One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway (37 page)

Once in central Oslo, he parked the van at the Olsen’s Widow garden centre. He had made a logo for a water-treatment company and put it on the front so people would not wonder about, and possibly report, the bad smell coming from the vehicle. Then he invited his mother out to dinner, and took an early night in the fart room.

On Thursday morning he dressed in a fawn blazer and dark trousers before
taking the train back to Rena. There he rang a taxi company for a cab to take him back to the farm.

‘Is that the place where there was a hash plantation?’ asked the driver manning the phone that morning.

Breivik confirmed this, and in the car he asked the local man if the case was all cleared up now.

‘Yes, the police won’t be turning up there again,’ the Rena resident replied.

This driver
had been to the farm many years earlier, when it was under previous ownership; there had been cows in the fields and the place was kept in good order. As he set down the well-dressed visitor from the city, he was taken aback to see how dilapidated and overgrown the farm had become.

‘Well, welcome to our valley,’ he said, and drove off.

I Love You

‘I’m very much against it, Bano,’ said Bayan.

‘But I’ve GOT to see what it’s like! Last year we were in Kurdistan, remember. Everybody says it’s so cool!’

Bano had felt a bit better when she woke up on Thursday morning. Even though she had scarcely any voice, and certainly was not entirely well, she insisted on going out to the island.

‘But you’re sick, you ought to stay at home.
And tomorrow Ali and Dad will be home, so you won’t have to be bored with only me for company. If Ali loses his match today they might even be back this evening! Then we can all be nice and cosy here together, and you can get properly well.’

‘Mum, I’ve never been to Utøya before, I’ve got to go!’

Then Lara rang. ‘Jonas Gahr Støre’s coming to speak, it’ll be really exciting! Foreign affairs!
There’s going to be a Middle East debate on Israel and Palestine. You’ve got to come!’

‘Sounds great!’ exclaimed Bano. With half an eye on her mother she added, ‘I’m better now. I’ll come today.’

Her mother gave her an anxious look. But Bano had made up her mind.

‘
Sibay, Daya, sibay Gro det!
Tomorrow, Mum, Gro’s coming tomorrow! Just think, getting to hear Gro speak!’

Bano fetched the bag
that Lara had packed for her. She was on her way out the door when her mother came up to her with the photos of their relations in Sweden. ‘Take them to Utøya so Lara can see them too.’

‘But
Daya
, we’ll be back on Sunday,’ laughed Bano. ‘Lara can see them when she gets home. What if I lose them, or they get wet? I’ve got to go now. I have to catch the eleven o’clock boat.
Xoshim dawei, Daya!
I love you, Mum!’

‘I love you, Bano,’ answered her mother and gave her a kiss.

When Bano had signed up for the summer camp she had volunteered to be part of the working group. That meant you got free food and your fee was waived. It did not occur to her now to ask if she could opt out as she was not really well. She registered on the jetty before she went on board the MS
Thorbjørn
.

The sun
was finally peeping through. Bano was wearing some thin trousers and a sleeveless blouse. When she arrived on the island the coordinator told her to go down to the outdoor stage and put up some tents ready for the Datarock concert that evening.

‘Oh no,’ she exclaimed when she was instructed to hold up the tent poles. Luckily she spotted Lara passing by.

‘Lara!’

Her younger sister came over.
‘Lara, can you hold these?’ she asked. ‘I forgot to shave under my arms, okay!’

So Lara was roped into the working party as well.

Once the tents were up, the sun vanished behind the tallest trees. It started to turn chilly. The grassy areas were still wet from the previous day’s rain and the mosquitoes were out in force. The sisters went to the tent to get mosquito spray.

‘Shit!’ cried Bano.
‘I’ve lost the key!’

‘You locked the tent?’ asked Lara incredulously.

‘Well yes, when I was at the Hove festival loads of stuff got stolen from the tents.’

‘But this is an AUF camp! Nobody would steal here,’ said Lara.

Bano went off to look for something to open the big padlock with. Eventually she found a saw but it was really blunt, so she went back to the tool shed and asked the caretaker
to see if he had any other suitable tools. She pointed to a chainsaw.

