The Hunt for Power

Chapter 4

Andromache Schliemann was no fool. And she meant to teach anyone who thought she was a valuable lesson. A final lesson, she thought as she cradled the German Luger in her lap and watched her driver navigate through the dark streets of Athens.

Andromache had been around antiquities all her life, mostly unwillingly. Her father had dragged her all over the world from one archaeological dig to another looking for his "precious relics to the past." His constant lectures on the cultures of the world and how modern governments could rebuild relationships between societies by learning more about the past sickened her.

While Andromache was now considered an expert in the field of antiquities, she had come to loathe them. Why should people spend all of their time obsessing over things that happened ages ago? People that did that ignored the present and things right in front of their faces. Like their own daughters. She had thought that by learning all she could about whatever backwater area they were in that her father would grow to appreciate and love her. Fat chance. He had more feelings for people that had lived four thousand years ago and the trash they had left behind than he had for his family.

No more. Even though her father had passed away nearly sixty years ago this was going to be her ultimate revenge against him. His greatest find replaced with a worthless fake. Now the people that came to wonder in amazement at the fabled Mask of Agamemnon really would be what she thought of them: fools gaping over a meaningless trinket. Plus, the money she stood to make off selling the real thing wasn't bad either. But then Rex Fletcher had shown up and wrecked everything.

Andromache knew when she heard the explosions outside the auction that something was wrong. She assumed it was someone trying to loot her storehouse, but the brazen thieves had other relics in mind. One in particular of course. After the tumultuousness had died down she saw that the mask looked a bit different. After taking it aside, she immediately knew it to be a fake. Primarily because it was made by the same forger that made the fake that she had put in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens when she swapped it out for the real mask.

Using her own forger to try and trick her? The thief had guts, you couldn't deny that. Once she realized the source, she was sure that she could track them down so she allowed the auction to proceed. Why not? These greedy collectors would never know the difference. They were too wrapped up in the idea of grabbing a piece of history. Of being the sole owner of a unique piece of treasure that they could fetishize over.

Besides, Andromache saw a way to double her profits. Sell this fake, reclaim the original from whatever hapless thieves had stolen it from her, and then auction it off again after a few years through a third-party to a different group of collectors. Riding to the seedy hotel where her quarry was hidden she smiled and chuckled to herself. Maybe she should thank the thieves for increasing her wealth. Before she ended their miserable lives.

After the auction, she had gone to see the forger. While her initial reaction was to torture him until he gave up a name, the man was an accomplished asset that she might need to use in the future. He was also as unscrupulous as she was and provided a name for only a small fee and the mere mention of bodily harm. The name was el-Kahir, and even though that was a fairly common name in this part of the world, combined with the knowledge that Rex Fletcher had entered the country recently led to only one logical conclusion: Fletcher and the el-Kahir brothers knew she switched masks and had just robbed her.

If it had been a regular thief, then Andromache could assume that they would want to leave the country as soon as possible and then to sell the mask for profit, but Fletcher was different.  She knew about his past as a Monuments Man and that he no worked for the Smithsonian.  She had even heard rumors that he was still involved somehow in finding and returning stolen art. He would want to do the moral thing and return it to the museum. Such a Boy Scout. She couldn't have that. It would be a huge scandal that the revered Heinrich Schliemann's daughter was a common criminal and worse than a grave robber. The shame that she would feel from her father looking down on her and the public ridicule would be unbearable. Therefore she had to catch Fletcher before he left the country. He may be moral, but she was desperate and determined to find him and his friends. Find them and make them pay.

She stepped out of the car in front of the hotel and looked at her hired men spilling out of their trucks with their guns out. Ah Papa, she thought, how is this for world cultures meeting and repairing relationships? She chambered a round into the Luger and led her men inside.