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

Germany

The Bundestag voting had been going on for several hours when a Transall C-160 landed at the German Navy base in Landkreis Cochem-Zell, after completing its mission to Africa.

Forty boxes of unknown contents were transferred to one of the airport’s cargo vehicles for its three-hundred-metre journey to the armoured bus that would take over. The next leg was also the last. Nine kilometres away waited a bunker in which was stored, among many other items, four kilos of enriched uranium. It was about to receive a refill.

The bus was strategically parked at the outermost gate on the eastern side of the military airfield, partially hidden behind two large election posters. It was as if the chancellor herself were watching over the transport. She gazed down from the posters, smiling her Mona Lisa smile at the soldiers who carried enriched uranium between the vehicles. She said, ‘For a Germany where we live well and happily.’

She had good reason to smile. The election forecasts said she would win, although complicated government negotiations awaited her. Furthermore, her envoys had flown into and out of Kenya without incident. The Kenyans, happily, were too busy worrying about themselves.

An hour or so later, the bunker was sealed. The chancellor and her professor had been to vote, and were now eating a quiet dinner, just the two of them.

‘It seems that Mr Karlsson won’t influence the German democratic process after all,’ said the professor.

‘Well, the polling stations don’t close for another hour. He still has time,’ said Chancellor Merkel.