by Anne Holt
“What happened?”
She looked up and directly at him. Something new had entered Grete’s eyes since the last time he had seen her. She no longer seemed furious at the sight of him. More discouraged now. Resigned, with drooping eyelids, as if they had become too heavy to hold open.
“Well then, what happened? Later I thought the change had come about when Linus decided he wanted to retake his high school exams. I was over the moon. At last he was going to pull himself together. Make something of himself.”
Again she cast her eyes down and continued to stir her coffee aimlessly.
“He joined a reading group at the library. He had known Andreas for a long time, and it was—”
“Andreas?”
Billy T. forced himself to keep his voice at a normal level.
“Andreas Kielland Olsen?”
“Yes. Have you met him? Very smart boy. I was delighted that Linus was spending more time with him. He’s studying law and that sort of thing. Andreas moved from home really early—there was something about him being angry with his parents. They got divorced.”
Her eyes momentarily met his. Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.
“They helped Andreas financially,” she said in the end. “But to earn extra money, he had started to get involved in a project in Nordtvet, at the Deichman Library there. I don’t know all the details, but it was one of those government initiatives—to persuade young people to read more, go to college. Something like that. I don’t know.”
She lifted her cup.
“And I was still delighted. Until maybe seven or eight months later.”
Billy T. felt uncomfortably hot.
“Take off your jacket,” she said softly. “You’re sweating.”
He wrested it off and struggled to hang it on the back of his seat.
“Linus got so many ideas,” Grete said. “Admittedly he began to shape up in a few areas. He took his schoolwork so seriously that I almost couldn’t believe my own eyes. He began to read independently, even though I’d paid for him to go to Bjørknes this year. You know, the private college—”
“I know it,” Billy T. said, nodding. “And so far everything sounds really fine and dandy.”
“Yes. He stopped wasting his evenings on computer games. Kept his room tidy. Was much nicer to his half-siblings. But then . . .”
Her eyes grew moist.
“He came up with so many terrible ideas.”
“Terrible?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sort of stuff that Progress Party folk come out with.”
“I don’t think that was very specific.”
“Things like . . . what’s the name of that madman? The one who was on TV last night. Fredrik—”
“Grønning-Hansen.”
“Yes. Him. At the start, Linus sounded exactly like him. Everything that had to do with Muslims made Linus see red. He always made a major point of knowing what he was talking about, because he had grown up in . . . the ghetto, was how he always put it.”
Billy T. still felt too hot and so queasy that he still had not touched his coffee.
“But then,” Grete said, as her face took on an expression of amazement. “Then Andreas went across and sort of became a Muslim. Completely out of the blue. By then I quite simply didn’t understand any of it. I really thought they would have a falling out about it. Instead . . .”
She still had that amazed expression in her eyes. Thoughtful, as if trying to work out something that had been puzzling her for ages. It occurred to Billy T. that she probably had been.
“. . . he became more placid. More withdrawn. Said very little. I tried to follow what he was reading. I once stole a look at his computer while he was out. I had overheard him telling Linnea that he used her name as his password.” Glancing at him over her cup, she added quickly: “His sister. My youngest. She’s seven, so I expect he didn’t think it mattered too much that she got to know that.”
“What did you find?”
“So much crap. Such a horrendous lot of shit, Billy T. Really racist filth. I mean . . .”
Leaning her elbow on the table, she covered half her face with her hand. Lowered her voice.
“I’m not too fond of these immigrants myself. Not all, though. The ones who behave properly and keep their children in line, and so on, are one thing, but these other ones, from Somalia and those parts, they—”
“What happened next?” Billy T. interrupted.
She looked at him for several seconds. Her mouth became so pinched that even her lipstick was no longer visible.
“I couldn’t confront Linus with what I had found,” she said after a few moments during which Billy T. was afraid she would get up and leave. “Then I’d have to admit I’d been snooping on his computer. Instead I tried again a few weeks later. And then I became even more bewildered, to put it mildly.”
“The computer was empty,” Billy T. suggested.
“Almost. Just schoolwork and suchlike.”
“And no password.”
“Correct. How did you know that?”
He did not answer. The nausea was so insistent that he got up to get a glass of water. Draining the glass on his way back, he turned and poured a refill from the pitcher on the counter beside the cash register.
“Why did he move out?” he managed to ask when he came back for the second time. “Did something in particular happen?”
“No. Not really. I think he got fed up with me making a fuss. Maybe I asked too many questions. That racist stuff really bothered me. But maybe boys of that age should be left in peace. By their mothers, at least.”
“The library?” Billy T. quizzed her.
“What? Can’t you sit down again?”
“All that stuff began when Andreas took him with him to the Deichman Library, you said. Is that right?”
“In a way,” she said, confused. “Are you leaving already?”
“The Nordtvet branch?”
