One of Us

by Åsne Seierstad

  The man on the ground was breathing heavily. The chemical effect of all the stimulants was wearing off, but he was still high on what his own body was producing. He was high on the murders he had committed, the hormones it had released in him.

  At times he coud not get enough air into his lungs and started hyperventilating, lying there on the ground between the schoolhouse and the southern tip of the island.

  After half an hour or so, one of the Delta officers took over the apprehended man. Gåsbakk ran to the main building to help with the rescue work.

  ‘What shall we do with the dead bodies?’ came the question.

  What should they do with the dead bodies?

  Gåsbakk looked around him.

  ‘Pull those on the shoreline up far enough to stop them floating out into the water, the others can stay where they are,’ he replied into the radio.

  * * *

  Three men had arrived from the Organised Crime Section, Special Operations. Their most important task was to find out whether further attacks could be expected. It was vital to stop any further loss of life.

  The initial interviews would be carried out on the island. Transporting Breivik to Oslo before the island was secured, before the rescue operation was complete, would tie up too much manpower.

  Headquarters were set up in the white wooden building above the landing stage, where the camp administration and Mother Utøya had been based. This was where the AUF leader had been sitting to follow the TV news when the first shots rang out, three hours earlier.

  Victims were still lying wounded on the island when two policemen from the emergency response unit brought the prisoner up the grassy slope to the HQ.

  A short set of stone steps led up to the building. Wide, safe steps of old granite. Just beside them in the grass lay three bodies. Monica and the two security guards, fathers of the small boys who were now calling out for their dads.

  The three interviewers stood waiting for Breivik outside the building. It was a quarter past eight when they took over his supervision from Delta, about an hour and a half after he had been apprehended. The Delta men also handed over a mobile phone and a jacket badge with a skull and crossbones on it. Marxist Hunter, the badge said. The lead interrogator unfastened the handcuffs keeping the killer’s hands behind his back and cuffed them in front instead. ‘You might just as well execute me here on the ground floor,’ said Breivik when they ordered him upstairs.

  ‘You’re not going to be shot. We’re going to talk to you,’ said the lead interviewer.

  Breivik looked at him.

  ‘I’m going to die anyway,’ he said, and explained that he had taken a great number of chemical substances. He was dehydrating and would die within two hours if he did not get something to drink.

  They took him up to the first floor and put him in an armchair. In the room were a table, a large sofa, several armchairs and a few two-seater sofas. Breivik was given a bottle of fizzy drink.

  The interviewers took a sofa each.

  ‘You are suspected of murder. You are not obliged to explain yourself to the police, and you can—’

  Breivik interrupted. ‘That’s okay. I can explain myself. In broad terms.’

  He sat facing the table with his cuffed hands in his lap.

  ‘I have sacrificed myself. I have no life after this. I may very well suffer and be tortured for the rest of my life. I shall never get out. My life ended when I ordained myself into the Knights Templar. But what is it you actually want to talk to me about? I’m surprised they haven’t sent the secret services to interrogate me.’

  ‘What were you trying to achieve here today? And is anything else going to happen?’

  ‘We want to take power in Europe within sixty years. I am a commander of the Knights Templar. Our organisation was set up in London in 2002 with delegates from twelve countries.’

  He stressed that they were not Nazis, and that they supported Israel. They were not racists, but they wanted political Islam out of Europe. It could be called a conservative revolution. ‘But I’ve written a fifteen-hundred-page manifesto on this, I can’t explain it all now,’ he said.

  ‘Is there anything else on the island?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Explosive charges? Weapons?’

  ‘No, that’s over and done with.’

  ‘Your car on the other side, is it booby-trapped?’

  ‘No, but my shotgun’s in there.’

  ‘Are there others here apart from you?’

  ‘No,’ he said, but suddenly thought better of it. ‘There’s something else, but I won’t tell you what, or where it is. I’m willing to negotiate with you. I want a proper arrangement, with something in return for the information.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘If you want to save three hundred lives, then listen to me carefully. But I would really have preferred to negotiate with the secret services.’

  ‘Tell us what you know. Lots of innocent lives have been lost today,’ said the interrogator.

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly call these innocent. They are extreme Marxists. Marxist spawn. It’s the Labour Party, the youth wing. They’re the ones with the power in Norway. They’re the ones who have presided over the Islamisation of Norway.’

  ‘Will any more lives be lost?’

  ‘Of course. This is only the beginning. The civil war has started. I don’t want Islam in Europe, and my fellow partisans share my views. We don’t want Oslo to end up like Marseille, where Muslims have been in the majority since 2010. We want to fight for Oslo. My operation has succeeded one hundred per cent, which is why I’m giving myself up now. But the operation itself is not important. These are just the fireworks.’

  He looked down at his hands. There was a bit of blood on one finger.

  ‘Look, I’m hurt,’ he said. ‘This will have to be bandaged up. I’ve already lost a lot of blood.’