‘You’re planning to get into your tent with a chainsaw?’ laughed the caretaker. In the end he found a file that she could use to open the lock.

‘Bano, Bano!’ It was just as Lara had been thinking as she lay alone in the tent the day before: there was always so much going on when Bano was around.

Lara wasn’t in the party spirit.
She just wanted to go to bed after the Datarock concert, while Bano and three other girls from the Akershus contingent were keen to do karaoke. One of them, sixteen-year-old Margrethe Bøyum Kløven, was the bass player in the girl band Blondies & Brownies, which had won the Junior Melodi Grand Prix song competition the year before, and she could really sing.
You know you love me, I know you care, just shout whenever, and I’ll be there …
Now they were practising ‘Baby’ by Justin Bieber in the tent, so they could perform as a quartet in the karaoke.

The karaoke machine did not have any Justin Bieber songs, but there was lots of Michael Jackson, Margrethe’s favourite. She knew all the words, and if she had brought her guitar she could have played the music too. Bano did the backing vocals
in a hoarse voice. The girls came back to the tent in a giggly mood to get some more clothes; there was a cold wind blowing. Their heads were still full of Michael Jackson.
Before you judge me, try hard to love me, lalala … look within your heart then ask, have you seen my childhood?

‘Have you heard about Lovers’ Path?’ Bano asked the other girls excitedly. ‘It’s a path that goes all round the
island, and you can see people groping each other.’

She laughed out loud at her own suggestion. They all sniggered. It was their first time on Utøya.

‘Well girls,’ said Bano. ‘Shall we take a stroll along Lovers’ Path?’

*   *   *

Anders Behring Breivik locked the door of the white farmhouse at Vålstua and drove away.

In the back of the Doblò, the booster and detonator were packed between
bits of mattress. Detonators were extremely unstable, but the boxes were securely fastened. He had first put the fuse in a slim plastic container, then in the IKEA toilet brush holder. It was important to avoid friction or bumps while transporting these, otherwise the whole lot could detonate and blow the van sky high.

His weapons were all in the Pelican case. He had rebuilt them to make them
exactly how he wanted, mounting the bayonet on the rifle and the laser sight on the pistol. With a knife he had carved names onto them in runic script. He called the pistol
Mjølnir
after Thor’s hammer.
Mjølnir
hit everything Thor wanted it to and returned to him afterwards. Odin’s spear
Gungnir
, after which he named his rifle, possessed the same powers.

His weapons, his uniform, the Knights Templar
coin in his pocket: he had made them all his own by adapting and naming them.

As nightfall approached and dark clouds massed in the sky, he parked the Doblò alongside his VW Crafter outside the locked garden centre with its summer range of fruit bushes, roses and perennials. Behind it was the railway line that ran down to the south coast. On the other side of the road was an upmarket housing
cooperative. The trees were quivering slightly in the breeze, a sign of a new weather front on its way in over Oslo.

He got out and locked the van. Exhausted, he dragged himself across Sigurd Iversens vei, down Harbitzalleen and over the junction at Hoffsveien. It was the hour before midnight.

His mother was still awake when he let himself in. He went out onto the balcony with her for a cigarette.
Anders stood in silence, inhaling the smoke, and then suddenly looked at her.

‘Mum, don’t stand so close to me.’

She moved away.

He went to bed. The plan was to get up at three o’clock. He would have to, if he were to fit it all in. Gro Harlem Brundtland would start her speech at 11 a.m. To be sure of getting there in time to decapitate her, he had to be up before dawn.

He would capture the
former Prime Minister at gunpoint and force her down on her knees. There, on the ground, he would make her read a text he’d written about her betrayal. She would be forced to beg for her life and ask for forgiveness for destroying Norway. Then he would cut her head off. He would film the deed and put the video out on YouTube.

But he wouldn’t be able to.

He realised it would not work. He simply
had to sleep. If he was going to be in a fit state to carry out the operation at all, he had to be properly rested. It was going to demand everything of him: alertness, stamina and concentration.

He set the alarm for somewhere between seven and eight and fell asleep in the narrow bed under the window. Outside, the birch tree rustled its leaves. The wind was gathering.

