The meek woman’s conclusion was that the uranium had left Madagascar by boat, but the size of the boat must be such that it could manage an ocean crossing. Either the Indian Ocean in one direction or the Atlantic in the other.
The arrogant man nodded, agreed, and made this line of reasoning his own in the subsequent report to Berlin, without protest from the meek woman.
The next step was to list all the cargo vessels that had recently called at and sailed from the harbour in Toamasina. When that didn’t turn up any obvious hits, A and B expanded their search to encompass potentially suspicious ships that had been anywhere near Madagascar during the period in question.
As a result, they were currently looking at a list of ships’ names. It consisted of one: the North Korean bulk carrier Honour and Strength.
On its way from Havana to Pyongyang.
It had passed immediately south of Madagascar fifteen days earlier.
The relationship between the Germans and the Americans wasn’t the best, ever since it had turned out that the Americans had bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone, at which the chancellor picked up said phone and called President Obama to say she hoped the CIA was also listening to what she had to say now.
On the basis of his personality, as well as Germany’s strained relationship with the United States, the BND’s top central African representative had no problem lying through his teeth when explaining to his American colleague why he wanted help in determining the exact route and speed of the North Korean vessel Honour and Strength. As well as, of course, where the ship might currently be located.
The CIA, which was informed that it had to do with suspected industrial espionage on the car manufacturer Volkswagen in Brazil, told him what they knew. Without grumbling or delay, to boot. The blunder with the chancellor’s phone meant that they would be indebted to the Germans for quite some time.
The North Korean ship had followed a route a little closer to the southern coast of Madagascar than was optimal. The various time stamps, as calculated from the CIA’s satellite reports, also indicated that the ship had slowed down around there.
The German agents drew the conclusion that there was an immediate risk the uranium would soon wind up in North Korea, to be used for the nuclear weapons programme that Germany, and the world in general, had condemned.
They had to hurry!
Or, as it turned out, they didn’t.
Honour and Strength had, two hours earlier, reached North Korean waters and would arrive in the harbour at Nampo later that day.
North Korea
Uranium or plutonium? Plutonium or uranium? Kim Jong-un wanted the answer to be plutonium, and it would have been, too, if the Russians had kept their centrifugal promise, or if the only person in the northern hemisphere who was a bigger screw-up than the director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy in Pyongyang wasn’t his colleague at the plutonium plant in Yongbyon. What they had accomplished, at great cost to the Democratic People’s Republic, was certainly enough to be a slight annoyance to the Americans and their puppets scattered throughout the area, but it was far from anything that could demonstrate real might.
Therefore the Supreme Leader had first removed the plutonium director north of the capital, citing his incompetence – that is, treason. It was, of course, a correct decision, as were all decisions made by the Supreme Leader, but in practice it had not led to anything but the removed director being replaced by a man who essentially deserved the same. And the one in Pyongyang mostly kept slinking around with his back to the wall, terrified, for some reason.
All these things a person had to do himself. The Supreme Leader gave the order to purchase enriched uranium on the free market. Just three or four kilos to start. The purveyor the Russians had mentioned had to prove himself, and the method of smuggling had to be run in before any meaningful deliveries could be fulfilled. It would never do to obtain uranium for maybe a hundred million dollars, only to see the load seized by the devil himself.
A few kilos (or even half a ton) were far from sufficient to win a large-scale war, but that was never the intent. Naturally, Kim Jong-un realized that an attack on South Korea or Japan could not end in anything but destruction for all. More so if he reached the United States, or even just Guam.
At the same time, four kilos (unlike half a ton) was too little for the true purpose, which was to prove themselves and make the dogs in Washington drop their ideas about doing what they’d already done in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. History showed that countries that couldn’t bite back were devoured. A happy side effect of the armament was that it allowed for an ever-brasher rhetoric, which in turn brought local fighting spirit to entirely new levels. In this way, the Supreme Leader became even more supreme.
Deep down, Kim Jong-un didn’t believe in anything but himself, his dad and his grandpa. Religion in the wider sense was forbidden in North Korea. Yet he was close to thinking that a higher power was involved, in that the one person on earth he needed more than any other, for his purposes, had been found floating in a basket at sea just days before. Only to be scooped up by the very ship that was on its way home with the trial cargo of uranium. If this person was who he claimed to be, of course. That was a detail that remained to be investigated.
Anyway, scooped up he had been. And by a captain who proved able to think for himself. For that, the captain would be awarded a medal. And scrutinized a bit more closely by the director of Domestic Security. To think for himself. From there, it was a slippery slope towards planning a coup.
There was plenty of uranium out there, if you only had the contacts. And nowadays they did. Furthermore, Kim Jong-un also loved the fact that the main distributor of the necessary uranium was the director of a plant in Congo that had been created by the Americans.
