One of Us

by Åsne Seierstad

  The engine spluttered and the boat put out from the landing stage. Everyone had been counted and registered, all the luggage had been checked; well, except for the wheeled case. It had not occurred to anybody to check the representative of law and order.

  Everything on board was wet after the rain and there was nowhere to sit or lean. The green paint of the deck had a sleek, slippery sheen to it. Raindrops massed on the ship’s rail. It had turned a little brighter and the heavy rain had stopped; the sky was now more white than grey. It offered some prospect of a clear evening.

  Monica wanted to talk. About the bomb, about what the police were doing and the officer’s specific tasks. The uniformed man was taciturn, giving short, brusque answers while he drank thirstily from a CamelBak, a little backpack with a drinking tube. He seemed irritable and did not look at the kids next to him on the deck. The waterproof case stood at his side, black and heavy.

  He was a solid, broad-shouldered figure; he looked very tense. Feeling the seriousness of the moment, the young guard left on the landing stage had thought.

  The crossing only took a few minutes. As the boat came alongside the jetty on Utøya, just after a quarter past five, the crewman threw the hawser, jumped out and tied up.

  The skipper emerged from the wheelhouse to help with the case. Bomb-detection gear, he thought. The policeman asked if someone could drive it up to the main building. The captain offered to do it. He went to get the only vehicle on the island, heaved the case into its boot and drove off to the admin building a little way up the steep slope.

  The youngsters who had been on the boat straggled up the gravel path with their rucksacks. Down at the jetty, the policeman was left with Monica. One of the guards on the island, a police officer called Trond Berntsen, came and shook the new arrival by the hand.

  ‘Hello,’ was the terse response of the man disguised as a policeman, who introduced himself as Martin Nilsen. That was the name of a friend of his, a name he ought to remember.

  Before long the other guard on the island, Rune Havdal, came to join them. The AUF had hired two security guards, as the teenagers rarely spent the whole night asleep and some adult supervision was necessary to settle them down at times. The guards had the daytime off, and on this particular Friday they were meant to be taking their sons to the Tusenfryd amusement park, but with rough weather forecast, they had gone the previous day instead. Their boys, aged nine and eleven, were the island’s mascots. They built tree houses and played hide-and-seek in the woods.

  Trond Berntsen asked which police district the new arrival came from, and the man answered ‘PST: Police Security Service, Grønland station.’ Breivik was aware of stumbling over the police terminology, that these were codes he had not mastered. The guard continued questioning him about his assignment.

  This man is the greatest threat on the island, thought Breivik. He is the one who could expose me.

  He suddenly felt paralysed. His limbs felt heavy, his muscles stiffened, his nerves seemed numbed. He felt a sense of dread. He wasn’t going to pull this off.

  Berntsen went over to exchange a few words with one of the Norwegian People’s Aid volunteers, a woman who had come over on the boat. ‘Odd guy,’ he said, referring to the policeman. But the woman, shaken by the bomb attack, was in a hurry to go up and join her colleagues in the camp. She merely nodded. Trond Berntsen turned back to the little group on the landing stage.

  ‘When are the other two arriving?’ he asked the bogus PST man.

  Under his police outfit, his heart was pounding, he was sweating and his breathing was uneven.

  I don’t feel remotely like doing this, was the thought running through his head as he stood there with Monica Bøsei and the guards.

  ‘They’ll be here later,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you know Jørn?’ Berntsen asked suddenly.

  Breivik shrugged. It could be a trick question. There might not be a Jørn. Or perhaps Jørn was somebody that anyone who worked for the PST would be bound to know.

  He had to take control of the situation or he would be done for. He pulled himself together and put an end to the interrogation by suggesting they go up to the main building. He could brief them on the bomb in Oslo there.

  Berntsen gave him an appraising look and then nodded, leading the way up the grassy slope.

  * * *

  ‘A policeman’s come over.’

