Marin sat up, spat out a mouthful of sand, and blinked another mouthful out of her eyes.

The first thing to greet her eyes was a vast expanse of sparkling blue water. The second was the set of ropes binding her ankles, and the third was the set of ropes binding her wrists.

Those two things interested her, and so they pleased her. (They were a welcome change from the heavy iron manacles the CIA had employed.)

She could hear the muffled sound of men speaking Spanish. Looking around, she could see them, too, dressed in floral print shorts and t-shirts sporting various sliced fruits. One of the shirts incorporated rather juicy-looking segments of apple, and Marin smiled at the familiar motif.

The men were sitting, backs hunched, peering down at her. At first Marin wondered how they could be sitting above her, as this was a beach, and quite deserted at that. Then she remembered that park benches, desk chairs, and beds were not the only things one can sit on, and allowed herself to focus on the suitcases strewn across the sand. Dozens of suitcases, and the six men had found themselves comfortable perches atop  piles of them.

She removed two more wads of sand from her ears by shaking her head violently, and she could more clearly make out the words of the men.

Marin was woefully aware of how lacking her Spanish was--it had been removed from the course list at her high school the year she entered the ninth grade, pursuant to a new law banning the teaching of non-English languages in public schools. Despite this deficiency, however, Marin could understand almost perfectly the words of her captors. Examining the men, she decided that the majority of the group was composed of non-native speakers.

The men--all friendly-seeming were it not for the evidence that they had bound Marin--were laughing about how she had removed the sand from her ears. She gathered that they had been making bets, and that at least two of them had expected her to be unable to rid herself of the stuff.

Marin sniffed indignantly, and then summoned all the linguistic power she had and spoke:

"Cómo es?"