The Looters

by Harold Robbins

  “We’ve had an around-the-clock surveillance on Lipton’s gallery for weeks. We set it up when we found out he was going to auction the Semiramis. Our immediate suspicion was that it was part of the Iraqi loot. A museum piece like the mask couldn’t have been in a private collection for over a century without news of it leaking out, now would it?”

  Nunes wished the FBI had the same vigilance toward contraband art. He heard about the Semiramis from the news media.

  “This is the shooter,” Tanner said.

  Not much of the man was exposed. He appeared bundled for the cold, wearing a full-length overcoat, with a hood and scarf. The clothing was too heavy for the weather, but in London that didn’t make the clothing stand out. Nothing was seen of his face. The form was identified as a male only because of his size. He was a large man, but not enough was exposed to determine how much of it was blubber.

  He carried a long, narrow bag. Tanner used a laser pointer to emphasize the object.

  “The bag’s similar to airline check-in luggage for a golf bag. In fact, we think that’s exactly what it is. Our people assumed it contained a piece of contraband artwork. It held something a helluva lot more lethal—a Soviet RPG-7. A portable shoulder-held rocket grenade launcher.”

  The shooter rang the doorbell and was admitted by a woman.

  “Lipton’s assistant. She was obviously expecting the visitor.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “We’re certain she’s one of the charred bodies. A fireman who went in looking for bodies found the weapon. The shooter simply dropped it on the floor after he used it. The firing tube is only about three feet long. Fully loaded, it weighs about twenty pounds. It’s small, lightweight, and cheap. They’re very popular with guerrillas and terrorists around the world. IRA probably has a car train load of them.”

  “And they’re readily available in the international trade in contraband arms,” Nunes added. “The rocket launchers are an IRA item, a Russian mafiya weapon, a favorite of Middle Eastern terrorists and any other number of other users.”

  Nunes watched the fiery holocaust engulf the gallery after the initial explosion. A mass killer, Nunes thought. The shooter had to know people would be in the building. The count was four. Only Madison Dupre walked away. And the shooter.

  “Your curator came out the back way,” Tanner said. “Unfortunately, we had the surveillance only set up for the front.”

  “Why?”

  “We have limited resources and couldn’t cover everything. Besides, we set up the surveillance to shake up Lipton. We let him know we were out there. The idea was to get him scared enough to come in and make a deal. Or starve him out by scaring off his business clientele.

  “We had to move cautiously… the man’s been an institution in the world of art for decades. Most of the power players in the country have bought art from him, including royals. We were watching for sellers and buyers of artworks and expected them to come through the front door. Unfortunately, we got a shooter who walked in the front and left by the back.”

  “Along with the Dupre woman,” Nunes said. “Rather convenient.”

  “We have witness statements about her. She appeared harried, distraught, and scared. In other words, someone genuinely caught by surprise. We haven’t found anyone who saw the shooter. He apparently went out the back and melted into the crowd that gathered. But the woman stood out because she was obviously shocked and frightened.”

  “Was the shooter observed in any vehicle?”

  “Dropped off in front by a taxi. We’ve spoken to the driver. Said he picked up the bloke three blocks back. We think he parked his car and grabbed a passing taxi.”

  “Any description from him?”

  “None helpful. The shooter had a scarf covering his mouth and nose. Told the driver he had a cold. Voice was muffled.”

  “Do you have anything on the shooter?” Nunes asked.

  “What you’ve seen is what we have. A big man in an overcoat carrying a golf bag. We don’t have anything else. Lipton made quite a few enemies, it’s that kind of trade, and we’re checking alibis.”

  “No candidates?”

  “None that would use a terrorist weapon like a rocket launcher. That implies a professional. Ex-military. From what I’ve seen of the art crowd, Lipton’s known enemies would be more likely to put poisoned sweetener in his cappuccino. Do you people have any ideas?”

