The Looters by Harold Robbins Read Free Book Online Page B

seriously as a result of war. Many objects have been looted and stolen from museums and archaeological sites and risk appearing on the market through illicit trafficking.
    Although the Iraq museum in Baghdad is not the only place that has suffered, it is certainly by far the most important institution. The museum has been looted and is missing a great part of its former collection.
    The Iraq museum is a national archaeological museum that serves as the repository for all artifacts from excavations in Iraq. It contains hundreds of thousands of objects covering 10,000 years of human civilization, representing many different cultures and styles.
    The bulk of the collection dates between 8000 B.C. and A.D. 1800, and comprises objects made of clay, stone, pottery, metal, bone, ivory, cloth, paper, glass, and wood.

Chapter 7
    Manhattan
    After I completed the arrangements for delivery of the Semiramis, I made my way to Neal’s office. I wasn’t interested in the other lots still left to be auctioned. I already had what I wanted. I knew Neal was going to mingle a bit after the auction before he returned to his office. He would still be on a high from nervous energy.
    I was on my own high. I had finally managed to find the centerpiece for the museum. Hiram was thrilled, even though he was out $55 million. A drop in the bucket to him. The ultrarich didn’t worry about spending an outrageous sum of money for something they had to have.
    Hiram would give me a nice bonus. I certainly deserved it. But I had to check whether white crocodiles were an endangered species. And the balance on my black American Express card. If I wasn’t careful, I’d miss a payment and my card would become an endangered species.
    Aaak!
I took deep breaths and paced the office, ready to soar up to the sixteen-foot ceiling with nervous energy. I could scream for joy.
My God, I’ve done it.
    I thought about the past year that I had been working at the Piedmont Museum. I had worked hard and put in long hours to bring in the right pieces for the museum. The pressure was intense at times, but I was determined not to go out that “revolving door” like the other curators.
    A tough business, but I had kicked ass! You had to be one step ahead of the game because other people were looking for the same things, and the more money you had to spend, the more control you had. Of course it helped to know the right people who would help you acquire what you wanted. Like Neal. That’s how I looked at it. Maybe it was unscrupulous, but it was a fact of life in the art world.
    In the end all that mattered was getting something no one else had.
    I had soared so high, my brain felt breathless. I collapsed in the leather chair in front of Neal’s desk and leaned back my head.
    Driven, that’s what I had been, what had brought me to this moment. You went after
it
no matter what the cost. I suppose indirectly it was something I had picked up from my parents. Their mistake was not going after what they wanted in life but just dreaming about it. They weren’t really unhappy. I just think secretly they wished things had turned out differently.
    I didn’t want that to happen to me.
    My mother dreamed of being a dancer and ended up being a homemaker and librarian. Most women would think that’s great. My father ended up as an instructor in art history at a small community college in Ohio and never completed his education to get his Ph.D. Teaching community college, like being a librarian, was an occupation that transcended merely working for a living because it had elements of the arts and public service attached.
    Sadly, for him, what my father really wanted was to be Indiana Jones and do archaeological digs in places like Egypt, Hellenistic Turkey, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Wouldn’t we all like to be Indie? But a bad leg barely allowed my father to hobble around Native American sites. His lone claim to fame was mentioned in a
National Enquirer
story when he