The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

by Jonas Jonasson

  Botha also eased the restrictions on the general relations between races. Nowadays, blacks and whites could – at least theoretically – sit on the same park bench. They could – at least theoretically – go to the same cinema and see the same film at the same time. And they could – at least theoretically – share bodily fluids (they could do this in practice, too, but in that case either money or violence would be involved).

  In addition, the president made sure to centre the power on himself, thin out some human rights, and introduce censorship of the press. The newspapers had only themselves to blame if they didn’t have the sense to write anything sensible. A country that is being rocked to its core requires clear leadership, not page after page of this let’s-all-hug-each-other journalism.

  But no matter how Botha spun things, they turned out all wrong. The country’s economy had hardly started moving before it stopped short and then began going in the other direction. It wasn’t exactly cheap for the military to subdue every bit of unrest in practically every single shantytown. The darkies simply weren’t satisfied with anything. Just think about the time Botha offered to free that damned Nelson Mandela if he promised in return to comply with the government. ‘Stop being difficult’ was the only demand Botha made. ‘No, I’d rather stay where I am,’ that fucker said after twenty years on his prison island, and so he did.

  As time passed, it became clear that the greatest change P. W. Botha had managed to bring about with his new constitution was to turn himself from prime minister into president. And Mandela into a bigger icon than ever.

  Otherwise, everything was the same. No, incorrect. Otherwise, everything was worse.

  Botha was starting to tire of it all. He realized that things might really end with the ANC taking over. And in that case . . . well, who would voluntarily put six nuclear weapons into the hands of a Communist Kaffir organization? Better to dismantle the weapons, and make a PR spectacle out of it! ‘We are taking responsibility’ and all that, while the IAEA looked on.

  Yes, that might actually work. The president still wasn’t ready to make a decision about it, but he personally called the engineer in charge at Pelindaba to put him on standby. Wait, was he already slurring his words at nine in the morning? No, that couldn’t be.

  * * *

  Engineer van der Westhuizen’s little mathematical error (the one that turned six bombs into seven) suddenly turned into an extremely atrocious secret. The president had mentioned the possibility that the six atomic bombs would be destroyed. The six bombs. Not the seventh one. Because, of course, it didn’t exist.

  Now the engineer either had to admit his mistake, confess that he had kept it secret for over a year and receive a disgraceful dismissal and a minimal pension – or he could make things work out to his own advantage. And become financially independent.

  The engineer was full of anxiety. But only until the last half litre of Klipdrift made it into his blood. After that, the decision was easy.

  He could tell the time. He knew that his was up. Time to have a serious chat with Mossad Agents A and B.

  ‘Hey, whatsyourname,’ he slurred. ‘Can you get both of the Jews in here. We’ve got some business to discuss!’

  Engelbrecht van der Westhuizen had worked out that his task was about to come to an end, that the ANC would soon take over the country, and that he could not expect to have a career left. So he had to put his house in order while he still had a house to see to.

  Whatshername went to find the agents, who had overseen the entire process off and on, on behalf of South Africa’s partner Israel. As she wandered through the corridors, she thought that the engineer was about to go at least one step too far. Probably two.

  Mossad Agents A and B were shown into the engineer’s office. Nombeko stood in the corner where the engineer always wanted her to be when things heated up.

  Engineer Westhuizen set the tone.

  ‘Ah, Jew One and Jew Two, shalom! Have a seat. May I offer you a morning brandy? You, whatsyourname, get our friends a drink!’

  Nombeko whispered to the agents that water was available should they prefer it. They did.

  Engineer van der Westhuizen told it like it was, saying that he had always been lucky in life and that it just so happened that this luck had placed a nuclear weapon in his lap, an atomic bomb that no one knew existed and thus no one would miss. Really, the engineer said, he ought to keep it for himself and fire it straight into the presidential palace once Mandela was inaugurated, but he was a bit too old to wage a war on his own.