  ‘You’ll get no fucking plasters from me,’ muttered the policeman who was taking messages between the interview room and the room next door, where they were in contact with the staff in Oslo.

  ‘I can’t afford to lose too much blood,’ said Breivik. ‘And I’ve lost half a litre already.’He claimed that the blood loss could make him pass out.

  Sticking plasters were procured.

  While the plasters were being applied, Breivik wondered why he was bleeding. He remembered something hitting his finger when he shot a victim in the head at close range. Something had flown into his finger and then popped out again. It must have been a bit of skull, he told the officers in the room.

  The cut was logged as five millimetres long. The interrogation could continue.

  ‘In return for my explanation, I want a PC with Word in prison. I want…’

  He stumbled, stammering a little as if he suddenly did not know what to ask for. ‘I have to have a more formal setting before I can put forth my demands. It has to be done in the proper way.’

  Eventually, he decided he had three lists of demands. A simple one with requests that could easily be met; a second that they might also agree to – and that would actually be very attractive to the police; and then a third list that they probably would not accept.

  ‘Out with it then. Start with the simple one!’

  ‘My cell has fifteen thousand sympathisers in Norway, many of them inside the police. No one could possibly defend such bestial acts as those I have committed today, yet Islam is more brutal than my organisation! We are martyrs, we can be monsters, that’s fine by us. Marxist youth, they’re—’

  A police officer came in and interrupted. ‘The police are outside 18 Hoffsveien. Is your mother at home, and what does it say on the door?’

  ‘It says Wenche Behring Breivik.’

  * * *

  Wenche had been at home when the bomb went off, and had neither heard it nor felt the pressure wave.

  Earlier in the day, she’d taken a coffee break with her friends at the café and gone into the Coop to buy some mince. When she’d got
home about two, Anders was back from the computer store. By half past two he was off again; there was something he had forgotten to buy.

  ‘I’ll have dinner ready when you get back!’ she called after him.

  She chopped onion, fried it with the mince, mixed in the tomato sauce and set the table. She wanted it all ready when her son got home. She would wait to put the water on for the spaghetti until she saw him at the door. She set the sauce to one side and started peeling the prawns they would have in the evening. She put the shells in the rubbish, tied up the bag and put it by the front door. Then she sat down and waited.

  She was ravenous. Would he be back soon?

  Two hours after he had gone out, she rang him. His phone was switched off. That was odd, he didn’t usually turn off his phone.

  Strange that he wasn’t back yet. He’d only popped out to the computer store. Could he have dropped round to a friend’s?

  At five o’clock she rang him again. No answer.

  Just after that, one of her friends rang and told her to switch on the TV. It was dreadful! She sat there watching the news and then went to put on the water for the pasta because she was so hungry. She ate a little.

  At seven she rang Anders again. Where could he be? Could he have had a car accident?

  It was a long time since she had had Anders at home. Since his move to the farm he had only spent one night there, well, apart from this night. She had asked him if he had found himself a nice milkmaid up there in the valley. Straight from the cowshed!

  She was glued to the TV. Imagine Anders not being there with her, when these frightful things were happening.

  First the bomb. And now: ten people killed on the island.

  Between eight and nine she rang his phone several times. She was starting to get seriously worried. What could have happened? Could he have been hit by the bomb?

  At 21.40, there was a call to her landline. She hurried to pick up the phone.

  ‘This is the police. We request that you come out.’

  ‘Oh no! Has something happened to Anders?’

  She ran out of the flat.

  Outside, she was met by flashing blue lights. There were several police cars in front of the entrance. Armed men with black jackets and visors had their weapons trained on her.

  She had to hand over her keys, and was taken to a car. A policewoman took her by the arm.

  ‘Your son has been arrested in connection with a serious criminal offence. You are wanted at the police station to make a witness statement.’

  Wenche stared at her. This was insane.

  ‘Does your son have access to firearms?’ asked the policewoman.

  ‘He’s taken his hunting-licence test and belongs to a pistol club. He’s got a Glock and a shotgun,’ Wenche said, and added: ‘The shotgun’s in the wardrobe in his bedroom.’

  The car sped through empty streets.

  ‘Does your son have any mental health problems?’

  ‘What’s he accused of?’ blurted Wenche. ‘Him of all people. He’s so kind and considerate, and…’

  The car drove into the garage at the main police station.

  * * *

  The assault force was still outside 18 Hoffsveien.

  People were gaping from the windows of their flats. The whole neighbourhood was soon at the windows, phones in hand. They were all ringing each other: ‘Look outside! Look outside!’ On the television, which they all had on in the background, they would shortly see their own block live on the screen, and hear that the perpetrator was Norwegian, and thirty-two years of age.

  Good God, it must be Wenche’s Anders!

  The flying squad was awaiting notification from Utøya before storming the flat.

  ‘Are there explosives there?’ Wenche’s son was asked.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘There’s a PC in the fart room.’

  That was how he put it. It was the first room they would come to, he said, and the only one of any interest. He had removed all his things from the loft and basement.

