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

The man in the Hilux was black, middle-aged and short of stature. He gave Allan a cautious look before responding. ‘Smith,’ he said. ‘Stan Smith.’

‘Imagine that,’ said Allan. ‘Do you play tennis?’

‘No, I have a flat tyre,’ said Stan Smith, unaware that he had a tennis-playing namesake who was white and almost two metres tall – not a fellow with whom he was likely to be confused.

Meitkini said he had noticed a wrench near the flat tyre and wondered if Mr Smith had left the car in the dark to change it. If so, this was absolutely not recommended.

Stan Smith seemed to hesitate before replying. ‘I didn’t leave the car. But my travelling partner did. He was taken by the lions twenty minutes ago.’

What horrible news. Yet Mr Smith appeared calm and collected.

‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ said Meitkini. ‘Would you like to climb across into our car, and spend the night at our camp nearby? I can make sure someone drives you back to help you change the wheel first thing tomorrow morning.’

Stan Smith shook his head. ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I can’t leave my cargo.’

Allan looked at the large wooden box in back. ‘What’s in it, if I may ask?’

Stan Smith hesitated once more. ‘Necessities,’ he said.

‘Necessities,’ Allan repeated. ‘Yes, such items are good to have. Though it rather depends on what sort, of course.’

Imagine—

Stan Smith hesitated yet again. Allan was good at registering that kind of thing.

‘It’s for the poor,’ Stan Smith said, and it didn’t look as if he wished to expound any further on the matter. ‘Just go on. I can make it through the night.’

Meitkini shrugged and made a move to leave. Stan Smith was perfectly correct that he would survive the night if he just stayed in the car until dawn. And if he didn’t want any help, he didn’t have to have any.

With that, the matter would have been settled if it hadn’t been for Allan, who had a little more on his mind.

‘That’s a very nice briefcase, Mr Smith,’ he said.

The stranded man was startled.

‘The fact is, I once carried one just like it,’ Allan went on. ‘North Korean design. I’m sure of it, for I’m very familiar with the entire range of North Korean briefcases. It’s rather limited.’

That was all it took for the situation to go in a new direction. Goodluck Wilson, a.k.a. Stan Smith, quickly opened his North Korean briefcase and took out a revolver. He opened the sunroof of the Hilux, stood on his seat, and aimed his weapon alternately at Allan and Meitkini in the front, at the women and the man in the back.

‘Stay where you are!’ he said.

For one instant, time stood still. In that moment, Goodluck Wilson had time to analyse his situation.

He found himself in the middle of the pitch-black Kenyan savannah, where there were more wild lions than anywhere else on earth. He had perhaps seven kilometres to go to the local airport, where the box containing four hundred kilos of enriched uranium would be transferred that night, or the next night at the very latest. He had a flat tyre, but here was an alternative vehicle. He might be able to take off in it, with the help of the revolver in his hand. Revolvers, after all, are known for getting people to do what their owners say. In this case, that might be to demand that the old man, his driver and the three back-seat passengers exchange their car for his.

In which case, all that remained was the uranium issue. He couldn’t leave it behind. If he opened the box, he could force his hostages to move the forty ten-kilo boxes into the Land Cruiser, one box at a time. But that would require one to work on the ground – under threat of his weapon, yes, but also exposed to the lions. Would the revolver even be enough to maintain discipline over the group under such circumstances?

And, also, this group. Who were they? How the hell had that old white man recognized his briefcase? It was unreal.

Just think how much the human brain can manage to do when time is standing still. Goodluck Wilson continued his pondering. Another option was to shoot everyone who currently posed a threat to this whole multi-million-dollar affair. But that wouldn’t help him move forwards. Not until the morning, when he could change cars or tyres without aid. How many safari cars would have time to swing by before this?

And that was about where the instant ended. Time started moving again. As a Maasai, Meitkini had a throwing club on a loop on his trousers. With it he could strike a moving wild animal from a distance of forty metres. The blow would be hard enough to make the animal reconsider, to the extent that it could consider anything at all.

Animal or human, essentially there was no difference. From only three metres away, it would be easy enough to land a blow to the forehead of the man who called himself Stan Smith and was likely named something else. A buffalo struck in the side by the club would feel pain. A man who took it to the forehead would die on the spot.

Meitkini acted, quick as lightning.

‘Nice throw,’ Allan said encouragingly.

‘Thanks,’ said Meitkini.

Julius and Sabine said nothing: it had all happened too fast for them. The same went for Fredrika Langer. She was the one to break the silence.

‘Exactly what just happened?’ she asked.

Allan responded.

‘What exactly happened was – I’m guessing – that Madame Agent, Fredrika, just found her five hundred kilos of uranium. Just think – it really is a small world.’

A few months earlier, it had been quite an adventure to get the test cargo to Madagascar, where the North Koreans picked it up. But the rest of the trip to Pyongyang had gone well. A few days before Goodluck Wilson’s ill-fated encounter with Allan and his friends, he had initiated ‘Operation Jackpot’. The Supreme Leader far, far away wanted to buy the five hundred kilos that had accidentally become four hundred. And it would happen now. After all, they couldn’t just keep the uranium in the hut in the middle of the village, halving itself every four-billionth year.

But four kilos was one thing. Four hundred was another. It was easy to get the load into Tanzania via Burundi, by way of well-targeted bribes, but the next border, between Tanzania and Mozambique, was heavily guarded. The border patrol officers there took their jobs seriously. People like that were Goodluck Wilson’s pet peeve.

What was more, he had likely left a number of traces behind, having managed that route once. Goodluck Wilson didn’t believe in luck, despite his name. He believed in cleverness.

The leader of the watchdog force had needed to think up a new plan.

So he had.

Everyone who was on the lookout for enriched uranium, or other exciting items that were worth a lot of money on the international market, assumed that the cargo was on its way to the nearest coast, the Tanzanian one, or the next nearest, the one in Mozambique. So Goodluck Wilson settled on a different route. The load would go straight north, to the Serengeti, where the Maasai kingdom was. The Maasai herded cattle and raised goats and generally didn’t get involved in the modern world. Above all, like the wild animals that migrated north each summer on the hunt for more fertile areas, they didn’t pay attention to national borders. The border of Tanzania and Kenya ran straight through the Maasai land, with no patrols. Telling a Maasai that he couldn’t herd his two hundred cattle across a certain line on the ground just couldn’t be done.

The plan was to transport the load of uranium in a Hilux from Congo, via Burundi, south of Lake Victoria, into the Serengeti, across the border into Kenya, and all the way to the insignificant Keekorok Airport. It consisted of one runway made of mineral-rich red earth, and a terminal building the size of a newspaper stand. Air Kenya came from Nairobi to drop off safari-hungry tourists and pick up others who had finished touristing. When the sun went down, the newspaper stand closed and the airport stopped functioning. Not a single person would be in the vicinity until the next morning.