‘We will absolutely run through every part of your pressure system,’ he said. ‘Make no mistake about that. But first I will ask to send you over to the Supreme Leader.’
The laboratory director was displeased at having misplaced his lighter, but pleased that his voice had sounded so confident. Much more confident than he actually was. Or ever would be again, as long as he lived.
He summoned the six nervous soldiers and had them lead the foreigners to a waiting car.
Allan and Julius had made it through their encounter with mortal danger number one on Korean ground, their good health still intact. All that remained was everything else. Now they were sitting on either side of a North Korean soldier in the back seat of a 2004 Russian GAZ-3111, one of the nine specimens the Russians had produced that year before giving up, sending the crap to North Korea, and signing a contract with Chrysler instead.
‘Good day, my name is Allan,’ Allan said to the soldier in Russian. He received no response. He went on to offer the same greeting to the two soldiers in the row of seats ahead of him and was met with the same silence. Then he looked at Julius and said he hoped the Supreme Leader would be more talkative, or it might be a boring afternoon.
Julius didn’t reply, but he thought anyone who could use the word ‘boring’ in their current situation must be missing a considerable part of his common sense. What Julius was doing now, placing his life in the hands of a completely carefree hundred-and-one-year-old, was trying. He breathed heavily as he mentally counted backwards from 999; he had learned that this sometimes helped.
A change in the air told Allan that something was weighing on Julius; what it might be was unclear. As his friend passed two hundred in his countdown self-help, Allan asked if it might cheer him up if Allan read something exciting from the black tablet.
187, 186 … No, that question was too much. Julius interrupted himself and opened his eyes. ‘Goddammit!’ he said. ‘We’re going to be world news ourselves soon, if we don’t look out. How about you focus on your fucking hetisostat pressure? In ten minutes you need to have something to say to the man who is in charge of our lives. Can’t you put that bloody tablet down for one second and think about something useful?’
Allan had been looking at Julius, but now he aimed his gaze slightly to the left and out of the window.
‘The “ten minutes” part was wrong. I think we’re here.’
* * *
Allan and Julius were led into the holiest of holies, the Supreme Leader’s office, three hundred square metres in area, with sixteen-metre-high ceilings. An oak desk across the room, a briefcase, an intercom, a quill, and a few documents on the desk, four paintings of the Eternal President on the wall, and that was it. The Supreme One himself was not present; the old men were left alone in the room for a brief time after their escorts hurried off and closed the double doors.
‘You could fly a kite in here, if you could just get a cross-breeze from the windows,’ said Allan. ‘Almost a hot-air balloon, too.’
‘Think hetisostat pressure,’ said Julius. ‘Do you hear me? Hetisostat pressure.’
It was difficult to think about something that didn’t exist, but this was a reflection with which Allan didn’t want to trouble Julius. His friend seemed unbalanced enough as it was.
At that moment, a smaller door just past the desk opened. A soldier with a holstered pistol stepped in and stood guard. Behind him came the Supreme Leader. Noticeably short of stature, thought Allan.
‘Please have a seat,’ said Kim Jong-un, pointing at two chairs on the other side of the desk even as he himself sat down.
‘Thank you, Supreme Leader,’ Julius said, his words as nervous as they were fawning.
‘Agreed,’ said Allan. ‘Is there anything tasty to drink to break the ice? We can hold off on the food for a bit, if that would be too much trouble.’
Kim Jong-un had no need to break any ice. But, still, he ordered a pot of tea by way of his Soviet intercom from the seventies. The order arrived under a minute later, delivered by a North Korean soldier who, with a certain amount of difficulty, tried to combine a straight back with a level tray and an apology in Korean that might have expressed regret for the delay.
The Supreme Leader sent the soldier away and raised his cup to the guests.
‘A toast to a long and fruitful cooperation. Or the opposite.’
Allan pretended to drink. Julius drank, and felt concerned about the Supreme Leader’s part in what they had just toasted. But when the terrible tea had sunk into his soul, he decided to allow Allan to continue saving their lives on his own. The hundred-and-one-year-old certainly had his issues, but if there was anything he was good at, it was surviving. Then again, better safe than sorry. Julius did his best to put the ball in Allan’s court in the hopes of benching himself.
‘Supreme Leader,’ he said. ‘My name is Julius Jonsson and I am the executive assistant to the world’s leading nuclear weapons expert, that is, my dear friend Allan Karlsson here. I will hereby gladly hand things over to him.’
‘Oh no you won’t,’ said Kim Jong-un, with a smile. ‘This is my meeting, and I decide who speaks. You’re the executive assistant, you say? Where are the other assistants?’
Julius immediately lost the speaking ability he had so briefly managed to muster. Allan noticed, and rushed to his assistance.
‘Supreme Leader,’ he said, ‘I hereby request the right to say something important while my friend the executive assistant gathers his thoughts. Very important, even. Depending on how concerned you are about your country’s future, of course.’
Kim Jong-un was extremely concerned about his country’s future. Not least because it was inextricably linked with his own. ‘Granted,’ he said, and with that, his grip on poor Julius loosened.
