Odd Numbers

by Anne Holt

  “Where did you get sushi at this time of night?” Caroline Bae asked, lifting six pieces onto her own plate.

  “We have our connections. Shall I make a start?”

  Both of the others nodded. The Security Chief tentatively picked up a piece of nigiri with his fingers and raised it gingerly to his mouth.

  “Okay,” Silje said. “The bomb first. Our provisional conclusions are that this was a highly professional job. A plastic explosive was used. Charges were laid at strategic points on load-bearing sections of the building, hence the extremely destructive effect.”

  “Plastic explosive? C4, then? A military explosive?”

  The head of the Security Service put down the uneaten nigiri and picked up an apple from a colorful fruit bowl.

  Silje nodded.

  “C4 is mostly used by military forces, yes. A plastic explosive with cyclonite as the main ingredient. Apparently in Norway, the military previously also used NM91, based on a different nitroamine: octogen. But in this case, it’s cyclonite we’re talking about—that was established early on by our experts. In all probability, therefore, it’s C4 that’s been used. The most common explosive used by NATO nowadays. Nitroamine has the unqualified advantage that it provides great explosive force per pound. We’ll have more specific information in a few days.”

  She leafed through the pages in front of her.

  “There were five explosive charges in total, all connected to one another and placed with extreme precision. We’re not talking about a delivery van with a homemade bomb made of chemical fertilizer this time.”

  “Do we know anything about when they were placed?” Caroline Bae asked, with her mouth full of raw scallop.

  Silje shook her head.

  “No. NCIN had installed modern and fairly discreet surveillance cameras. Only outside. Not inside the building.”

  She opened a folder beside the plate and withdrew a sheet of paper, which she unfolded and placed between herself and the other two on the opposite side of the table.

  “These are the drawings of NCIN’s premises as they were prior to the explosion. The cameras were placed here, here, and here.”

  She used a chopstick to point them out and then produced three photographs from the folder and laid them in front of her colleagues.

  “As you see, everything is destroyed. We are trying to find data on the damaged machines, but there’s not much hope of success. So we don’t have much to go on here. Our technicians have been working at full capacity since only a few minutes after the explosion. However, we’re thrown onto good, old-fashioned tactical investigation methods to arrive at when the charges were placed. And by whom, of course, but as of now, that’s a far bigger question.”

  A hush fell over the room.

  Harald Jensen studied his apple before taking a large bite.

  The two women went on munching. Silje chewed slowly, letting her eyes rest on the architectural drawings of the NCIN offices as they had once looked. Caroline Bae pushed four new maki rolls onto her plate and finally broke the slightly awkward silence when she asked: “Had you heard of the Prophet’s True Ummah at all, Harald?”

  The head of the Security Service swallowed, put the half-eaten apple down on his plate, and dried his mouth by dabbing a napkin lightly three times against his lips.

  “No. We hadn’t, which is bad enough in itself. What’s even worse is that we still know next to nothing about them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Silje was already full and left the last piece.

  “I must honestly admit,” Harald Jensen said, leaning one elbow on the table, “that at first I thought we were dealing with a copycat.”

  “The film? The one that arrived yesterday, in which the Prophet’s True Ummah assumes responsibility for the terrorist attack?”

  “Yes. Of course, we’ve had the Prophet’s Ummah in our sights for a long time. At fairly close range. The Prophet’s True Ummah, though, we’ve never heard of until now. It’s not so many weeks ago that we put the annual security threat assessment into the public domain.”

  He bent down, and two faint clicks told them he was opening the briefcase he had set down beside his chair.

  “Here,” he said, placing a document on the table. “Naturally you’re familiar with this. Based on both this year’s fresh risk assessment and the continuous communication between our government departments, you know that we keep a particular watch on Islamic extremism. We considered the terrorist threat had intensified long before yesterday’s blast, something our very recent report . . .”

  He laid a blunt, broad hand on top of the document he had just placed on the table.

  “. . . tragically enough has turned out to be absolutely right about. In the course of a short space of time, the total number of Norwegian Islamists who have traveled out of the country for training with extremist groups in the Middle East has increased dramatically. Some of these men have also taken part in battles. It goes without saying that those of them who return to Norway most certainly represent a potential threat against our interests.”

  He peered into the fruit bowl and plucked out a banana.

  “I see that the newspapers have begun to use a new phrase. ‘Foreign fighters.’ A good expression, for that matter. They are not mercenaries, because they neither pocket any money nor are they willing to fight for just anyone at all. They act from conviction. But they are not ordinary soldiers, either, since they don’t fight for their country and their people. At least not as we others define those terms.”

  “And it’s primarily in the Østland region that these groups are found,” Silje added, pushing the plate farther away on the table. “They mainly comprise young men who were born here in Norway, most of them of Muslim background.”

  Harald Jensen nodded.

  “A very few of them are Norwegian converts. For instance, we’re keeping an extremely close eye on a Norwegian of Chilean origin, who has also converted. Bastian Vasques. In addition he has a number of more . . .”

  At last he began to peel the banana.