  Anders Kristiansen was standing in the Troms camp a little way from the others, who were sitting eating their bread and butter. He was a supervisor that Friday, equipped with a walkie-talkie and a high-visibility jacket. The news of the policeman’s arrival had come over the radio.

  ‘Oh good,’ said somebody, relieved.

  ‘The police want everyone to gather in the middle of the island,’ Anders Kristiansen went on, once the instructions had come through.

  The middle of the island, where’s that? thought Mari. It was more or less exactly where they were now. In the Troms camp, at the campsite.

  So they stayed where they were.

  * * *

  ‘Now or never. It’s now or never.’

  The Commander of the Norwegian anti-communist resistance movement took a few steps up the slope behind Berntsen. On his feet he wore the black army boots. The spurs on the heels were hidden in the wet grass.

  He had a firm grip on Gungnir, which was still covered by the black bin liner. Mjølnir was in the holster on his thigh.

  His body was fighting against it, his muscles were twitching. He felt he would never be able to go through with it. A hundred voices in his head were screaming: Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it!

  I must either let myself be caught now or carry through what I have planned, he thought as he reached the point where the hill grew steeper.

  He forced his right hand down to his thigh, unfastened the holster, took hold of the pistol.

  There was a bullet waiting in the chamber, seventeen more were ready in the magazine.

  The case and the three thousand cartridges inside had been driven to the main building. It was behind the building, closed and locked. The key was in his pocket.

  There were three people ahead of him, and two behind. If they started suspecting anything, they could overpower him.

  So. Now. He slowly raised the Glock and pointed it at Berntsen.

  ‘No!’ cried Monica. ‘You mustn’t point it at him like that!’

  He fired at the guard’s head. Monica Bøsei turned but there was no time to run. A bullet hit her at close range.

  The two were lying close together, where they had fallen. The killer straddled Berntsen and shot him twice more in the head, then fired two more shots at Monica. She lay face-down in the damp, newly mown grass.

  The boat captain, who had parked the car and left the case in the boot, came round the corner of the building as Berntsen fell. Seconds later his eyes were fixed on the spot where his beloved had slumped to the ground.

  He ran up over the hill, expecting to be shot in the back. ‘Run for your lives!’ he shouted to everyone he met.

  Screams filled the air.

  The killer was breathing rapidly.

  From now on, everything would be easy.

  His eyes, his body, his brain, his hand, they were all coordinated.

  The other guard, Rune Havdal, was heading for the clump of trees. He was the next to be gunned down, first with a bullet in his back to incapacitate him, then murdered with a shot to the head.

  The young people who had seen the executions were running in all directions.

  The crewman on the boat shouted ‘Christ, let’s get out of here,’ and tried to put the Thorbjørn in reverse.

  The killer did not hurry. He walked steadily, following the biggest group of fleeing youngsters.

  It was 17.22. He had been on the island for five minutes. He had plenty of time. The island was not large. The water lay glinting like a weapon of mass destruction. They were trapped now. He only had to scare them a little and
they would throw themselves into the water and drown.

  That was the way he had visualised it.

  As the adrenalin pumped round his body he was suffused by a feeling of calm. His will had triumphed over his body. The barrier was down.

  * * *

  Lara had heard a bang. And then another. Then several more in rapid succession. She had been standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom block at one end of the campsite. The bathroom floor was warm to her numb feet. She had really only packed clothes for sunny weather and was so cold. She had taken off her sopping wet top and changed into a dry one, and was checking if it looked all right when she heard the loud reports.

  Lara was born to the sound of gunfire. It was a part of everyday life in Erbil in the 1990s. She had been five when the family fled, from the bullets, the explosions, the tears of those left behind. Now that dreadful sound was here. Here.

  Terrified screams cut through the air. She ran out to see what was happening. Outside, people were rushing past.

  Where was Bano?

