The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (9 page)

Benny followed Allan and Julius’ conversation with interest, clearly hoping that it would end with another night at the same place. His feelings for The Beauty had not diminished since the previous day. On the contrary he was disappointed she wasn’t around when he came down for breakfast. But she had written ‘thanks for last night’ in the letter. Could she have been referring to the poem that Benny had recited? If only she would come back soon!

But it was almost an hour before The Beauty turned into the yard. When she climbed out of her car, Benny saw that she was even more beautiful than the last time he saw her. She had
exchanged her red tracksuit for a dress and she might even have been to the hairdresser. He took some eager steps towards her, and exclaimed:

‘My beauty! Welcome home!’

Behind him stood Allan and Julius, enjoying the tender scene. But their smiles disappeared as soon as they saw her
demeanour
. First she walked straight past Benny and then past the other two, before stopping on the steps of Lake Farm, where she turned round and said:

‘You bastards! I know everything! And now I want to know the rest. Assemble in the living room. NOW!’

Upon which The Beauty disappeared into the house.

‘If she already knows everything, what more does she want to know?’ asked Benny.

‘Just be quiet, Benny,’ said Julius.

‘My words exactly,’ said Allan.

And then they went inside to meet their fate.

The Beauty had started the day by feeding Sonya some newly cut grass and then decided to smarten up a little. Reluctantly, she had admitted to herself that she wanted to be beautiful for that Benny guy. So she had swapped the red tracksuit for a light yellow dress and her frizzy hair had now been tidied into two pigtails. She had also added a little make-up and a touch of fragrance before she got into her red VW Passat to drive to Rottne for supplies.

Buster sat as he always did in the passenger seat and licked his chops when the car headed for the supermarket. Afterwards, The Beauty wondered whether in fact Buster had seen the
newspaper
headlines – the one for
The Express
was lit up outside the shop and had two photos, one at the bottom of old man Julius, and one at the top of very-old man Allan. The headline read:

‘Centenarian kidnapped by criminal gang. Hunt on today for notorious master thief – Police’.

The Beauty turned bright red in the face, her thoughts flying in all directions. She was furious and immediately abandoned plans to buy supplies, because those three sly devils would be out of her house before lunch! But first The Beauty went into the pharmacy to pick up the medicine that Benny had ordered the night before, and then she bought a copy of
The Express
to find out in more detail what on earth was going on.

The more The Beauty read, the angrier she became. But at the same time she couldn’t really piece it all together. Was it Benny who was Never Again? Was Julius a master thief? And who had kidnapped whom? They all seemed to get along so well.

In the end, her anger won over her curiosity. Whatever had happened, she had been conned. And you didn’t con Gunilla Björklund and get away with it! ‘My beauty!’ Hah!

She sat in her car and read the article once more: ‘On his hundredth birthday on Monday, Allan Karlsson disappeared from the Old People’s Home in Malmköping. The police now suspect that he has been kidnapped by the criminal
organisation
Never Again. According to information received by
The Express
, the master thief Julius Jonsson is involved.’

This was followed by a mish-mash of information and witness statements. Allan Karlsson had been seen at the bus station in Malmköping, then he had climbed on the bus to Strängnäs, and this had made a member of Never Again furious… But hang on… ‘…blond man in his thirties…’ That did not describe Benny. The Beauty felt… relieved?

The confusion continued when she read that Allan Karlsson had been seen the day before on a rail inspection trolley in the middle of the Södermanland forest, together with master-thief Jonsson and the Never Again member who had been so angry with him.
The Express
could not give an exact description of the relationship between the three men, but the current theory
was that Allan Karlsson was in the clutches of the others. That at least was the opinion of farmer Tengroth in Vidkärr.

Finally,
The Express
had yet another scoop. According to the assistant at the nearby service station, the proprietor of a local hot-dog stand, by the name of Benny Ljungberg, had
disappeared
without a trace the day before, close to the last known location of the centenarian and the master thief.

The Beauty folded the paper and placed it in Buster’s mouth. Then she headed back to her farmhouse in the forest, where she now knew her visitors consisted of a centenarian, a master thief and the proprietor of a hot-dog stand. This last one was handsome as well as charming and clearly had some medical knowledge, but there was no room for romance here. For a moment, The Beauty was more sad than angry, but she worked up to fury again just as she drove into her yard.

The Beauty pulled
The Express
out of Buster’s mouth, unfolded the first page with the pictures of Allan and Julius, and started swearing and shouting before reading aloud from the article. Then she demanded an explanation and promised that all three of them would be on their way in five minutes, come what may. Then she folded the paper again and put it back in Buster’s mouth, crossed her arms, and ended with a frigid:

‘Well?’

