Chapter 22
On a final clean-up and breaking camp
It was nearly three in the morning when the prime minister returned to Sj?lida after a trip to the country road on Countess Virtanen’s moped. His mobile phone had enough coverage out there for the prime minister to make a few short calls to inform the king’s staff and his own, as well as the world’s most relieved director of security police, that the situation was under control, that he was counting on being at the government offices some time in the morning, and that he would like his assistant to have a suit and clean shoes waiting for him.
The most acute phase of the drama seemed to be over, and no one seemed to have been hurt, except for Holger Two, who had been accidentally shot in the arm by his brother and who was now swearing in his bedroom next to the countess’s kitchen. It was a substantial flesh wound, but with the help of Marshal Mannerheim’s schnapps (as a combination of disinfectant and anaesthetic) and a bandage, there was reason to believe that Two would be as good as new in a few weeks. Nombeko noted lovingly that Holger Two hadn’t milked his injury one bit. In fact, he was lying in bed and using a pillow to practise the art of strangling someone with just one hand.
The victim he had in mind, however, was keeping a safe distance. He and Celestine had lain down to sleep under a blanket on the dock. Meanwhile Agent B, who had been so threatening for a minute or two, was still partaking of the same activity in the kitchen. To be on the safe side, Nombeko had worked his pistol out of its holster inside his jacket. Without any further mishaps.
The king, Countess Virtanen, Nombeko and the prime minister gathered in the kitchen with the sleeping agent. The king wondered happily what was next on the agenda. The prime minister was too tired to become more irritated with the king than he already was. Instead he turned to Nombeko and requested a private conversation.
‘Shall we go and sit in the cab of the potato truck?’ she said.
The prime minister nodded.
The head of the Swedish government turned out to be as bright as he was good at drying dishes. He first confessed that what he wanted to do most of all was report everyone at Sj?lida to the police – including the king for his general lack of concern.
But upon closer consideration, the prime minister had looked at things more pragmatically. For one thing, kings can’t be prosecuted. And perhaps it wouldn’t be quite fair to try to get Holger Two and Nombeko locked up; if anything, they had done their best to bring order to the chaos. Nor was the countess really guilty of any crime either, the prime minister reasoned. Especially if one refrained from checking to see if she had a valid licence for that moose-hunting rifle she had waved around earlier.
That left the agent from a foreign nation’s intelligence agency. And the idiot and his girlfriend, of course. The latter two probably deserved a few hundred years each in as secure a facility as possible, but it might be both easiest and best if the country dispensed with this tempting vendetta. After all, any legal action would require a prosecutor to ask questions, and in this case the answers risked causing lifelong trauma to tens of thousands of citizens, no matter how such answers were formulated. An atomic bomb on the loose. Right in the middle of Sweden. For twenty years.
The prime minister shuddered; then he continued his argument. The fact was, he had found yet another reason to refrain from legal action. When he was out on the country road with the moped, he had first called the director of S?po to calm him down; then he called his assistant with a practical question.
But he hadn’t raised the alarm.
An overzealous prosecutor, egged on by the opposition, might very well try to claim that the prime minister himself had prolonged the drama and contributed to something unlawful.
‘Hmm,’ Nombeko said thoughtfully. ‘Such as “causing danger to others”, according to the third chapter, ninth paragraph of the criminal code.’
‘Two years?’ asked the prime minister, who was starting to suspect that Nombeko knew absolutely everything.
‘Yes,’ said Nombeko. ‘Considering the potential for devastation, one probably shouldn’t hope for a single day less than that. Not to mention driving a moped without a helmet. If I know Sweden, that might be another fifteen years.’
The prime minister thought about the future. He was hoping to take over as president of the Council of the European union in the summer of 2009. Sitting in prison until then would not be the best way to prepare for that. Not to mention the part where he would be fired as prime minister and party leader.
So he asked the clever Nombeko for her opinion on how they could all get out of this, given that their goal was to send as much as possible of as many of the last twenty-four hours’ events as possible into eternal oblivion.
Nombeko said that she didn’t know anyone who could clean up as well as the prime minister. The kitchen was sparkling clean after the chicken casserole, beer, schnapps, coffee and everything. All that was left was . . . to clean up the sleeping agent, wasn’t it?
The prime minister frowned.
Along the same lines, Nombeko thought that the most pressing matter was to separate the idiot and his girlfriend from the bomb. And then to lock it up in some bunker somewhere.
