The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden. Jonas Jonasson

Communists in the Kremlin? Or walk hand in hand with the American imperialists and the apartheid regime in Pretoria?

      Blast, once more.

      It might have been possible not to take any side at all, to leave a walkover, as the damn Americans liked to say. If it weren’t for the contacts South Africa was presumed to have with Taiwan.

      It was an open secret that the United States had stopped a nuclear weapons test in the Kalahari Desert. So everyone knew what South Africa was up to. In this case, ‘everyone’ meant all intelligence organizations worth their name.

      The crucial problem there was that, in addition to the Kalahari information on Deng’s desk, there was an intelligence briefing noting that South Africa had communicated about the weapon with Taipei. It would be completely unacceptable for the Taiwanese to procure missiles to aim at mainland China. If this happened, it would lead to an escalation in the South China Sea, and it was impossible to predict how that might end. And the US Pacific Fleet was right around the corner.

      So somehow or another, Deng had to manage the loathsome apartheid regime. His chief intelligence officer had suggested they do nothing and let the South African government die on its own. Thanks to that piece of advice, his chief intelligence officer was no longer a chief intelligence officer – would China really be more secure if Taiwan was doing business with a nuclear nation in freefall? The former chief intelligence officer could ponder this as he worked at his new job as a substitute station attendant in the Beijing subway.

      ‘Manage’ was the name of the game. Somehow or another.

      Deng couldn’t possibly travel there himself and let himself be photographed alongside that old Nazi Botha (even if the idea was a bit tempting: the decadent West did have its charm, in small doses). And he couldn’t send any of his closest men. It must absolutely not appear that Beijing and Pretoria were on friendly terms.

      On the other hand, there was no point in sending a pencil-pushing lower official with neither the ability nor the sense to make observations. Of course, it was also important that the Chinese representative was important enough to be granted an audience with Botha.

      So: someone who could get things done – but at the same time was not close to the Politburo Standing Committee and who couldn’t be considered an obvious representative of Beijing. Deng Xiaoping found the solution in the young party secretary of the province of Guizhou, which had practically more ethnic groups than people. The young man had just proven that it was possible to bring together peevish minorities like the Yao, Miao, Yi, Qiang, Dong, Zhuang, Bouyei, Bai, Tujia, Gelao and Sui.

      Anyone who could keep eleven balls in the air like that also ought to be able to handle the ex-Nazi Botha, Deng thought, and he made sure to send the young man in question to Pretoria.

      His task: to get the message to South Africa, between the lines, that collaborating on nuclear weapons with Taiwan was unacceptable, and to get the South Africans to understand who they were picking a fight with, should they choose to pick a fight.

      * * *

      P. W. Botha was not at all excited to receive the leader of a Chinese province; that was below his station. Furthermore, Botha’s station had just become even higher – the title of prime minister had been replaced by president. What would people think if he – the president! – were to welcome just any old Chinese like that? If he were to receive all of them, for a few seconds each, it would take him more than thirteen thousand years. Botha didn’t think he would live that long. In fact, despite his new title, he felt rather worn-out.

      At the same time, he understood why China had chosen the tactic of sending over a minion. Beijing didn’t want to be accused of embracing the government in Pretoria. And vice versa, for that matter.

      The question remained: what were they up to? Did it have something to do with Taiwan? That would be funny, because their collaboration with the Taiwanese had been over before it had led anywhere at all.