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existing paintings, merely pictures that looked like they were done by Renoir and Monet."
    "Look, I know for a fact that Munch produced at least four copies of The Scream during his lifetime. Surely you could persuade him to do one more." Amis's tone lilted upward, cajoling her.
    Natalie al owed him to hear her sigh, hoping he would take the hint. "Even if I could talk these artists into repeating themselves, you wouldn't end up with exact copies. The paintings on your list have al aged, some for hundreds of years. You'd need someone who could artificial y reproduce the fading, the darkening, the cracking."
    "Couldn't you do that? I'd compensate you for the extra trouble."
    Natalie shifted her weight from one foot to another, uncomfortable discussing forgery on her front doorstep. She tried to glance past Amis to see if Sanjay Prashad, the Corps Security agent on duty, was witnessing their conversation, but the visitor's monolithic frame fil ed her view. "I'm sorry," she began, "I real y--"
    "Eight hundred thousand."
    Natalie put a hand to her forehead. "The number of paintings you want done would take months."
    "N ine."
    "I appreciate your generosity, but--"
    "O ne million."
    The elevation of the price shortened her breath, and for a moment she couldn't speak. She'd refinanced the condo to pay down her credit cards, and Dad had
    chipped in to make the monthly payments, but they weren't rich by any measure. Wade stil owed money for his heart bypass and wouldn't qualify for Medicare for another three years, while Cal ie continued to rack up thousands of dol ars in therapy with Dr. Steinmetz. A mil ion dol ars was more cash than Natalie had
    earned in her entire life. They could pay off the mortgage, have decent health care, send Cal ie to col ege, maybe even travel...
    In lieu of a cold shower, Natalie forced herself to remember slogging through the Peruvian mud, pursued on horseback by a posse of Nathan Azure's murderous henchmen. She'd made the mistake of thinking with her wal et one too many times before.
    "I wish I could help you," she told Amis, and stepped back from the door to shut it.
    He barricaded the door with one beefy hand. "Name your price."
    Natalie could barely think over the ringing of the warning bel s in her head. She decided to dispense with the professional courtesy. "I'm afraid I'l have to ask you to leave."
    His smile shifted from genial to shrewd. "I have some influence with the Corps. If you won't take money, perhaps I could interest you in, shal we say,
    preferential treatment?"
    She saw al pretense of being a movie producer run from his face like melted greasepaint. "Who are you?"
    "Someone who could help you a great deal, Ms. Lindstrom. You and your family."
    The calm self-assurance in his tone told Natalie that he spoke the truth. It also told her that the job might cost her far more than a few months' work.
    "I'm not interested." She glowered at the arm that braced the door open. "Now, if you'l excuse me, I'm very busy."
    Amis took his hand from the door and backed away, a pitying condescension in his demeanor. "Very wel . But when I'm gone, so is my offer. You'l never have this opportunity again."
    "I'l take that chance." She hardened her expression, refusing to blink lest he sense her weakening resolve. Amis chuckled and shook his head, then turned and strode down the front walk without looking back.
    Natalie shut and locked the front door, but hurried to the living-room window to watch him leave.
    Nudging aside the curtain, she saw Amis approach a gold BMW parked across the street. Behind it crouched Sanjay Prashad's black Mitsubishi Eclipse. Of the three Corps Security agents assigned to intimidate Natalie with round-the-clock surveil ance, Prashad was the only one whose name she knew and the one who worried her the most. The others were paycheck drones who put in their eight hours and went home, but Prashad exhibited the enthusiasm of naked ambition, sitting behind the wheel of his car with