  Nunes shook his head. “I’ve heard of Lipton, of course, but he hasn’t been the focus of any of our investigations. Like you, I find the choice of weapons interesting. Either someone’s hired a military man—”

  “Or they’re military themselves,” Agent Burl said.

  Tanner cleared his throat. “You know, there were those rumors about U.S. troops participating in the looting….”

  Nunes and Burl gave him stone-cold expressions.

  “Rumors of war,” Agent Burl said. “You know how it goes… rumors about U.S. troops, rumors about British troops…”

  Everyone understood one another.

  The notion that the shooter could be someone involved in the Baghdad heist had been roiling in Nunes’s head ever since he heard about the rocket launcher. The choice of weapon coming on the heels of the fallout over the Semiramis lent itself to an Iraqi connection. Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers were a mainstay in the violent world of Middle East wars and terrorism. But he didn’t have a clue as to whether the shooter was Iraqi or American.

  Nunes said to Tanner, “I need everything you can give me on Lipton. And a copy of all the surveillance reports. I’ll see if any of it correlates to what we already have.”

  “Do you have anything on the Dupre woman? Other than propinquity to Lipton?”

  Nunes shook his head. “The only thing we have is that she managed to put together a Mesopotamian collection in a short time, most of it through Lipton. Frankly, if that Iraqi curator hadn’t crashed a museum event and made a claim with cameras rolling we wouldn’t be investigating Dupre or her connections. I know she’s involved, but how deep… I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to get up enough probable cause to get warrants so we can examine the provenances of all the pieces she bought that came through Lipton.”

  “Any progress on the murder of the curator?”

  “Well, we know Dupre didn’t actually kill him. But I don’t know if she stumbled in by accident or went there to retrieve evidence she knew the curator had. The killer obviously took it.”

  “Evidence?”

  “A commendation made to the father of the curator. It would prove that the Semiramis had come from the museum.”

  “What’s the legal status of the Semiramis?”

  “About the same as you have with Greek claims for the Elgin marbles. Unless the proof materializes, the Iraqis will still be making a demand for return of the Semiramis a hundred years from now, because there’s no solid proof it came out of the museum.”

  “What’s your next step?” Tanner asked.

  “Probably the same as yours—try to find Madison Dupre. Like you, I’d like to know what she saw in those moments before the gallery was destroyed. And besides the murder of the curator, there’s another body I want to talk to her about.”

  He told Tanner about the arson fire at Bensky’s.

  “We found his body. Someone weighted down Bensky’s body and dropped it in Long Island Sound. By sheer luck, a fisherman pulling up a trap brought it up with his catch.”

  “Dupre ran from New York,” Tanner said. “We suspect she’s run from London… if she’s still alive. She didn’t return to her hotel after the explosion. Her luggage is still there. That leads us to believe she’s either too scared… or dead. It may be that the shooter caught up with her. But then again, it’s not that hard to leave our little island. Dozens of airlines, the Channel tunnel, several ferries across to France, Belgium, and Ireland… it’ll take time to check them all.”

  “If she’s running,” Agent Burl said, “that certainly makes her look guilty.�
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  “One thing’s for certain: She knows something. Something that somebody wants her dead for… or something she thinks she can use.” Nunes pursed his lips. “My take is that she’s in over her head. She’s made herself a moving target in the hope that she’ll be harder to hit. But she’s no match for a man who uses a missile to make a hit in the middle of London.”

  Chapter 33

  Calais, France

  I decided to rent an economical car when I arrived in Calais. I picked the Citroën because it was relatively inexpensive and also popular. That made it a low-profile car in my mind. I also purchased a Michelin road map for Western Europe.

  By the time I got on the road, it was nearly seven o’clock in the evening. I didn’t want to travel all night to Zurich or even take the most direct route in the daytime. Instead, I headed for Brugge in Belgium and stayed at a roadside inn.

  I chose a route that took me by Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, and Basel, in the hope that hitting four countries in one day would confuse whoever was after me.

