?’

‘Yes,’ said the engineer. ‘Twice.’

‘And how important it is to make sure the uranium is the right weight?’

‘Wasn’t that what you just did?’

Julius looked on in silence. A greater natural talent than Allan’s could not reasonably be expected to exist.

The newly appointed director engineer was having a tough time. His future was entirely dependent on the results of Allan Karlsson’s work. Even more so since the engineer had put in a good word for him to the Supreme Leader after the brief meeting at the harbour.

The plutonium factory had, up to that point, not delivered what it should, and the Russians were humming and hahing about their promise to provide a centrifuge. As a last resort, the engineer had requested enriched uranium as an ingredient that would enable them to fulfil the Supreme Leader’s expectations.

To the engineer’s relative horror, the aforementioned Russians had arranged for a contact in Africa and now he had received a test shipment with which to prove himself. And into the bargain he’d got an ancient expert who was said to know how one could achieve a result multiplied five- or tenfold using the same amount of raw material. Hetisostat pressure one thousand two hundred? The engineer was no dummy, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t follow this concept to any comprehensible conclusion. Well, he still had five days. Tomorrow, he intended to keep a much tighter rein on the conversation.

As Julius dozed off in the back seat, on their trip to the shopping centre, Allan sat in front, thinking. After all, he had no one to talk to. And then he thought a little more. And after a while, he said to Julius: ‘Do you know what I have?’

Julius cracked open an eye. ‘No, I don’t. What do you have?’

‘A plan.’

Julius immediately woke up.

‘For us to get out of this country?’

‘Yes. That was what you wanted, after all. Or have you changed your mind?’

His friend in the back seat assured him that he had not. He wanted to know more this minute.

Allan’s idea was to trick the engineer into leaving so they could sneak out, take the briefcase of uranium with them through the security check, and convince the waiting driver to leave the car, since he would probably never agree to give them a lift to the airport.

Julius absorbed what Allan had just said.

‘That’s your plan?’ he said.

‘In short, yes.’

‘Aside from all the rest, how are you planning to get the uranium past the guard at the door? What will make the driver leave his car? And how do we get into the minister’s plane without being caught by the personnel at the airport?’

Allan said that was too many questions all at once for an old brain.

The largest department store in Pyongyang, and the only one worthy of the name, consisted of four storeys very full of wares and very empty of people buying them. The nameless driver guided Allan and Julius from floor to floor.

On the ground floor was men’s and women’s clothing. They already had the former; they didn’t need the latter.

The second floor sold shoes, coats, gloves and bags. Why not a coat each, as long as the Supreme Leader was footing the bill? It was chilly out.