  They had gone back to the tent together after the meeting. Lara wanted to stay near her elder sister. They had rung their parents from the tent and Mustafa had tried to reassure them. ‘A bomb in Oslo? Well, that means the value of our house goes up. Now everybody will want to live in Nesodden instead,’ he joked.

  Bano had hung up her wet green top and black leggings to dry in the tent and put on dry jeans and the red Helly Hansen sailing jacket she had just bought with the earnings from her summer job. The jacket with the fluorescent yellow hood had cost almost a thousand kroner more than the model without a hood, but it was the one she wanted. It is important to look good if you want to be taken seriously, she had told Lara as she delightedly pulled on the wellies that Gro had borrowed earlier in the day.

  The sisters had left the tent together. They had wanted to try to find out what was going on. What was all this about the bomb in Oslo? How bad was it? Then Lara had popped into the bathroom to change while Bano went straight on up to the café.

  Bano always wanted to be where things were happening. And now there was a big crowd outside the café building. Of course Bano would go there.

  ‘Do you need me for anything, Lara?’ Bano had asked her outside the bathroom.

  ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll be right with you,’ her little sister replied. She had wanted a few minutes to pull herself together. Suddenly she found herself crying. Had al-Qaida reached Norway?

  Then she heard the shots.

  Lots of those streaming past were heading for the café, others were running in the opposite direction. Was Bano still there? Or was she one of those running away?

  Lara stood in the doorway. She did not know any of those rushing in the direction of the building, nor any of those coming away from it. Suddenly, without really thinking, she turned and ran the other way. Alone, up a steep slope covered in scrub and broad-leaved trees, she ran. Into the forest, in among the pine trees.

  She kept on running, in her stockinged feet, over the soft moss between the trees, down the hill where it began to slope towards the shore, further round Lovers’ Path before it got steep. Suddenly there were four boys with her, all running. They crossed the path and stopped at the water’s edge, close to the pumping station – a grey brick hut providing water to the island.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Lara.

  * * *

  Up at the top of the campsite, most of the Troms delegation was on its feet.

  ‘We’ve all got to take deep breaths,’ said Mari. ‘No need to panic.’

  ‘Stay calm, stay calm,’ said Viljar. ‘It’ll be all right.’

  ‘Bad joke, letting off firecrackers now,’ said Geir Kåre Nilssen.

  ‘Those aren’t firecrackers,’ said Simon.

  Anders Kristiansen was listening to the communication radio and checking the tents at the same time. ‘Everyone out of their tents,’ he ordered.

  Julie Bremnes from Harstad stood there, staring at Anders. It was the first time she had seen him so serious. He was alternately listening to the radio and taking the walkie-talkie from his ear to listen in the direction of the landing stage.

  Simon, Anders and Viljar looked at each other, the comrades-in-arms, the three friends, the three musketeers of Troms.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Anders. ‘I’ll go and find out what’s happening.’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said Brage Sollund. The boy who had attended the Labour Party Congress with Simon two years earlier was now among the seniors on the island.

  Anders Kristiansen stopped. New messages were coming over the radio.

  ‘There’s something wrong here,’ he said in concern. Brage went off to find out.

  Viljar was holding tight to his little brother Torje, who was wailing and wanted to run away. People were on the move all around them. The fourteen-year-old was kept there by his brother, three years his senior.

  Mari ordered them to take each other’s hands. The Troms ring stood firm, in spite of all the people running past them and up into the forest.

  ‘Stay here,’ Mari instructed those who wanted to run. ‘The policeman said we were to gather in the middle of the island!’ That had been the last clear message over the radio. Mari was preoccupied with trying to keep control over her group and shouted, ‘No one’s to move. Stand still! Stand still! The police are here, there’s no need to panic.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ Torje whispered to Viljar.

  * * *

  As Brage came up to the café he saw two comrades fall to the ground. First one and then the other. Shot by a policeman! Brage dived into the bushes.

