He gets caught up in various criminal activities, eventually escaping when the man from the bus station is accidentally trapped in a freezer, his body ending up in a container destined for Djibouti.

As a young man, Allan had worked in a dynamite factory, his expertise taking him to Spain during the civil war, where he accidentally saves General Franco.

However, Stalin is offended by his saving of Franco's life, and Allen finds himself sentenced to hard labour in a gulag in Vladivostok.

Although they are quickly exposed as frauds, disaster is averted when Mao Zedong learns that Allan had saved his wife, Jiang Qing, during the Chinese Civil War.

At the Élysée Palace Amanda and Allan have lunch with Charles de Gaulle and Lyndon B. Johnson who is in Paris for talks on the Vietnam War.

Their reports result in Richard Nixon visiting Leonid Brezhnev, but also causes both sides to increase spending on their nuclear deterrents.

After Molotov is killed by a fox, Allan is unable to resist setting a trap with dynamite, resulting in a huge explosion.

Eventually, the authorities decide to send Allan to the Malmköping retirement home from which, on his hundredth birthday, he resolves to escape.

The book concludes with the 100-year-old Allan and his comrades flying to Indonesia, where they spend time at a luxury hotel managed by Amanda and her sons.