"What do you mean it's all counterfeit?" Shelly asked shocked.

            "Probably what it usually means Shell," Xander replied before looking to the officer. "First tell me who you are. And second, tell me what you found out."

            "Follow me and I'll fill you in."

            Xander and Shelly followed the guy out of the drug room and down the hallway past other offices. Shelly glanced over at Xander before looking forward at Cory in front of them. She didn't know exactly what to make of this guy and decided to play it all by ear.

            "To answer your first order or question; I'm Officer Cory Hooten, one of the forensic officers. I have to say that it is such an honor to meet you Agent Cage. You are a legend among the police force and its branches. I can not believe that-"

            "Tell us about the money or I'm going to hit you," Xander interrupted and Shelly quickly stepped in front of him.

            "Just ignore him, it has been a really long day and he didn't have his nap," she said as she shot Xander a look.

            "Yeah well, anyway it's in here," Cory said and pushed open a door to let them in after he swiped his electronic card.

            The room looked like a normal lab with highly sensitive electronic devices. On one of the tables were the bundles of money and various machines to count and re-bundle the cash.

            "So, I was doing what I normally do when I get drug money in. Inspecting it, verifying it, counting and all that other fun stuff when I noticed something different about this money than with the other money I've worked with. When I work with a lot of real money, my hands get really dried out which is normal. But his time, my hands got this oily feel on them. So I started to really look at the money and inspect it closer."

            "What proves that it's counterfeit? It looks like a real bill. It has all the proper markings in and on it," Shelly said as she picked up a bill and held it in front of the light.

            "It has everything except the correct ink. The watermark is perfect, the electronic band is exact and so is the paper. The inks chemical composition is completely wrong but it does its job," Cory said as Xander sighed.

            "Cory, I failed chemistry in high school. I don't want a lecture right now."

            "Well anyway. There is one easy way to tell the difference without chemical tests."

            "And what way is that?" Shelly asked as she fingered the bill she was holding.

            Cory took a lighter out from his pocket and plucked the bill from Shelly's hand. With a quick flick, he set the bill on fire and held it up.

            "When American bills burn, they burn a green color from the ink. But the counterfeit bills burn red because of the ink and the composition," he said as he watched the bill burn.

            "Where did the money come from then? This almost seems like a professional job; it would need some serious equipment to pull off this amount," Xander said as Cory nodded.

            "You're definitely right about the need for machinery. A person would need some heavy printing presses to do this. The plates are almost perfectly done and these types of presses are few and hard to come by."

            "Where could we find these printing presses? If there's so few and rare then they'll be easy to hunt down," Shelly said as she looked to Cory. "Right?"

            "If there's one place to find them, then it's going to be in Europe somewhere. And once the tests finish, I might be ale to pinpoint it even better."

            One of the computers beeped just as Cory finished speaking. With an eager smile, he grabbed the piece of paper that just came out of the printer and compared it to the other sheet. Xander and Shelly waited patiently while Cory read over the papers.

            "Your person is going to be somewhere in the UK."

            "UK?"

            "The United Kingdom, Xander. As in England area," Shelly clarified.

            "I knew that."

            "Good thing we're on the same page. Hooten, pack your bags and find out where we could find these special printing presses. You're coming to England with us," Shelly said as she started to walk out of the room.

            "Whoa hold up! I can't go to England. I've never been on a plane before; I don't travel well," he protested as Xander turned back to look at him.

            "You're going and that's final."

            "But I don't even know what language they speak in England!"

            Xander and Shelly stopped where they were and slowly turned to look at him. Cory wore a confused look on his face, wondering why Shelly and Xander were staring at him shocked.

            "What?"

            Xander turned to Shelly and held up his hands. "Nuh uhn, I'm not that bad. I have at least a little bit of knowledge about England. Do not give me that look."

            Shelly sighed as she walked out of the room with Xander following her. With a chuckle, Xander hurried after her to collect their bags.

            Three hours later all three of them were on an airplane en route to Heathrow Airport in London. They were seated together in one row with Xander by the aisle, Shelly in the middle, and Cory by the window. For his first time on a plane, Cory was amazingly calm. Shelly smirked to herself as she read her Cosmopolitan magazine.

            "You're doing amazingly well for someone on their first plane ride," she commented while she skimmed over an article.

            "Everyone cheer for valium pills," he said, causing Shelly to look at him. "And I'm not joking."