  Then the uniformed man entered Mari’s field of vision. She was looking in the direction of the café building and saw a girl with dark hair and a grey AUF sweatshirt walking towards the man. She saw the girl say something to him, but could not hear what. When the girl was a few steps away from him, the policeman raised his pistol and shot her.

  At that, Mari yelled ‘Run!’

  ‘Run! Run!’ she yelled to all those who had been holding hands.

  Julie was standing between Simon and Anders, having decided that was the safest place.

  ‘Run!’ Simon shouted.

  ‘Just run! Don’t look back!’ cried Anders.

  Breivik opened fire on them with the rifle, from a range of thirty or forty metres.

  The bullets scorched towards them at eight hundred metres a second. They splintered the trees, smashed into the trunks, hit bodies, a foot, an arm, a shoulder, a back. The young people stumbled, ran on, vanished among the trees.

  Back at the campsite Gunnar Linaker, the king of keepers, was lying by a tree stump with his face pressed to the grass. The shot had entered his shoulder and gone through to the back of his head.

  Eirin Kjær from Balsfjord tried to drag him with her. He was breathing heavily, very heavily, but she was not able to make any contact with him and she was not strong enough to pull him along.

  I shouldn’t have left Gunnar, I should have brought him with me, Eirin thought as she ran.

  Once the campsite was empty, Breivik strode over to Gunnar and shot him in the neck. The bullet entered the back of his skull on the right-hand side and exited through his right temple. He lost consciousness. But his heart went on beating.

  Gunnar’s younger sister was lying a short distance from him. Hanne had tripped when the others ran for it; she had got up, started running and fallen into a thicket. Now she just lay there. She had not seen her elder brother being shot, and from where she was lying she could not see anybody. She had no idea her brother was flat on the ground just a few metres away, with massive head injuries.

  * * *

  Neo-Nazis, thought Mari as she ran beside Simon.

  ‘Mari, Mari,’ was all Simon said, looking at her.

  ‘You were right, Simon,’ Mari gasped. ‘Come on!’

  When she turned to him again, Simon was gone.

  On Lovers’ Path she found Anders Kristiansen
. He was gabbling so fast it was hard to make out what he was saying. It was as if he could not string his sentences together properly, but then he said: ‘I’ll ring the police.’

  ‘Yes, do that,’ said Mari. ‘Good idea.’

  Viljar and Torje were running side by side. Torje got out his phone and rang their mother’s number, and howled down the line: ‘They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us!’ Viljar took it from him. ‘It’s all right Mum, I’ll take care of everybody,’ he said as calmly as he could while running.

  He rang off.

  ‘Where’s Johannes?’ cried Torje. ‘Johannes!’

  His best friend was gone.

  The brothers ran along Lovers’ Path until they came to a bend where the rusty fence was broken and a log had been wedged across the gap. They skidded down until they got to a rocky ledge that they could hide under.

  On the path Mari came across Tonje Brenna, the secretary-general of the AUF.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Mari asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Lie low.’

  I’m not bloody well staying anywhere near you, thought Mari. You’re a more likely target than any of us.

  People were running past each other, going back the way others had come. Utøya did not have many hiding places. It was mainly open spaces with newly mown grass, steep slopes or sparse areas of trees. In many places there was a sheer drop to the water and it was impossible to get down. Beyond the trees, the firing went on. A group of youngsters came to a stop on Lovers’ Path, unsure of what to do.

  * * *

  Hønefoss police station had one officer in the operations centre. The station had been under financial pressure for the past year and the chief of police had implemented a series of cost-saving measures, including the introduction of single-person shifts in the operations centre.

  In addition to the chief of operations there were five police officers on duty. The officers were watching the news broadcasts in the staff room and discussing whether to have their cars at the ready in case they were called in to assist the Oslo district. The chief of operations in Hønefoss rang her colleague in the capital, but there was no request for reinforcements, so they dropped the matter.