The prime minister was tired; it was so late that it would be more accurate to say it was early. He confessed that he was having trouble formulating his thoughts and words. But he’d had time to think about that bunker part himself while his brain was still working. About having the bomb disarmed there, or at least walling it in and suppressing the memory of its existence.
Now, the fact is that time is no kinder to prime ministers than it is to anyone else. Sometimes, in fact, it’s the opposite. The next thing on Fredrik Reinfeldt’s official agenda was a meeting with President Hu at the government offices; it was to begin at ten o’clock, and it would be followed by lunch at the prime minister’s residence, the Sager House. Before then, he wanted to have a shower so he didn’t smell like a potato field and to change into clothes and shoes that weren’t covered with mud.
If the group managed to get going soon, it might work. But it was going to be hard to find time to locate a deep and remote bunker to hide and forget the atomic bomb in along the way. That would have to wait until the afternoon – no matter how important it was.
The prime minister was ordinarily a man who listened, seldom speaking very much. Now he was surprised at how frank he was being with Nombeko Mayeki. Although maybe it wasn’t that surprising after all. We all need someone to share our innermost thoughts with, and with whom could he discuss the three-megaton problem that was weighing on them if not with the South African woman and perhaps her boyfriend?
The prime minister realized he needed to increase the number of people who knew about this greatest of secrets. He planned to start with the supreme commander of the armed forces, who had the ultimate responsibility for that bunker, wherever it might be. Since the SC probably couldn’t disarm the bomb or wall up the bunker entrance behind himself all on his own, another person or two would need to be involved. That meant that the following people, at the least, would know what they ought not to: (1) the supreme commander, (2) disarmer A, (3) bricklayer B, (4) the illegal immigrant Nombeko Mayeki, (5) the nonexistent Holger Qvist, (6) his far-too-existent brother, (7) the brother’s irascible girlfriend, (8) a former potato farmer and current countess, (9) His Unconcerned Majesty the King, as well as (10) a retired Mossad agent.
‘There is no way this can end well,’ said Prime Minister Reinfeldt.
‘Yes it can,’ said Nombeko. ‘Most of the people you just listed have every reason in the world to keep quiet about what they know. Plus, some of them are so confused that no one would believe them if they did tell.’
‘Are you thinking of the king?’ said the prime minister.
The prime minister and Hu Jintao were to enjoy lunch at the Sager House in the company of some of Sweden’s most important industry leaders. Afterwards, President Hu would go straight to Arlanda Airport, where his very own Boeing 767 was waiting to transport him to Beijing. Only then would the supreme commander be summoned to the government offices.
‘In this case, do I dare trust Miss Nombeko with the bomb while I’m with Hu and for the time it will take to bring the SC in on the matter?’
‘Well, Prime Minister, I’m sure you know best what you do and do not dare to do. But I’ve been jointly responsible for that thing for twenty years already, and it hasn’t blown up yet. I’m sure I can manage a few more hours.’
At that very moment, Nombeko saw the king and the countess leaving the kitchen and making their way down to the dock. It was possible that they were up to something. Nombeko thought fast.
‘Dear Mr Prime Minister. Go to the kitchen and deal with the Mossad agent in accordance with the intelligence I know you possess. Meanwhile, I’ll go down to the dock and make sure that the king and his countess don’t get up to anything stupid.’
Fredrik Reinfeldt understood what Nombeko was getting at. His entire being told him that one couldn’t do something like that.
Then he sighed – and went in to do something like that.
‘Wake up!’
The prime minister shook Agent B until he opened his eyes and remembered, with great horror, where he was.
When Fredrik Reinfeldt saw that the agent was responsive, he looked him in the eye and said:
‘I see that your car is sitting outside. I suggest – for the sake of the good relationship between the people of Sweden and Israel – that you immediately get into it, drive away from here and leave the country at once. I further suggest that you were never here and that you never come back.’
The honest prime minister felt physically ill at the thought that within a few hours he had not only committed potato thievery but was also now about to send an intoxicated man out in traffic. Plus everything else.
‘But Prime Minister Olmert?’ said Agent B.
‘I have nothing to discuss with him, because you were never here. Right?’
Agent B was certainly not sober. Moreover, he was half asleep. But he realized that he had just got his life back.
And that he had to hurry, before the head of the Swedish government changed his mind.
Fredrik Reinfeldt was one of Sweden’s most honest people, the sort of person who had paid his television licence fee ever since he had lived in his very first student apartment. The sort who, even as a child, had offered a receipt when he sold a bunch of leeks to his neighbour for twenty-five ?re.