Benny looked at Allan who looked at Julius who strangely enough broke into a smile.

‘Master thief,’ he said. ‘I’m a master thief. Not bad!’

But The Beauty was not impressed. She was already red in the face and became even redder when she informed Julius that he would soon be a very beaten-up master thief if The Beauty didn’t immediately find out what was going on. And then she told the assembled guests what she had already told herself, namely that nobody conned Gunilla Björklund at Lake Farm and got away with it. To put force behind her words, she pulled
an old shotgun down from the wall. It didn’t work, of course, The Beauty admitted, but it would serve well to smash the skulls of master thieves, hot-dog-stand proprietors and old geezers if necessary, and it seemed it would be necessary.

Julius Jonsson’s smile quickly faded. Benny stood there nailed to the floor with his arms hanging limply by his side. As far as he could see, his chance of romance was rapidly evaporating. Then Allan stepped in, and asked The Beauty for time to think. With The Beauty’s permission, he would like to have a private conversation with Julius in the adjacent room. The Beauty agreed with a bit of muttering, but warned Allan not to try any tricks. Allan promised to behave and then he took Julius by the arm and led him into the kitchen, closing the door behind them.

Allan asked Julius if he had any ideas which, unlike previous attempts, would not just make The Beauty even angrier. Julius answered that the only way they could save the situation was by inviting The Beauty to partake in some sort of part-ownership of the suitcase. Allan agreed, although he pointed out that no good would come of telling one person a day that he and Julius stole people’s suitcases, killed them when they wanted to get it back and then sent the corpses neatly packaged in wooden boxes to be transported to Africa.

Julius thought Allan was exaggerating. So far only one person had paid with his life and surely he got what he deserved. If they could just stay hidden until things calmed down, then nobody else need meet the same fate.

Upon which Allan said that he himself had had a new idea. He thought that it might be an idea to divide the contents of the suitcase into four: Allan, Julius, Benny and The Beauty. Then there would be no risk of the last two talking too much to the wrong people. And as a bonus they would all be able to stay at Lake Farm for the summer, by which time the motorcycle gang
would certainly have stopped looking for them, if they were looking for them at all, which one must assume they were.

‘Twenty-five million for a few months room and board and a chauffeur,’ Julius sighed. But he accepted Allan’s suggestion.

The meeting in the kitchen was finished. Julius and Allan went back into the living room. Allan asked The Beauty and Benny for another thirty seconds’ patience, while Julius went up to his room and returned with the suitcase trailing behind him. He put it on the long table in the middle of the living room and opened it.

‘Allan and I have decided that the four of us will share this equally.’

‘Jesus bloody Christ!’ said The Beauty.

‘Have a seat, and I’ll explain,’ said Julius.

The Beauty found it just as hard as Benny had to digest the part about the corpse, but she was impressed with Allan for climbing out of a window and just disappearing from his earlier life.

‘I should have done the same after fourteen days with that arsehole I married.’

Calm returned to Lake Farm. The Beauty and Buster went off again to pick up supplies. She bought food, drink, clothes, toiletries and lots of other stuff. She paid for everything with a wad of 500-crown notes.

Chief Inspector Aronsson questioned the witness from the service station in Mjölby, a woman in her fifties. Her profession and the way she described what she had seen made her a credible witness. She could also identify Allan in pictures from an
eightieth
birthday party at the Old People’s Home a week or two earlier, pictures that Director Alice had been kind enough to provide not only to the police but also to the press.

Chief Inspector Aronsson was forced to admit to himself that he had wrongly dismissed this tip the day before. But there was no point in looking back. Instead, Aronsson concentrated on his
analysis. From a flight perspective, there were two possibilities: either the old men and the hot-dog-stand proprietor knew where they were going, or they were simply travelling south at random. Aronsson preferred the first alternative given that it’s easier to follow someone who knows where he’s going. But with these people it was hard to know. There seemed to be no obvious link between Allan Karlsson and Julius Jonsson on the one hand, and Benny Ljungberg on the other. Jonsson and Ljungberg might be acquaintances; after all they only lived about twenty kilometres apart. But it was possible that Ljungberg had been kidnapped and forced to drive the car. The centenarian too could have been forced to follow along, although that interpretation had two strikes against it: 1) the fact that Allan Karlsson had got off the bus at Byringe Station and, it would seem, of his own volition sought out Julius Jonsson, and 2) witness statements that Julius Jonsson and Allan Karlsson a) on the inspection trolley through the forest and b) on their walk outside the foundry seemed to be on good terms.

