Then he turned and went towards the policemen, keeping both hands at his sides. He had earplugs in his ears, with a lead that went inside his vest and down his body.
‘Lie down!’ shouted one.
‘Down on your knees!’
Several men were pointing their guns at him, with their fingers on the trigger.
‘If you come any closer, we’ll shoot!’
The Delta officers had noticed his bulging vest. Could it be a bomb belt? The leads of his iPod were hanging out. Would he finish them all? The men were preparing to shoot him.
‘It’s not a bomb belt! It’s an equipment belt with ammunition!’ shouted a Delta man from the flank.
‘Lie down,’ shouted one.
‘On your knees!’ roared another.
‘Make up your minds, kneeling or lying?’ responded Breivik.
‘Down!’
He flopped down, first onto his knees and then his stomach.
Håvard Gåsbakk jumped straight on him, forced his hands round behind his back and put on the handcuffs. Another officer bound his legs with plastic strip cuffs.
From down there, with his body pressed to the ground, Breivik turned his head and looked up at Gåsbakk, who was now sitting astride his back.
‘It’s not you lot I’m after. I see you as my brothers. It’s not you I’ve got to take out.’
‘Have you got ID?’
‘In my right pocket.’
A man took out his card and read his name and personal identification number over the radio.
‘I’m not against you,’ Breivik went on. ‘This is politically motivated. The country is being invaded by foreigners, this is a coup d’état, this is the start of hell. It’s going to get worse: the third cell has still not been activated.’
Then Gåsbakk noticed two dead bodies on the ground. The first two he had seen. It was Johannes and Gizem, who had been shot by Breivik in the woods.
‘The Glock’s in the holster,’ said Breivik.
‘I know,’ Gåsbakk replied.
One officer took the pistol from his thigh. Another stood there throughout with his weapon raised, pointing at Breivik.
Gåsbakk looked Breivik in the eyes.
‘For the sake of your conscience, answer now: are there any more of you? Where are they?’
Breivik looked up at him.
‘There is only me,’ he said. ‘There is only me.’
There. Is. Only. Me.
When It’s All Over
The living room in Heiaveien was filling up.
As the evening went on, the reports said seven had been killed. A bit later it was ten.
Gunnar couldn’t get through on any of the telephone numbers going across the screen, and finally rang their local district sheriff. Maybe he had acquaintances in Buskerud police district.
Yes, in fact he did.
They sat there, transfixed by the pictures on the screen. They saw young people swimming in dark water. White bodies far below, filmed from the air. They were going fast, with powerful, dogged strokes. Some were swimming in groups. Others were on their own. They were on a steady course towards the mainland. They were all engaged in the same thing: getting away from the island.
The old sheriff rang Gunnar back. ‘It’s serious,’ he said. But he had nothing more to tell them.
The sheriff had been putting things straight in the Salangen community for forty years, handing out speeding fines and clamping down on illegal fishing, enforcing the snowmobile ban on the mountain, upholding law and order ever since local residents and asylum seekers had clashed at the end of the 1980s.
Now he knocked on the door. ‘I thought I ought to come,’ he said, standing on the doorstep. ‘In case there’s anything I can do to help.’
He was going to try ringing some other direct lines, not those listed on the screen, and he would be on hand if they needed him for anything.
But all the lines were jammed.
Astrid, the girl who had lived next door to them in Upper Salangen, turned up too. She was three years older than Simon and had played with him since he was four years old. Astrid was always the director when they performed their New Year revue and pretty much counted as an older sister. This Friday, she had just poured herself a glass of wine and sat down in front of the television when she saw the report of the shooting on Utøya. She got straight in the car and drove to Heiaveien.
Relatives arrived, neighbours, friends. Everyone at the birthday party the Sæbøs were meant to be attending came through the door. They could not have any kind of celebration until Simon had rung to say everything was all right.
A newsflash ran across the TV screen. Some of the surviving youngsters said that far more had died than had been officially reported. As many as thirty or forty, estimated one AUF member.
Hearts in the living room began to race and hammer.
Every second Simon did not ring was a second of pain. The minutes soon became unbearable.
Someone made coffee and put out the cups. The birthday guests had brought some of the cakes.
A heavy pall of anxiety hung over the light living room.
The sun’s rays were still shining through the big picture windows facing the fjord. The sun would not set that night, just move westwards along the horizon.
Tone had disappeared. It was a long time since anyone in the living room had seen her.
They found her in the little utility room that was mainly used for drying clothes. She was sitting there on the floor, rocking back and forth.
‘Not my Simon. Not my Simon. Not my Simon!’
Tone was heedless of anything beyond herself. The pain was just too greedy; fear had gripped her. She had lost the use of her arms and legs, and was nothing but a heap on the floor. She could only conjure up a single image. Simon, a happy Simon, when she gave him a hug and two kisses at the airport.
Gunnar was talking to the police. He looks just like normal, thought Astrid. His voice was clear, never hesitant. He held the phone to his ear and turned to the window.
Then she saw his back. His shirt was soaking wet, with huge sweat rings under the arms.
Gunnar was pacing to and fro, from the TV to the veranda for a smoke, and then back again. Tone couldn’t be left sitting there on the floor alone, some of them thought. They helped her up. She walked stiffly, moving mechanically with the support of two friends. She went out to Gunnar and asked for a cigarette. The only way to breathe was to smoke.
The fjord was twinkling in the evening light. The mountains behind were reflected on the water’s surface.
A car suddenly came into sight on the main road. ‘It’ll go off the road!’ said someone who was standing on the veranda with them.
The car was speeding along. It turned off the main road and up the steep driveway and pulled up on the open area outside the house. The door was thrust open. Kristine, football player and trainee teacher, Simon’s girlfriend all the way through his teens, almost part of the household these past few years, was standing there on the gravel, looking up at Gunnar and Tone on the veranda. The girl was in floods of tears. She came rushing up the steps with a cry of anguish.
‘Simon’s dead! Simon’s dead! Simon’s dead!’
For a moment, everything went completely still in Heiaveien.
Then Simon’s mother collapsed onto the veranda floor.
Kristine had been sitting at home, gradually getting more and more desperate at not making contact with Simon, and had rung all his friends. Ten times, twenty times, the same numbers over and over again. Brage Sollund finally answered. He had been hiding in the thicket he had thrown himself into after leaving the Troms camp to check what was happening. There he lay until the perpetrator was caught. He had not seen Simon himself, but he had heard what other people were saying.