The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson Read Free Book Online Page B

City of Johannesburg’s department of education was therefore able to adjust Soweto’s budgetary allocations downward, citing lack of students.
    Nombeko avoided experiencing any of this. She had been enslaved by the state and was in a car on the way to her new master’s house.
    ‘Is it much farther, Mr Engineer?’ she asked, mostly to have something to say.
    ‘No, not really,’ said Engineer van der Westhuizen. ‘But you shouldn’t speak out of turn. Speaking when you are spoken to will be sufficient.’
    Engineer Westhuizen was a lot of things. The fact that he was a liar had become clear to Nombeko back in the courtroom. That he was an alcoholic became clear in the car after leaving the courtroom. In addition, he was a fraud when it came to his profession. He didn’t understand his own work, but he kept himself at the top by telling lies and exploiting people who did understand it.
    This might have been an aside to the whole story if only the engineer hadn’t had one of the most secret and dramatic tasks in the world. He was the man who would make South Africa a nuclear weapons nation. It was all being orchestrated from the research facility of Pelindaba, about an hour north of Johannesburg.
    Nombeko, of course, knew nothing of this, but her first inkling that things were a bit more complicated than she had originally thought came as they approached the engineer’s office.
    Just as the Klipdrift ran out, she and the engineer arrived at the facility’s outer perimeter. After showing identification they were allowed to enter the gates, passing a ten-foot, twelve-thousand-volt fence. Next there was a fifty-foot stretch that was controlled by double guards with dogs before it was time for the inner perimeter and the next ten-foot fence with the same number of volts. In addition, someone had thought to place a minefield around the entire facility, in the space between the ten-foot fences.
    ‘This is where you will atone for your crime,’ said the engineer. ‘And this is where you will live, so you don’t take off.’
    Electric fences, guards with dogs and minefields were variables Nombeko hadn’t taken into account in the courtroom a few hours earlier.
    ‘Looks cosy,’ she said.
    ‘You’re talking out of turn again,’ said the engineer.
    * * *
    The South African nuclear weapons programme was begun in 1975, the year before a drunk Engineer van der Westhuizen happened to run over a black girl. There were two reasons he had been sitting at the Hilton Hotel and tossing back brandies until he was gently asked to leave. One was that part about being an alcoholic. The engineer needed at least a full bottle of Klipdrift per day to keep the works going. The other was his bad mood. And his frustration. The engineer had just been pressured by Prime Minister Vorster, who complained that no progress had been made yet even though a year had gone by.
    The engineer tried to maintain otherwise. On the business front, they had begun the work exchange with Israel. Sure, this had been initiated by the prime minister himself, but in any case uranium was heading in the direction of Jerusalem, while they had received tritium in return. There were even two Israeli agents permanently stationed at Pelindaba for the sake of the project.
    No, the prime minister had no complaints about their collaboration with Israel, Taiwan and others. It was the work itself that was limping along. Or, as the prime minister put it:
    ‘Don’t give us a bunch of excuses for one thing and the next. Don’t give us any more teamwork right and left. Give us an atomic bomb, for fuck’s sake, Mr van der Westhuizen. And then give us five more.’
    * * *
    While Nombeko settled in behind Pelindaba’s double fence, Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster was sitting in his palace and sighing. He was very busy from early in the morning to late at night. The most pressing matter on his desk right now was that of the six atomic bombs. What if that obsequious