            Shelly tried to muffle her loud laughter and only released a few snorts and some hiccupped breaths. When she finally calmed down, she glanced over at Xander to find him still asleep. "No wonder you're so damn calm."

            "I told you I didn't travel well," he replied and hesitated before asking the next question. "Where is Samine?"

            Shelly's head jerked around so quickly that Cory suddenly worried about whiplash.

            "What do you know about Samine?"

            "Only what I've heard from the great grape vine. She's a great agent and always finishes her assignments. She can strike fear in anyone she wants to and is very effective. Her last assignment ended badly and that's all I've heard."

            "She was a great agent," Shelly quietly commented.

            "Pardon?"

            "Samine is dead."

            To say the least, Cory was shocked into silence. From all he heard he believed that Samine was unstoppable when it came to the spy business. The news that she was dead was a harsh slap of reality that he really didn't like.

            "How?"

            "It was her last assignment. Someone was trying to frame her for attempted murder and almost succeeded. But both of us made a drastic error and pinned it on the pawn, thinking that he was behind it all but we were wrong. The real bad guy killed her and almost got away with it but Xander caught up to him. Almost killed him to but I got there in time to stop him," she answered while she fingered the pages in her magazine.

            "Xander should have killed him."

            Shelly looked at him with a slight shocked look. Glancing down at the magazine in her lap, she closed it and slipped it into the back of the seat in front of her. Taking a deep breath before she spoke, Shelly looked over at Cory with a serious expression.

            "If Xander had killed Mackie then it would have destroyed him from the inside out. The guilt would have eaten away at him."

            "The guilt of what? He killed a good agent and felt no remorse. He deserves to die."

            "Have you ever worked in the field before? More than a few times," she asked and Cory shook his head no. "You don't know what it was like between Xander and Samine. The way they worked together was just amazing. They were the best of partners and lovers together.

            "Before Samine died, they had a falling out. A bad falling out. She was framed for the attempted murder of Augustus Gibbons, her boss. What caused the rift was that Xander didn't believe that she was innocent. She died in front of him in my arms and he didn't have the chance to say sorry or anything. He almost killed the guy with his bare hands and then he would have destroyed the memory of Samine."

            "I'm not following you."

            "Xander wanted revenge and that's what he went for. The only problem with that type of revenge is it never ends. You kill the first person and instead of fading, the anger and pain only grows and you go looking for another bad guy. It keeps going on like that until one day you wake up and discover that your entire life consists of revenge. It starts to eat you up until you become a shell of the person you once were. Xander decided to let the judicial system extract his revenge for him. It still hurts him more than I could imagine but he's starting to get over it. Slowly, but he is getting over it."

            Cory nodded before settling back in his seat for the remainder of the flight. He had a lot to think about.

/////////////////////

Well everyone there is the new chapter for this story. So????? How did everyone like it? Please review for me and tell me what you think of it so far. I think this is going to be the best one out of the entire saga so I'm really getting excited about it. Sorry it took me so long to get this up but I've been working really hard at work and we got a new manager and he is a severe pain in the ass. Annoying as hell too. So anyway go and review for me. Peace.

Ivorybrowneyes-I've been around; where have you been? And yes I saw your new story and I did read it so don't worry. I'm sorry I didn't email you back but I've been getting slack in my emailing. *Shrugs shoulders*

Lexxiss-Have you bought some stock in Rogaine? Don't mind that, it was just a little joke about your review. I'm not saying if she's dead or not. What do you think? Shelly could be hiding a bunch of stuff from Xander that he doesn't know about. I thought two years was a pretty good amount of time and don't worry you'll all find out the truth eventually. I didn't mean to have it start off like 'A Man Apart' but it kinda happened that way. I had the idea to do it that way before I saw the movie and it just happened to be alike. But no, I wasn't intentionally trying to do it that way.

Eadha Ohn-Oh well don't worry, you'll get over Samine's death. *Hiding from Eadha Ohn's angry tirade after accidentally letting the cat out of the bag on her new story*

FlameImmortal-Thank you so much for the compliment on my story and I'm happy that you are enjoying it so much. Keep reviewing and I'll keep writing.

AngelicPhyre-I'll…I'll…try. Heehee, yeah don't mind me it's about two a.m. in the morning and I'm sleep deprived. Well why haven't you reviewed for me before? I love hearing from my reviewers, it just makes my day. Seriously, it does make my day. So just keep reviewing for me and I'll keep writing.

VinsGurl123-Well wait no longer! Here is the new chapter! Yeah cheers for me! Okay, I'm better now.