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He could feel the hatred boil through his non-existent eye as he stared at this man who had been inferior to him in every way while he was at the agency. How was it that he now could defeat him and thwart the carefully laid out plans?

“Ahhh!” Justin yelled in frustration as he turned and ran. He would not let them take him in, and they would not let him end his vengeance. He would be back, and he would take his revenge on the group that turned him away for his ‘defect.’

Justin ran down an alley and slumped to the ground, hidden between two trash dumpsters. He dropped his head into his hands; he could feel tears start to well in his good eye. Unwilling to cry, Justin slammed his fist into the dumpster next to him. Pain was better then sadness. He clutched his hurt hand tightly and threw his head back against the wall behind him. Closing his eye, he let the pain wash out the other feelings the emerged from his defeat and memories of HimTak.


He had been watching places he knew that HimTak agents frequented. Now that he was on a list, there was no way he could get close enough to the building, but if the agents were outside the building when he took them, that was a different story. He could see J.C. approaching the spot where he was hiding, his anger rising. It was not the agent he wanted, but any HimTak agent would do for the beginning of his revenge. It would only be a matter of seconds before he would reach the spot; then he could grab him and let the torture begin.

“You’ll find revenge this way satisfying for awhile, but it will not hold you.” A voice startled him from behind. He turned to face the man holding a ferret in his arms.

“Get out of here, you freak!” Justin shouted at him and turned back, realizing it would now be too late to grab J.C. “You made me miss him!” Justin turned back to the man behind him and moved forward to knock him down. The man made a slight, quick movement, and he was out of the way of Justin’s attempt.

“I think you will make a nice addition.” The man smirked as he ran his hand down the ferret’s fur.

“Addition? Are you some sort of collector? You are a freak; leave me be.”

“Ah, freak, many a HimTak agent has called me that too.” He smiled widely as realization came over Justin’s face. “Yes, I know of the group; I know of how they only take the elite, those that are considered attractive even, and let the rest of us to accept it, even expect us to revere them. If you are not perfect, they toss you aside like an apple core. I was rejected, but I refused to lie down and take it so I formed my own group of anti-agents to take HimTak down. Only when the agency is defeated will the group wither and die. Taking out one agent is only a flesh wound to them – take down the entire group, and you defeat the enemy.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Justin asked, wary, but intrigued.

“I have a group of my own, designed to take HimTak down and wreak as much damage as possible in the process. And of course, taking over the world is always on the agenda.” He cackled gleefully.

“I care nothing about taking over the world, but if taking down HimTak is something you are aiming for, I’m in.”

The other man paused from petting the ferret to look up, his eyes shining with an evil craziness. “Excellent.”



Justin had been told all about FANS and their objectives. He knew immediately that he wanted to be a part of this group to take HimTak and all their ‘pretty’ agents down.

There had been a tough few weeks where he was under top surveillance at the FANS headquarters. They had to make sure he was on their side and not undercover for HimTak. In the end, he had passed all their tests and soon soared to the right hand man of the group. Now he had failed in this mission.

He slammed his hand against the dumpster again and stood. He needed to get back. Another plan would be formulating in his leader’s head, and he would be needed to help implement the new tactic for taking down those who had stolen his rightful place and all those who thought him not good enough to serve anymore.

Vengeance would be his, no matter how long it took.


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“Nick? Nick can you hear me? Say something.”

Nick’s head fell lightly from side to side, and his eyes slowly rolled back to the front of his head. He looked up into the concerned eyes of one Diamond Divine and somehow managed to turn his swollen upper lip into a cheesy grin. “I must have died and gone to heaven ‘cause I see an angel right in front of me.”

Nick laughed, amused with his cliché one-liner, but his laugh turned into a cough of pain when Diamond slugged him. “Damnit, Carter, you scared the shit out of me!”

Diamond laughed, but there was fear in her voice, and the moment turned instantly back to business. “Where’s Drums?”

“I’m sorry, Nick, he’s gone.”

“Shit! And McGrath? Please tell me we have at least one of these evil bastards to fry.”

Diamond nodded and, with a sexy smile, began to clear the blood from Nick’s swollen face. Her touch was so delicate that Nick’s mind once again drifted from the mission.

“You know,” he began as he pulled Diamond close to him, “we’ve still got a room upstairs, and the trunk on that new car of mine is definitely bigger than any holding cell Mark’s gonna get where he’s going. He’ll be fine for a few hours...”

Diamonds face lit up with delight, and she pressed her lips firmly to Nick’s. “I think that’s the best plan you’ve come up with since we got here.”

