L evi Weizman glanced into the cockpit of the Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 52. The pilot had started his descent and the co-pilot was leaning forward. His leather helmet obscured the instrument panel, but he appeared to be tapping on one of the fuel gauges.
Levi turned in his seat and looked out of the big square window of the Junkers. Nearly 5000 feet below, wispy grey clouds drifted amongst the thick jungle of the Guatemalan highlands. The Junkers was slow, cruising at only 160 miles per hour, and it was cramped: there were just twelve seats, six either side of the centre aisle. The flight had taken a bum-numbing ten days from Berlin. Having finally crossed the Gulf of Mexico and landed at Merida, the bustling, wealthy capital of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, it would be ironic, Levi thought, if they were to have a fuel problem now. He glanced at von Hei?en sitting opposite, but the arrogant German, whom Himmler had promoted to major, seemed unperturbed.
‘Tikal seems a remote place to establish a city, Herr Professor.’ von Hei?en said.
‘It might seem that way today, but the Maya chose their sites very carefully. Tikal was built on top of a continental divide, astride one of their most important trading routes, one that linked the Gulf of Mexico and the Usumacinta River in the west with the rivers that flow into the Caribbean in the east. So the inhabitants of Tikal, under kings like Great Jaguar Claw, had control over international trade.’
‘Reminiscent of the way the Aryans would do things?’
‘As an archaeologist, I’m always careful to ensure there is concrete evidence before reaching any firm conclusions, Sturmbannfuhrer.’
Von Hei?en scrutinised Levi’s map of the ancient city. ‘There seems to be a great many ruins,’ he observed.
‘Construction took place over many centuries. By the middle of the sixth century, we know that Tikal covered some thirty square kilometres and was inhabited by over 100 000 Maya. It was a huge city.’
‘And the pyramids?’
‘The stepped pyramids were constructed in the form of the Witz, the sacred mountain of the Maya,’ Levi replied. ‘Other structures served as palaces for the royal families, and as tombs.’ He chose his words carefully, not wishing to reveal his theories on the Maya architects’ employment of?, the golden mean, or their use of the Fibonacci sequence. Levi was now convinced the construction and alignment of the pyramids were linked to the missing figurines and the Maya Codex itself.
Further conversation was cut short by an abrupt spluttering from the port engine. A trail of smoke poured from the cowling.
‘Everything will be okay. We have two other good engines,’ von Hei?en observed with a throaty laugh, but the starboard engine, and then the nose engine coughed, and Levi felt a pang of fear in the depths of his gut. The pilots were working frantically to restart the engines, and the radio operator was furiously tapping out an SOS in morse. Levi knew that in this part of the world, radio communications were tenuous at best.
‘Befestigen Sie Ihre Sicherheitsgurte! Fasten your seatbelts!’ the engineer yelled as the aircraft began a steep descent towards the jungle below.
Levi fastened his belt and silently began the Shema Yisrael, the prayer from Deuteronomy that all God-fearing Jews recited in the morning and at night: Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad… Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One… Barukh sheim k’vod malkhuto I’olam va’ed… Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever…
The wind tore at the stationary propellers and whistled over the corrugated wings and fuselage. The aircraft shook violently. In the cockpit, the two pilots worked feverishly at the controls, but all three engines were dead.
‘All three gauges are showing empty now!’ Leutnant Muller, the young Luftwaffe co-pilot, yelled.
The pilot, Colonel Hans Krueger, motioned to the younger man to remain calm. Oberst Krueger had seen service flying Fokker biplanes with Goring in the Great War, and had been shot down three times. He’d been awarded the Iron Cross First Class, and Generaloberst Goring had personally selected his old friend for ‘Operation Maya’.
‘I can’t see the airfield, so we’ll have to land on top of the trees,’ Krueger observed matter-of-factly, peering out of the windscreen. ‘Airspeed?’
Muller, white-faced, glanced at the airspeed indicator. ‘One hundred and five miles an hour.’
‘Flaps, ten degrees,’ Krueger ordered.
‘That exceeds the limit, Herr Oberst,’ Muller replied nervously.
Krueger smiled and turned to his young co-pilot. ‘It would be most helpful, Leutnant Muller, if you could forget about what they taught you in flying school and give me ten degrees of flap. I don’t fancy hitting the trees any faster than is necessary.’
Muller nodded and reached for the flap lever. The aircraft slowed, although Krueger knew their airspeed was still way too fast.
‘What was the forecast wind direction this morning?’ Krueger already knew the answer, but he also knew this was the young man’s first forced landing, and he was subtly teaching him what every good pilot needed in a crisis: an ice-cool calm and a methodical, ordered approach.
‘Fifteen miles an hour, from the north-east.’
Krueger pulled back on the big control column and gently turned the wooden flight wheel, his foot lightly on the rudder pedal.
‘Flaps, twenty-five degrees.’
Muller moved the flap lever instantly and the aircraft slowed further, the wind whistling eerily past the cockpit.
Levi Weizman stared out the window at the jungle rushing towards them, still silently mouthing the Shema.
‘Two o’clock! Two miles! The airstrip!’ Leutnant Muller shouted and pointed through the windscreen.
‘I see it,’ Krueger replied calmly, altering the falling aircraft’s course slightly towards the break in the jungle. ‘Airspeed?’
‘Ninety miles an hour.’
Krueger grunted. It would be touch and go. On the one hand, he’d need around forty degrees of flap to land, but applying that much flap at anything above seventy-five miles an hour might tear the wings from the airframe. On the other hand, he needed to maintain speed to make the clearing, and if he allowed the Junkers’ speed to fall below sixty miles an hour with flaps down, they would stall and head nose first into the trees.
‘More flap, Herr Oberst?’ Muller queried anxiously, his hand on the flap lever.
‘Wait.’ Oberst Krueger mentally fixed the glide path and adjusted the aircraft’s heading. ‘Wait,’ he commanded again, sensing the young co-pilot’s nervousness. ‘Now!’
Muller immediately adjusted the lever and the aircraft shook violently as the big flaps bit hard.
‘Scheisse!’ Krueger swore as the aircraft’s nose came up too fast. He pushed the control column forward to maintain airspeed and aimed at a point just beyond the trees at the start of the clearing. At the last moment he pulled back on the column and flared the aircraft. It shuddered as the tailplane clipped the top of a big ceiba tree. Krueger braced himself as the aircraft slammed onto the makeshift airstrip and bounced. He calmly kept the control column forward and they bounced twice more before he could bring the Junkers to a halt near the end of the dirt strip.
‘Everyone okay?’ Krueger asked, turning in his seat to look into the cabin.
Von Hei?en turned and made a quick check of the cabin. ‘ Alles gut, Herr Oberst! ’ he replied.
Levi said a silent prayer of thanks and followed von Hei?en down the steps propped against the ribbed fuselage. A Catholic priest was waiting to meet them.
‘Welcome to Tikal, Sturmbannfuhrer von Hei?en.’
‘Father Ehrlichmann, how good to see you again. And this is Professor Weizman. Father Ehrlichmann is an expert on craniometry and the cephalic index,’ von Hei?en explained to Levi. ