landing any minute. There was no time to do anything but decide.
‘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