Sensory Ops.

Sounds to Die By.

by Nikki Duncan.

Dedication.

CIS, you gave me a window to the world. Chaos and Destruction, you keep life interesting. Never give up on things that matter the most to you. Never settle for less. I love you.

Lindsey, you've offered support from the first time you pa.s.sed on a project of mine to ... Well, you still are a great support. You've helped me grow as a writer and you've given me confidence and kept me motivated. I am thrilled that you love Ian and Kieralyn. It's an honor to be working with you.

Crissy, creating this story was an amazing and educational journey. Thank you for introducing me to Ian and Kieralyn.

Candace Havens, I couldn't have improved as a writer or accomplished so much so quickly without you in my corner. You deserve that tiara. You are awesome.

Sh.e.l.ley, Lee, Jessica, Jax, and Ted, thank you for the plotting and brainstorming sessions. Thanks for being great cabin mates, for believing in me and even for blindfolding me. Ian and Kieralyn thank you too.

Joy, you are the greatest roomie and cheerleader a girl could ask for.

Chapter One.

Time was running out. Every minute of the clock on the sea blue wall ticked with a spine-tingling intensity. Returning to the office empty handed, losing that stupid bet, and proving to her unit that she didn't belong with them was not an option. She'd already tried a power play and failed-you had to have power to pull them off. It was worse since the guys on her team were too set in their ways.

Like Ian Cabrera and the security guard-Dante, according to the sign on his desk-blocking the way to the inner sanctum of his lab. Dante's militant bearing might intimidate some-likely anyone who came into contact with him-but she was here. She was determined. They wouldn't block her forever. She would use any tool at her disposal to see Cabrera.

"Dante." If flattery didn't work, she'd wait him out. "Please call him and ask."

"You've heard his answer."

"Not in person." Cabrera's refusal to help, pa.s.sed through Dante and paperwork stamped Reject, had every man in her unit goading her.

"I'm sorry, Agent Beckett. It is policy that all requests be submitted in writing. He is not to be disturbed."

Her jaw clenched painfully. She drew on the patience she'd worked so hard to maintain since starting her job a year ago and bit back her instinctive smarta.s.s reply. If working in the FBI Specialized Crimes Unit had taught her one thing it was how policies worked. And how they had to be manipulated in certain cases.

"I submitted the paperwork."

"To which he responded."

"I understand that Mr. Cabrera doesn't see anyone without an appointment." Desperate not to fail, Kieralyn ignored the internal feminist that insisted on women's equality and pulled out the big guns. Affecting her sweetest smile, she leaned forward on the granite-topped cedar desk and hoped her charm worked on Dante.

His pupils flared. His dark gaze shifted briefly to the V of her sweater.

"It's a matter of life or death for at least six women."

"Every case is life and death." He shook his head sadly. "You have his answer, Agent Beckett."

"Dante." Beginning to feel desperate, she reached down and grasped his hand. When he met her gaze, she creased her forehead in concerned interest. "Do you have a family? A wife? A daughter? A sister?"

His eyes narrowed. His head c.o.c.ked to the side. "Yeees."

He may be suspicious of her, but she had his attention.

"If they went missing, wouldn't you do something? Something possibly against regulations, but that you knew to be right? Something that could mean getting them back?"

He hesitated. His dark eyes and chocolate-skinned face softened.

Yes! She mentally pumped her fist in the air. She was close.

"Mr. Cabrera is very particular about not being interrupted."

"It's just a phone call, Dante." She squeezed his hand and shifted a little closer. Intimacy, flirting, whatever. She wasn't afraid to use her femininity for the greater good, which in this case meant finding kidnap victims and stopping others from being taken. It meant doing whatever was necessary to help Lana, even if her use of guile was one reason her teammates gave her a hard time. Some situations didn't allow for pride.

"I would really appreciate it. The women I'm trying to help could be depending on his expertise."

"He is not going to like this, and that argument will not work with him." He picked up the phone and an instant later was speaking quietly. "Sorry to interrupt you. Yes, I know. There's an... So you've said." He cleared his throat. "There's an FBI agent here. She insists on seeing you."

Half the battle won, Kieralyn stepped away and surveyed the plush lobby complete with a flat-screen plasma on one wall for entertainment and deep chairs that would offer hours of comfort. Did they really have so many visitors to this small building, set apart from the others in the NSA business plaza, that they needed such luxury? Or did people have to wait that long to be seen?

Tension pinched between her shoulder blades. She would see Ian Cabrera. He was the only person who could prove her right. Or wrong, as her unit insisted. If they were right, if she'd manufactured the theory for personal reasons, if her theory was entirely off-base it would be one more arrow in the target on her back. If they were wrong, she just might win a little respect. Finally.

"Yes, I told her... She is." Dante frowned and bowed his head slightly. "She insists... I will let her know."

She gripped the handle of her bag in her fist and bit back her anxiety long enough for Dante to return the phone to its cradle. Standing a few feet away, her stomach lurched as if she'd just jumped from a plane with no parachute. She swallowed the fear of failure bubbling in her throat.

"What did he say?" He had to say yes. Just had to. Otherwise, she would be reduced to ... Well, she wasn't sure what she'd be reduced to in her mission for answers.

"You have one chance to convince him."

The tightness eased between her shoulders. She was certain she could convince Cabrera to listen to her recording. "Thank you, Dante. Thank you so much."

"He is not pleased." Dante moved around the desk and headed toward the hall. "I may not have done you any favors."

"He's not going to come down on you for this, is he?" She might have considered it earlier, but she'd been too focused on her end goal. On her need for answers. For resolution. Those needs still outweighed any sense of guilt.