No wonder, then, that he now felt the way he did as he let Agent B go. And as he made up his mind that all the rest of it should be hushed up. Buried. The bomb, too. In a bunker. If only it would work.
Nombeko returned with an oar under one arm and said that she had just stopped the countess and the king from rowing out to poach fish. When the prime minister didn’t answer, and since Nombeko could see the tail-lights of Mossad Agent B’s hire car as it left Sj?lida, she added:
‘Sometimes it’s impossible to do the right thing, Prime Minister. Just more or less wrong. The final clean-up of the countess’s kitchen was in the best interests of the country. You mustn’t have a guilty conscience over that.’
The prime minister was silent for a few more seconds. Then he said, ‘Thank you, Miss Nombeko.’
Nombeko and the prime minister went down to the dock to have a serious talk with Holger One and his Celestine. Both had fallen asleep under their blanket, and next to them, in a row and partaking of the same activity, lay the king and the countess.
‘Get up now, Idiot, or I’ll kick you into the water,’ said Nombeko, nudging him with her foot (she was carrying around an inner frustration that could not be relieved in any other way than by twisting his nose – at the very least).
The two former kidnappers sat up on the dock while the rest of the knocked-out gang woke up. The prime minister began by saying that he was planning to refrain from turning the kidnapping, the threats and everything else into a police matter, as long as Holger and Celestine cooperated to the fullest from now on.
Both nodded.
‘What happens now, Nombeko?’ said Holger One. ‘We don’t have anywhere to live. My studio in Blackeberg won’t work, because Celestine wants to bring her grandma along if Grandma wants to come.’
‘Weren’t we going to poach fish?’ said the newly awakened countess.
‘No, first and foremost we’re going to survive the night,’ said the prime minister.
‘A good ambition,’ said the king. ‘A bit defensive, but good.’
And then he added that it might be just as well that he and the countess had never set out in that rowing-boat. KING SEIZED FOR POACHING FISH was probably a headline that malevolent journalists could not have resisted.
The prime minister thought that no journalist on earth, malevolent or not, would voluntarily resist that headline as long as it had earning capacity. Instead he said that he would appreciate it if His Majesty dismissed all thoughts of criminal action from his mind, for the number of crimes already committed on this night could fill an entire district court.
The king thought he could poach fish as much as he wanted, given who he was, but he had enough sense, and by a decent margin, not to say this to the prime minister.
Thus Fredrik Reinfeldt could continue the all-round salvaging of situation and nation. He turned to Countess Virtanen and entreated her to give a short and plain answer to the question of whether she wanted to leave Sj?lida with her granddaughter and her boyfriend.
Well, the countess had noticed that her zest for life had returned. This was probably because she had got to be with her beloved Celestine for so long, and because of the king, who had turned out to be so knowledgeable about Finnish-Swedish history and its traditions. And, of course, the potato field had already been sold, and, to be honest, being the publisher of a magazine had been pretty boring for the short time it had lasted.
‘And besides, I’m sick of being single. Might the king know some second-hand baron to introduce me to? He doesn’t have to be handsome.’
The king said that barons were in short supply, but this was as far as he got before the prime minister interrupted him, saying that this wasn’t the time to discuss the existence of second-hand barons, ugly or otherwise, because it was time for all of them to leave. So the countess was planning on coming along?
Yes, she was. But where would they live? Old ladies could be lodged in any old cottage, but countesses had their reputations to think of.
Nombeko thought things were getting out of control. But there was quite a bit of money left from the potato farm, enough for housing worthy of the countess and her court. And more besides.
‘Pending an available castle, I suppose we’ll have to check you into a respectable establishment. A suite at the Grand H?tel in Stockholm – would that do?’
‘Yes, for a transitional period,’ said the countess, while the former MLCP(R) rebel Celestine squeezed her grimacing boyfriend’s hand hard.
* * *
It was six in the morning before the potato truck with the atomic bomb was once again on the road. Behind the wheel was the prime minister, the only one of them who was both a licensed driver and sober enough to drive. Nombeko was on the right, and Holger Two, his arm in a sling, was in the middle.
In the back of the truck, the king and Countess Virtanen were still going strong. The king had a number of tips regarding her future housing. The classical palace of P?ckstein near Strasbourg in Austria was for sale and might possibly be worthy of the countess. It was just an awfully long way from Drottningholm, for afternoon tea. So S?dertuna Castle would be better; it actually wasn’t too far from Gnesta. From medieval times. But maybe it would be too simple for the countess?
