House of Spies Read online

  At last, they arrived in the Place de l’Ormeau. It was not a proper square like the Place des Lices, but a tiny triangle at the intersection of three streets. In the center was an old wellhead, shaded by a single tree. On one side was a dress shop, on the other a café. And next to the café was the handsome four-story building—large by Saint-Tropez standards, pale gray instead of tan—occupied by Galerie Olivia Watson.

  The heavy wooden door was closed and locked. Next to it was a brass placard, which stated in both French and English that viewing of the gallery’s inventory was by appointment only. In the display window were three paintings—a Lichtenstein, a Basquiat, and a work by the French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet. Natalie wandered over to have a closer look at the Basquiat while Keller checked his mobile. After a moment she became aware of a presence at her back. The intoxicating scent of lilac made it clear it was not Roland Girard.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked a female voice in French.

  “The Basquiat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Actually,” said Natalie to the glass, “I prefer the Dubuffet.”

  “You have good taste.”

  Natalie turned slowly and appraised the fourth work of art standing a few inches away, in the Place de l’Ormeau. She was shockingly tall, so tall in fact that Natalie had to lift her gaze to meet hers. She was not beautiful, she was professionally beautiful. Until that moment, Natalie had not realized there was a difference.

  “Would you like to have a closer look?” the woman asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “At the Dubuffet. I have a few minutes before my next appointment.” She smiled and extended a hand. “Forgive me, I should have introduced myself. I’m Olivia. Olivia Watson,” she added. “This is my gallery.”

  Natalie accepted the proffered hand. It was unusually long, as was the bare arm, smooth and golden, to which it was attached. Luminous blue eyes stared out from a face so flawless it scarcely seemed real. It was set in an expression of mild curiosity.

  “You’re Sophie Antonov, are you not?”

  “Have we met?”

  “No. But Saint-Tropez is a small town.”

  “Very small,” said Natalie coolly.

  “We live across the bay from you and your husband,” Olivia Watson explained. “In fact, we can see your villa from ours. Perhaps you’d like to come over some time.”

  “I’m afraid my husband is extremely busy.”

  “He sounds like Jean-Luc.”

  “Jean-Luc is your husband?”

  “Partner,” said Olivia Watson. “His name is Jean-Luc Martel. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. You and your husband had dinner at his new brasserie in Paris a couple of weeks ago. He sent you a bottle of champagne.” She glanced at Keller, who appeared to be engrossed by something he was reading on his mobile. “He was there, too.”

  “He works for my husband.”

  “And that one?” Olivia Watson nodded toward Roland Girard.

  “He works for me.”

  The luminous blue eyes settled on Natalie once more. She had studied hundreds of photographs of Olivia Watson in preparation for their first encounter, and yet the impact of her beauty was still a shock to the system. She was smiling slightly now. It was a sly smile, seductive, superior. She was well aware of the effect her appearance had on other women.

  “Your husband is an art collector,” she said.

  “My husband is a businessman who appreciates art,” said Natalie carefully.

  “Perhaps he’d like to visit the gallery.”

  “My husband prefers Old Master paintings to contemporary works.”

  “Yes, I know. He made quite a splash in London and New York this spring.” She delved into her handbag and produced a business card, which she offered to Natalie. “My private number is on the back. I have some special pieces I think might be of interest to your husband. And please come to our villa for lunch this weekend. Jean-Luc is eager to meet you both.”

  “My husband and I have other plans this weekend,” said Natalie briskly. “Good day, Madame Wilson. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Watson,” she called out as Natalie walked away. “My name is Olivia Watson.”

  She was still holding the business card between her thumb and forefinger. Keller walked over and plucked it from her grasp. “Madame Sophie can be a bit on the moody side. Don’t worry, I’ll have a word with the boss on your behalf.” He offered his hand. “I’m Nicolas, by the way. Nicolas Carnot.”

  Keller walked with Natalie and Roland Girard back to the Place des Lices and saw them into the waiting Maybach. It departed the centre ville a few seconds later in a black blur, observed enviously by tourists and natives alike. Alone, Keller cut through the stalls of the market to the opposite side of the square and mounted the Peugeot Satelis motorbike he had left there. He headed west along the edge of the Golfe de Saint-Tropez, then south into the hills of the Var, until he came to the village of Ramatuelle. It was not unlike the village of the Orsatis in central Corsica, a cluster of small dun-colored houses with red-tile roofs, perched defensively atop a hill. There were larger villas hidden away in the wooded lowlands. One was called La Pastorale. Keller made certain he was not being followed before presenting himself at the iron security gate. It was painted green and quite formidable. He thumbed the intercom button and then turned to watch a delivery truck pass in the road.

  “Oui?” came a thin metallic voice a moment later.

  “C’est moi,” said Keller. “Open the fucking gate.”

  The drive was long and winding and shaded by pine and poplar. It terminated in the gravel forecourt of a large stone villa with yellow shutters. Keller made his way to the sitting room, which had been converted into a makeshift op center. Gabriel and Paul Rousseau were hunched over a laptop computer. Rousseau acknowledged Keller’s arrival with a guarded nod—he was still deeply suspicious of this talented MI6 officer who spoke French like a Corsican and was comfortable in the presence of criminals—but Gabriel was smiling broadly.

