‘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.
Germany
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.
Kenya
‘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?’
Sweden
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.
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.’
Mad
agascar, North Korea, Australia, USA, Russia
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, USA, Russia
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’.
But it didn’t. Towards the end of the year, the president averaged five point five false statements each day. In his defence, it should be pointed out that he kept the average up by repeating the same falsehood many times over. The Washington Post was rude enough to count each untruth as an untruth, even though it had also been put forward the day before and the day before that.
Thus counted, the president had lied, made things up or twisted the truth about the former president’s health-care reform at least sixty times. And when he expressed himself about the tax burden in the United States it had gone wrong 140 times, even though he was corrected on each occasion. Fake media were, once and for all, evil personified.
* * *
Gena and Volodya celebrated the New Year together, as always. Tradition dictated that they toast with a cup of tea at midnight. Their common goal of giving Russia the world position it deserved (and preferably a little more) was too important to booze away.
Exactly twelve months earlier, their toast had been to the developments in the United States, and the approaching inauguration of Donald J. Trump. Ever since election night, a whole division of Gena’s internet-based army of young men and women had been devoted to covering all their tracks, while three other divisions constantly took up new positions to make sure the collapse of the United States wouldn’t get derailed.
Another twelve months previously, the friends had celebrated Brexit. Two enormous victories in as many years.
2017 had not been as successful. The chaos in the USA was, of course, fantastic in many respects, but it was also frightening. It prompted humility in facing the future. High up on the agenda was the question of whether it was time to get rid of Trump. And, if so, then preferably Kim Jong-un as well. There was an alternative solution, but Volodya and Gena had to sleep on it.
Beyond this, they had to admit that they had missed their chance, over the past year, to sink Europe as well. The developments in France were what bothered them most. The stage had been set for a duel between François Fillon and Marine Le Pen. Right against super-right. Gena was sitting on information about Fillon that could have given Le Pen an edge. And then some jerk at Le Canard Enchainé figured out the same thing and published it – too damn early!
Paying his wife five hundred thousand euros of taxpayers’ money to do nothing did not, of course, turn out to be popular. Fillon was done for, and with him went Russia’s chances of sinking Europe by way of Paris.
Berlin went better, later on. But it seemed that the cat with nine lives, fucking Merkel, would succeed at forming a coalition government despite the odds.
Oh, well, you couldn’t have it all. The relative calm in the Middle East remained. The fools in the EU and NATO refused to comprehend that Bashar al-Assad would be taken away in the long run, and in an orderly fashion. To bomb him away would be tantamount to bombing Russia out of having influence, not to mention the monumental chaos that would arise in Syria’s place. Given the circumstances, you had to take the occasional bad chemical weapons attack with the good. The quasi-democracy in the West had not learned a thing from Libya: that much was clear. What was more, the constant stream of refugees into Europe served Russia’s purpose. Each poor wretch who managed to get a residency permit in any of the continent’s stupidest countries only fed the xenophobia in the neighbouring country. The unwillingness to help was greatest in those places that had never helped yet. That was how human resentment worked.
‘Cheers to you, my dear friend,’ said Vladimir Putin, raising his teacup.
‘Happy new year,’ said Gennady Aksakov.
At which they exchanged novogodnye podarki – New Year gifts – and looked to the future.
‘Where in the world is our next project, do you think?’ asked Gena. ‘Italy?’
‘No, they’re doing fine on their own.’
* * *
The advantage to toasting with tea on New Year’s Eve is that you are alert and clear-headed the next morning. Vladimir Putin didn’t know how things were on that front with Kim Jong-un when he lifted his presidential phone for a direct call between leaders.