A look passed between them. Each man folded his right arm across his heart. They turned again to face us, stared out again at the faces in the courtroom. Slowly, in unison, each unfolded his right arm, clenched his fist, fixed his gaze on the press at the back of the courtroom.

A frenzy of cameras.

A salute. A white power salute. The men exchanged a look, smiled, adjusted their pose. Their fists clenched a little tighter, their right arms extended a little farther. Amplifying the signal.

Elsa was gripping my wrist. The sinews in her arms and face were tight.

“I know,” I said. Courage, love.

I heard a laugh in the row behind. An actual laugh, ringing bell-clear across the court. I turned to see a girl of Licia’s age, dark-skinned and pretty, sitting among friends. The girl covered her mouth as she met my eye, appalled at her own reaction. The men turned toward her, anger in their gaze. They had not expected laughter. The tiny female judge spoke, asking for silence. The girl nodded an apology.

Beside me I felt Elsa turn too. She and the girl exchanged a look. Elsa put a hand over the girl’s and smiled; the girl smiled back, glad of the support.

More cameras were turning. The girl couldn’t be more than sixteen.

I looked toward the men, foolish and ashamed in their black shirts and their bully boots. The girl had punctured their moment, destroyed the drama of their performance, left them standing half-cocked and pathetic.

Laughable.

I put on my headset. I heard the translator’s words in my ears. “Defendant Andersen, J., will stand.” The judge began to address the first defendant. I could hear her voice through the foam padding of the headphones.

The tall man nodded at his brother, then stood facing the judge.

The translator continued. “Defendant Andersen, J., do you understand the charges made against you?”

The man nodded.

“Respond.”

The man nodded again; he spoke, a single syllable.

The translator’s voice, flattening out the dialogue, rendering both sides. “Yes.” A pause. “How do you plead?”

There was another, longer pause. The man looked about him. Checking he has the attention of the court, I thought.

Bastard.

The man began to speak. After a moment the translator picked up his words, without inflection.

“As a . . . Knight of the Temple of Solomon . . . I decline to recognize the authority of this court. I refuse to plead.”

I looked around at the girl behind us. She was not laughing.