Whatever the circumstances, the service station attendant had noticed that the silver-coloured Mercedes had left the main road and continued towards Tranås. Although twenty-four hours had passed, that fact remained of interest. Somebody heading south along the main road who turns off at Mjölby has immediately limited the number of likely final destinations. They might be going to Oskarshamn and then on to the island of Gotland but there was no sign of them on the ferry passenger lists. All that remained was northern Småland, in which case the Mercedes had hardly chosen the fastest route. But if the old men and the hot-dog-stand proprietor felt they were being chased, then it would be sensible to choose smaller roads.

What spoke in favour of their still being in this area was firstly that the car contained two people without valid passports. They would hardly be going abroad. Secondly, Chief Inspector
Aronsson’s colleagues had phoned every imaginable service station in a southern, south-eastern and south-western direction between 300 and 500 kilometres from Mjölby. No one had seen a silver-coloured Mercedes with three conspicuous travellers. Of course, they could have got petrol at an unmanned station, but people usually went to full service stations because after having driven a certain distance they invariably required a bag of crisps, a bottle of fizzy drink or a hot dog. And what
additionally
spoke in favour of the full service stations was that they had chosen one before, that time in Mjölby.

‘Tranås, Eksjö, Nässjö, Vetlanda, Åseda… and thereabouts,’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson to himself in a congratulatory tone, before frowning.

‘And then where?’

When the leader of The Violence in Braås woke after a terrible night, he immediately made his way to the service station to do something about his desperate need for a smoke. On the wall outside the entrance the newspaper headlines screamed down at him. The big picture in
The Express
showed… the same old guy he had seen in Rottne the previous night.

In his haste he forgot to ask for cigarettes. But he did buy
The Express
, was astounded by what he read, and then phoned his big brother Bucket.

The mystery of the vanished and presumably kidnapped centenarian caught the attention of the nation. More than 1.5 million viewers, including the centenarian himself and his new comrades at Lake Farm watched a report that didn’t actually reveal anything more than
The Express
.

‘If I hadn’t known it was me, I would have felt sorry for that old guy,’ said Allan.

The Beauty was less easy going; she thought that Allan, Julius and Benny had better keep well out of sight for a long time.
And from now on the Mercedes would remain parked behind the barn. And the next morning she would go off and buy the large bus she had had her eye on for a while. Since many of the seats had been cleared away and it had been fitted with an unusually wide side door, it was perfect for moving especially large cargo. They might have to make a quick getaway very soon, and in that case the whole family was going, including Sonya.

On 1st September 1939, Allan’s ship, sailing under the Spanish flag, arrived in New York. Allan had contemplated taking a quick look at the big country to the west of Europe, and then sailing back again, but on the same day one of the
generalissimo
’s dear friends marched into Poland and once again war was raging in Europe. On arrival, the Spanish-registered ship was impounded, confiscated, and then did service in the US Navy until war ended in 1945.

Everyone on board was sent over to the immigration office on Ellis Island. There, every passenger was asked the same four questions: 1) Name? 2) Nationality? 3) Profession? 4) Purpose of visit to the United States of America?

All of Allan’s comrades from the ship said, through a Spanish interpreter, that they were simple Spanish seamen who now had nowhere to go because their ship had been impounded. After which they were quickly admitted to the United States, where they had to manage as best they could.

But Allan was different. He had a name that the Spanish interpreter couldn’t pronounce; he said he came from Suecia; and most importantly he revealed that he was an explosives expert, with all sorts of experience ranging from running his own explosives business, to the manufacture of cannons, and most recently to participating in the war between Spaniards and Spaniards.

After which Allan pulled out his letter from General Franco. Terrified, the Spanish interpreter translated it for the
immigration
officer who immediately summoned his superior who immediately summoned his superior.

At first the inferior and the two superiors agreed that the
fascist Swede should immediately be sent back where he had come from.

‘As long as you can find a ship for me, I’ll be happy to go,’ said Allan.

This was not a practicable suggestion, and so the
interrogations
continued. And the more the immigration officer got out of Allan, the less fascistic the Swede seemed to be. He wasn’t a communist either. Or a national socialist. He was nothing at all, it would seem, other than an expert on explosives. As for the story of how he came to be on first-name terms with General Franco, it was so ridiculous that it had to be true – he could hardly have made it up.

