Odd Numbers

by Anne Holt

  Silje Sørensen was sitting at one end of the massive table in the conference room in the Justice Minister’s office. The department was still in temporary quarters, awaiting a decision about what the new government complex should look like. It was apparently taking its time.

  It was a dreadful morning.

  Six new families had been plunged into deep sorrow. Far more were living in apprehension about the prognosis for their more or less seriously injured nearest and dearest. The country had been placed in a state reminiscent of apathy—at least everyone apart from the most fanatical opponents of immigration.

  They seemed to be raising hell.

  She felt physically unwell at the thought.

  Anyway, she was ill. Her throat was burning, her head never stopped throbbing, and an hour ago her temperature had been almost 102 degrees.

  Harald Jensen seemed at least equally exhausted. The meeting in Silje’s office the night before yesterday had not ended until around four o’clock in the morning, but she had at least taken a five-hour break yesterday. Harald had not been able to do that. When the video from the Prophet’s Ummah had been released on YouTube precisely five hours ago, she had been lying fast asleep in her office during another break. Harald Jensen had not.

  “I’d certainly say so,” he confirmed, with an almost apologetic glance at the Justice Minister before riffling though the papers in front of him. “As we already discussed, we suspected for a while that the Prophet’s True Ummah was simply a cover for a far more powerful force. With the Prophet’s Ummah now appearing on the scene, that theory is reinforced. It makes sense, to put it brutally—at least as a starting point, something I’ll come back to. That little gang of boys would never in a million years have been capable of planning and carrying out an attack of that type.”

  “But the Prophet’s Ummah would?”

  “We haven’t followed them closely without good reason. This is a group with excellent connections to organizations in the Middle East that we . . . fear, to put it cautiously, as far as competence is concerned, access to material, and, not least, willingness . . .”

  He placed extra emphasis on the last word.

  “. . . to attack Norwegian interests. There is no reason to underestimate them.”

  The tall, lanky Justice Minister from Tromsø reclined into his chair.

  “Do we know who the man in the YouTube video is?”

  “No. Linguistics experts are working on analyzing the Arabic dialect. We have technicians and tacticians who are examining the video in minute detail to see if there’s any useful information to be obtained from it. However, what we can say with near certainty is that this man is not previously known to us. Consequently, it is none of the Norwegian jihadists we’ve had a comprehensive overview of during the past couple of years who is speaking.”

  “But is it genuine?”

  “The video?”

  “Yes.”

  “Genuine?”

  Harald Jensen opened out his arms in resignation.

  “It does exist. There’s an Arab sitting there accepting responsibility for the explosion. He claims to be a representative of the Prophet’s Ummah. He certainly exists, and he has been filmed. From that point of view, the video is genuine. But whether it is true?”

  He picked up his coffee cup and raised it halfway to his mouth before changing his mind and replacing it on the saucer.

  “To be honest, Justice Minister Michaelsen, we have very little to go on as far as pinning these attacks on the Prophet’s Ummah is concerned.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean exactly what I say.”

  He leaned forward across the table, gesticulating, almost eager.

  “Our job is to keep these people under surveillance. Under close observation. And we do that. At any time, we know with fair precision where the ten or twelve most central members of the Prophet’s Ummah are located—what they do and with whom they have links. What they eat, I could almost say. Here at home, we follow them in many ways, and we exert ourselves to cover them even when they are in the Middle East. It is an open, radical scene. They don’t hide—quite the opposite, in fact. They talk publicly and uncompromisingly about their view of the world: that the West is at war with Islam. As you know from our ongoing briefings, it is the jihadists themselves who are the main focus of our work. They are the ones we regard as the greatest threats. All the same . . .”

  He paused and looked from the Justice Minister to Silje Sørensen and back again.

  “. . . based on that, we can’t see how they would be able to carry out two attacks like the ones we have witnessed this week. As I said, it was a pretty easy matter to establish that the original gang could not possibly have blown the NCIN office sky-high, if I can allow myself to use that expression. Their claims—in the first place to exist and, second, to be behind the attack on NCIN—are considerably undermined by the fact that one of their members was present in the place when it exploded. And died. If he had been a suicide bomber, fair enough, but we’re talking about charges that were set in advance. Another one was murdered, to all appearances. No . . .”

  He gave a discouraged sigh, cleared his throat, and took off again: “We quickly directed our attention to more serious and potentially far more dangerous groups. Nevertheless, the problem is that we . . . we quite simply can’t find any sign that they’ve done it.”

  “So the man on the video is lying?”

  “Too early to say.”

  “There is of course a possibility that you . . .”

  The Justice Minister’s eyes narrowed.

  “. . . have missed something,” he ventured.

  “Of course.”

  Harald Jensen grabbed a sandwich with cheese and tomato. Putting it on a plate, he deliberated for a moment before he picked up a glass container and sprinkled the food inedibly with salt.

  “We may be mistaken, of course. But I don’t think so. However much I may wish it. Or not.” He added, so softly that Silje almost did not catch it: “We’ve become far better since July 22. Far better.”

