“Name’s Antonov. Dmitri Antonov. Russian, I suppose, but it didn’t come up in casual conversation. He’s absolutely made of money. Does something with natural resources. Don’t they all,” drawled Jeremy. “Julian’s attached himself like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. Apparently, he’s acting as both dealer and adviser. Quite a cozy relationship, financially speaking. It seems Dmitri has taken several paintings off Julian’s hands, and now they’re hunting big game. But don’t quote me on that. In fact, don’t quote me on anything. This is all off the record. Strictly entre nous, darling.”
Amelia agreed to keep the information confidential, but Jeremy wasn’t so discreet. In fact, he told everyone in the bar, including Oliver Dimbleby. By evening’s end it was all anyone was talking about.
In mid-March they were spotted at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s. They also paid a visit to Oliver’s gallery in Bury Street, where after an hour of benign negotiation they committed to acquire a hilly dunescape by the Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael, two Venetian canal scenes by Francesco Guardi, and an entombment by Zelotti. Roddy Hutchinson sold him five paintings in all, including a still life with fruit and a lizard by Ambrosius Bosschaert II. The next day Amelia March published a small piece about a young Russian who was making waves in the London art market. Julian Isherwood, acting as the young Russian’s spokesman, declined comment. “Any purchases made by my client were private,” he said, “and they will remain so.”
Early April saw Isherwood and his Russian friend across the Atlantic in New York, where their arrival was eagerly anticipated. They toured the auction houses and the galleries, dined in all the right restaurants, and even took in a Broadway musical. A gossip columnist from the Post reported they acquired several Old Master paintings from Otto Naumann Ltd. on East Eightieth Street, but once again Isherwood mumbled something about his client’s desire for privacy. By all accounts, it went only so far. Those who met him were left with the impression he was a man who liked to be seen. The same was true of the beautiful young woman—apparently she was the wife, but this was never proven irrefutably—who accompanied him to America. She was trim, dark, French, and deeply unfriendly. “Never missed an opportunity to have a look at herself,” said the manager of an exclusive Fifth Avenue jeweler. “A real piece of work.”
But who was this man named Dmitri Antonov? And perhaps more important, where did he get his money? He was soon the focus of many Gatsbyesque rumors, some malicious, others well placed. It was said that he had killed a man, that he had killed many men, and that he had come by his fortune illicitly, all of which happened to be true. Not that it made him any less palatable to those who sold art for a living. They didn’t much care how he made his money, so long as the check arrived on time and there were no problems at the other end. There weren’t. He banked reputably at HSBC in Paris, but, curiously, all his purchases were forwarded to a vault in the Geneva Freeport. “He’s one of those,” said a woman who worked in the business office at Sotheby’s. A superior quietly reminded her that “those” were the ones who kept places like Sotheby’s in business.
The vault in the Freeport was the closest thing he had to a permanent address. In London he lived at the Dorchester, in Paris at the H?tel de Crillon. And when business took him to Zurich, only the Terrazza Suite at the Dolder Grand would do. Even Julian Isherwood, who was tethered to him by cell phone and text, claimed not to know where he was from one day to the next. But there were rumors—here again they were only rumors—he had acquired a castle for himself somewhere in France. “He’s using the Freeport as a temporary storage facility,” Isherwood whispered into Oliver Dimbleby’s ear. “Something big is in the works.” Isherwood then swore Oliver to absolute secrecy, thus ensuring the news would go global by morning.
But where in France? Once again the rumor mill began to turn. For on the day the man called Dmitri Antonov left New York, there appeared a small item in Nice-Matin regarding a certain notorious piece of real estate near Saint-Tropez. Known as Villa Soleil, the sprawling seaside compound on the Baie de Cavalaire was once owned by Ivan Kharkov, the Russian oligarch and arms dealer who was shot to death outside an exclusive Saint-Tropez restaurant. For nearly a decade the property had been in the hands of the French government. Now, for reasons never made clear, the government was suddenly anxious to remove Villa Soleil from its books. Apparently, a buyer had been found. Nice-Matin, despite strenuous efforts, had not yet been able to identify him.
Renovation of the property commenced immediately. Indeed, on the day after the article appeared, an army of painters, plumbers, electricians, stonemasons, landscapers descended on Villa Soleil and remained there without interruption until the great palace by the sea was once again fit for human habitation. The enterprising nature of the workforce provoked no small amount of resentment among the neighbors, all of whom were battle-scarred veterans of Proven?al construction projects. Even Jean-Luc Martel, who lived in a grand villa on the opposite side of the bay, was impressed by the speed with which the project was completed. Gabriel and the team knew this because, with the help of the mighty American NSA, they were now privy to all of Martel’s private communications, including the molten e-mail he sent to his builder wondering why a renovation to his pool house was two months behind schedule. “Finish it by the end of April,” he wrote, “or I’ll fire you and hire the company that did Ivan’s old place.”
The interior decoration of Villa Soleil was conducted at the same un-Proven?al pace, overseen by one of the C?te d’Azur’s most prominent firms. There was only one delay, a pair of matching couches ordered from Olivia Watson’s design shop in Saint-Tropez. Owing to a minor clerical error—in truth, it was quite intentional—the name of the villa’s owner appeared on the order form. Olivia Watson shared the name with Martel, who in turn gave it to a columnist at Nice-Matin who had written favorably of him in the past. Gabriel and his team knew this because the mighty American NSA said it was so.
Which left only the paintings, the paintings acquired under the flawless eye of Julian Isherwood and stored in a vault in the Geneva Freeport. In mid-May they were transported to Provence in a convoy of panel vans, watched over by agents of a private security firm and several officers of a secret unit of the DGSI known as the Alpha Group. Isherwood supervised the hanging with the assistance of the owner’s French wife. Then they flew to Paris, where the owner himself was staying in his usual suite at the Crillon. That evening they dined at Martel’s thriving new restaurant on the boulevard Saint-Germain, accompanied by a durable-looking man who spoke French with a pronounced Corsican accent. Martel was there, too, along with his glamorous English girlfriend. Gabriel and his team were not surprised by the presence of their quarry; they had known of Martel’s plans several days in advance, and had reserved a table for four under the name Dmitri Antonov. Within minutes of the party’s arrival, a bottle of champagne appeared, along with a handwritten note. The champagne was a 1998 Dom Pérignon, the note was from Jean-Luc Martel. Welcome to the neighborhood. See you in Saint-Tropez . . . It was, all in all, a promising beginning.
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