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

The prime minister was surprised at the minister for foreign affairs’ candour. Her analysis was unusual but perfectly reasonable.

Thus he decided to call Chancellor Merkel to congratulate her, although her parliamentary situation would be troublesome. ‘Do stay, Margot. The chancellor and I have no secrets from you.’

Ten minutes later, the call was put through. Prime Minister Löfven congratulated both the chancellor and Europe in general. The stability represented by Madame Chancellor was good for all.

The chancellor thanked him. She had already accepted a dozen or so calls of congratulation from leaders all over the world. This was one of many – and yet it wasn’t. Allan Karlsson, who had played such a major role in her life of late, was, of course, Swedish.

The prime minister had the speakerphone on. As a result, the minister for foreign affairs could hear. What she heard was sensational.

‘Thanks again, Prime Minister,’ said Chancellor Merkel. ‘Let me take this opportunity to send a greeting to the Swedish citizen Allan Karlsson, who did such an exemplary job at avoiding giving help to Kim Jong-un in what he shouldn’t have help with.’

The prime minister was surprised by this turn in the conversation, but no more than that. Margot Wallström still hadn’t found the right time to tell him about her further adventures with Karlsson, post New York.

‘I’ll do that,’ said the prime minister. ‘Is there any particular message you’d like me to pass on?’

Angela Merkel was in a good mood after her victory. The enormous issues she would confront in building a government hadn’t completely dawned on her yet. ‘Oh, tell him he’s welcome to visit me if he ever happens to be in Berlin. I’d be happy to share some cabbage soup.’

Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström couldn’t believe her ears. Was Allan ‘What-the-Hell-Has-He-Done-This-Time’ Karlsson friends with the Chancellor of Germany?

When the conversation was over, she turned to her prime minister. ‘I think I’ll go home. It’s been a long day.’

The North Korean courier in Madagascar stood there with eighty million dollars, waiting for a large quantity of enriched uranium that never arrived. Honour and Strength hadn’t been able to wait any longer: it risked attracting the attention of American satellites. The courier realized all the blame would be laid on him, at which point he decided to shoulder the burden on his own. Thus he allowed himself and the eighty million dollars to go up in smoke.

Kim Jong-un was furious. Not so much about the uranium – after all, he had the plutonium centrifuge now. But the money! The captain of Honour and Strength was obviously involved. Upon his return he would receive the exact welcome he deserved.

The captain had already figured this out. Perhaps that was why his ship was suddenly struck by distress off the western coast of Australia, at which point the captain took the opportunity to seek political asylum at the immigration authority in Perth. In the interrogations that followed, he gave up everything he knew and had been involved in, including the meeting with the hundred-and-one-year-old Swiss man he’d found floating in a basket in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The Australians in turn forwarded this information to the CIA, who found reason to inform President Trump.

Everything about Allan Karlsson’s doings in the Indian Ocean were already available to read in the UN report Margot Wallström had submitted, but with its seventy-two pages it was seventy-two pages too long for Donald Trump to deal with. So the president drew his own conclusions.

‘How stupid can people get?’ he said. ‘A Swedish Communist is floating around in a basket in the ocean and gets picked up by a North Korean one? Coincidence, my ass!’

So he ordered the CIA to apprehend Karlsson and put him on trial.

‘For what, Mr President?’ wondered the new director of the CIA (new, because the previous one had been fired by the same president).

‘That’s not fucking up to me to figure out,’ said the president.

With that, the director of the CIA excused himself and put the matter aside, certain that the president would have forgotten the whole thing within two weeks.

Gennady Aksakov was more confused than angry, and he was already pretty angry.

‘What’s going on, Gena?’ President Putin asked his friend.

‘Well, where should I start?’ said Gena.

‘Start by telling me what’s weighing on you,’ said Volodya.

So he did.

His contact in Congo, Goodluck Wilson, had failed in his uranium mission. The first indication of this was the report from the Russian-controlled pilot of the transport flight that had landed under cover of night at a tiny airport in Maasai Mara. Wilson and the uranium had never turned up. Not at the appointed time and not the next night, which was the previously arranged back-up time in case of unforeseen complications.

‘Did he get cold feet?’ the president wondered.

More than that, Gena could tell him. Not only his feet, but every other part of Goodluck Wilson had been eaten by an unknown number of hyenas about seven kilometres from the airport. The car was still at the edge of the road, but the cargo was missing. Apparently he’d had a puncture.

‘Bad luck,’ said Putin. ‘So where is the uranium now?’

That part, Gena did not know. The pilot’s contacts on the ground had given testimony of an unidentified aeroplane that had landed and taken off at Keekorok Airport a few nights later. Based on that information, it would seem pointless to search for the uranium in Kenya, or even in Africa.

‘Maybe it’s just as well,’ said Putin. ‘Kim Jong-un already has what he needs – that is to say, more than he ought to have.’

Gena had to agree on that point. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

‘No?’

No, there was also this part about Allan Karlsson.

‘The one who killed your Nazis in Sweden?’

‘Yes, and in Denmark.’

‘What has he done now?’

‘He’s farming asparagus.’

President Putin loved asparagus.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Where?’

‘In a valley in Kenya. In Maasai Mara. Between the airport and the bushes where the hyenas ate Wilson.’

The president laughed. ‘And how do you know that?’

‘The bastard is tweeting about it!’

Putin laughed even louder.

‘Shall we send someone down to kill him?’ Gena wondered.

But President Putin was a good sport through and through. ‘We’ve been outsmarted by a hundred-and-one-year-old, Gena. Let the old man be. We’ve got a World Cup to worry about. May the best-doped team win!’

Sweden’s first year on the Security Council was wearing towards its end.

Wearing is right, thought Margot Wallström.

She had accomplished quite a bit, but not when it came to a détente between North Korea and the United States. One monumental ego on either side of the Pacific Ocean was two too many.

She really wanted to blame her failure on Allan Karlsson, who had managed to muck things up on four continents in just a few months. Nothing had been heard from him for some time now. Was he busy getting ready for a fifth continent?

But, deep down, she knew Karlsson wasn’t to blame for anything. He just seemed to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For one hundred and one years in a row.

‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’, said the Washington Post , and proceeded to go through all of President Trump’s lies and misrepresentations during his first year in the White House. Freely interpreted, this headline meant something along the lines of ‘May Truth Prevail’.