  “. . . Islamic-sounding aliases. To all appearances, he was recruited into the circle around the Larvik man, Mohyeldeen Mohammad, several years ago. At present a number of these men are living in the Middle East, where they’ve joined ISIL and are taking part in—”

  “We know all this very well,” Caroline Bae interrupted him. “Every newspaper reader has knowledge of this. And the Prophet’s Ummah has been known to the public for years. What we’re asking about is the Prophet’s True Ummah. Have you anything at all on this group?”

  Harald took a bite of the banana and chewed for a long time, until he finally swallowed and cleared his throat, with a clenched fist in front of his mouth.

  “Well. Not much.”

  Once again silence descended around the table.

  “So tell us what you do have, then.”

  He took his time with another bite before eating the rest of the fruit in silence and disposing of the peel.

  “The names we have on file so far may tell us something. First of all, we have Abdullah Hassan. Previously Jørgen Fjellstad. He’s the one who’s speaking on the two videos, and he’s the one who was found dead and . . . dismembered earlier today. He’s the only lead we have to make us believe that a group by the name of the Prophet’s True Ummah even exists.”

  He began to count on his fingers.

  “Mohammad Awad, a young boy of Sudanese origin and a Norwegian citizen, was found at the explosion site. Dead. He has flirted with the extremists for some time, but absolutely on the fringes of that milieu. He has not shown any tendencies to violence earlier. Clean sheet. And a friend of . . .”

  He grasped yet another finger.

  “. . . Shazad Beheshdi, who died after being knocked down by the police in Bygdøy allé. They’re the same age, and both grew up in the same area. We first spotted Beheshdi six months ago through a closed Facebook group. Since then he has taken part in a gathering in Skien at
which several central Norwegian jihadists were present, but he went home to Oslo after only a few hours. Whether that was because he wanted to, or he had to, or the others threw him out, we don’t know. Could we have some coffee, do you think?”

  “Of course. Sorry.”

  Silje Sørensen got to her feet and crossed over to a massive coffee machine beside the door.

  “Espresso? Latte? What would you prefer?”

  “Black and Norwegian, please.”

  “Caroline?”

  “I’d prefer an espresso. A triple one, if that’s possible.”

  Silje pressed a couple of buttons and the machine emitted a deep, buzzing sound.

  “It’s reasonable to say that these three men might possibly have had something to do with the explosion,” Harald Jensen continued. “One on the strength of his own statements on the videos and the two others because they were in the vicinity of, or actually on, the explosion site at the time of the blast. And what we do know with certainty is that the three of them knew one another. Of course, we’ve put all our resources into charting the circle of friends and acquaintances even further in the past twenty-four hours, without finding anything in particular. All three had totally ordinary backgrounds until a few years ago. When Mohammad and Shazad began to dally with extremism, they made contact with Abdullah. Or Jørgen Fjellstad, that is. Six months ago, a new participant appeared on the scene. Since then, the trio seems to have become a quartet.”

  Silje set a cup in front of him and returned for Caroline Bae’s espresso.

  “Thanks,” Jensen mumbled.

  “Who’s this fourth man?” Silje asked with her back turned.

  “He’s called something as original as Arfan Olsen.”

  “Well, then?”

  The Police Commissioner sipped the scalding coffee and peered at him over the rim of her glasses.

  “We haven’t known much about him until relatively recently. He’s been extremely careful. Not very active on all the websites we monitor, and then under a pseudonym. What’s more, any activity is six months back in time. We’ve examined his log-ins now, and it looks as though he gave up using the Internet as soon as a relationship with the other three was established. The man is twenty-three years old and also converted a short time ago, around the time he made himself known online. For some reason he kept one of his surnames. His name was originally Andreas Kielland Olsen.”

  “I’d have preferred to keep Kielland rather than Olsen,” Silje said tersely, dropping two sweeteners into her own coffee before resuming her seat. “So in this . . . quartet, as you called it, there are two people of foreign background who were born Muslims and two who converted?”

  He nodded.

  “Arfan Olsen is more of a leader than the others. Mohammad Awad was also good at school in fact, and comes from a family that has succeeded unusually well in this country, for Sudanese. A smart young man, but in recent years he’s just bummed around. Taken casual jobs and claimed unemployment benefits. Not the most active on the Internet, either. A clean record, if you don’t consider it criminal to squander your talents and soak up money from society instead.”

  He smiled mirthlessly and raised a limp hand to take the edge off his minor outburst.

  “As far as Shazad Beheshdi is concerned, he was what we used to call . . . a bit simple. A loser. Bummed around from one thing to the next. During his teenage years, he was in a couple of foster homes, but the Child Welfare Service was apparently too late to intervene. He has a number of petty crimes on his record, but nothing in the past couple of years. No job, either. And then we come back to Arfan Olsen.”

  He drummed his fingers lightly on the table.

  “Law student,” he said. “As you probably also know now.”

  Silje nodded and confirmed: “An independent homicide case has also been opened, of course.”