  “Well, strictly speaking, that’s an assertion that remains to be seen,” said the Justice Minister from the Progress Party, “and which quite a number of people are looking to disprove. They’ve had plenty of ammunition this past week, don’t you think?”

  Neither Silje nor the head of the Security Service answered.

  “What about the right-wing extremists?” the Minister continued so loudly that Silje immediately braced herself.

  Giving a sad smile, Harald Jensen shook his head and took a bite of the sandwich. He chewed. And chewed. Finally, swallowing, he replied: “There are lots of fools out there. But on the whole, that’s what they are. Fools. Racists behind keyboards and drawn curtains. Wimps. Insignificant lapdogs that bark angrily from their shabby little rooms without ever daring to step out into the world. I’d like to take them on, one by one, and . . .”

  He restrained himself.

  “As of today,” he began over again, “we don’t see any groups on the far right who might be able to accomplish two attacks like the ones we have witnessed this week. None.”

  The room fell silent for a few seconds.

  “Neither did you prior to—” The Justice Minister broke off and took a different tack: “What signs would you have expected to see? If, for a moment, we leave open the question of who is behind this, what would you have expected to see in advance of such attacks?”

  Harald Jensen smiled mirthlessly: “Seen? A great deal. Modern surveillance is like a jigsaw puzzle bigger than anything you can imagine. For a start, we have all the information we gather in ourselves, some with the aid of classic investigation and old-fashioned detective work but predominantly electronic surveillance. A lot of information is gathered on the open Internet. It’s incredible what people come up with to publish about their own movements, motives, actions, and feelings without a thought for what they are actually divulging on blogs and in comments—all over
the place. And then there are the easily accessible closed forums, such as closed Facebook pages and that kind of thing. We follow them carefully. When we have the necessary authorization, we monitor telephone calls and, in certain circumstances, particular locations.”

  “Bugging equipment in rooms,” the Justice Minister said, nodding.

  “Yes. And then we have the dark web, where the real depravity is to be found.”

  Once again silence descended. Silje felt a powerful urge to check her phone for messages, but all electronic devices had been removed before the meeting.

  “The dark web is without doubt our most significant source,” the Security Chief continued in an undertone. “The encrypted, coded depths that require enormous computer skills to maneuver through, and where things happen so fast that we can easily get the feeling of always being a step behind the bad guys.”

  He rubbed three fingers against his forehead and grimaced.

  “And I haven’t even begun yet,” he said. “On the whole, all of this information—this entire vast stream of intelligence—is worth nothing in itself. When we add everything we get from organizations collaborating with us around the globe to what we gather ourselves, we’re talking about a chaotic, colossal, and complex sea of bits and pieces, half-truths and lies, boasts and terrifying truths.”

  A woman entered without knocking. She whispered something in the Justice Minister’s ear. He waved her away, expressing slight annoyance, and indicated to Harald Jensen that he should continue.

  “The true art lies in the combination,” the head of the Security Service said with emphasis. “In finding which pieces fit together with which. And to tell the truth, it’s an extremely difficult art. In common with all other modern intelligence organizations, we have data systems to discover patterns in this tsunami of information that we constantly face. We have alarm codes and algorithm systems that, over time, have become exceptionally good. But they are not infallible. Computers don’t think; they follow orders. They don’t interpret; they simply provide answers. In other words, both we and all our more or less kindly disposed cooperating partners remain dependent on . . .”

  Again that sad smile.

  “. . . human power—the human brain, with all its strengths and weaknesses. And that brings me to the point at last.”

  Silje thought she heard a slight vibration in Harald’s voice. Whether he was tired, upset, or fed up was not easy to say. Probably a mixture of all three.

  “So, we haven’t seen anything to suggest that something like this was imminent,” he said, clearing his throat. “Not in the raw data. Not in the computers’ combinations of them. Not in any of the reports and analyses continually produced by my people. Or other people’s people, for that matter. Not the CIA. Not the Brits. Not even Mossad has seen this coming. We have their word for that. As of today.”

  He put the document folder on his lap, opened it, and took out a slim bundle of papers. When he pushed them across the table to the Justice Minister, Silje could see the characteristic Top Secret stamp on the front page.

  The Justice Minister glanced at the papers but did not touch them.

  “So the video isn’t genuine.”

  “Well, there’s very little to suggest that it’s true, at least.”

  “Why was it sent out, then?”

  Harald Jensen opened out his arms in despair.

  “To take the credit? To boast? Good God . . .”

  Now he covered his face with both hands for a moment, before suddenly laying them flat on the table in front of him. His cheeks had taken on a slight redness, and his eyes had narrowed behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

  “Just because someone says he has done something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.”

  The Justice Minister remained seated for a few seconds, reflecting, and then used two fingers to push the top-secret documents back across the table before rising from his chair. He adjusted his tie and ran his hand through his thick blond hair.

  “Thanks for the briefing,” he said, fastening the top button of his suit jacket. “And for taking the time, both of you. If there’s anything we can do for you from now on, just let me know.”

  “Then perhaps you could introduce an extraordinary measure to make sure the dogs are kept on a leash,” Silje Sørensen said, without batting an eyelid.

