been. On the one hand, he knew he was soon to die. On the other, he was in the company of a man who was possibly immortal. A man who had not been executed by General Franco, had not been locked up for life by the American immigration authority, had not been strangled by Comrade Stalin (although it had been a close shave), had not been put to death by Kim Il-sung or Mao Zedong, had not been shot by the Iranian border patrol, had not had a hair touched on his ever-balder head in his twenty-five years as a double agent in the inner circles of the Cold War, had not been killed by Brezhnev’s bad breath, and had not been dragged along into President Nixon’s downfall.
The only thing to suggest that Allan might actually die, after having failed to do so for so many years, was the fact that he was sitting in a woven basket that was taking in water, in the sea somewhere between Indonesia, Australia and Antarctica. But if the recently-turned-hundred-and-one-year-old survived this too, one might reasonably expect that Julius could ride shotgun.
‘I reckon you just have to pull on this,’ he said, tugging on the right string in the wrong position, at which the emergency flare shot into the water and kept going until it presumably extinguished at a depth of a few hundred metres.
Julius considered giving up. But Allan popped the cork on the next bottle, handed it to his friend, and asked him to take a few sips – with or without a glass – because he appeared to need it.
‘Then I think you should try again with the other flare. But feel free to aim it upwards – I imagine it will be easier to see that way.’
The official task of the North Korean bulk carrier Honour and Strength was to transport thirty thousand tons of grain from Havana to Pyongyang. A much less official task was to slow down the vessel south-east of Madagascar and, under cover of darkness, allow four kilos of enriched uranium to be brought aboard. This cargo had changed hands from courier to courier, from Congo to Burundi to Tanzania to Mozambique and on to the island east of the African continent, which Honour and Strength had a legitimate reason to pass.
The North Koreans understood that they had eyes on them. Just a few years earlier their sister ship had been caught in a rebel-controlled harbour in Libya; the captain had managed to bribe his way out, that time with a ship full of oil. To make a stop in Somalia, Iran or anywhere else with a similar reputation on the way home from Cuba would likely result in nothing but boarding by UN troops on the open sea. It had happened before, most recently outside Panama. That time there happened to be aircraft engines and advanced electronics under the grain, in violation of the current UN sanctions against the proud Democratic People’s Republic. Upset, the Koreans had informed the world that it was the world, not the Koreans, who had placed the engines and electronics there.
This time, the journey home from Cuba was going in the other direction; the earth was, after all, round. The official line was that the Democratic People’s Republic refused to allow itself to be wronged again in Panama. What was not mentioned was that they had an errand along the way.
Thus far everything had gone right instead of wrong. Captain Pak Chong-un had a hold full of high-quality grain that the Supreme Leader didn’t care about; he ate his fill anyway. But in addition there were now four kilos of lead-shielded enriched uranium, secured in a North Korean briefcase. The uranium was a necessity for the continued crucial battle against the American dogs and their allies south of the 38th parallel. The amount, four kilos, might not have been much upon which to build the nation’s future, but that was not the point. This was a test of the distribution channels as such. If all went well, the Russians promised, their efforts would be doubled many times over.
Captain Pak could feel the imperialist satellites following the ship’s path back to Pyongyang, prepared, as always, to find reasons to board, humiliate and disgrace.
Pak kept the briefcase in the safe in the captain’s quarters; the hooligans would find what they were looking for anyway, if it came to a boarding. But no sign of that yet. Still no mistakes made. Soon nothing could keep the captain from returning in triumph.
Pak Chong-un’s thoughts were interrupted when the first mate entered the room without knocking. ‘Captain!’ he said. ‘We’ve spotted an emergency flare four nautical miles to the north. What should we do? Ignore it?’
Blast! Just when everything was looking so good. Many thoughts flew through Captain Pak’s head all at once. Could it be a trap? Someone who intended to seize the uranium? Best to pretend they hadn’t seen it, of course, just as the first mate had suggested.
But some people were guaranteed to see it – the Americans. From space. And they were surely taking photographs. A North Korean ship ignoring someone in distress at sea – that would be a crime against maritime law, and an enormous PR disaster for the Supreme Leader (while Captain Pak himself would face a firing squad).
No, the least troublesome option would probably be to find out the reason for the flare.
‘Shame on you, sailor!’ said Captain Pak Chong-un. ‘Representatives of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea don’t leave those in distress in the lurch. Set a new course and prepare for a rescue action. That’s an order!’
The first mate gave a frightened salute and hurried off. He cursed himself for not doing a better job of watching his tongue. If the captain reported this, his career would be over. At best.
* * *
By now the water was up to the ankles of the friends in the basket on the sea. Allan sat with his black tablet, marvelling that it worked in the middle of nowhere. ‘Listen to this!’ he said.
And he told his friend that it wasn’t only presidents who made fools of themselves out in the world, like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, for example, the man who had defined homosexuality as ‘un-African’ and decided that it ought to be worth ten years in prison so the homosexual would learn. Recently Mugabe’s wife had allegedly used an extension cord to attack a girl who had spent time with the couple’s son at a hotel room. Apparently in that family they had issues with heterosexuality as well.
Julius was too distressed to have any opinion on his friend’s latest news and was just about to ask him to be quiet, so he could sit there and die in peace, when he was interrupted by a horn. In the distance he and Allan could make out a ship. Heading straight for the basket.
‘Isn’t that the damnedest thing?’ said Julius. ‘You’re going to survive this too, Allan.’
‘And so are you, it seems,’ said Allan.
* * *
The only items that accompanied the two old men onto the ship were Allan’s black tablet and the last bottle of champagne. Allan was holding the tablet in one hand and the champagne in the other as he and Julius met Captain Pak on the foredeck.
‘Good day, Captain,’ he said, once each in English, Russian, Mandarin and Spanish.
‘Good day,’ the astonished captain responded in English.
He had command of both Russian and Mandarin and, thanks to his many excursions to and from Cuba, he knew a certain amount of Spanish, but he was the only one of the crew who spoke English, and he felt instinctively that the fewer ears that listened and understood the better. At least until this mysterious situation cleared up.
Captain Pak informed the two castaways that their lives had just been saved in the name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and for the glory of the Supreme Leader.
‘Say hello and thanks to the Supreme One, if you run into each other from now on,’ said Allan. ‘Where might we be let off along the way? Indonesia would be great, if it’s not too much trouble. We didn’t bring any identification papers, and it’s always a little tricky to change countries, isn’t it?’
Yes, Captain Pak knew how tricky it could be to change countries. It wasn’t the sort of thing you did with ease where he came from. But that wasn’t enough reason