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

Coordinates? This was beyond Allan’s capacity. But Meitkini was standing next to him, listening in, and jotted down what the chancellor had asked for.

‘I’ve just received a note. Oh, I see, this is what coordinates are. It actually reminds me of atomic fission, at first glance.’

Allan recited; Angela Merkel took notes.

‘When do you estimate the goods can be ready, Mr Karlsson?’

Madame Chancellor could decide that for herself. That very night, or the next one, perhaps.

Without directly confirming the arrangement, Angela Merkel informed him that the night after next might be worth aiming at. For example, at oh one hundred hours. ‘Anything else we need to discuss in the meantime?’ she asked.

Allan had a sudden brainwave. ‘Yes, there may be, since the chancellor was kind enough to ask.’

‘Well?’

‘We happened to incur some expenses related to ensuring that the uranium didn’t end up in North Korea.’

Chancellor Merkel smelt a rat. Thus far, Karlsson had given no indication that he wanted remuneration. ‘Expenses?’ she said.

‘Among other things, it became necessary for us to purchase four hundred tons of soil for the good of our cause.’

Soil? What had that to do with the enriched uranium? No, she didn’t want to know. ‘And what is the current market price for four hundred tons of soil?’ she asked, in a chilly tone.

It was rich in sand and of the highest quality. And it required extensive arrangements to transport it from Nairobi.

‘Ten million, more or less,’ said Allan.

‘Ten million euros for four hundred tons of soil?’ said Chancellor Merkel.

So Karlsson was a gangster, after all. One who was attempting extortion.

‘Heavens, no,’ said Allan. ‘Ten million Kenyan shillings.’

Angela Merkel quickly brought up the current exchange rate on her laptop. What a relief! The Kenyan shilling was worth 0.008 euros. Karlsson was demanding what corresponded to the amount the well-off nation made in surplus in two minutes at the current rate. Their conversation had already lasted twice that long.

‘Naturally you will be compensated for your soil, Karlsson,’ she said, still without wishing to know what or whom he might be intending to bury in it. ‘If you give me an account number, I’ll take care of it at once.’

‘One moment, Madame Chancellor,’ said Allan, and asked for Meitkini’s help.

Receiving payments from abroad was an everyday occurrence at the camp. Meitkini wrote down a series of letters and numbers for Allan.

‘Thanks,’ said the chancellor. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hang up. I have a few matters to take care of.’

Quite a lot of things, actually. She had to organize the transport to Keekorok before she rushed right back to saying and doing nothing. The polling stations would open in forty-eight hours.

The Bundestag voting had been going on for several hours when a Transall C-160 landed at the German Navy base in Landkreis Cochem-Zell, after completing its mission to Africa.

Forty boxes of unknown contents were transferred to one of the airport’s cargo vehicles for its three-hundred-metre journey to the armoured bus that would take over. The next leg was also the last. Nine kilometres away waited a bunker in which was stored, among many other items, four kilos of enriched uranium. It was about to receive a refill.

The bus was strategically parked at the outermost gate on the eastern side of the military airfield, partially hidden behind two large election posters. It was as if the chancellor herself were watching over the transport. She gazed down from the posters, smiling her Mona Lisa smile at the soldiers who carried enriched uranium between the vehicles. She said, ‘For a Germany where we live well and happily.’

She had good reason to smile. The election forecasts said she would win, although complicated government negotiations awaited her. Furthermore, her envoys had flown into and out of Kenya without incident. The Kenyans, happily, were too busy worrying about themselves.

An hour or so later, the bunker was sealed. The chancellor and her professor had been to vote, and were now eating a quiet dinner, just the two of them.

‘It seems that Mr Karlsson won’t influence the German democratic process after all,’ said the professor.

‘Well, the polling stations don’t close for another hour. He still has time,’ said Chancellor Merkel.

‘No one is perfect, especially not me,’ Allan apologized.

Meitkini and Sabine had called him into the camp office and asked him to explain a deposit of eighty thousand euros from Germany into the camp’s account. Allan explained that he had kindly asked Chancellor Merkel for aid equalling the cost of the soil he had purchased. And that in her genuine benevolence she had granted it.

‘But isn’t eighty thousand ten times more than the soil cost?’ Sabine asked.

‘Yes, so I’ve understood. There are so terribly many zeros in the Kenyan currency that I must have been completely flummoxed.’

‘Are you telling the truth now, Allan?’ Sabine asked sternly. ‘You can’t just go around cheating the Chancellor of Germany out of money.’

At that moment, Julius entered the room. He heard the last bit. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

Margot Wallström had not yet lost her job, and much suggested that things would stay that way. But that didn’t stop her being in a state of inner turmoil.

The Nazi in Rosengård, whom Allan Karlsson had promised to keep alive, had indirectly taken his own life during a confrontation with the police near Copenhagen’s international airport a few hours later. One couldn’t blame Karlsson for that. Or could one? After all, the entire airport circus had started when he (or whoever was driving) had parked his hearse on the pavement outside the main entrance to the departures hall. Anyone should understand what that could lead to.

The minister for foreign affairs had made sure to stay abreast of the police’s supplementary work. And now the investigation was complete. With the help of security cameras and general piecing together, it was clear that Sabine Jonsson was the main suspect in the crime. Karlsson and Jonsson might potentially be defined as accessories, but since the somewhat lazy prosecutor had been satisfied with the criminal charge of ‘parking in a no-parking zone’, there was nothing to slap the two men with. Sabine Jonsson, however, could expect to receive a fine of seven thousand Danish kroner.

In any case, it felt like a good thing that the trio had left the country. How it felt that the Nazi had departed this earth was something the minister tried not to think about. In her position, you didn’t wish death upon others.

She was on her way to see the prime minister for an analysis of the result of the previous day’s parliamentary election in Germany. This meant that Karlsson wouldn’t haunt her for at least a few hours, and that, if anything, felt good.

‘Hi, Margot, have a seat,’ said Prime Minister Löfven.

Both agreed that the German election results were not as positive as one might have hoped. At the last second, the ultra-right had won increased support even as the Social Democrats didn’t deliver at all – both facts were worrying.

Margot Wallström’s analysis of why the outcome was worse for the sensible powers than one might have expected and hoped was very down-to-earth: Hurricane Irma’s advance in the days leading up to the election. It had laid waste to Puerto Rico and appeared for quite some time to pose a deadly threat to Florida. During this week of drama, Donald Trump hadn’t uttered a single new stupid remark. What was more, the media had other things to focus on than his previous and typically ongoing idiocy. For a limited time – but a crucial one, for the German election – he didn’t appear to be the clear opposite to Angela Merkel he de facto was. The general public had a good, but short, memory. When Trump temporarily wasn’t seen as a guarantee of a less secure world, Merkel lost important percentage points that were then plucked up by the president’s cousins on the far right.