Nick, still running high on adrenaline and ready to release the tension this emotional mission had caused, pulled Diamond onto his lap, kissing her more deeply.

“We could take more than a couple hours,” Diamond suggested, gasping for breath. “It’s time to celebrate your first case back on the job. We could order up some champagne, maybe a little room service.”

“What about McGrath?” Nick teased while his hands began to wander from Diamond’s back.

“You don’t have to worry about Mark. Emerald’s here with some CIA guy. They’re gonna take him into custody. We could make a night of it.”

Nick’s eyes flew open at the realization of Diamond’s words. He was on his feet so fast that Diamond hit the ground with a loud thump. It only took him a split second to spot the Avril Lavigne wannabe and the stiff in the suit and you could practically see the steam spewing from his ears as he stalked his way over to them.

Emerald watched him come with disgust seeping from her deep green eyes. “What’s the matter, 008, misplace your Viagra?”

“What the hell is this?”

Agent Littrell was shocked, not only by the volume of Nick’s rant, but that his anger was directed at him. Emerald smirked widely and placed her hand lightly on Brian’s arm. “This, Nick, is a real man. Get a good look and then take notes. Agent Brian Littrell of the CIA, meet Nick Carter.”

Brian held out his hand at the introduction, but Nick never even saw it. “What the hell is the CIA doing here?”

“We’ve been sent to bring him in.”

“The hell you are! This was my damn assignment! My perp! I’m bringing him in!”

“I’m sorry, son, but I have my orders, and they came straight from your boss.”

“Who the fuck you calling son?”

“He’s right. K’s the one who sent him here. He told us to bring him in and he wants you to see Doc Jewel right away.”

Nick looked at Brian as if he were ready to kill the man and pry the criminal from his cold dead fingers. And although Nick towered over the man, Brian, struggling to control his own temper, stood his ground firmly. Maybe that’s where the alias “The Rok” came from.

Nick began to see his defeat, but was not yet willing to back down. No way was he going to let this go without a fight.


± ± ±


“This is bullshit!”

Normally, Nick loved watching his mentor hard at work; no one could interrogate like Agent Jay. But instead of being in the room with him, getting to play a bit of good cop, bad cop, he was forced to watch from behind the one-way glass while he listened to his boss give custody of the prisoner over to the CIA.

“008, you’d better curb that temper fast.”

“You’re just gonna hand him over? Just like that? To the US fucking government? They don’t give a shit about this case!”

“This case? Mr. Carter, you stopped the bad guys. You saved the day, and America’s grateful. This case is solved.”

The condescending tone in Brian’s voice only angered Nick more.

“You see what I mean? That’s the shit I’m talking about! This case is far from over. Until we find that organization, there will be others. Many others! And what about Drums, are we just going to pretend he wasn’t there?”

The mention of the ex-HimTak agent-turned-terrorist sent such a chill through the room that even Kevin stiffened. His voice became quiet and almost sympathetic. “We’ll get him, Nick.”

Brian was shocked at the change, and to hear Kevin call this snot-nosed, cocky, prima donna by his first name in such a fatherly way actually stung. “Kev, is there something you’re not telling me? You swore you were going to cooperate with us one hundred percent on this. That’s why I let you question the man before I take him back to Virginia.”

“I’ve told you everything I know. You know I have.”

“Then who is this Drums person?”

Kevin sighed. “That’s a long story. And one that has nothing to do with this case, I assure you.”

“If he was there, then he has everything to do with this case, and I want to know everything about him.”

“As if we’d tell you a damn thing!” exploded Nick. “You would take the information back to all your little friends in the Pentagon as fast as you could, and they’d have everything fucked up before breakfast.”

Brian could no longer bite his tongue, and he blew up in Nick’s face. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you’d better cut the shit before I have you arrested for treason!”

“Brian! Nickolas!”

Brian and Nick stopped their bickering, both completely dumbfounded that Agent K had actually raised his voice. Kevin crossed his arms tightly across his chest and stared at the two of them until he once again had complete control of the situation. “Whether you’re on the same team or not, you two are some of the world’s best in fighting terrorists.”

Kevin walked over to a desk and picked up a thick file. He held up the folder with the words ‘TOP SECRET’ stamped across it. “Brian, I have told you everything you need to know and, Nick, you know I will not let this case fall apart, so you’d both better trust me on this. And you damn well better learn to trust each other because in our line of work, not trusting your partner will get you killed!”

Nick’s mouth practically dropped to the floor. “Partner?”

Kevin handed Nick the file in his hand. “I have your next assignment, and I need the two of you together on this one.”

Nick and Brian glanced almost fearfully at one another and simultaneously lost their tempers again.

“WHAT?!”


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