On the flight to Cyprus I think about the story of Leonidas, the great king of Sparta and my father’s namesake. I remember how Dad’s face lit up when he shared heroic tales of Greek warriors and how they outsmarted their opponents with great intellect and integrity. As I contemplate the Church’s position in the battle against the art traffickers, I realize that I must become one of these warriors if I’m ever going to recover these artifacts for Cyprus. Unless I come up with alternative solutions to deal with the issues blocking my efforts, the odds are against me.
Attorney General Alecos Markides is a man in his early fifties, who carries an air of confidence. He wears exceptionally thick eyeglass lenses, which make him appear studious. His body language intimates that he is skeptical of me, so I do my best to impress him and place him at ease. I wonder if his initial reluctance to help has anything to do with the fact that Mr. Markides has political aspirations. Perhaps he is sizing up my relationship with the archbishop and trying to assess my political clout.
As a woman whose entrepreneurial success is due in part to introducing the concept of the paperless office to the European market, I am astonished by the antiquated way in which the attorney general works. There are piles and piles of files stacked everywhere the eye can see, many of them seemingly untouched for years, marked by a heavy layer of dust on their surfaces and an odor lingering in the air.
Now I understand why approvals take so long.
Compared to my digitized Dutch company, their methods are from the Dark Ages. Yet there is no shortage of brain power in Cyprus, which places high in the world when ranked by percentage of population earning advanced degrees.
“So you wish to appear on national television and call upon the people of Cyprus to contribute money to repatriate art in cases where we have no legal option?”
“Yes. I believe it will help the Cypriot people heal if they have a stake in rebuilding their future through helping to repatriate stolen sacred artifacts. The legal fees are costly.”
The idea of me being the face of the Church on national television seems to disturb him. He questions me about my company, my husband, and my social status. The attorney general ends our meeting requesting that I fax him and Assistant District Attorney Stella Joannides a written copy of my telethon proposal. As I exit his office, he alerts Stella that I am on my way to see her.
Dusty files seem to be an epidemic throughout the building. The hallways are lined with trolleys of more files with men pushing them into different offices. Alecos Markides and Alecos Zenon share more than a first name. Both men are seemingly uneasy around young, independent, assertive women.
Stella’s office is quite similar to the attorney general’s. She wears shoulder-length blond hair and has long, bright red fingernails. Stella smokes a cigarette from a long cigarette holder, popular in 1940s Hollywood movies.1
I do my best to pitch my telethon concept to Stella, but she is more interested in speaking about her own accomplishments, telling me about the various cases she is working on that are in the media. She also keeps mentioning that she is a favorite of the attorney general, and when she’s all talked out she ends the meeting.
“Send me your plan, darling, and I will see how I can help you,” she says with all of the enthusiasm one might have about getting a tooth extracted.
Entering the Church palace gates, I feel protected by the forces of good. At my meeting with the archbishop, I am greeted with a cold glass of lemonade to quench my parched throat from the sweltering summer heat.
“RIK [the national television channel] and Phileleftheros [the Cypriot newspaper] love the concept of a telethon and they will support it. The attorney general is less impressed,” I say.
The archbishop disagrees, “Forget about the attorney general and collecting money from the public. The religious artifacts belong to the Church, and the Church will have to pay.”2
“Van Rijn is asking for a million and a half dollars to lead me to the looted artifacts in Germany. He won’t move without cash this time,” I reply.
“Do you trust him?” he inquires in a concerned tone.
“Even telling you this proposal, my mind says, is madness. But my female entrepreneurial instincts tell me he will deliver this time,” I say with reservation.
“Elaborate on that,” says the archbishop.
“His father is dying. He wants to make peace with him before he goes. We need to turn the tables on the dealers. There are approximately twenty thousand artifacts missing and we can’t possibly handle twenty thousand court cases. Mr. Papageorgiou is aging, and he is a vital witness for the government because he was director of antiquities just before the invasion. He speaks with conviction, which wins us cases. It’s 1997, twenty-three years after the war, and since the burden is on us to prove when the artifacts were taken out of Cyprus, our only reference point is 1974 when the invasion occurred. In these cases the statute of limitations works against us. We need to act now, and be as unorthodox as we possibly can!” I say to the archbishop, who finds humor in my phrasing. “We might be able to recoup a large amount of inventory in one shot.”
The archbishop responds, “I share your concerns and agree, we need to approach this unconventionally.”
After a sip of tea, I continue, “Here are the risks and how I suggest we mitigate them: I say we let Van Rijn purchase the artifacts with his own money and reimburse him only after Papageorgiou authenticates them. I’ll open a bank account in Rotterdam in the name of the Church and both Papageorgiou and I will be cosignatories. This keeps the financial transactions transparent. We get a minimum list of what we will get for that money and pressure Van Rijn into exposing the dealers involved. We need him to supply evidence to incriminate the dealers. I want to be sure that these artifacts are not coming from Van Rijn’s personal stock. He purchased inventory from Dikmen, they did a lot of business together, so this is a good method to safeguard us.”3
After reflection, he remarks, “Tell him you have only been able to raise half a million. I trust you to negotiate what we will get for that, but I need you to send me a fax, just one paragraph, saying that you request a half million dollars for the bank account. No other details, as it may interfere with the Holy Synod’s approval.”4
“Van Rijn should believe that the money comes from outside investors for your protection as well as the Church’s. I’ll make sure that I get the maximum value for the money we pay. I’ll send you a fax after I’ve negotiated the details.”
At the Hotel des Indes, Van Rijn is waiting at our usual table. Instead of the cool, collected guy he usually parades in front of me, he is now clearly anxious, fidgety, and on edge. He seems vulnerable for the first time.
“Did you get the one and half million?”
“What are you guaranteeing me?”
“One sixth-century Thaddeus Kanakaria mosaic and thirty-one twelfth-century frescoes from Antiphonitis.”
“That’s a rip-off.”
“Tazulaah, come on! Peg Goldberg paid one-point-two million dollars for the four mosaics from Kanakaria, and she was going to sell them for five million apiece. This is a good deal for you!”
“She was a fool, as you should know. I secured five hundred thousand dollars from a group of religious investors. Take it or leave it.”
“Give me the money.”
“You’ll be paid when you deliver and Papageorgiou examines the artifacts and confirms their authenticity. I’m asking you to give the Church something for nothing in this deal to prove yourself worthy of our trust.”
“I can’t buy anything with that kind of money.”
I ignore his request for more funds. “Advance it yourself. You’ll get your money when you deliver.”
“I’ll call you when I have the goods,” says Van Rijn.
Driving home, I think about the safest public location to have the transaction take place. My bank in Rotterdam comes to mind. The bank manager at my personal bank, ABN AMRO, opens the bank account in the name of the Church of Cyprus with Mr. Papageorgiou and me as cosignatories. I fax the archbishop the account number so that he can transfer funds.
Van Rijn calls me before I arrive home.
“Will you give me half of the money once I deliver the mosaic?”
“Fine,” I say. “You’d better deliver, Van Rijn, and they’d better be real.”
My last fax of the day is to the attorney general informing him that we are going to enter into negotiation for artifacts with Van Rijn with the aim of exposing the dealers and collecting incriminating evidence against them.5