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Chapter 16

Cindy coughed loudly, the back of her throat tickling.

"Can you please stop? You're causing a lot of static," Rodrigo said.

"I think my comms unit went in wrong."

"It didn't. You just aren't used to it," Death said.

Cindy was staking out an open market. The goods were piled on mats on the ground, merchants standing over them or sitting on a stool. It was so hot out. How could anyone stand to be out in the heat like this all day, with just a cloth wrapped around their head to block the sun? A few people had formal hats, but still.

Nearly everyone here was speaking English, so at least she could understand. She had been informed that she was the least multilingual of the group. Between the four other members of the team, they spoke twenty languages. Cindy had only scraped past a semester of French so that she could go to Paris. She was the only one there with a PhD, but she couldn't help feeling like she was the biggest idiot.

She watched a man approach someone selling cabbagey plant things. He glanced around, making sure no one was paying attention. Cindy slunk closer surreptitiously and stared so intently at a cob of corn that she could almost see its atoms.

"Where do the wolves howl?" he asked.

The woman smiled. "The second cave past the ridge. Be careful on the rocks."

"I will."

Cindy grinned to herself. She was such an awesome detective. First day on the job, and she had already solved the entire thing. Not too shabby.

"I figured it out, guys. Now we have all the information we need."

The vendor gingerly took the corn from her hand. "Don't talk to my produce."

"Uh, sorry?" she said.

"Just tell us what you found out already," Zora's voice was so clear she nearly jumped, thinking she was right next to her.

"A man just walked up to a vendor and asked where the wolves howl. She said second cave past the ridge. That has to be code, right?" Cindy said, moving as she talked so that less people would notice her.

"Yep. Okay, Rodrigo, you're the only one who speaks Swahili, so you're going in on a solo op. A lot of people here prefer to speak that, so you could pick up on a lot that the rest of us would miss. Everyone else, rendezvous at the plane," Marc said.

"Affirmative. Over and out," Zora said.

"You could just say okay," Cindy said.

"Sure, if you want to suck all the fun out of it."