  ‘There is one thing you have to be clear about,’ he said abruptly. ‘This has been the worst day of my life. Unfortunately, it was necessary. Hopefully the Labour Party will learn its lesson from this and stop the mass import of Muslims.’

  ‘Will anyone else die today?’

  ‘I don’t want to comment on that. And I do need some more comfort in order to formulate my list of demands.’

  ‘I find it rather strange that you didn’t prepare your list in advance,’ observed the lead interviewer.

  ‘I’m in a lot of pain now, and I can’t focus. I think a better location would help me.’

  Breivik was informed that it was not currently possible to change location.

  ‘You all see me as a monster, don’t you?’

  ‘We see you as a human being.’

  ‘You’re going to execute me. And all my family.’

  ‘We are prepared to give your family protection if need be. For us, a life is a life. You will be treated exactly the same as everybody else.’

  He said he had to go for a pee, and some officers accompanied him out.

  ‘Now I’ve got my list of demands ready. Are you making a note of this?’ he asked when he got back.

  They assured him they were.

  ‘I want to send and receive letters in prison.’

  ‘You will, as soon as there is no longer any reason to block your correspondence and visits.’

  ‘How long is correspondence normally blocked for?’

  ‘That depends on the investigation, and it is hard to say in a murder case.’

  ‘Murder case? This wasn’t murder, it was political executions!’ Breivik burst out. ‘Knights Templar Europe has given me permission to execute category A, B and C traitors. For me – that is, for us – the Knights Templar is the highest political authority in Norway.’

  He admitted that those he had killed on the island were category C traitors.

  ‘Who decides which category people end up in?’

  ‘I’ve set it all out in my book. Strictly speaking, we are not authorised to execute category C traitors. Now, about my demands…’

  His second demand was to use the PC for a minimum of eight hours a day. It need not have internet access, but there had to be a printer. ‘I am an intellectual. Not a warrior. My calling is to fight with the pen, but occasionally one has to use the sword.’ Demand number three was access to Wikipedia. Demand number four was to serve his sentence with as few Muslims as possible. Demand number five was not to be given any halal meat.

  The officers in the next room communicated his demands to the police chiefs in Oslo, and the interviewers informed him that the demands would very probably be met. But they added that if there was to be an agreement, he must now tell them whether anyone was going to be killed in the imminent future.

  ‘Okay, if you agree to my most far-reaching list of demands I’m willing to hand over details of the two cells that right now, as we speak, are planning acts of terrorism against parties supporting multiculturalism.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Well then, the security services must present a proposal to the Justice Committee to bring in the death sentence, by hanging, in Norway, and to use waterboarding as a method of torture.’

  Then he asked for a cigarette, and was given one. He asked for another drink and got that too.

  ‘It’s the media who are most to blame for what has happened today because they didn’t publish my views. One thus has to get the message out by other means.’ Then he suddenly said that the whole thing was tragic, and that his heart was weeping at what had happened that day.

  ‘You are the commander so the responsibility is yours,’ objected the interviewer.

  ‘My responsibility is to save Norway. I take full responsibility for everything out here, and I’m proud of the operation. If you only knew what hard work it’s been,’ he said. ‘It was bloody awful. I’ve been dreading this day for two years…’

  The
interrogation had already been going on for several hours when a team from Kripos arrived to carry out a preliminary examination of the accused. They took DNA and urine samples, and scrapings were taken from his clothes.

  The officers produced a camera. But the Commander of the Norwegian anti-communist resistance movement objected to being photographed. He had already had pictures taken and had posted them on the internet. Now the police would take the sort of pictures he had warned about in his manifesto. Photos of an offender in handcuffs, with drooping shoulders. In the ones he had had taken at the studio he was in make-up and Photoshopped. They were portraits of him in his Freemasons’ suit, in his Knights Templar uniform, in his chemical protection suit. He had pasted the pictures into the final pages of his manifesto. No, there would be no Utøya photographs with AUF posters in the background. He would not have that.

  But he was no longer the one making the decisions.

  In the picture later leaked to the press, Breivik is sitting in an armchair with his hands in his lap. His head is bowed, his eyes fixed on the floor.

  His clothes were to be secured, as they would be used as evidence. The Kripos men got out a black sack.

  ‘Get undressed.’

  He refused.

  They said he had to.

  He refused again.

  Then he suddenly leapt up and started tearing off his clothes.

  ‘Stop, stop!’

  His garments were to be removed one at a time, at Kripos’s command. He could have explosives on him. Hidden weapons. It was the officers who would decide the order in which he was to remove the clothes, and when.

  Finally he was standing there in a room of uniformed men in his underpants. He started posing, trying to look macho. Now he was all for having his picture taken. He looked into the camera and thrust out his chest. His hands were clasped at one hip while he held his body taut in a classic bodybuilding pose, to make his muscles bulge as much as possible.

  For a moment, the policemen were nonplussed. In another setting, another crime, it might have been ridiculous, but here … it was grotesque, it was simply incomprehensible.

  Who on earth were they dealing with here?