The man with the splotchy facial hair raised his eyebrow at me. "Can I go now?"

"Just a minute, lad," I replied, though my cheeks reddened at the realization of how awful my accent sounded.

I looked again at the x-ray of the suitcase. It was hard to tell what was in the suitcase but I couldn't just ignore the soft cry I heard when I tossed the case down. The man's piercing gaze was the only thing keeping me from opening the suitcase and figuring out what was squealing. Bryan came over to me and nudged me.

"What are you doing?" he hissed in my ear.

"The suitcase was crying."

He looked at me in disbelief. "You heard crying in the suitcase?"

I nodded. I would've told him to listen for himself, but the noisiness of the airport made it almost impossible to hear anything. He looked back at the blue suitcase then at the man then me.

"You know we can't open it without his consent, right?"

"Of course I know that." I tapped the keys on the computer. "Which is why I'm trying to see what was in the X-ray."

He looked at the screen. We could see a lot of the contents, but there was a small white bundle nearly completely hidden underneath clothing. We both looked back up at the man, who was on the phone now, grumbling in Arabic about us. A chill went down my spine.

"I can just peek inside really quickly if you distract him."

Bryan rolled his eyes, but agreed. He approached the man while I shuck back to the blue suitcase. I noticed something in the corner was moving. I slowly pulled the zipper and was shocked to have a little brown snout greet me. It made a noise. I pulled the zipper back further and another snout appeared. I heard the man behind me, yelling loudly now. Security was running from somewhere and there was a scuffle but I was too immersed in finding what was in the suitcase.

I heard Bryan scream behind me, and knowing there wasn't much time, I unzipped it further, and revealed the owners of the snout, four little pangolins tied together with a scarf. Most of them had been silenced with duct tape except one, who had shaken its tape off. I pulled them out and untied them. Three of the babies tried to run as soon as I freed them, and I had to catch them. The one that was crying just sat on the table and wailed in agony. Its leg seemed to be broken. I looked up at the scene to the left of me. Two security guards had the guy restrained, while the other two were checking on Bryan who was rolling on the ground in pain. I picked up the phone and immediately called PAW to report the animal trafficker then went back to try to tend to the hurt baby pangolin.