  I calculated that it would take me about eight hours to reach Zurich, so I planned an early start for the next morning.

  I had been in Zurich once before when I was in college and young enough for a cheap stay in a youth hostel. It was an expensive city then as well as now.

  Zurich wasn’t just an important Swiss city; it had the rich little country’s Wall Street and Rodeo Drive. I understood why Milan would choose Zurich and a Paradeplatz—Parade Square—address; the city and the location were a financial center of Europe and connoted money and straitlaced Swiss respectability. Major banks, flagships of the notoriously secretive Swiss banking system, were headquartered there.

  I’d heard there was more gold under the Paradeplatz than in Fort Knox. Put there by Saudi oil princes, dot-com billionaires, and dead Nazis.

  Hasbro’s game of Monopoly is sold in many countries and has real estate names that reflect the locale. The most valuable property in the American set is Boardwalk. In the Swiss version, it’s Paradeplatz.

  I made my way to Zurich through Strasbourg and Basel. As I crossed the border from France to Switzerland, I was reminded of the country’s beautiful, picture-postcard perfect scenery. I once accused a Swiss friend of living in a country where lakes were dyed bright blue, meadows dyed bright green, and snow hauled to the top of the Alps to make them snowcapped in the summer.

  Zurich was quaint, a city with clock faces on medieval spires. Ordinarily I would have paused along the way to enjoy the beauty, but I was on a mission and running scared. At the moment the geography of the city was more important than its charm, because I needed to find my way around in a short time. And I didn’t know if I would be leaving in a hurry.

  Old Town Zurich, like Paris, had a Left and Right Bank, divided by the Limmat River. The Left Bank included the Paradeplatz, ritzy shopping on Bahnhofstrasse, and Viktor Milan’s office. I chose the Right Bank to stay, with its artsy atmosphere, red-light district, and gay scene, because it was so culturally diverse, no one stood out.

  The area was famous for its connection to a famous revolutionary and one of the deciding moments in modern history: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, was living in the Niederdorf section when he got the call to return to Russia when the revolution broke out during World War I. Hoping he would disrupt the Russian war effort, the Germans transported Lenin to Russia in a sealed train.

  The Right Bank was also the medieval heart of the city. Niederdorfstrasse and its tributaries were a maze of narrow, cobbled thoroughfares and alleys occasionally opening into quaint squares with small stores, galleries, and antique shops. As one drew closer to the rail station, the area became seedier, hosting fast-food joints and strip joints.

  I found a room at a pensione that appeared reasonably respectable and clean. I lay down to rest and unwind my nerves. Since it was late afternoon, I didn’t want to approach Milan’s business in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the dark. I also needed to build up my courage.

  After a nap, I took a walk to stretch my legs and get something to eat. The Kunsthaus, an art museum, was open, and I went inside.

  Though not a very large museum, the Kunsthaus had important works by van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, and others. I had seen van Gogh’s painting called Strohdächer bei Auvers years ago, and I wanted another look at it. I’d always been fascinated with his life and work. He was the quintessential tortured artist, desperately poor, wandering in and out of sanity. Of the fifteen hundred works of art he created, he had sold only one in his lifetime… today some of his works went for a hundred million dollars.

  One of his last paintings before he killed himself, it was a study of two children, one of whom has been interpreted as being van Gogh himself. The children appear to be trapped in a hopeless situation.

  The painting reflected how I felt myself.

  Curious as to whether the curator knew Viktor Milan, I didn’t want to blatantly ask. A risk of being recognized by a curator also existed. For all I knew, my face was being broadcast around the world as a Most Wanted.

  Instead of asking the question face-to-face, I had the desk clerk at the pensione get me the name of the museum curator. Under the pretense that I was trying to locate Milan, I phoned the curator and asked if he knew Milan. His response that he had never met the man didn’t surprise me—the Kunsthaus specialized in European art, and Milan was involved in antiquities.