  ‘So now I’m wondering, Jew A and Jew B, if you might want to check with the head Jew in Jerusalem about buying one bomb of the more potent sort. I’ll give you the friends-and-family discount. No, wait a second, never mind. I want thirty million dollars. Ten million per megaton. Cheers!’ said the engineer, and he drained his brandy and then looked with displeasure at the now-empty bottle.

  Mossad Agents A and B thanked him politely for the offer and promised to check with the government in Jerusalem to see how it felt about this sort of business deal with Mr Westhuizen.

  ‘Well, I kowtow to no one,’ said the engineer. ‘If this doesn’t work I’ll sell it to someone else. Now, I don’t have time to sit here jabbering with you.’

  The engineer left both his office and the facility, on the hunt for more brandy. He left behind the two Mossad agents and whatshername. Nombeko realized what was at stake for the Israelis.

  ‘Please excuse me for saying so,’ she said, ‘but I’m wondering if the engineer’s luck didn’t run out just about now.’

  She didn’t add ‘And mine, too.’ But she was thinking it.

  ‘I’ve always been impressed by your cleverness, Miss Nombeko,’ said Mossad Agent A. ‘And I thank you in advance for your understanding.’

  He didn’t add ‘Things aren’t looking so good for you, either.’ But he was thinking it.

  It wasn’t that Israel didn’t want what the engineer was offering; they did. It was just that the seller was a serious alcoholic and a very erratic man. If they made a deal, it would be perilous to have him walking around free on the streets, slurring and chattering about where all his money had come from. On the other hand, they couldn’t just say no to the offer, because then what would happen to the bomb? The engineer was likely in a condition to sell it to anyone at all.

  So they had to do what they had to do. Mossad Agent A hired a beggar from the slum in Pretoria to steal a car for him the next night; it was a 1983 Datsun Laurel. As thanks, the beggar received fifty rand (according to their agreement) as well as a shot to the temple (on the agent’s own initiative).

  Agent A planned to use the car to bring the engineer’s endless luck to an end by running him over a few days later, as he was on his way home from the bar he always frequented when his personal supply of Klipdrift was gone.

  The engineer’s new-found bad luck was such that he was run over a second time when A stopped and reversed, and a third time when the agent roared off as fast as he could.

  Ironically enough, the engineer had been walking on the pavement when it happened.

  Was that all? he thought between the second and third times he was run over, just as Nombeko had done in a similar situation eleven years earlier.

  And it was.

  * * *

  Mossad Agent B went to find Nombeko just after the news of the death had come to the research facility. The incident was still being classified as an accident, but that would change when witnesses and various technicians on the scene had had their word.

  ‘We might have something to discuss, you and I, Miss Nombeko,’ he said. ‘And I’m afraid it’s urgent.’

  Nombeko said nothing at first, but she was thinking very hard. She was thinking that the guarantor of her physical well-being, the eternally drunk Westhuizen, was now dead. She was thinking that she herself might very soon be in a similar condition. If she didn’t think quickly.

  But she did. So she said, ‘Yes, we do. May I therefo
re ask you, Mr Agent, to bring your colleague here for a meeting in the engineer’s office in exactly thirty minutes?’

  Agent B had long since learned that Miss Nombeko had her head on straight. He knew that she understood that her situation was precarious. This put him and his fellow agent in a position of power.

  Miss Nombeko was the one who had the keys and the permission to enter the most forbidden of corridors. She was the one who would make sure that the agents got their hands on the bomb. In return, they would offer her a white lie.

  The promise that she would be allowed to live.

  But now she had bought herself half an hour. Why? The agent understood most things, but not this. Oh well, half an hour was just half an hour, after all, even if they were in a hurry. The South African intelligence service might realize at any moment that the engineer had been murdered. Soon after that it would become considerably harder to carry a three-megaton bomb out of the facility, even for an agent from a collaborating intelligence agency.

  Oh well, half an hour was still just half an hour. Agent B nodded in reply.