"On me, no." He led her around a corner and keyed in a code on the keypad by the second of two doors.

Possibilities and answers waited on the other side, closer than she'd expected to get. Cabrera could dish out whatever he wanted. She'd take it. She'd formed a thick skin thanks to her teammates. Good guys beneath gruff surfaces, they were set in their ways and entertained archaic ideas about where women belonged. She couldn't change everyone's opinion.

Only one mattered at this moment.

"A word of warning, Agent Beckett." Dante gripped the door handle without opening the door. "He doesn't like people in his lab. Touch nothing."

"Got it." So the NSA employed an eccentric listener. If he could isolate something useful, some truth from the recording, she'd gladly meet the terms of the bet and fetch coffee and bagels for the team for a month. More was at stake than who did coffee runs.

With a nod, Dante pushed the door open and stood back.

"Thank you." She stepped into the chilly darkness of the lab she'd heard had been custom built and outfitted to suit him.

Giant flat-panel monitors had been mounted on the walls and illuminated a seemingly large room in shadowy greens, yellows and reds. A circular desk, equipped with technology that could make a NASA control room look like a video game controller dominated the middle of the un-carpeted floor.

Ian Cabrera tapped controls and tilted his head at an angle that indicated he was listening closely to something. He was a large-framed man with a shaved head silhouetted by lights flashing from the control panel. Headphones sat beside his monitor. The undertones of a cla.s.sical piece of music-no, opera floated from speakers high on the walls. A conversation badly garbled with static was slightly louder than the music. He touched one b.u.t.ton and the conversation ended. Another b.u.t.ton shut down the music.

She heard nothing aside from her thoughts. Whatever she'd expected, this wasn't it. "It's quiet in here."

"Soundproofed." His smooth, Enrique-Iglesias voice, laced with a touch of gruffness sent a shiver down her spine. "You've got two minutes. Don't waste them."

If he looked half as good as he sounded he'd be a threat to any woman with a pulse. But she was running out of time and wasn't interested in men or relationships beyond work.

"I'm Kieralyn Beckett with the FBI."

"I know who you are."

"I'd like you to listen to a recording." Her blood thrummed. "I'm looking for a connection between a series of kidnappings."

"And you think a recording is going to do what? Provide a manifest of victims and their fate?"

"If the world were perfect, yes."

"If the world were perfect your job would not exist."

"Nor would you be needed to a.n.a.lyze crime tapes."

"Perhaps." He rolled his chair to another section of the desk and tapped a few keyboard keys. "Tick tock."

Small talk wasn't his thing. Fine. She moved deeper into the room. "The recording was sent to me by an anonymous source."

"Meaning you secretly did surveillance on your own?"

"No. It was emailed to me hours before the latest victim was taken. She's a journalist."

"Not anonymous at all. You believe the journalist sent the recording knowing that she was going to be next."

How could he have known that? She couldn't let anyone know why she'd been the one the recording had been sent to. "Yes."

He returned to his original spot and pushed some b.u.t.tons. Several TV screens turned off, almost obliterating all light from the room. "Why you? Why not one of the men in your unit?"

She fisted her hand on her purse and blinked to adjust her eyes to the darkness. "You too?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is it a thing with all men or just men in what they themselves see as positions of power? You think that because I'm a woman I don't have a brain? That I don't deserve enough credit for someone to trust me with potentially valuable information?"

"I-"

"You're wrong." Her heart danced an aggravated jig. Her hands shook at her sides. She was sick to death of arrogant men. "And it doesn't matter why I was sent the recording. It only matters that I was."

"Defensive."

"Fed up. p.i.s.sed, actually. Women are being kidnapped and-if I'm right-shipped into another country where they're sold into slavery. And not a single man I deal with seems to give a s.h.i.t!"

"Yelling is not necessary." Cabrera turned his chair toward her.

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"Most women use flattery or charm when trying to get something from a man." He kicked back with his hands linked behind his head as if he didn't have a care in the world. "How's your approach been working out?"

Arrogant jacka.s.s! Maybe with an enema for your personality you wouldn't have to live your life in the dark with no one around. It was on the tip of her tongue, ready to slip off. d.a.m.n it, he was right. She wasn't going to get his help by yelling and cussing.

"I'm waiting. And why do you need my help if the recording told you enough to send you down the path of slavery?"

She dug her thumb and forefinger into the corners of her eyes and growled low in her throat. She took a deep, slow breath and worked to keep her voice calm. "The recording came with a note saying that kidnapped women are being sold into slavery. And that I have to stop them if she can't."

"She, as in the reporter?"

"Yes."

"You know her."

Thinking about Lana now and all they'd been through over the years wouldn't help her case. It only served to agitate her. "We have no video, and there is too much background racket on the recording for me to make anything out with certainty."

"You know her."

"I'm hoping for a name. h.e.l.l, I'm to the point that I'll take anything that will validate my theory."

"That the kidnappings, while appearing random, are connected."

"Yes." Finally he dropped the insistence that this was personal.

He shook his head. "The door is behind you."

"These women may well become slaves!" If he wanted her out he would have to escort her. "Who knows how they'll be treated. They deserve to live their lives here." He wasn't budging. "What if you had a sister? What if she was one of the women I've been a.s.signed to locate? Could you ignore this then? Let it go unstopped?"

He straightened and tilted his head as if he was actually interested. "If anyone tried to take my sister I would kill them."

"So help me. These women are sisters, daughters, wives and mothers."

"Tell me something." He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. He seemed attentive, but oddly she wasn't sure he really saw her. Or maybe he saw too much. "Why are you so convinced, aside from an email, that these cases are connected? Why wasn't any of this mentioned in the formal request for my services?"