The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

Tanzania

Unlike their American colleagues, the Germans were not particularly good at outer space. But they were good on the ground – not least when it was African. The German equivalent to the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, had placed one of its many worldwide non-existent offices inside a hairdresser’s in central Dar es Salaam. Work there was led by a self-involved, unpleasant but capable male agent. For assistance he had a meek, depressed and slightly more capable woman.

Through months of working on a dubious laboratory assistant in Congo, as well as patient network-building in environments where people were particular about portraying themselves as something other than they were, the BND had cobbled together some clear indications that a limited amount of enriched uranium would soon make its way out of Congo, through Tanzania, and on to the south.

But unfortunately, a couple of holidays got in the way. Among the few things that might be more important to the arrogant Agent A than saving the world was to travel home to Germany over Christmas and New Year in order to salvage whatever he could of his family.

The meek Agent B reconciled herself to a break in their work and spent the holiday on her own inside the salon in Dar es Salaam. She had no family to go home to, since her spouse in Rödelheim had exchanged her for a younger woman with nicer teeth.

After the holidays were over they resumed their patient puzzle-piecing, day by day, week by week. The package seemed to have left Congo. And was transported on through Mozambique. This created plenty of concern, for the ruler there was a former freedom fighter, a Marxist-Leninist, and a buddy of Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

The arrogant man and the meek woman were getting closer to it. Apparently the uranium had been carried by fishing boat to Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa. This was a country that had formerly tight bonds with the blessedly late Soviet Union.

The trail went cold in Madagascar. And there were no further informants to turn to.

Agent A decided, in his capacity as the boss, that B should find out what was going on. The meek B did as she was told. After a brief period of analysis, she informed her boss that there were three potential scenarios for the uranium parcel in question. The least likely was that the isotope was still on Madagascar. Unless it had been sent on, either by plane or boat. Flying to or from Madagascar necessarily meant flying internationally. And to do this with more than a few kilos of uranium in your luggage would be tantamount to being discovered. Which left a boat – that was to say, the same method of transport by which the uranium had been brought to Madagascar. Repacking it and coming back the same way on a different fishing vessel didn’t strike her as rational.

The meek woman’s conclusion was that the uranium had left Madagascar by boat, but the size of the boat must be such that it could manage an ocean crossing. Either the Indian Ocean in one direction or the Atlantic in the other.

The arrogant man nodded, agreed, and made this line of reasoning his own in the subsequent report to Berlin, without protest from the meek woman.

The next step was to list all the cargo vessels that had recently called at and sailed from the harbour in Toamasina. When that didn’t turn up any obvious hits, A and B expanded their search to encompass potentially suspicious ships that had been anywhere near Madagascar during the period in question.

As a result, they were currently looking at a list of ships’ names. It consisted of one: the North Korean bulk carrier Honour and Strength.

On its way from Havana to Pyongyang.

It had passed immediately south of Madagascar fifteen days earlier.

The relationship between the Germans and the Americans wasn’t the best, ever since it had turned out that the Americans had bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone, at which the chancellor picked up said phone and called President Obama to say she hoped the CIA was also listening to what she had to say now.

On the basis of his personality, as well as Germany’s strained relationship with the United States, the BND’s top central African representative had no problem lying through his teeth when explaining to his American colleague why he wanted help in determining the exact route and speed of the North Korean vessel Honour and Strength. As well as, of course, where the ship might currently be located.

The CIA, which was informed that it had to do with suspected industrial espionage on the car manufacturer Volkswagen in Brazil, told him what they knew. Without grumbling or delay, to boot. The blunder with the chancellor’s phone meant that they would be indebted to the Germans for quite some time.

The North Korean ship had followed a route a little closer to the southern coast of Madagascar than was optimal. The various time stamps, as calculated from the CIA’s satellite reports, also indicated that the ship had slowed down around there.

The German agents drew the conclusion that there was an immediate risk the uranium would soon wind up in North Korea, to be used for the nuclear weapons programme that Germany, and the world in general, had condemned.

They had to hurry!

Or, as it turned out, they didn’t.

Honour and Strength had, two hours earlier, reached North Korean waters and would arrive in the harbour at Nampo later that day.