  She got to her feet and returned her papers to her handbag.

  “On a leash?” repeated the Justice Minister, already standing beside the door.

  “Yes. Or best of all, a muzzle.”

  She stared directly at him. She could swear she could see the suggestion of a smile: a twitch at one corner of his mouth that could just as easily be a sign of anger.

  “Out of consideration to the general climate among the populace, it would be a great help if individuals kept their mouths shut right now,” she added.

  But by that time the Justice Minister was already on his way out the door, and she felt a faint blush on her cheeks at the worst breach of protocol and etiquette she had ever committed.

  In the east, the sky was pink. A faint, beautiful light above Oslo promised the first day of good weather in ages. Henrik Holme had been walking around watching the city stir from the very first tiny streak of daylight. He had made sure he was on the heights of St. Hanshaugen just as the sun rose.

  Walking calmed him down. It did him good to expend energy. His head cleared and his tics became less persistent. It had taken time for him to get used to the big city. Several years. Eventually he could not think of moving back to the small town he came from, anyway. If he were ever to live anywhere other than Oslo, it would have to be abroad and in an even larger city with even more people. Not in order to get to know them—he did not know many and could live with that quite easily—but to be able to blend in. Even though his colleagues thought he was odd and could be a bit too obvious about their opinion of him, he had as yet never had the experience of being spoken to in an offensive way by strangers in this city. He had experienced that constantly during his upbringing.

  He dreamed of New York.

  He was saving up for a vacation there. It would have to be on his own, but New York must be the perfect city in which to be alone.

  Now he was approaching Frogner Park, and it was twenty minutes to eight. He had walked some distance along Kirkeveien and gone around the corner to Middelthuns gate at a brisk pace.

  It had been easy to find Abid Kahn. Henrik had gone directly to police headquarters from Hanne’s apartment the previous evening. There, he had access to the Population Register, which was a far better instrument for tracing people than the phone book.

  There were three Abid Kahns living in Norway. One was well over sixty and one only eighteen. The third had been born in 1978. That fit perfectly: the Abid Kahn he was looking for had been in the class above Karina Knoph at school.

  The man didn’t only still live in Oslo; he was a colleague. Three years ago, he had joined the Royal Police Escort and in all probability was having a busy time after the events of the last few days. All the same, he had been friendliness personified when Henrik phoned him just before ten the previous evening, just within the acceptable limit of disturbing anyone, which had been instilled into him by his mother throughout his childhood.

  Abid was working double shifts at present. Nevertheless, he had to exercise, as he did every day, and if Henrik met him in Frogner Park, beside the immense lawns beyond the parking lot across the street from the NHO building, they could chat while he did some concluding stretches.

  Henrik passed the Frognerbadet swimming pool and saw that he was possibly too early. Eight o’clock, quarter past eight, Abid Kahn had said, underlining that he could not spare much more than fifteen minutes before he would have to leave.

  Fifteen minutes would be plenty of time, Henrik thought, and slowed down.

  He wondered whether he could pay a visit to Hanne afterward. She had not said anything about when she wanted to see him again. On the whole, f
arewells at Hanne’s were fairly abrupt. Both his visits had ended with her declaring that he had to go. Short and sweet. And he went. At home he had learned that you should never ask guests to leave, but in fact he liked Hanne’s approach better. He avoided having to sit wondering whether he was still welcome.

  Slowly he crossed the parking lot, zigzagging between the cars that had already begun to fill up the asphalt area. There were numerous joggers on the paths into Frogner Park. Leaning against a massive tree, Henrik stood contemplating what pleasure they actually gained from all that training. As for himself, he had taken part in that sort of thing only to pass the entrance tests for the police academy, and he had achieved that only by the skin of his teeth. Since then, he had never gone out running.

  He walked instead, for hours on end, and he biked. Henrik Holme liked to look around, and movement had become part of a mental ritual. He could think better. Remarkably enough, he also felt less lonely when he was walking rather than when he was sitting on his own in his apartment. When he was outside, he was going somewhere. He was heading to something, and being on the move involved a single-minded aim that made him part of the huge organism that, taken together, formed a city.

  Since Tuesday he had slept perhaps five hours in total. It did not have any effect on him. He was in the prime of life and had been given an assignment. And he had met Hanne Wilhelmsen.

  Not since the time when Johanne Vik had still been alive had he felt so important.

  “Henrik Holme?”

  The voice came from behind him.

  Startled, he wheeled around.

  “Abid Kahn?”

  “Yep. Hi there.”

  The dark-skinned, impressively athletic man held out his hand. He exuded the sweet smell of fresh sweat, and the surface of his hand was soaking wet.

  “Sorry we had to meet here,” he said with a crooked smile. “But you probably understand that it’s a bit hectic at work right now.”

  Henrik returned his smile.

  “Of course. As I said on the phone, it’s to do with Karina Knoph. The Police Chief has given me . . . Well, as I said last night I’m working on . . . a team, we might call it, that’s looking at old, unsolved crimes. Cold cases.”