“Yes. But I’d like to hear how things are going with Linus, apart from that. You can’t just phone and make me even more worried and then simply—”
“I’ll call if I find out anything more,” he said, pulling his jacket off the chair.
He then broke into a run through the center.
He had to get out—his mouth was full of sour vomit.
“I’m feeling really lousy,” Silje Sørensen said as she sat down in the car. “This is extremely kind of you.”
“I need a breath of fresh air myself,” Håkon said, smiling, as he turned the key in the ignition. “Even if it’s only inside a car. You look really awful.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, you know.”
“You’re right. I probably look just as awful as I’m feeling. I need to go to bed, pure and simple. Just for a few hours, and then I’ll be back this evening.”
“That’s completely unnecessary,” he said as they drove out into Grønlandsleiret and turned right. “I can hold the fort until tomorrow. We’re not irreplaceable, Silje. None of us. Other people are doing the work.”
“But I’m the one who has to make the decisions.”
“Not at all. I can do that.”
He leaned forward in his seat and switched off the radio.
“Klem FM,” she murmured. “Do you listen to that sort of music?”
He did not answer. She reclined into her seat and closed her eyes. They stopped somewhat abruptly, and she opened them again.
“Sorry,” he said. “The light turned red. I thought I’d make it.”
“What a week,” she said, peering out through the side window. “What a damned horrendous week. Was it true that you knew the Lieutenant Colonel who came with the papers from the army?”
“Yes. We went to school together and were in the same Boy Scout troop for a number of years. Actually a really good guy, but we haven’t seen each other for years. He’d become very . . . milita
ry.”
“No one can accuse you of that,” she said wryly.
“What idiots!” he mumbled in response, sounding annoyed, and Silje searched for someone breaking the traffic regulations.
“What?” she asked.
“The army. Losing a whole load of C4 and then burying the entire story.”
With a deep sigh, she leaned her head against the headrest.
“You can feel a certain understanding for that. Taking the timing into consideration. I was on the other side of the globe when it all kicked off, but I can still vividly imagine how it must have been. Since Anders Behring Breivik did so much damage with a homemade fertilizer bomb, this Gustav Gulliksen definitely has a point. It would have been a shock for the public to find out that one hundred and fifty pounds of high explosives had gone astray four days later. God only knows what that could have led to.”
“To be honest, I still think they’re only telling us half the story.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s certainly true that July 22 figured in their assessment. But what was worse for the army was that there were so many suspects. It was a major exercise, and many of their foremost experts were at Åmot.”
“Yes? And so?”
“We need these experts, Silje. Norway needs them. They often are groups that are almost as secret as our special forces. A full investigation would unmask loads of them and put our defensive capability back considerably, I presume.”
“They didn’t want to sacrifice them for a hundred and fifty pounds of C4.”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Silje rummaged in the console between them and unearthed a box of hard candies.
“That it was a hundred and fifty pounds actually tells me nothing,” she went on, before popping two in her mouth. “Is that a lot?”
“More than enough,” he answered tersely. “Our boys estimate that no more than sixty-five pounds were used at Gimle terrasse. However, they were sixty-five extremely well-placed pounds. Maybe no more than eight or ten in that briefcase yesterday. Together with some pieces of scrap metal.”
“Like in Boston?”
“No, the Boston bombers used pressure-cooker bombs. That’s not necessary when using high explosive such as C4, as far as I understand.”
“They’ve blown up sixty-five to eighty-five pounds, then. In other words, they have a considerable amount left.”
He did not answer. As a police vehicle with flashing blue light approached from the rear, Håkon pulled to the side.
“Do the Security Service still dismiss the idea that this might be caused by right-wing extremists?” he asked as he kept his eye on the police van in his mirrors.
“Yes. Almost categorically.”
“Even now, when it transpires that the explosives may well be of Norwegian origin?”
“When I spoke to Harald Jensen in Nydalen this morning, none of us knew that specific piece of information. All the same, I don’t think it changes the situation. They quite simply don’t have any group like that on the radar.”
“Like last time,” Håkon said, turning out into the vehicle lane again.
“Last time there was no talk of a group at all. It was the work of one man.”
“Exactly.”
“There must be several involved this time.”
“How do we actually know that?”
Silje took another candy and pulled her coat more snugly around her. Her seat belt hampered her and she swore under her breath.
“It’s quite inconceivable that the murder, dismembering, and dumping of Jørgen Fjellstad doesn’t have anything to do with the terrorist attack,” she said glumly. “It can’t be a coincidence that he first makes an appearance in two videos and is then found murdered in Nordmarka. It must have taken a number of men simply to get the guy out to that rockfall.”
They drove on in silence. There was remarkably little traffic. The rush hour usually began early on Fridays, when many people left work at the earliest opportunity in order to have a head start on the weekend traffic heading out of the city. Not only were there fewer vehicles than usual, but the sidewalks lining the city streets seemed far less crowded than normal for this time of day.