‘Good,’ said Allan. ‘Then I’d like to begin by praising you for your out-and-out battle against the evil that surrounds you. You are furthering the legacy of your father and grandfather in an exemplary manner.’
Julius still didn’t dare to speak, but he was regaining a faint hope of survival. Allan was obviously in his rubbing-up-the-right-way mood!
‘What do you know about that?’ Kim Jong-un asked, in a defensive tone.
The truth was, Allan knew very little about Kim Jong-un’s doings – no more than he’d read on his black tablet. And it wasn’t always pretty. ‘I know all about it,’ he said. ‘But to sit here and praise your many accomplishments would take up far too much of your precious time.’
It was true that time was precious. Or, at least, short. At any moment, the Swedish minister for foreign affairs, UN envoy Margot Wallström, would land at Sunan International Airport and, in that moment, the Supreme Leader’s PR plan would enter a critical stage.
‘Well, then,’ said Kim Jong-un. ‘Tell me this important thing you had to say. I assume it has to do with hetisostat pressure?’
‘That’s exactly right,’ said Allan. ‘My humble suggestion is that my assistant and I teach North Korea everything worth knowing about hetisostat pressure and, in return, you help us reach Europe after our task is completed. As fantastic as your country is … well, there’s no place like home, as they say.’
Kim Jong-un nodded and gave the impression that he felt the same. An arrangement of that sort didn’t seem like too much trouble to sign off on, especially given that he had no intention of keeping his side of the bargain. If this man was as competent as he was old, he couldn’t be allowed to loaf around Europe or anywhere else with his knowledge. It belonged permanently in the Democratic People’s Republic. End of.
‘Agreed!’ said the Supreme Leader.
And then he openly stated that Karlsson and his assistant had four kilos of enriched uranium to play with, with another five hundred on their way. Incidentally, the first four kilos had arrived on the same boat as the gentlemen.
‘Properly lead-encased,’ said Kim Jong-un, and with that he placed his hand on the brown briefcase on the desk. Annoyingly enough, there
was no time at the present to hear what hetisostat pressure might achieve with the contents of the briefcase. An assistant had snuck into the room to whisper something into the Supreme Leader’s ear.
‘Thank you,’ said Kim Jong-un. ‘I would have liked to hear more about your pressure, but we must get moving. We’re going to KCNA. All three of us. No, scratch that, we have no use for the executive assistant there, so we’ll send him directly to the hotel.’
Kim Jong-un stood up and signalled the gentlemen to follow him.
Julius didn’t know which was worse – being forced to visit a mysterious jumble of letters with Kim Jong-un, or not being allowed to come.
‘KCNA?’ he whispered anxiously to Allan. ‘What’s that?’
‘I’m sure it is whatever it is,’ said Allan. ‘I hope that, unlike the tea, it can be drunk. Or at least eaten.’
North Korea
Korea had held together as a united empire for 1274 years. Then it had gone downhill fast. After the Second World War, the Americans and Russians couldn’t agree on what the Koreans wanted, and neither thought it was an option to ask the Koreans. The Russians placed a Communist in power in the north; the Americans, an anti-Communist in the south. The guy in the north thought he had the right to all of Korea. The one in the south thought the same thing, but the other way around.
This led to the violence that history books call the Korean War. Of course there had been wars on the peninsula before, but people have such short memories.
After two million Koreans (plus the occasional foreigner) had died in battle, enough was enough. They pointed at a line in the ground (the same line that had been there since before the war) and decided that, until further notice, they would keep to their own sides.
The Communist in the north invented ‘self-reliance’ as a political ideology, while his counterpart in the south, sensibly enough, did not label the dictatorship he created with any honest name.
Years passed. Leaders on both sides came and went, as leaders tend to do. The dictatorship in the south gradually lost its hold, while the self-reliance in the north prospered so extensively that people began to starve.
It’s easy for someone who trusts only themselves to become suspicious of others. When the south allowed American tactical nuclear weapons to be placed on their side of the border, those in the north took it all wrong. At least from an arms reduction perspective.
The Swedish manufacturer Volvo, outside Gothenburg, was full of celebration after the delivery of a thousand shiny new cars to Pyongyang. This celebration later turned out to be premature. For the North Koreans had rearranged their priorities. They chose to build test sites for nuclear weapons instead of paying what they owed. To this day, Volvo hasn’t received a single North Korean won in return.
Despite one thing and the next, there were some cross-border talks. Surely a solution could be reached. Yes, perhaps. For a while, in the early childhood of the current century, things were looking very bright indeed.
But back to the part about how leaders come and go. In 2017, tensions were higher than ever between the north on the one hand, and most of the rest of the world on the other. The latest in the series of leaders who had come, but not yet gone, were named Kim Jong-un and Donald J. Trump. And caught in the middle was the Swedish UN envoy Margot Wallström.
She had no illusions that her task would be an easy one.
* * *
The envoy and her plane landed at Sunan International Airport ten minutes ahead of the scheduled time. The Supreme Leader was informed and, as planned, he immediately adjourned the ongoing meeting with Messrs Karlsson and Jonsson.
Wallström was shown to a limousine and informed that the Supreme Leader awaited. Her baggage would be transported to the pre-booked hotel or the Swedish embassy, depending on which the envoy preferred.