The most senior immigration officer had a brother in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and as far as he knew, his brother was working on some kind of explosive device for the military. Since he had no better ideas, the senior immigration officer arranged for Allan to be locked up for a couple of months. Unfortunately, the months turned into years, and the immigration boss mostly forgot about Allan, until one day he found himself discussing the case with his brother when they met at the family farm in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. His brother was working on some kind of explosive device for the military. The brother was not thrilled at the idea of having a potential Franco supporter on his hands, but they were desperately in need of all the expertise they could muster down at Los Alamos and they could probably find some suitably unqualified and not too secret work for this odd Swede, if it would help out his brother.

The immigration director answered that it most definitely would be a favour, and then the brothers tucked into the turkey.

Some time later in the winter of 1943 Allan flew, for the first time ever, to the US National Laboratory in Los Alamos, where it was soon discovered that he didn’t speak a word of English. A Spanish-speaking lieutenant was given the task of
finding out the extent of the Swede’s professional skills, and Allan was required to write down his most explosive chemical formulae for the lieutenant. The latter looked through these, finding evidence of a considerable innovative ability, but pointing out that the force of Allan’s explosive charges would barely blow up a car.

‘Oh, but it would,’ answered Allan. ‘A car with a man in it. I’ve tried it.’

Allan was allowed to stay on, at first in the most remote corner of the compound, but as the months and years went by and he started to speak English, he was allowed to move about more and more freely. As an extremely meticulous observer, during the days Allan learned how to make explosive charges of a substantially different nature from those he’d been in the habit of setting off on Sundays back home in the gravel pit. And in the evening, when most of the young men at the Los Alamos lab went out to town to chase women, Allan sat in the restricted-access library and learned about new realms in the world of explosives.

The war in Europe was escalating, but these events largely passed Allan by, as he acquired knowledge which as a lowly assistant he couldn’t really use. It was no longer about familiar chemicals like nitroglycerine and sodium nitrate – that was for amateurs – but about exotic relationships between atoms like hydrogen and uranium which turned out to be far more complicated elements than he could ever have imagined.

From 1942 on, extremely strict security restrictions came into force at Los Alamos. The scientists had been given a secret mission by President Roosevelt to create a big bomb, a bomb that, Allan guessed, could destroy ten or even twenty Spanish bridges with a single explosion. Lowly assistants are needed on even the most secret projects, and the hugely popular Allan was given the highest security clearance.

He had to admit that they knew their stuff these Americans. Instead of working with the conventional materials Allan had been brought up on, these scientists had found ways of unlocking the power that held the nuclei of atoms together, trying to create more enormous explosions than anything the world had seen before.

By April 1945, they were almost there. The researchers – and for that matter Allan – knew how to achieve a nuclear reaction, but they didn’t know how to control it. The problem fascinated Allan, and when he sat in the library in the evenings he worried away at the problem that nobody had asked him to worry about – and he solved it.

Every week that spring, the most important military people met for hours with the leading physicists, led by chief scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, while Allan filled their coffee cups – and listened.

The scientists pulled at their hair and asked Allan for more coffee. The military people scratched their heads and asked Allan for more coffee. The military people and the scientists all despaired of finding a solution and asked Allan for more coffee. And so it went on, week after week. Allan had been sitting on the solution to the group’s problem for some time but he didn’t think it was the waiter’s task to tell the chef how to prepare dinner, so he kept what he knew to himself.

Until on one occasion, to his own surprise, he heard himself say:

‘Excuse me, but why don’t you divide the uranium into two equal parts?’

It just sort of slipped out, while he was pouring coffee into Robert Oppenheimer’s cup.

‘
What
did you say?’ said Oppenheimer, who was so shocked that the waiter had opened his mouth that he hadn’t even listened to what Allan said.

Allan had no choice but to go on.

‘Well, if you divide the uranium into two equal parts and slap them together only when it is time, then they’ll explode when you want them to.’

‘
Equal
parts?’ said Oppenheimer. There was a lot more going on in his head at that moment, but ‘equal parts’ was what he managed to say.

‘Well, perhaps you have a point there, professor. The parts don’t have to be equal in size, the important thing is that they are big enough when they come together.’

Lieutenant Lewis, who had vouched for Allan’s suitability as an assistant, looked as if he wanted to murder the Swede, but one of the scientists around the table reacted with considerable interest:

‘But how do we slap them together? And when? In the air?’

‘Exactly, professor. You see, it’s not hard to make it all explode. The problem is that you can’t control the moment of explosion. But a critical mass divided into two gives you two
un
critical
masses, doesn’t it? And the opposite applies too, because from two uncritical masses you can get one critical mass.’

