The Looters Read Online Free PDF Page B

a moment before he continued.
    “Because of its value, we’ll start the bidding at ten million dollars and mark it up by increments of one million thereafter.”
    The increment bidding was up to the auctioneer. Standard increments were usually 10 percent, but Neal could also change them if he saw the need. “Who will give me the opening bid?”
    Two minutes and forty-eight seconds later, the bidding had reached $50 million. I had Hiram’s permission to push the envelope a littler further.
    When Neal asked for a bid for $55 million, sure that this was a defining moment in my life I raised my paddle. There was a hush in the room. My heart was beating fast. I felt like the whole world was watching me.
    “I have a bid of fifty-five million in the back. Do I have another bid?”
    Neal’s eyes scanned the other two competitors in the room who had been placing bids. No more bids were signaled.
    “Last chance… selling for fifty-five million dollars…”
    Elated but calm, as the house was millions of dollars richer in auction fees, Neal slammed his gavel down on the podium and made it the final hammer price.
    “Sold to paddle one-twenty for fifty-five million dollars.”

T HE C RADLE OF C IVILIZATION
    In archeological circles, Iraq is known as the “cradle of civilization,” with a record of culture going back more than 7,000 years. William R. Polk, the founder of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, says, “It was there, in what the Greeks called Mesopotamia, that life as we know it began: there people first began to speculate on philosophy and religion, developed concepts of international trade, made ideas of beauty into tangible forms, and above all developed the skill of writing.”
    —Chalmers Johnson, “The Smash of Civilizations”

Chapter 4
    Village of al-Jubab, Iraq, 1958
    Abdullah ibn Hussein watched as his father argued with other men of the village. Abdullah was twelve years old. His name meant “Abdullah, son of Hussein,” and his father was the headman, the sheikh, of the village.
    The small village was about fifty miles south of Baghdad, near the Euphrates River, a waterway that made possible some of the great empires of the ancient world. The ruins of Babylon, the queen city of Mesopotamia, a cradle of Western Civilization, lay nearby.
    The people of the village had once been a nomadic tribe of Bedouins, and though some of the tribe still roamed with herds of goats and camels part of the year, most had settled permanently after the Turks were driven out after the First World War. They were proud of their Bedouin heritage and resented being labeled fellahs, a word describing small farmers and laborers.
    Abdullah and his father were watering camels at the river when the men from their village approached. When he saw the five men, Abdullah’s father went to meet them but told him to stay at the water with the camels. As the headman, his father wore the loose-fitting outer cotton garment called a djellaba, while the other men wore long shirts and pants.
    He heard his father say to the men, “Salaam aleikum.” Peace be with you. The men did not return the courtesy and show respect with a reply of, “Aleikum salaam.” Also with you.
    Abdullah had never seen anyone in the village fail to show respect to his father. To show disrespect to the sheikh was a deadly insult to people brought up in a close-knit, socially rigid society.
    Angry words and gestures that frightened Abdullah erupted almost immediately. He knew why the men had come: A week ago the men had “found” a treasure, a relic of ancient Babylon, the city called Atlal Babil in Arabic and Bab-ilim, the “Gate of God,” in Old Babylonian. In Hebrew, it was Babel—the city of the Tower.
    The men had probed with an iron rod a mound near a section of wall at the ruins and felt something solid underneath. Digging down with pick and shovel, they uncovered a mask embedded in an ancient stone altar. Scratching the