  ‘Then we’ll meet here at twelve-oh-five.’

  ‘Twelve-oh-six,’ said Nombeko.

  During those thirty minutes, all Nombeko did was wait for time to pass.

  The agents were back exactly when they were meant to be. Nombeko was sitting in the engineer’s chair, and she kindly asked them to sit down on the other side of the desk. It was a strange scene. A young black woman in the director’s chair, in the heart of the South African system of apartheid.

  Nombeko began the meeting. She said that she understood that the Messrs Mossad Agents were out to get the seventh atomic bomb, the one that didn’t exist. Or had she misunderstood?

  The agents didn’t say anything: they didn’t quite want to put the truth into words.

  ‘Let us be honest in this meeting,’ Nombeko urged them. ‘Otherwise we won’t get anywhere before it’s too late.’

  Agent A nodded and said that Miss Nombeko had understood things correctly. If she could help Israel get its hands on the bomb, they would help her get out of Pelindaba in return.

  ‘Without causing me to end up just as run over as the engineer afterwards?’ Nombeko asked. ‘Or shot and buried in the nearest savannah?’

  ‘Why, Miss Nombeko, please!’ Agent A lied. ‘We aren’t planning to harm a hair on your head. What do you think we are?’

  Nombeko seemed to be satisfied with the agent’s lie. She added that for the record she had already been run over once in her life, and that would suffice.

  ‘How are you planning on getting the bomb out of here, if I may ask? Assuming I give you access to it.’

  Agent B replied that it ought to be relatively easy, if they only hurried. The crate containing the bomb could be addressed to the Israeli Foreign Office in Jerusalem, and here on the base it could be supplied with documentation to class it as diplomatic post. Diplomatic letters were sent via the embassy in Pretoria at least once a week; a largish crate wouldn’t make any difference that way. As long as the South African intelligence service didn’t ramp up their security and open the crate – and Nombeko and the agents could count on this happening as soon as they realized how the engineer had really died.

  ‘Yes, Messrs Agents, I owe you special thanks for that measure,’ Nombeko said, simultaneously honestly and treacherously. ‘Which of you did the honours?’

  ‘I don’t think that matters,’ said Agent A, who was the guilty party. ‘What’s done is done, and we know you understand that it was necessary, Miss Nombeko.’

  Oh yes, Nombeko understood. She understood that the agents had just fallen into her trap.

  ‘So how are you planning to make sure that little old me is safe?’

  The agents’ plan was to hide Nombeko in the boot of their car. There would be no risk of detection as long as the security measures remained at their current level. The Israeli intelligence agency at Pelindaba had remained above suspicion for all these years.

  Once out in the open, all they had to do was drive straight out into the bush, pull the woman from the boot and give her a shot to the forehead, temple or back of the neck, depending on how much she struggled.

  It was a bit sad: Miss Nombeko was an exceptional woman in many ways and, just like the agents, she had been subjected to Engineer Westhuizen’s ill-disguised scorn, based on nothing more than the engineer’s muddled idea that he represented a superior people. Yes, it was a bit sad, but they had more important things to worry about.

  ‘Our idea is to smuggle you out of here in the boot of our car,’ said Agent A, leaving out what would happen afterwards.

  ‘Good,’ said Nombeko. ‘But insufficient.’

  She continued, saying that she did not intend to lift a finger to help the Messrs Agents until they had handed her an airline ticket, Johannesburg–Tripoli.

  ‘Tripoli?’ said Agents A and B in unison. ‘What are you going to do there?’

  Nombeko didn’t have a good answer. For all these years, her goal had been the National Library in Pretoria. But she couldn’t go there now. She had to leave the country. And Gaddafi in Libya was on the ANC’s side, wasn’t he?

  Nombeko said that she wanted to go to a friendly country for a change, and that Libya seemed like a good choice in this situation. But by all means, if the Messrs Agents had a better idea, she was all ears.

