Castellano examined this bill under the eerie purplish light which made his white shirt cuffs seem to glow. There was no shineback from the bill and Castellano knew how this group must have done it. They had bleached fresh one-dollar bills. This paper was real.

Doing that, though, posed a different problem for a counterfeiter. They had real paper with proper rag content but also a printing headache. Government money was printed on big sheets and cut down. But if a counterfeiter bleached individual dollar bills and then reprinted the paper in a higher denomination, the printing register would not be perfect. The printing might not be centered exactly. The back of the bill might differ in placement from the front. On this bill, the borders were perfect.

Under a magnifying glass, Castellano looked at the lines in the face of Ulysses S. Grant. The engraving lines were clean and uninterrupted, the skillful work of a master engraver, the sort of lines on valid bills. A photo plate made for an offset printing press could sometimes achieved this sort of lines, but could not print them on the slick high rag content paper he was holding. On this sort of paper, offset ink would run and smudge and blot. Obviously the counterfeiter had hand-engraved plates and as Castellano examined the bowl of the five that made up the fifty in the corners of the bill, he softly whistled his admiration. A craftsman had made this bill.

The last item he checked was the serial number. On rare occasions, a counterfeiter who had an excellent plate, correct paper, perfect register, and proper ink, would make the last common mistake. The serial numbers would be fuzzy. Those large crisp numbers on a bill somehow always got short shrift from a counterfeiter, who might even spend years engraving the rest of the plate. Castellano examined each number.

"Sonuvabitch," he said and dialed his supervisor on his office phone. "Are you happy now? It's nine thirty and I've worked five hours overtime. I've been toting around an old pistol since morning wondering what I'm going to have to use it for and now I find it's an old, old trick that doesn't work on the greenest recruit. I don't need any more identification training. I'm the chief of that branch."