The countess couldn’t say for certain. They would have to view each available lodging and get a sense of what was simple and what wasn’t.
The king wondered if he and the queen could come on some of the planned viewings. Not least the queen could be of service with advice on what attributes any palace garden worth its name must have.
Yes, by all means, that would be nice, if they wished. It might be nice to meet the queen in a different environment from when one was doing one’s business in an outhouse.
The king was dropped off first, at 7.30 a.m. outside Drottningholm Palace. He rang the bell and had to argue for a while that he was who he said he was before he was finally let in by an embarrassed guard commander. Who noticed as the king passed that he had dark red spots on his shirt.
‘Is His Majesty hurt?’ the guard called after his king.
‘No, it’s chicken blood,’ said the king. ‘And a little motor oil.’
The next stop was the Grand H?tel. But here the logistics became thorny. Holger Two had a fever from being accidentally shot by his brother. Two ought to be put to bed and given painkillers, because the bottle of Mannerheim’s schnapps was empty.
‘So you think I’m going to check into a hotel and let myself be looked after by the fool who just nearly killed me?’ said Holger Two. ‘I’d rather lie down on a park bench and bleed out.’
But Nombeko cajoled him, promising that he would get to strangle his brother, or at least twist his nose (if she didn’t get there first), but that this couldn’t happen until his arm had healed. Wouldn’t it be extraordinarily ironic if he were to lie down and bleed to death on the very day they were about to get rid of the bomb?
Holger Two was too tired to contradict her.
By about twenty to nine, Two had been put to bed and served double Treo tablets for his fever and pain. He drained the glass and fell asleep in fifteen seconds. Holger One lay down on the sofa in the suite’s sitting room to do the same, while Countess Virtanen set about investigating the minibar in the bedroom.
‘You all go on. I can take care of myself.’
The prime minister, Nombeko and Celestine were standing outside the entrance of the hotel in order to work out the details of what they had to do during the next few hours.
Reinfeldt would leave to meet Hu Jintao. Nombeko and Celestine were supposed to spend that time driving around central Stockholm with the bomb, as carefully as possible.
Celestine would be behind the wheel; there was no other chauffeur available. Holger Two, of course, had been shot and put to bed, and the prime minister himself couldn’t continue to drive around with the horrible weapon while also meeting the president of China.
That left the unpredictable, formerly young, possibly just as angry woman. Under Nombeko’s supervision, but still.
While the trio was still standing outside the entrance to the hotel, the prime minister’s assistant called to tell him that his suit and clean shoes awaited him at the government offices. But they had also had a call from the Chinese president’s staff, raising a concern. The president’s interpreter had been badly injured the evening before, and had just been operated on at Karolinska Hospital for four broken fingers and one crushed thumb. The president had asked his co-workers to suggest that the prime minister might have a convenient solution to the interpreter problem for the morning’s meeting and the following lunch. The assistant suspected that he was referring to the black woman she had met briefly outside the palace. Might that be the case? And if it was, did the prime minister know where she could be found?
Yes, the prime minister did know. He asked his assistant to hold on for a second and turned to Nombeko.
‘Might you consider attending the morning meeting between me and the president of the People’s Republic of China, Miss Nombeko? The president’s interpreter is in the hospital.’
‘And complaining that he’s about to die?’ said Nombeko.
Before the prime minister had time to ask what she meant by that, she added, ‘Absolutely. Of course I can do that. But what will we do with the truck, the bomb and Celestine in the meantime?’
Letting Celestine be alone with the truck and the bomb for several hours felt . . . not good. Nombeko’s first idea for a solution had been to handcuff her to the steering wheel. But her next idea was better. She returned to the suite and was soon back.
‘Your boyfriend is now chained to the sofa he is snoring so beautifully on. If you do anything stupid with the truck and the bomb while the prime minister and I meet the president of China, I promise I will throw the key to the handcuffs into Nybroviken.’
Celestine snorted in reply.
Prime Minister Reinfeldt rang two of his bodyguards and asked them to come to the Grand to pick up Nombeko and himself in a car with maximally tinted windows. Celestine’s orders were to stay in the first car park she saw until he or Nombeko called her. It would just be a few hours, the prime minister promised, longing so hard to reach the end of the yesterday that was still going on that he was about to burst.