*   *   *

They did not
meet many others on the path; most people seemed to prefer companionship in the crowd at the outdoor stage to romantic trysts this evening.

They had met the previous year. ‘Say hello to Simon,’ a girlfriend of hers had said.

So handsome, Margrethe Rosbach had thought. And a little while later, Pity he’s got a girlfriend.

They had spent quite a bit of time together, even so. Afterwards they
had exchanged text messages now and then.

This year, as Simon stepped ashore on the island he sent her a text: ‘I’m here.’ When she did not reply at once, he wrote ‘You come too.’

Now they were drifting round Lovers’ Path. Simon had his
snus
tin in one hand. On the side where Margrethe was, his hand was free.

Simon from Salangen and Margrethe from Stavanger. She had long, soft hair and that
burr to her ‘r’s. At the national youth congress in the spring he had tried to kiss her. But no, not then, they both had someone else.

Simon put another wad of
snus
under his lip. In the autumn he would be doing his military service at Camp Madla outside Stavanger, near where Margrethe lived.

What an evening it was!

They had been standing together at the Datarock concert. He had lifted her
up onto the stage. They sang, they danced.

The July night was darkening. Bewitching, almost spooky, thought Margrethe. They wanted to make a circuit of the island after the concert. Halfway round they went down to the water and sat on some rocks out at Nakenodden. She borrowed his jersey. Midnight came and went, then it was one, then two.

A murmur went through the woods. The first raindrops
wet the rocks out on the point. They pulled their clothes more tightly around them and turned back up to Lovers’ Path.

A decaying fence ran alongside the path. Below, the Tyrifjord lay in darkness.

‘Give me a piggyback!’ said Simon on the slope up to the campsite. ‘I’m done in!’

She laughed. But she did carry him up the last steep stretch. And dropped him where the northern contingent were
based, right at the top of the campsite.

One kiss. Goodnight. She crept into her tent in the Rogaland camp, where the girl she was sharing with had long since gone to sleep. Simon crept into his.

The Troms camp had still not fallen silent. In one tent, Viljar was telling stories. As usual, he had not bothered to bring a sleeping bag or tent with him. He always sorted something out when he got
there. His younger brother Torje was lying in another tent, listening to Metallica with his best friend Johannes, also from Svalbard. The two fourteen-year-olds had decided to stay up all night. The sound of their singing could be heard through the canvas.
Forever trust in who we are, and nothing else matters! Nothing else matters!

From Mari Siljebråten’s tent came the sound of laughter, while
Anders Kristiansen, who was on supervision duty that night, tried to hush them all.

But without success. This was Utøya, after all.

As the night wore on it started raining harder. Lovers’ Path emptied. Everyone sought refuge from the downpour.

Heavy raindrops beat on the tent canvas. Water seeped in through zips and vents, it soaked up through ground pads and into sleeping bags, which clung
round the young bodies like wet wrappings.

Raindrops from the same clouds pelted down on the magnolias and unripe plums at the garden centre. They drummed on the roofs of the two vans parked outside.

But the mixture of fertiliser, diesel and aluminium lay dry and ready. The fuse nestled softly in a mattress.

Friday

The
Commander of the Norwegian anti-communist resistance movement
donned a brown Ralph Lauren polo shirt. Over that went a striped Lacoste jersey in subdued, earthy colours. He put on dark trousers and Puma trainers. In the kitchen he made three cheese and ham sandwiches. He ate one of them and put the others in a bag.

Back in his room he brought out a Telenor box with a new modem
in it. He had bought the fastest one available. But it took time to install. First he had to go into Outlook and click his way through various procedures, and then restart the machine. At half past eight he sent himself an email from [email protected] with the title line
Test first time
.
Hello, Best regards, AB.

The modem worked.

He prepared to send out the film he had compiled out of snippets
and short videos from the internet, plus the all-important
2083. A European Declaration of Independence
. He had already keyed the eight thousand email addresses into the computer. All he had to do was press Send. But they couldn’t get the email just yet. No one was to open the document until he was about to set off.