The dream, of course, would be a hydrogen bomb, but for that they would need, first, a functional production line of plutonium (which, again, the screw-ups hadn’t yet managed to create) and then something totally, uniquely complicated where deuterium and tritium melted together into helium atoms at the same time as … something. Kim Jong-un’s brain was too valuable to the nation for him to weigh it down with the sort of thing his researchers ought to be able to manage in an afternoon.
The advantage of a hydrogen bomb was that it would erase Japan and South Korea from the map in a single bang. The disadvantage was that the Democratic People’s Republic would cease to exist thirty seconds later. But as long as malevolent Americans, Japanese and South Koreans didn’t completely understand that Kim Jong-un realized this, it would fulfil its function. If only it were possible to build.
The hydrogen bomb would have to wait. The plutonium facilities could continue not to deliver. Kim Jong-un had uranium on the way now – and, possibly, the man who knew the best way to make use of it.
All that was left to do was to let the world know.
North Korea
Since Kim Jong-un was never wrong, naturally he had not rushed off in youthful zeal after that encrypted message from the captain of Honour and Strength, the one about how the solution to his ongoing nuclear weapons problems was a hundred and one years old and would soon arrive at the harbour in Nampo, sixty kilometres south of Pyongyang.
Instead he settled down for a bit of reflection with his evening tea. Because, really, what was to say that the Swiss man Karlsson was who and what he said he was, other than that he’d said so himself?
According to the Honour and Strength captain’s second, more detailed, report to the Supreme Leader, Karlsson seemed to have demonstrated a surprising amount of insight into the Democratic People’s Republic’s ongoing woes when it came to the production of plutonium. This was, of course, one piece of circumstantial evidence. Another was the fact that he was Swiss. The Supreme One had lived and studied in Switzerland when he was younger. A lot could be said about the Swiss. They were, to be sure, detestable capitalists, like just about everyone else, and a bit more so than almost everyone else. And they worshipped
their bloody Schweizerfranc. As if it had anything the North Korean won didn’t.
But in addition they were always on time, as if they all had Swiss clocks surgically installed in their heads. And they succeeded in every undertaking. Quite simply, a Swiss nuclear weapons expert could not be a fraud. Right?
There would have to be a double-check before the Swiss man was allowed in.
Thus it came to pass that Kim Jong-un contacted the director of the laboratory at the plutonium factory in Yongbyon, the one who had just replaced the boss who had disappeared some time earlier. The new man could not yet be held accountable for all the shortcomings of the factory, but that was only a matter of time. Now he was tasked with meeting the Swiss man as soon as he set foot on North Korean ground, and not allowing him access to the Supreme Leader until it was clear that he was what and who he ought to be.
* * *
Allan and Julius were escorted ashore in the harbour at Nampo and met by a middle-aged man in civilian clothing, who was flanked by six young, nervous soldiers.
‘Messrs Karlsson and Jonsson, I presume?’ the man said in English.
‘Well presumed,’ said Allan. ‘I’m Karlsson. And you? We were supposed to meet the Supreme Leader to offer our services. It seems to me that you are not he. In which case he is not you, I imagine.’
The man in civilian garb was concentrating too hard on his task to allow himself to be distracted by Allan’s exposition.
‘You are correct that I am not the Supreme Leader. I am the director of the laboratory at one of the development plants of the Democratic People’s Republic. We’ll leave my name out of it. I have arranged a place for us to sit down and speak undisturbed. If the conversation goes as it should, the Supreme Leader awaits you afterwards. Circumstances dictate that time is at a premium, so would you please be so kind as to follow me?’
The laboratory director didn’t wait for an answer before he began to walk to the harbour offices, while the six young soldiers surrounded Allan and Julius and made sure they followed.
Soon the trio had settled into a conference room that the harbour had kindly made available after a proposal from the Supreme Leader’s staff. The six young soldiers were left outside the door.
‘Let’s begin. I turn to you, Mr Karlsson, since you are the one who claims to be a nuclear weapons expert, willing to put your services at the disposal of the Democratic People’s Republic. For that reason I have a few questions concerning your commitment to our cause, as well as what you believe you can contribute more specifically. In short, my task is to find out if you’re a charlatan or not.’
A charlatan? Allan thought. Surely it doesn’t make you a charlatan just because you invent as much about yourself as necessity demands. ‘No, I’m no charlatan,’ he lied. ‘Just old. And well-travelled. A little hungry and thirsty. And something more too, I’m sure. By the way, Julius here is an asparagus farmer. Green asparagus, primarily.’
Up to this point, Julius hadn’t said a word. What could he say? He nodded cautiously, longing to be somewhere else. ‘Asparagus,’ he said. ‘Green, as you heard.’
The laboratory director was not interested in Julius. Instead he leaned across the desk and looked Allan in the eye. ‘Lovely to hear that you’re a truth-teller. I’d just like to remind you, Mr Nuclear Weapons Expert, that I’m an expert myself. Nonsense and empty phrases about asparagus or anything else will not suffice. Are you ready for my questions? The first is about your motive in helping the Democratic People’s Republic.’
