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

Switzerland, USA

It had been a hectic day for President Leuthard. Which had turned into a hectic evening and night. She forced herself to go to bed just after one o’clock, in the hopes of being somewhat well rested by six o’clock the next morning.

She was able to sleep for forty-five minutes before she was woken by her assistant. There was an incoming call from the White House in Washington.

Doris Leuthard stood up, feeling dizzy, but prepared herself. When the President of the United States calls, you don’t just flip your pillow over and go back to sleep.

‘Good morning, Mr President,’ said Doris Leuthard. ‘…Did you wake me? Oh, no, no worries.’

‘Great,’ said President Trump. ‘Because it’s night already in Zürich, isn’t it?’

Yes, President Leuthard could confirm that to be the case. Just as it was in Berne, where she was. But, anyway, why did he wish to speak with her?

Doris Leuthard posed the question and anticipated the answer. Ever since the previous afternoon, the federation she represented had been astonished and appalled that an unknown compatriot seemed to be in Pyongyang. Ever since, she and her Federal Council had been working intensively with their own intelligence service and its networks to find out what was going on.

It turned out that President Trump preferred to shout at his Swiss colleague rather than speak to her. He asked what they were doing and whether she realized the challenge she was giving the United States by initiating a collaboration on nuclear weapons with North Korea. This was completely at odds with the sanctions against the country the EU had ratified.

When Doris Leuthard spent a little too much time drawing a breath before responding, Donald Trump went on to say that he would make sure the EU kicked Switzerland out of the union unless she immediately withdrew all aid to that fool over there.

Now President Leuthard had no idea where to begin. How many mistakes could a presidential colleague make in such a short time?

‘Well, Switzerland isn’t a member of the EU, so it will be hard for you to kick us out, Mr President. Beyond that, I’m not sure your presidential powers extend so far that it can rearrange the European Union’s roster of member states. Incidentally, the sanctions against North Korea are regulated by the UN, and we are a member there. If you’d like to alter that, I’ll have to ask you to call and wake up Secretary General Guterres instead.’

‘But you said you weren’t asleep,’ said President Trump.

Doris Leuthard had enough presence of mind not to get into a conversation with the President of the United States about whether or not she had been asleep at two in the morning. Instead she said she sympathized with his worries. ‘We have no idea who the alleged Swiss man is, but it’s something we’re working intensively to find out. I assure you.’

‘You’d better be,’ said President Trump. ‘And you’ll have to do more than that. The moment you know something, you call me immediately. Is that understood?’

President Leuthard had already been tired; after two minutes on the phone with the American president she was exhausted. ‘When we know, we will take the proper measures. What those may be will have to be dictated by the circumstances. I cannot promise, but neither can I rule out, that I will inform you personally, especially now that you have expressed a wish thereof. The Swiss Confederation does, however, retain the right to come to its own decisions regarding national security.’

President Trump hung up without saying goodbye. He muttered as he logged into Breitbart.com to see if the Swiss knew more than their president wanted to admit. But not even Breitbart seemed to have an ear close enough to the ground.

While Donald Trump was conversing with the terrible woman in Switzerland, two things happened outside his door. Retired CIA agent Ryan Hutton had called the White House and managed, via a few detours, to be transferred to National Security Advisor McMaster. Agent Hutton was almost eighty years old, but claimed he still had both intellect and vision intact. If the lieutenant general wished, Hutton could tell him who the Swiss nuclear-weapons expert in Pyongyang was.

‘Please do,’ said H. R. McMaster.

Well, first off, the Swiss man in question was Swedish and nothing else. His name was Allan Karlsson and he had to be close to a hundred years old by now; during the seventies and eighties he’d been a paid agent of the United States, stationed in Moscow; he’d spent the fifties in a Soviet gulag in Siberia after he had, laudably enough, challenged Stalin. Prior to this he had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his pivotal achievements in the building of the world’s first atomic bomb.

‘Another Swede?’ was President Trump’s first comment. ‘How many of them are there? What is wrong with that country?’

‘He did receive the Medal of Freedom, Mr President.’

‘Sixty years ago, sure. He’s had plenty of time to forget what freedom is. What the hell else would he be doing in Pee-oy… Pyong… P…’

‘Pyongyang, sir. We don’t know. The fact is, we know no more than what was said at the press conference, plus these new pieces of the puzzle from former CIA Agent Hutton.’

‘Two Swedes and a North Korean. That makes three Communists in a row,’ said President Trump. ‘Get that fucking Wallström over here right now, before Sweden takes over the whole world. Was there anything else? I want some peace and quiet for a while.’

Yes, the security advisor had one more thing. It so happened that the NSA had bugged a hotel in Pyongyang. Since the hotel had hardly any guests, there wasn’t much to overhear, but apparently they had just had a hit. There seemed to be regular transports into North Korea of something with the code name ‘asparagus’. The number five hundred million figured somehow. Dollars, one had to presume.

President Trump liked asparagus and was blissfully unaware that the most exclusive variety, served at his many US hotels, was imported from Sweden. The brand was ‘Gustav Svensson’.

‘Five hundred million dollars for asparagus?’ said President Trump. ‘It’s not that good. Find out what that’s code for.’