The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

the friends and the millions to stick together. Perhaps they could go on holiday together, because there was nothing Pike longed for more just now than to be served a parasol drink under a parasol somewhere far, far away. Besides, Pike happened to know that Allan had leanings of a similar nature.
    ‘But without the parasol,’ said Allan.
    Julius said that he agreed with Allan that protection from rain over the vodka was not one of the necessities of life,especially if you were already lying under a parasol and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. But he also thought that the friends didn’t need to argue about that. A shared holiday sounded great!
    Chief Inspector Aronsson smiled shyly at the idea, not daring to assume he belonged to the group. Benny noted this, so he put an arm around the chief inspector’s shoulder and asked how the representative of the police force preferred to have his holiday drinks served. The chief inspector smiled and was just about to answer when The Beauty put the damper on everything:
    ‘I’m not taking a single step without Sonya and Buster!’
    And then she was silent for a second before she added:
    ‘Not a snowball’s chance in hell!’
    Since Benny for his part couldn’t contemplate taking a step without The Beauty, his enthusiasm rapidly evaporated.
    ‘Besides, I don’t suppose half of us even have a valid passport,’ he sighed.
    But Allan calmly thanked Pike for his generosity with regard to how the suitcase money could best be shared. He thought a holiday was a good idea, and preferably as many thousands of miles from Director Alice as possible. If only the other members of the group could agree, they could surely sort out the transport issues and find a destination where they weren’t so fussy about visas for man and beast.
    ‘And how do you intend to take along a five-ton elephant on the plane?’ said Benny in despair.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Allan. ‘But as long as we think positively, I’m sure a solution will appear.’
    ‘And the valid passports?’
    ‘As long as we think positively, as I said.’
    ‘I don’t think Sonya actually weighs much more than four tons, perhaps four and a half at the most,’ said The Beauty.
    ‘You see, Benny,’ said Allan. ‘That’s what I mean by thinking positively. The problem immediately became a whole ton less.’
    ‘I might have an idea,’ The Beauty said.
    ‘Me too,’ said Allan. ‘Can I use your phone?’

Chapter 26
    1968–82
    Yury Borisovich Popov lived and worked in the city of Sarov in Nizhny Novgorod, about 350 kilometres east of Moscow.
    Sarov was a secret city, almost more secret than Secret Agent Hutton. It wasn’t even allowed to be called Sarov any longer, but had been given the not particularly romantic name Arzamas-16. Besides, the entire city had been rubbed out on all maps. Sarov did and didn’t exist at one and the same time, depending on whether you referred to reality or to something else – kind of like Vladivostok for a few years from 1953 on, except the opposite.
    The city was fenced in with barbed wire, and not a soul was let in or out without a vigorous security check. If you had an American passport and were stationed at the American Embassy in Moscow, it was not advisable to come anywhere near.
    CIA agent Ryan Hutton and his new pupil Allan Karlsson had practised the A to Z of spying for several weeks before Allan was installed at the embassy in Moscow under the name Allen Carson and with the vague title ‘administrator’.
    Embarrassingly for Secret Agent Hutton, he had completely ignored the fact that the target that Allan Karlsson was intended to approach was unapproachable, shut in behind barbed wire in a city that was so well protected that it wasn’t even allowed to be called what it was called, or to be where it was.
    Secret Agent Hutton told Allan he was sorry about the mistake, but added that Mr Karlsson would surely think up something. Popov must visit Moscow now and then.
    ‘But now you’ll have to excuse me, Mr Karlsson,’ said Secret Agent Hutton on the phone from the French capital. ‘I have some other business on my desk. Good luck!’
    Secret Agent Hutton replaced the receiver, sighed deeply, and returned to the mess of the aftermath of the military coup in Greece the previous year – supported by the CIA. Like so much else in recent times, it had not exactly turned out as intended.
    Allan, for his part, had no better idea than to take a refreshing