  The following morning I made my way slowly down Bahnhofstrasse, a wide street closed to everything but foot traffic and electric trams. The street crossed Paradeplatz and was Zurich’s Rodeo Drive.

  Milan’s business address was on a side street near the square. The address turned out to be a small, expensive hotel.

  Gathering my courage, I went inside.

  I quickly learned that Milan didn’t have an office in the hotel but used it as a mail drop. No one there appeared to have actually met him or know what he looked like, nor would they give me Milan’s current forwarding address.

  To mull the situation over, I headed over to Sprungli’s, a 150-year-old confectionery shop and café on Bahnhofstrasse overlooking Paradeplatz, and enjoyed some coffee and mocha-favored Luxemburgerli, the small, airy, cream-filled macaroons that were a local specialty there.

  Albert’s words were swirling in my mind: “Sun, sea, and the beach.”

  That’s where I would find Milan.

  The nearest places that came to mind for winter vacations were the French Riviera, Positano in the south of Italy, and the Greek isles.

  I looked out the window and saw a package delivery truck across the street. An idea struck me.

  I went back to the Kunsthaus and bought a large print in their museum shop. I had them package it in a long tube-shaped mailer with a sticker that said: DRINGEND for “urgent.” I also asked the woman to scribble a note on their museum letterhead instructing the hotel to forward the item to Viktor Milan immediately.

  I gave the package to a taxi driver to deliver to the hotel.

  I returned to the business district where Milan’s hotel “office” was located and hung around, window-shopping, eating lunch, and just trying to hang out inconspicuously. A delivery truck arrived at the little boutique hotel. When the driver came out with the tube-shaped package, I acted like I had just come out of the hotel and was looking for my keys in my handbag.

  “Is that the package for Viktor? He was expecting one, but he’s not here, you know,” I said, smiling at him, trying to sound like I knew Milan.

  He smiled back. “They gave me the forwarding address.”

  “Did they give you the right one? Because he owns several places,” I said. “Let me see.” I quickly glanced at Milan’s address. “That’s the right one. Have a good day.”

  Milan was at a small town near Malaga, Spain. I hadn’t thought about sun, sea, and the beach at the Costa del Sol, the “Sun Coast” on the Mediterranean at the southern end of Spain.

  Chapter 34

 
That evening I had dinner at a small German restaurant recommended by my hotel. I ordered Wiener schnitzel, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and fresh-baked bread. The veal cutlet was delicious, as was the homemade bread. I usually avoided meat, but I decided it might give me energy.

  Warm and cozy, the restaurant had a fire blazing in the stone fireplace.

  During dinner, one of the waiters brought out his accordion and played it while his waitress wife sang “Edelweiss.” I recognized the song from the movie The Sound of Music and remembered reading somewhere that the song wasn’t really German but written by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

  Despite the cozy atmosphere, I couldn’t relax, not even with two glasses of red wine. The wine gave me a little buzz, but I was still tense.

  My game plan was to head out next morning for Malaga. I didn’t know what else to do. I had set out on a mission and now I had to finish it. I still hadn’t figured out exactly what I would do when I met face-to-face with the enigmatic Viktor Milan.

  My father’s old expression that he had learned from his Austrian grandmother reminded me of my own circumstances: “The situation is hopeless but not serious.”

  Sometime during the evening a nice man in his fifties came over and asked me in German if he could join me. I knew enough German to say, “Nein, vielen Dank.”

  He was attractive, but I wasn’t in a good enough mood for small talk, especially if it involved overcoming language difficulties by playing charades.

  I left the restaurant to walk back to my hotel. The restaurant had been on the main street, but I took a less noisy and more peaceful way back to my hotel.

  I had walked two blocks when a man grabbed me from behind and shoved me toward the open side door of a van. A second man was waiting inside the van to pull me in. I let out a yell for help and tried to break free. The second man had stepped out to grab me when another man appeared and hit the assailant holding me. The blow caught the man on the side of the head. He grunted and turned me loose.