Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Walking upstairs to her flat, Iben is always glad to know that the knife is there, tied to her leg. Before unlocking the door to her flat, she always bends to touch it through her trousers. Images play in her head about how quickly she could draw it. It’s not very rational. Knife or no knife, she would be no match for an experienced fighter. Besides, that’s neither here nor there, now that it’s clear Anne-Lise sent the emails.

Once more she steps over the pile of junk mail on the doormat; once more she walks around her flat to make sure nobody is hiding; once more she sticks a square block of frozen cod into the microwave oven. And once more she checks her email — nothing new except spam — and glances at the answering machine, which doesn’t blink.

She sits down to eat at the small round dining table, a piece she inherited from her grandmother. Her sitting room is furnished with casually acquired bits and pieces and looks rather bare. Some time soon, she tells herself, I must follow Malene’s example — buy a sofa at least, just in case I have a guest. But he wouldn’t think it looked homey or pretty, like Malene’s. Maybe a patterned throw, in hot colours, would help. Then the room wouldn’t be so plain — all white walls, bookshelves and dark wood. She has thought about this kind of thing so often, but now she feels ready to go ahead and do something about it.

She props her book up and reads while she eats her piece of cod with some red peppers and organic crisp-bread. The book is Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews , which she bought second-hand on the Internet.

After supper, she washes her hair. Then, her damp hair wrapped in a towel and a cup of tea at hand, she settles down to phone Grith, just to gossip. Nobody answers.

Iben doesn’t have Gunnar’s number in her address book, but knows it by heart after having heard it only once. She has never used it and doesn’t ring him tonight either. Instead she calls her mother and talks with her, while the television rumbles on in the background. Her mother says that she ran into some old friends recently and they thought it was great to see Iben interviewed on television about her captivity. They send their regards. Iben’s mother says that they asked her to tell Iben they’re pleased it all ended so well.

When Iben goes out again later that evening, it is still raining. It’s late — half past ten already. She dislikes being outside when it is too dark to see who is walking towards you or crossing the road in your direction. Inwardly she curses the plan she and Malene have made, which keeps her away from her cosy bed and Hilberg’s book.

Malene and Rasmus pick her up in a taxi. It takes them to the DCGI building. As Iben peers up at the office windows from under her umbrella, water trickles down the back of her neck.

‘No lights on.’

They need to spend at least one hour in the office without being disturbed and her greatest fear is that Paul might come by.

Once inside, Iben’s heart beats faster. This isn’t a ‘real’ breakin, she tells herself. If we had to face a guard, or the DCGI board, we could talk our way out of it.

Malene’s breathing tells Iben that she too feels anxious. She echoes Iben’s thoughts. ‘It’s not a real break-in. Why shouldn’t we be in our own workplace?’

They listen for sounds. Nothing. After taking the ancient lift to the top floor, they listen again. Somewhere below them, a person leaves an office. They almost stop breathing. The person calls the lift, its door bangs and they hear its customary whine as it descends. Is it a guard perhaps? Or somebody working late? A cleaner? What would Paul do if a security guard phoned him in the middle of the night? Ever since the confrontation about Anne-Lise’s mental health, their relationship with him has been somewhat strained. Paul would have to inform Ole and Frederik and the rest of the board.

What is the worst-case scenario? It has to be that Anne-Lise didn’t write these emails and that somewhere in the darkness Mirko Zigic is waiting for them.

When the person downstairs has left, Malene enters the security code — it’s 110795, the date the massacre at Srebrenica began.

In the Winter Garden many small points of red or green light glow on computers, phones and other equipment. Hardly any light from the city penetrates the curtain of rain, but after standing about in the dark room for a while, the piles of paper take on a faint glow, like rectangular moons.

They avoid switching on any lamps. Iben and Malene, who know this place well enough to find their way around it blindfold, walk towards the library. Malene leads, Rasmus and Iben follow.

The darkness is more opaque in the library, but Iben and Malene have both brought their bicycle lamps. Rasmus sits down on Anne-Lise’s chair and the women stand on either side of him. He uses the keyboard with lightning-quick familiarity.

‘Yep, it’s password protected. I can’t get round it, but that’s OK. Just checking. Let’s go find the server.’

They make their way to the small, windowless storage room where the server is kept, close the door, and then turn on the lights.

‘I need the administrator’s password. Let’s look for it.’ Rasmus has good instincts about where people will write down things they shouldn’t write down. He checks underneath the blotting pad and the keyboard and behind the monitor. While he’s at it, he looks over the folders on the shelf. The others help, but in the end they give up.

‘Looks like I’ll have to switch off the server.’

Without waiting for an answer and without closing Windows, Rasmus switches it off at the wall. Iben leans against an unpainted chipboard shelf full of office materials. Safe behind a closed door and with the light on, she takes several deep breaths, almost like sighs.

Rasmus puts a disk into the drive and switches the terminal on again. After a while, he exclaims: ‘Just what I hoped! It’s programmed to look for a start-up disk in the drive before it begins running its own program from the hard drive. That way, if there’s a problem, the administrator can start it up from disk. I’ve put in my own start-up program, which will direct the computer to read my copy of Windows. I’ve got the CD here.’

His little black bag holds innumerable home-made CDs. He loads one of them into the computer. It responds and a stream of numbers and letters flows across the screen.

‘Good. That worked a treat.’ Rasmus, like all true enthusiasts, is beginning to forget his surroundings. His whole being focuses happily on the computer. ‘There! It’s running my program. I’ll get the administrator’s password in no time.’

Iben watches him. There’s something touching about men and computers — so besotted by the mysterious possibilities inside the machine. It’s odd: only now can she see clearly what she has sensed before. Rasmus simply isn’t right for Malene. It actually saddens her to realise how true this is.

Rasmus is absorbed. ‘ … And to do that, I’ve the perfect hacker’s helpmate.’

He loads another program from a disk. It triggers another flow of windows and options. Boxes race across the screen, and Rasmus fills them in faster than she can read them.

The women exchange glances.

Iben constantly listens out for any noise on the other side of the closed door, but so far the only sounds are those made by the computer and Rasmus, who keeps saying, ‘Yes!’ or swearing.

After more typing Rasmus says he has cracked it. He removes both his disks, turns the computer off and then on again. Startup brings the usual password request and Rasmus keys in the code he has just broken. Bjarne has chosen to protect the computer system with the word ‘Superspliff’.