  “Well played, Monsieur Carnot. Taking the business card was a nice touch.”

  “First impressions matter.”

  “They do, indeed. Listen to this.”

  Gabriel tapped the keyboard of the laptop and a few seconds later came the voice of a woman shouting in anger in French. It was fluent and profane but marked by an unmistakable English accent.

  “Who’s she talking to?”

  “Jean-Luc Martel, of course.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “You’ll hear in a minute.”

  Keller winced as Martel’s voice boomed from the speakers.

  “Clearly,” said Gabriel, “he’s not used to people telling him no.”

  “What’s your next move?”

  “Another snub. Several, in fact.”

  The speakers fell silent after Olivia Watson, with one final fusillade of shouted obscenities, terminated the call. Keller walked over to an array of video monitors and watched a Maybach limousine turning in to a palatial villa by the sea. A woman exited and made her way through cavernous rooms hung with Old Master paintings to a terrace overlooking a lagoon-size swimming pool. A man dozed there, his pale skin reddening beneath the unrelenting onslaught of the sun. The woman spoke something directly into his ear that the microphones could not capture and led him upstairs to a room where there were no cameras. Keller smiled as the door closed. Perhaps there was hope for Madame Sophie and Monsieur Antonov after all.

  29

  Côte d’Azur, France

  It was not true that Madame Sophie and Monsieur Antonov had plans that weekend. But somehow, with the help of a hidden hand, or perhaps by magic, plans materialized. Indeed, no sooner had the sun set on a perfect Friday afternoon than an unclasped diamond necklace of car headlights lay along the shore of the Baie de Cavalaire, flowing toward the gates of Villa Soleil, which blazed and sparkled and pulsed to the beat of music so loud it could be heard across the water, which
was the point. The guests traveled from far and wide. There were actors and writers and faded aristocrats and thieves. There was the son of an Italian automaker who arrived amid a school of seminude women, and a pop star who had not had a hit record since music went digital. Half the London art world was there, along with a contingent from New York, which, it was rumored, had flown privately across the Atlantic at the host’s expense. And there were many others who would later admit to having received no invitation at all. These lesser souls had heard about the affair through the usual channels—the Rivieran gossip mill, social media—and had beaten a path to Monsieur Antonov’s gold-plated door.

  If he was actually present that night, there was no sign of him. In fact, not a single guest would be able to offer reliable firsthand evidence of having seen him. Even Julian Isherwood, his art adviser, was at a loss to explain his whereabouts. Isherwood conducted a private tour of the villa’s impressive collection of Old Master paintings for the handful of guests who displayed any interest in seeing it. Then, like everyone else, he became roaring drunk. By midnight the buffet had been devoured and women were swimming naked in the pool and the fountains. There was a fistfight, and the very public commission of a sexual act, and the threat of a lawsuit. Old rivalries flared, marriages collapsed, and many fine automobiles suffered damage. Everyone agreed a good time was had by all.

  But the party did not end that night, it merely went into brief remission. By late morning, cars once again choked the roads, and a flotilla of white motor yachts lay anchored in the waters off Villa Soleil’s dock, tended by Monsieur Antonov’s shore craft. The second night’s festivities were worse than the first, owing to the fact that most of the guests arrived drunk or were still drunk from the night before. Monsieur Antonov’s large staff of security guards kept careful watch over the paintings, and several of the unruliest guests were ejected from the premises with quiet efficiency. Still, there was not one who actually shook hands with the host or even laid eyes on him. Oh, there was the middle-aged American divorcée the color of saddle leather who claimed to have spotted him observing the party, Gatsbylike, from a private terrace in the upper reaches of his palace, but she was quite inebriated at the time and her account was roundly dismissed. Mortified, she made a clumsy pass at a handsome young Formula One driver and had to console herself with the company of Oliver Dimbleby. They were last seen teetering into the night, with Oliver’s hand on her backside.

  There was a champagne brunch on Sunday, after which the last of the guests dispersed. The walking wounded saw themselves to the door, the comatose and nonresponsive departed by other means. Then an army of workmen arrived and erased all evidence of the weekend’s destruction. And on Monday morning Monsieur Antonov and Madame Sophie were in their usual place on the terrace overlooking the pool, Monsieur Antonov lost in his tablet computer, Madame Sophie in her thoughts. At midday she went into the village, accompanied by Roland Girard, and had lunch with Monsieur Carnot at a restaurant in the Old Port owned by Jean-Luc Martel. Olivia Watson dined with a friend, a woman of nearly equal beauty, a few tables away. Leaving, she passed Madame Sophie’s table without a word or glance, though Monsieur Carnot was quite certain he overheard an anatomical vulgarity that even he, a man of disrepute, never dared to utter.