  “He attended Oslo Cathedral School,” the head of the Security Service continued, “where he graduated with top grades. We began to study him more closely this afternoon. His father’s a lawyer, his mother a civil engineer. Three siblings. When his parents divorced, the boy was seventeen. He reacted in a very unusual way: he left home in protest, no less, without even having finished high school.”

  “At the age of seventeen?”

  He nodded and went on: “His parents not only went along with it, but also helped him out financially. Of course, strictly speaking, they were obliged to do so until he reached the age of eighteen. In any case . . .”

  He raised his cup.

  “Good coffee, by the way,” he muttered as he quaffed some more. “In any case, Arfan Olsen has always kept himself on the more conservative side of Norwegian politics. Not extreme in any sense. He was a member of the Progress Party at high school, something not very typical for a student at Katta, I believe.”

  He pulled on a smile.

  “In the third year he nevertheless became class president and announced he was moving to the Young Conservatives. A somewhat moderate development, in other words, and the entire time he has done extremely well from a purely academic standpoint.”

  “But what happened? By the way, has everyone had enough to eat?”

  The other two nodded, and Silje began to collect the plates and serving dish before walking over to the door and opening it.

  “Bertil, could you be an angel and take away the food?”

  Her secretary had changed his clothes in the course of the evening. His new suit was lighter, slightly less formal, but his tie was still immaculately knotted and his shirt snowy white. Silje was aware of a faint whiff of aftershave when he, as a matter of course, cleared the table and disappeared without anything further being said. The door closed silently behind him.

  “Go on,” the Police Commissioner encouraged him. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know,” Jensen answered succinctly. “But we’re working on it. Arfan Olsen is, unlike his companions, still alive. That’s something, at least.”

  “But why on earth should a young man like that convert to Islam? And to such an extremist group? Is this something you know for certain, or something you just think?”

  Caroline was gazing at her old friend from student days with increasing skepticism.

  “Right now I won’t claim that we know anything at all,” he said, and spread out his arms. “But we have our theories and we’re working around the clock and giving it everything we’ve got.”

  “Now I don’t want to interfere in any way with what the Security Service is doing,” Caroline Bae said. “That would be out of order. But . . . have you considered an arrest?”

  Silje swiftly leaned over the table to steal a march on Harald Jensen: “That would be stupid,” she said. “For several reasons. If Arfan Olsen doesn’t know that the Security Service is on his tail, I expect it would be far more useful to keep him under surveillance.”

  Her voice rose at the end of the sentence, as if she were actually posing a question. Jensen nodded.

  “Moreover, we have the press to consider,” he said, sighing despondently. “They’re buzzing like bees around a honeypot already. An arrest would cause a furor. Just look at what happened when you hauled in that former policeman today, and that was only for a little chat, as far as I understand.”

  “A bit more than that,” Silje said, quickly adding: “But from what you’re saying now, Harald, there’s only one basis for claiming that an organization by the name of the Prophet’s True Ummah even exists. And that’s the videos. You have no intelligence, no papers, no traces on the Internet.”

  She drew breath and hesitated for a moment.

  “You’ve got absolutely nothing! Nothing to confirm we are actually faced with a new group.”

  Harald Jensen shook his head before draining the rest of his coffee.

  “That’s a correct observation. And to be entirely honest, I can’t comprehend how such a gang might manage to blow half a block sky-high. Okay, one of them . . .”

  He lifted his brie
fcase up onto the table and took out a new folder before returning the case to the floor. He withdrew photographs of the four young men from the red folder and placed them side by side on the table.

  “Arfan Olsen is a talented young man. The others?”

  Shaking his head, he shuffled the pictures around, looking thoughtful.

  “C4, did you say?”

  “In all likelihood,” Silje Sørensen said, nodding.

  “Where in the name of God would this gang lay their hands on anything like that? True enough, it’s a high explosive, but they must have had a relatively large amount. And detonators. Extensive knowledge. For a long time now we’ve been afraid that these . . .”

  He touched his chest and belched.

  “Excuse me,” he murmured. “These foreign fighters—we’re following them closely for a number of reasons. One of them, of course, is that we fear the import of explosives and weapons. Conveying something like this . . .”

  He cast a sidelong look at the architectural drawings.

  “. . . through the whole of Europe to Norway would have been a formidable task. Naturally we don’t discount that the people around Islamic fundamentalists in Norway, under prevailing circumstances, might manage something of this nature. Quite the opposite, in fact—something like this is exactly what we’ve been afraid of. But this gang here?”

  Again they fell silent around the table.

  “Where are you actually heading with this?” Silje eventually asked, sounding a cautious note.

  Harald Jensen rose from his seat. He pulled off his suit jacket and hung it over the back of the chair, before loosening his tie and removing it completely. Then he sat down again and rolled up his shirtsleeves.

  “It’s quite an elementary principle of investigation not to believe the obvious. One of my British colleagues once characterized himself as . . .”

  He gave a tight smile and took a deep breath.

  “ . . . an archaeologist digging for truth in the sedimentary ground mass of lies. When, for example, someone assumes the guilt for a terrorist attack, we can’t simply believe that person just like that. There must be other clear indications that support this assertion. That’s what we’ve been looking for.”