The journey took her south towards central Pyongyang. After forty minutes the limousine passed the Supreme Leader’s palace and continued towards downtown.
‘Excuse me, but weren’t we going to see the Supreme Leader?’ said Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström.
‘That is correct,’ the driver responded, without expounding further.
Ten minutes later, in any case, the journey was over. The minister for foreign affairs was invited out of the limousine and led into an eight-storey building.
‘Where are we?’ she asked her smiling female escort in bewilderment.
‘This is the main office of the news bureau KCNA. The Supreme Leader awaits.’
A news bureau? Margot Wallström felt ill at ease. After all, this trip was supposed to take place under the greatest discretion so that it didn’t spur even greater polarization between the parties. On the other hand, this was probably a country where no news bureau would dare to report on her presence without first obtaining the blessing of the Supreme Leader. Perhaps her worry was unfounded.
Their journey continued three storeys up, down a long hallway, to the left, right and left again.
‘Here we are,’ said the escort. ‘Please step in.’
If Margot Wallström had been expecting crystal chandeliers and velvet chairs, she was disappointed. This was more like … Well, what was this? The anteroom of a theatre stage? A TV studio? There were cables running along the sides, two discarded spotlights in one corner, and …
There he was.
‘Welcome, Madame Minister for Foreign Affairs,’ the Supreme Leader said kindly. ‘Was the trip okay?’
‘Yes, thank you. Very nice to meet you, but I have to ask … Where are we, and what are we doing here?’
‘Why, we’re going to save the world together,’ said Kim Jong-un. ‘But right now, you must meet the man to whom I myself have hardly even had time to say hello.’
Allan Karlsson was shoved out from behind a curtain and walked over to greet Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström.
‘This is the world’s perhaps pre-eminent expert in nuclear weapons, Mr Karlsson from Switzerland. He has come to the Democratic People’s Republic out of love for our common cause.’
Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström found herself in a situation out of her control. But she took the old Swiss man’s hand on Kim Jong-un’s urging.
‘Good day,’ said the minister, hesitantly and in English.
‘Good day yourself,’ said Allan, one hundred per cent in Swedish and with a faint Sörmland accent.
There was no reaction from Kim Jong-un when he didn’t understand the nuclear weapons expert’s greeting, but Margot Wallström realized to her horror that a Swedish man, not a Swiss, was apparently about to upgrade North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal. What was going on?
Karlsson, was that his name? Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström refrained from beginning to speak Swedish with him. He had, after all, been introduced as Swiss and the very best thing she could do right now was to feel her way through the situation.
The Supreme Leader lightly clapped both Allan and the UN envoy on the back and said he was looking forward to a dinner together in the palace that same evening. Karlsson’s executive assistant Jonsson was invited as well.
Jonsson? That didn’t sound particularly Swiss either.
‘But we’ll start with the press conference,’ said Kim Jong-un, signalling to a man with a headset who, in turn, spoke into his microphone.
Suddenly a round of applause began very close by. So they were backstage. A press conference?
‘But, Supreme Leader, we can’t talk to the media and keep our conversation discreet at the same time. I don’t feel this is something we agreed upon,’ said Margot Wallström.
Kim Jong-un laughed. ‘Naturally we won’t say a word about the contents of any conversations. How could we? We haven’t had any yet.’
No, this was well within the scope of the parties’ common ambitions. As the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic, Kim Jong-un had a responsibility to his people, the dignity of which perhaps Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström did not fully comp
rehend. ‘It’s called “transparency”, Madame Wallström.’
‘Well, howdy-do,’ Allan said in Swedish.
Who was he? He was as old as the hills, clearly Swedish, alleged to be Swiss, and devoted to North Korea’s nuclear weapons-related future. And his respect for his employer seemed to be moderate at best.
Out on stage, a woman had begun to speak Korean before the audience, which had temporarily stopped applauding. Then she switched to English.
‘And with that I would like to welcome the UN envoy and minister for foreign affairs for the kingdom of Sweden, Madame Wallström – as well as the world’s leading nuclear weapons expert, devoted friend of the Democratic People’s Republic, straight from Switzerland: Mr Allan Karlsson.’
Kim Jong-un led Wallström and Karlsson to the edge of the stage, where he stopped while the guests had to continue. Neither of them was given any choice but to step into the spotlights that shone down from four directions. They were guided to their respective marks on one side of a table and received polite applause from the audience. Margot Wallström was not at all a fan of the situation she found herself in.
Allan looked around and discovered at least three TV cameras aimed at them. ‘Why, this is my first time on TV,’ he said to the minister in Swedish, before they had made it all the way to the table and the microphones.
The host began by turning to the UN envoy.
‘You’re here, Madame Wallström, because the UN and the Democratic People’s Republic share a common concern about the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world, and about the tough rhetoric that so often flies from one side to the other.’
Yes. Thus far Margot Wallström was more or less on the same page.
‘Or from the other side to this one,’ she clarified. ‘It’s a mutual problem.’
‘Tell me, Madame Wallström, what do you think of our country, from what you’ve seen so far?’
The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man Page 7