Then the pistol gave a click. The magazine was empty. He had been careful not to fill it right up in case the bullets got stuck. He calmly changed magazines. It took a few seconds, long enough to throw yourself out of a window, get to the door, long enough to escape. Many tried, but there was a crush at the exits.
The bass player of Blondies & Brownies was trapped in the doorway between the small hall and the main hall while Breivik changed his magazine. There the slender, fair-haired girl was hit by one – two – three shots. She slumped to the floor. One of the shots had entered the back of her head on the left side, penetrating her skull and ripping into her brain. Her life ebbed away. There, between the two rooms, Margrethe’s life ended. ‘Before you judge me, try hard to love me. Look within your heart then ask, have you seen my childhood?’ she had sung with Bano at the karaoke the night before.
Breivik stepped over her. He entered the AUF’s largest venue, the main hall, where Bano had been inspired by Gro, where the meeting about Western Sahara had made Mari and Simon want to get involved, where Monica Bøsei had tried to comfort the AUF youngsters with the prospect of lighting all the barbecues.
A boy was hiding behind a loudspeaker. Breivik saw him and opened fire. The boy ducked, several times. Breivik had his work cut out trying to hit him. He fired five or six shots and missed each time.
Frisky type, thought Breivik, then, finally, one of the bullets found its mark. It hit the boy in the head and he fell. To make sure he had finally got the better of his target, he fired twice more.
Elisabeth ran along by the wall; she was calling her father again.
Freddy Lie answered, and heard nothing but screams. His sixteen-year-old daughter was huddled down against the wall, crying into her phone, when Breivik came into the room.
Freddy, who only a few minutes earlier had offered to come and get Elisabeth and her older sister, was in his car. He couldn’t do anything but listen. What was happening? Was she being attacked? Was she being raped?
The line went dead. When he rang his daughter back, he got a message to say the phone was switched off or had no signal.
The bullet had hit Elisabeth’s ear canal, seared through her cranium and gone right into her brain and out the other ear. Only when it got to the pink phone cover did the bullet stop. The girl fell sideways and Breivik shot her twice more. She lay there, no longer moving. Her long, wet blonde hair turned red with blood. Her grey jogging bottoms, her white T-shirt, everything was stained red. Soon her fingers would stiffen in their grip on the pink phone against her head.
Everyone sitting along the wall was shot. The killer used the same method as in the small hall. First he opened fire from a few metres away, then closed in and shot them all down.
I’m wasting ammunition, he told himself. On the other hand, it was an effective method.
The first target was always the head. But as soon as he started shooting, everybody hit the deck. It was difficult to follow what was going on. It wasn’t always easy to hit them where he wanted. But he was getting better all the time. He had made sure to buy the best sighting system on the market for both Gungnir and Mjølnir.
Sometimes it was hard to tell if he had already hit the kids. The rifle made a very small hole, and if a person died instantly the blood stopped pumping, so it was not easy to decide who was dead and who was not. It was better to fire once too often if he was in doubt.
Breivik looked around the main hall. No movement. He went back through the small hall. No movement. He went out.
He had been inside for two to three minutes. It had taken him about a hundred seconds to kill thirteen people. Several were left critically injured. It was 17.29.
The killer crossed the campsite. He shot into a few tents, but it would take far too long to check them one by one, so he moved on.
The chief of operations at Hønefoss police station had started calling in reinforcements. Five minutes had elapsed since the first telephone call, and further calls were queued up on the line. There was no system to notify her staff in case of a crisis, but the officers all had one another’s mobile numbers stored on their phones, and got in touch with the colleagues who were not away on holiday.
Four officers, two men and two women, ran into the equipment store to prepare for the operation. They put on protective gear, armed themselves and took communication radio equipment with them. A fifth officer, an older woman, stayed to relieve the chief of operations.
There was no plan in place for what the police operation was going to do. It was clear, however, that they would need a boat. The police boat, a red rubber dinghy, should be made ready.
Nobody thought of the MS Thorbjørn. The former military vessel could have taken a large force to the island within minutes. The distance by road from Hønefoss to the Thorbjørn’s jetty is thirteen kilometres. Optimally, the police officers could set foot on the island a little more than a quarter of an hour after leaving the station.
But the ferry, which had transported six hundred youngsters to the island in the last few days, was forgotten. The ferry that spent every summer shuttling between the island and the mainland was overlooked in all the hectic preparations.
After Jon Olsen had rung the police, he started searching for his daughter. A thought struck him: Colonel Gaddafi had announced that same week that he would send terrorists to the countries that had bombed Libya. That must be what was happening! They were bound to take hostages. He and Monica had talked between themselves several times about how perfect the island would be for holding hostages.
He did a hasty circuit of the island and then came back to the landing stage where the ferry was tied up. He dashed on board.
In the wheelhouse he found the crewman and a couple of other youngsters, hiding. Some others came running. Someone on the boat was ringing the AUF leader, who had been in the admin building near the landing stage when Breivik came ashore. Someone hammering, Eskil Pedersen had thought when he heard the bangs over the sound of the TV. Two of the AUF counsellors went down to check and one of them came straight back. ‘There’s someone shooting,’ he cried. They locked the door and opened the veranda door on the first floor to look out, but could see nothing.
The other counsellor ran down to the boat, and he was the one ringing now. ‘Get down here as fast as you can!’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Eskil.
‘Just run!’ answered the counsellor.
Apart from the AUF leader, the captain and the crewman, six people saved themselves by getting onto the boat. They were terrified. They had heard shots and screams. In his panic, the captain reversed at full speed. He asked everybody to lie down, because the gunman had telescopic sights, he had seen that much. The time was 17.30.
When they were halfway across, the captain straightened up and wanted to turn round. He wanted to rescue more people – there was room for far more than nine. Some youngsters had already jumped into the cold water, trying to swim away from the island.
Monica was dead and their daughter was still on Utøya. The captain started thinking about a friend who lived near by and had been in Afghanistan. He kept weapons at home. Perhaps they could get some guns from him. Jon’s thoughts were in turmoil, but the boat held its usual course for the mooring point on the mainland. Then the crewman remembered that the policeman had said he was expecting two others. That meant the ferry landing stage was not safe. The captain was also afraid there could be terrorists there, and that they might seize the boat. They would have to dock somewhere else. The MS Thorbjørn changed direction, away from the jetty and out into the fjord.