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

When Inspector Aronsson shares his information with Prosecutor Ranelid, the prosecutor issues arrest warrants for Allan, Julius, Benny, and Gunilla on suspicion of murder. Aronsson asks if they can make a murder charge stick since none of the supposed victims has yet been found:

Don't sound so downcast, Gören, said prosecutor Conny Ranelid. You’ll see; that old fool will spill the beans as soon as you catch him from me. And if he is too senile, I'm sure the others will contradict one another and that will give us all we need (184).

To assist the inspector, the prosecutor announces the arrest warrants and ask for the public’s assistance.

This chapter begins with the first meeting between Benny and his brother, Bosse, in 30 years. They are at Bellringer Farm, Bosse’s estate. When Bosse asks if they’re on the run from the police and if the money they’ve given him is stolen, Benny answers these questions—and all his brother’s other questions—honestly. Bosse responds by extending hospitality to Allan’s crew. During supper, Pike, whose life Benny saved, walks out of the bus to the kitchen with his gun and confronts the crew. Bosse recognizes him as his former business associate. The two embrace, and the situation calms. Pike passes out, and the others care for his substantial injuries.

Aronsson stations himself at a hotel in the area where the crew may be hiding. The newspapers print the headline “MISSING CENTENARIAN SUSPECTED OF TRIPLE MURDER” (197).

At Bellringer, Bosse explains to the crew how he acquired his fortune, which involves altering foods such as chicken and watermelon to make them taste better. In addition, he sells Bibles that have one misprint—a single verse added to the end of the last book: “And they all lived happily ever after” (200).

The man who sat beside Allan on the park bench in Stockholm says that he has a job offer and asks Allan to accompany him. They end up on a submarine, 700 feet below the surface of the ocean, headed to Russia. The man, Yury Borisovich Popov, is a physicist working for the USSR’s nuclear program. They’re taking Allan to meet Stalin, who wants to pay Allan $100,000 to tell the Russians how to build the bomb. During the submarine trip, Allan and Yury drink a lot of vodka, and Allan discloses details about how to build the bomb.

Yury explains the Russian nuclear program to Allan, adding that its director is Marshal Beria, a murderous “thug.” When Allan asks why Beria didn’t simply kidnap him and take him to Russia, Yury confesses that Beria tried that once, and the result was disastrous. He tells Allan that he’ll soon be eating with comrade Stalin.

Jonasson breaks from the historical narrative about Allan in Russia to explain that Beria had tried kidnapping an imminent physicist and wringing the details about how to make an atomic weapon out of him. The person he tried to kidnap was Albert Einstein. Instead, he kidnapped his half-brother, Herbert Einstein, who was not particularly bright and knew absolutely nothing about nuclear physics. When Beria heard that Allan, whom the Russians knew had helped create the bomb, was in Stockholm, they decided to pay him rather than kidnap him, hoping to avoid another embarrassing situation.

The meal with Stalin goes well until both Stalin and Allan drink a lot of vodka and begin to toast one another. Allan recites an old Swedish poem he remembers from childhood, which is nationalistic, written by a German author, and considered insulting to Russians. Allan takes exception to Stalin’s defensive nature and begins to taunt him, telling him how he saved the lives of Francisco Franco and Winston Churchill, avowed anti-communists. The two men angrily insult one another. Jonasson writes, “Allan wasn’t going to sit there and listen to this abuse any longer. He had come to Moscow to help them out, not to be shouted at. Stalin would have to manage on his own” (223).

The communists arrest Allan. Within a few days, they try him in a secret proceeding, his Russian lawyer capitulating with everything the prosecution says. Allan receives a 30-year sentence to a prison camp. Allan joins 30 other men bound for the gulag at Vladivostok. He learns that one of these men is Herbert Einstein, the man Yury told him about whom Beria kidnapped. Herbert tells Allan that he wishes he were dead and would kill himself if he weren’t a coward. Allan consoles him by saying the gulag provides many ways to die. Once in the gulag, Allan makes the best of the routine and helps Herbert stay alive. After five years without vodka, however, Allan decides to escape.

This chapter focuses on the day after the crew arrives at Bosse’s house. When Pike wakes up, he and Allan have a lengthy conversation about all that happened. With Bolt and Bucket dead—and Caracas, the fourth member of the gang, headed back to South America—Pike has no way to continue as the middleman in his drug smuggling enterprise. Their conversation is so cordial that he and Allan shake hands and agree to be friends.

Julian and Bosse gather everyone after breakfast and tell them that the police have issued arrest warrants for Allan’s crew. They discuss their options. Pike demands that they not give themselves up to the police: “His experience was that Justice was rarely as just as it ought to be. The others agreed. Not least on account of what would happen if Justice this time should turn out to be just” (232). They decide to return to discussing their options later.

Over the five years that Allan is captive in the gulag, he learns Russian and the routines of the harbor at Vladivostok. In addition, he knows that the Korean war rages nearby and that the Russians pool munitions and supplies on the Soviet ships anchored there. He conceives a plan to set a fire on a ship in the harbor and, along with Herbert, escape to North Korea dressed as Soviet officers. When Herbert notes that the plan lacks details about what they should do after arriving in Korea, Allan acknowledges this and says, “[T]he more I think about it, the more I think that we should just leave it at that, and you’ll see that things will turn out like they do, because that is what usually happens—almost always, in fact” (240).

To initiate their plan, Allan sets a container ship on fire, expecting an explosion if munitions are present. Instead, the ship contains blankets, and the harbor fills with smoke. None of the soldiers attempts to put out the fire, instead sending gulag prisoners. When some prisoners try to escape, the guards begin firing tracer bullets, which cause other container ships transporting explosives to burst into flames. Soon the entire harbor and then the entire town of Vladivostok is on fire. Fleeing for their lives, Allan and Herbert don’t have time to change into Soviet uniforms. When the car of a Russian Marshal, Kirill Meretskov, stops on an overlook to view the burning city, Allan gets the marshal’s gun and forces him and his driver to give them their clothes; they then drive toward North Korea.

At first, since Allan can drive, he plays the marshal’s driver. They cross into North Korea with no difficulty and accept hospitality along the way. They seek the help of Kim Il Sung, the North Korean president, to leave the Korean peninsula. First, they must meet with his only trusted advisor, his 10-year-old son, Kim Jong Il. They tell Kim Jong Il that Stalin has sent them. When the boy tries to verify this, he learns that Stalin has just died of a stroke. Allan consoles the boy, who agrees that they can now see his father.

Allan introduces himself to Kim Il Sung as Marshal Meretskov, which Kim Il Sung contradicts immediately, saying that he knows Meretskov, at which point Meretskov himself appears in a rage. Allan notes that another man is in the room and asks who he is. When he identifies himself as Mao Zedong, Allan asks him to remember him to his wife, even if he’s about to be killed. He explains that he saved Jiang Qing’s life. Instantly grateful, Mao asks Kim Il Sung to spare the lives of Allan and Herbert. Mao arranges for the two men to fly to Bali.