  There was another party the following weekend, smaller but no less felonious, and a blowout the next week that set a Côte d’Azur record for complaints to the gendarmes. At which point the Antonovs declared a cease-fire and life on the Baie de Cavalaire returned to something like normal. For the most part they remained prisoners of Villa Soleil, though several times each week Madame Sophie, after her morning run on the treadmill, traveled to Saint-Tropez in her Maybach limousine to shop or have lunch. Usually, she dined with Roland Girard or Monsieur Carnot, though on two occasions she was seen with a tall sunburned Englishman who had taken a villa for the summer near the hill town of Ramatuelle. He had a curvy, sarcastic wife whom Madame Sophie adored.

  The couple were not the only ones staying at the villa. There was a small woman with dark hair who moved with a slight limp and carried herself with an air of early widowhood. And an elusive man of late middle age who never seemed to wear the same clothing twice. And a hard-looking man with a pockmarked face who seemed always to be contemplating an act of violence. And a Frenchman of professorial bearing who fouled the rooms of the villa with his ever-present pipe. And a man with gray temples and green eyes who was forever pleading with the Frenchman to find another habit, one that didn’t endanger the health of those around him.

  The occupants of the villa made no show of recreation or leisure; they had come to Provence on deadly serious business. The professorial Frenchman and the green-eyed man were ostensibly equal partners, but in practice the Frenchman deferred to his associate in nearly all matters. Both men spent significant time outside the villa. The Frenchman, for example, shuttled back and forth between Provence and Paris while the green-eyed man made several clandestine trips to Tel Aviv. He also traveled to London, where he negotiated the terms of the next phase of his endeavor, and to Washington, where he was berated for its slow pace. He was forgiving of his American partner’s foul mood. The Americans had grown used to solving problems with the push of a button. Patience was not an American virtue.

  But the green-eyed man was patience incarnate, especially when he was at the villa in Ramatuelle. The antics of Monsieur Antonov and Madame Sophie were of little concern to him. It was the beautiful Englishwoman who owned the art gallery in the Place de l’Ormeau who was his obsession. With the help of the other occupants of the villa, he watched her day and night. And with the help of his friend in America, he listened to her every phone call and read her every text message and e-mail.

  She loathed the noisy new couple who lived on the opposite side of the Baie de Cavalaire—that much was evident—but she was intrigued by them nevertheless. Mainly, she wondered why it was that every D-list celebrity in the south of France had been invited to the Antonovs’ villa, but she had been excluded. Her not-quite husband was of a similar mind. He was a celebrity himself, after all. A real celebrity, not one of those poseurs who had wormed their way into the Antonovs’ dubious orbit. Soon he was making inquiries of his own about his new neighbor and the source of his considerable income. The more he heard, the more he became convinced that Monsieur Dmitri Antonov was a kindred spirit. He instructed his not-quite wife to extend another invitation. She replied that she would sooner slash her wrists than spend another minute in the company of that spoiled creature from the other side of the bay, or words to that effect.

  And so the green-eyed man bided his time. He watched her every move and listened to her every word and read her every electronic missive. And he wondered whether she was worthy of his obsession. Was she the girl of his dreams, or would she break his operational heart? Would she surrender to him willingly, or would force be necessary? If so, he had force in abundance. Namely, the forty-eight blank canvases he had found in the Geneva Freeport. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He thought of her as a painting in desperate need of repair. He would offer his services. And if she was foolish enough to refuse him, it was possible things might get nasty.

  By the second week of July he had seen and heard enough. Bastille Day was fast approaching, after which the final crush of the summer season would commence. But how to bridge the divide that he himself had created? Only a formal invitation, he decided, would do. He wrote it out himself, in a hand so precise it looked as though it had rolled off a laser printer, and gave it to Monsieur Carnot to deliver to the gallery in the Place de l’Ormeau. He did so at eleven fifteen on a perfect Provençal morning, and by noon the following day they had received the answer they were hoping for. Jean-Luc Martel, hotelier, restaurateur, clothier, jeweler, and international dealer of illicit narcotics, was coming to Villa Soleil for lunch. And Olivia Watson, the girl of Gabriel’s dreams, was coming with him.

  30

  Côte d’Azur, France

 
; “What do you think, darling? Gun or no gun?”

  Mikhail was admiring himself in the full-length mirror in the dressing room. He wore a dark linen suit—too dark for the occasion and the weather, which was warm even by Côte d’Azur standards—and a crisp white dress shirt unbuttoned to the breastbone. Only his shoes, a pair of fifteen-hundred-euro drivers, which he wore with no socks, were entirely appropriate. Their gold clasps matched the gold wristwatch that lay on his wrist like a misplaced weather barometer. It had been handmade for him by his man in Geneva, a bargain at a million and a half.

  “No gun,” said Natalie. “It might send the wrong message.”

  She was standing next to him, her image reflected in the same mirror. She wore a sleeveless white dress and more jewelry than was necessary for an afternoon garden luncheon. Her skin was very dark from too much time in the sun. She thought it did not quite match the color of her hair, which had been lightened several shades before her departure from Tel Aviv.

  “Do you think it would ever get boring?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Living like this.”

  “I suppose that depends on the alternative.”

  Just then, Natalie’s mobile vibrated.

  “What is it?”

  “Martel and Olivia have just departed their villa.”

  Mikhail frowned at his wristwatch. “They were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”

  “JLM time,” said Natalie.

  The mobile vibrated a second time.

  “What is it now?”