People are worried, Håkon thought.
But he said nothing.
“Do you drive this way?” he murmured as they passed the Botanic Gardens at Tøyen.
“We can just as easily drive up on the Ring 3 motorway. By the way, if we don’t yet know who placed those bombs in the NCIN offices and when they did so, we do at least know how they did it.”
“Oh?”
“An enormous security breach. As you know, the offices were actually two apartments knocked together. When the place was converted, quite a lot was done to secure the premises. Good doors and locks. CCTV cameras at the entrance. Strict control of keys. The windowpanes facing the street were even of reinforced glass. Not bulletproof, but difficult to break. Extremely modern, all of it. But four storerooms in the basement were also included.”
He turned off into Finnmarksgata from Sars’ gate.
“To simplify access to the storerooms, a passage was constructed, leading down from one of the offices on the ground floor. A flight of stairs, fairly straightforward, because the storerooms were used to store both office supplies and other things in everyday use.”
“How was the basement secured then?”
“That’s the point. To enter the basement at all, you needed to have two keys. It’s locked, with a solid fire door. Everyone who lives in the apartment block has these keys.”
“Good Lord,” Silje said abjectly. “Keys like that go astray all the time, don’t they.”
“Maybe so. They had quite a strict system. Of course, we’ve set up a team to investigate everyone with lawful access to that basement because once you get in there, you only need a pair of wire cutters that cost 60 kroner at a hardware store to walk right into the NCIN office.”
“What? Was there just a wire-netting partition wall down there?”
“Yep. It’s been cut through, so in all probability the terrorists gained access there.”
He punched the steering wheel.
“It’s a mystery why they call this a traffic circle. It’s damnably square. And right now, it’s completely empty! There’s usually absolute gridlock here.”
He signaled to exit the circle.
“What actually happened at that military exercise?” Silje asked.
“Nothing. That’s the whole point.”
“Yes, I know. But what happened?”
“Well, a fairly major exercise was planned well in advance for one of the army’s training grounds at Åmot. Tanks and lots of shooting and explosions. As you probably know, these training grounds are often surrounded by a certain . . .”
Once again he came to a sudden stop at a red light. Silje’s hand shot out to the dashboard.
“. . . local opposition,” Håkon said. “An artillery range is not necessarily a pleasant neighbor. But the military have to train, of course. However, the Defense Chiefs decided that Norway had experienced enough explosions for a while, so the whole thing was canceled only a few hours before it was all due to start with a bang.”
“And then?”
“The army has strict protocols for the storage, transport, and use of explosives, of course, as everyone with legal access to explosives must have. The cases of C4 had already been transported out into the field to three different locations where they were to be used. When the order to cancel was received, the cases were almost immediately conveyed to neighboring buildings. There are a not inconsiderable number of buildings scattered all over the training ground. What is regrettable is that the cases were left lying there for a few days without supervision.”
“Without . . . without supervision?”
“Yes, there’s nothing wrong with that really, as far as it goes. Everything was properly locked and secured. A few days later, when it became clear that it would be se
veral weeks before any exercise could be carried out, it was decided that the cases of C4 should be moved back to the permanent storage facility.”
“And then it was gone.”
“No. Not all of it. Two cases containing seventy-five pounds each; that was all. Enough, though, good heavens! There was apparently a hell of an uproar.”
“An uproar they obviously managed to keep a lid on, though?”
“Yes. The case documents are just as dry as you would expect from military paperwork dealing with a real screwup. But I can more than make out panic between the lines. It was very rapidly decided that they should show . . . discretion.”
The car was approaching the intersection at Sinsenkrysset. Here too the traffic was moving just as smoothly as in the middle of the night.
“Where is everyone?” Håkon asked quietly. “This is spooky, Silje.”
“Amazing that they managed it,” she said.
“What?”
“Keeping it out of the public domain. Of necessity, there must have been quite a few who knew about it.”
“Not so very many. But they had problems with one guy, a bomb expert who was to have been responsible for the explosions during the exercise. A captain, as far as I recall. It emerges from the folder of documents I received from Gustav Gulliksen that this guy delivered several missives in protest. He most definitely wanted to sound the alarm.”
“But gave up in the end, then?”
“Obviously. And now they’re blaming this on their consideration for the welfare of the populace. That it could have led to an outbreak of panic. That nobody would have benefited from Norway being stressed out even further.”
“It’s good they spoke up now at least,” Silje said, catching a glimpse of the speedometer as they drove under the Storo flyover. “You’re the Deputy Chief of Police, Håkon. Slow down.”
He reduced his speed by a fraction.
Once again she closed her eyes. Silence reigned between them for a long time. When she noticed him turning off the motorway, she whispered: “Do you know what I’m thinking about?”