  ‘Just don’t try to say Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Because my plan includes surviving the week, at least.’

  Mossad Agent A was becoming increasingly enchanted with the woman in the chair in front of him. They had to be on their guard to make sure she didn’t get her way. She had to realize that her bargaining position was weak – that in order to be smuggled off the base, she had no choice but to trust the agents she couldn’t trust. But after that, at least, she could make the situation work to her advantage. Her problem was that there would never be any step two or three. As soon as the boot was closed, she would be on her way to her own grave. And then it wouldn’t matter what it said on the ticket. Tripoli, why not? Or the moon.

  But first they had to play the game.

  ‘Yes, Libya would probably work,’ said Agent A. ‘Along with Sweden, it’s the country that is loudest in protesting against the South African system of apartheid. You would be granted asylum there within ten seconds if you asked, miss.’

  ‘Well, there you go!’ said Nombeko.

  ‘But Gaddafi does have his drawbacks,’ the agent went on.

  ‘Drawbacks?’

  Agent A was happy to tell her all about the lunatic of Tripoli, who had once attacked Egypt with grenades just because its president had chosen to answer when addressed by Israel. It couldn’t hurt to show some concern for Miss Nombeko. To build up trust until the necessary shot to the back of the head.

  ‘Yes, Gaddafi is out fishing for nuclear weapons as much as South Africa; it’s just that he hasn’t fished as successfully so far.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Nombeko.

  ‘Anyway, he can take solace in the fact that he must have at least twenty tons of mustard gas in storage, and the world’s largest chemical weapons factory.’

  ‘Oh my,’ said Nombeko.

  ‘And he has forbidden any opposition, and all strikes and demonstrations.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Nombeko.

  ‘And he has anyone who disagrees with him killed.’

  ‘Does he have any humane side at all?’ said Nombeko.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the agent. ‘He took good care of the ex-dictator Idi Amin when Amin was forced to flee from Uganda.’

  ‘Yes, I read something about that,’ said Nombeko.

  ‘There is more to tell,’ said Agent A.

  ‘Or not,’ said Nombeko.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Miss Nombeko. We are concerned about your well-being, and we don’t want anything to happen to you, even if you recently insinuated that we are not to be trusted. I confess that we were both hurt by that insinuation. But if you want to go to Tr
ipoli, we will certainly arrange it.’

  That sounded perfect, thought Agent A.

  That sounded perfect, thought Agent B.

  That is the stupidest thing I have heard in my entire life, thought Nombeko. And I have spent time with assistants from the sanitation department of the City of Johannesburg and alcoholic engineers with distorted self-images.

  The agents were concerned about her well-being? She might have been born in Soweto, but it hadn’t happened yesterday.

  Libya didn’t seem as much fun any more.

  ‘What about Sweden?’ she said.

  Yes, it would probably be preferable, the agents thought. Of course, they had just killed their prime minister, but at least ordinary people could walk down the street unharmed. And, as they’d said, the Swedes were quick to accept South Africans, as long as they said they were against the apartheid regime – and the agents had reason to believe that Nombeko was.

  Nombeko nodded. Then she sat there in silence. She knew where Sweden was. Almost at the North Pole. Far from Soweto, and that was obviously a good thing. Far from everything that had been her life so far. What, she wondered, might she miss?

  ‘If there’s anything you want to take to Sweden, Miss Nombeko, we will certainly do our best to help you get it,’ said Agent B, in order to build up more trust with zero substance.

  If you keep on like this I might almost start believing you, Nombeko thought. But only almost. It would be exceedingly unprofessional of you not to try to kill me as soon as you’ve got what you want. ‘A carton of dried antelope meat would be nice,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine that they have antelope in Sweden.’

  No, A and B didn’t think so either. The agents would arrange address labels for one small and one large package right away. The bomb in the crate would go to the Foreign Office in Jerusalem, via the embassy in Pretoria. And Miss Nombeko could sign for the carton of antelope meat at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm in just a few days.