‘And how do you propose we slap them together, Mr… excuse me, but who are you?’ said Oppenheimer.

‘I’m Allan,’ said Allan.

‘And, Mr Allan, how do we slap them together?’

‘With a good old, everyday explosive charge,’ said Allan. ‘That’s the sort of thing I’m good at, but I am sure you can manage it yourselves.’

Professors of Physics in general and top military scientists in particular are not stupid. In a few seconds, Oppenheimer had worked his way through thickets of equations and come to the conclusion that it was extremely likely that the waiter was right. Just imagine that something so complicated could have such a simple solution! A good old everyday explosive charge at the
back of the bomb could be activated from a distance and would send an uncritical mass of uranium-235 forwards to a meeting with another uncritical mass. It would immediately become critical. The neutrons would start to move, the uranium atoms would start to split. The chain reaction would be in process and…

‘Bang!’ said Oppenheimer to himself.

‘Exactly,’ said Allan. ‘I see that you have already worked it out, professor. Would anyone like some more coffee?’

At that very moment the door to the secret room was opened and in walked Vice President Truman on one of his rare and always unannounced visits.

‘Sit down,’ said the vice president to the men, who were all standing to attention.

To be on the safe side, even Allan sat down. If a vice president told you to sit down then it was probably best to sit down, that was how it worked in America, he thought.

The vice president asked for a status report from
Oppenheimer
, who quickly stood up again. Somewhat flustered, the only thing he could think to say was that Mr Allan over there in the corner had just solved the remaining problem of how the detonation could be controlled. Mr Allan’s solution was not yet tested, but Oppenheimer was speaking for all those present when he said that the problem had just become history and that within three months they could have a trial explosion.

The vice president looked round the table and got nods of agreement. Lieutenant Lewis had gradually started to breathe again. In the end, the vice president’s eyes fell on Allan.

‘I do believe, Mr Allan, that you are the hero of the day. As for me, I need to have a bite before I return to Washington. Would you like to join me?’

Following on less than a decade after the Generalissimo’s dinner invitation, Allan surmised that it must be a common
characteristic of world leaders to invite you to eat as soon as you did something they liked, but he didn’t say so. Instead he thanked the vice president for the invitation and the two men walked out of the room together. Oppenheimer was left at the conference table looking both relieved and unhappy.

Vice President Truman had ordered his favourite Mexican restaurant in the centre of Los Alamos to be sealed off, so Allan and Truman had the place to themselves, except for a dozen or so bodyguards spread out in various corners.

The head of the security unit had pointed out that Mr Allan was not an American and not even cleared to be alone with the vice president, but Truman dismissed the security official’s objections with the comment that today Mr Allan had done the most patriotic thing anyone could imagine.

The vice president was in excellent spirits. Straight after dinner, instead of going to Washington, he had decided to fly to Georgia where President Roosevelt was staying at a polio clinic. The president would want to hear this news directly, Harry Truman was sure of that.

‘I’ll order the food, so you can choose the drinks,’ said Harry Truman jovially and handed the wine list to Allan.

Truman turned to the head waiter, who bowed as he received a large order for tacos, enchilada, corn tortillas and salsa.

‘And to drink, sir?’

‘Two bottles of tequila,’ Allan answered.

Harry Truman laughed and asked if Allan wanted to drink him under the table. Allan answered that the last year had taught him that the Mexicans could make spirits with as much oomph in them as akvavit, but that the vice president could of course drink milk if he considered that more suitable.

‘No, I’ve given my word,’ said Vice President Truman, and he made sure the order included lime and salt.

Three hours later the two men were calling each other Harry and Allan, which goes to show what a couple of bottles of tequila can do for international relations. Allan told Truman how the local bigwig had been blown to bits and how he saved the life of General Franco. The vice president, for his part, amused Allan by imitating President Roosevelt’s attempts to get up out of his wheelchair.

When the two men were on the most jovial of terms, the head of the security staff discreetly approached the vice president.

‘Could I have a word please, sir?’

‘Go ahead,’ said the vice president in a slurred voice.

‘Preferably in private, sir.’

‘I’ll be damned if you don’t look just like Humphrey Bogart! Have you seen him, Allan?’

‘Sir…,’ said the increasingly troubled security man.

‘Yes, what the hell do you want?’ the vice president hissed.

‘Sir, it is about President Roosevelt.

‘What about that old goat?’ The vice president guffawed.

‘He’s dead, sir.’