Julius prayed to the god he appropriately didn’t believe in, considering the country he was in. Please don’t let Allan go too far.
‘Well, if we’re being honest here, Mr Laboratory Director must not be much of a nuclear weapons expert. My services would not be required otherwise. By “development plant”, I assume you mean a plutonium factory. Is it the one to the north of the city you work at? Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because you can’t have sorted out any measurable amounts of weapons-grade plutonium.’
Within just a few seconds, the laboratory director had lost control of the conversation. Allan went on: ‘Although there’s no reason to be too upset about it – this business with plutonium is terribly difficult. I think you should switch to uranium. And I imagine you’ve probably already come to this realization on your own.’
Any charlatan worth his salt radiates a level of confidence that’s hard to defend oneself against. The laboratory director now had very little left of his original certainty. ‘Would you please answer the question?’ he said curtly.
‘I would be very happy to,’ said Allan. ‘But I’m a bit advanced in age and I have to confess I’ve forgotten what the question was.’
The laboratory director had very nearly done the same, but he racked his brains and repeated it.
The answer to the question about why Allan wanted to help was basically that he didn’t want to help at all. However, he had nothing against surviving his repeat visit to North Korea. With that in mind, perhaps it was best to adjust his tone. ‘All you have to do is look around, Mr Laboratory Director,’ he said, pointing through the windows of the harbour offices.
The view was of a run-down industrial area. To the left of the rustiest warehouse stood a dead maple, representing the only greenery the scene had to offer.
‘It’s hard to beat the beauty of your democratic republic. The abundant nature. The devoted people. The struggle against an ever-crueller world. Someone must dare to take the side of peace and love. A few days ago, your country saved the lives of me and my friend Julius. The least we can do is pay back the favour as best we can. Our services are fully at your disposal. If you would like advice on how to optimize your asparagus operations, there’s no better man for the job than Julius. If you happen to want to prioritize your optimization of whatever enriched uranium you may have lying around, then I’m your man.’
On occasion, people function such that they hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe. The laboratory director nodded, decently satisfied with this truthful description of his country, while he said that the Democratic People’s Republic intended mainly to avail itself of Karlsson’s services, not Jonsson’s. But to be more concrete? The reports said that Karlsson was an expert in hetisostat pressure? No matter how hard the laboratory director looked, he could not find any confirmation that such a thing existed. Much less any information about how it might work.
Julius prayed to God again.
Allan responded. ‘I remember it from my relative youth at Los Alamos in the United States. The Americans toiled day and night to build that atom bomb, until at last I had to step in and tell them what to do. But there isn’t a single word about that on the internet, is there?’
No. The laboratory director had to acknowledge that there wasn’t. And he understood that this wasn’t only because the internet hadn’t been invented until over forty years later.
‘Hetisostat pressure was created by me, in a secret laboratory outside Geneva. Though it’s not as secret now as it was until just a moment ago, before I talked about it. As you will know, Mr Laboratory Director, the critical mass of enriched uranium of the grade in question is twenty-five kilos – twenty-five point two, to be exact. With my pressure, the neutrons are held in place many times longer, and the chain reaction gets another burst of strength over and over until you have destroyed what needs to be destroyed with a considerably smaller amount of the key isotope. Particularly suitable for someone who prefers to stick the nuclear weapon into a missile rather than carry around a bomb that weighs a few tons.’
Allan had read something about twenty-five point two and sounded sufficiently sure of himself to make the laboratory director equally sure.
‘But in greater detail?’ he tried again.
‘Greater detail? How many weeks do we have? Perhaps the Supreme Leader has no problem being made to wait. Although I think I speak for both myself and the asparagus farmer here beside me when I say that, if we’re
going to do this, we’ll have to start with some food and a bed on top of that, or rather, two beds. We may be good friends, Julius and me, but we prefer to sleep separately. Once we’re full and rested I’ll be more than willing, even genuinely eager, to tell you what you want to know, Mr Laboratory Director.’
The hundred-and-one-year-old was a gifted talker. The laboratory director knew what Allan suspected: that Kim Jong-un absolutely did not want to wait a week or two. Or even much more than an hour. A decision had to be made, and soon. The director had been given sanction to supply the two Swiss men with a shot to the back of the head each instead of food and a place to sleep, should the situation so demand. But he also had orders to allow them through if it was likely to be in the best interest of the nation.
So what should he do? It was true that the old man was a chatterbox. It was also true that he’d hit the mark when it came to the critical mass of uranium, and to the decimal besides. And he appeared to be completely assured about this situation.
The laboratory director picked up a cigarette and looked around for his lighter. Julius fished the hotel manager’s from his pocket and offered it to him. The laboratory director thanked him, lit up and took a deep drag.
After another of the same, the laboratory director made his hasty decision. Hasty being the operative word. The Supreme Leader had extended an invitation to the UN envoy and he wanted to bring her and the Swiss man together; the envoy would be landing any minute. There was no time to do anything but decide.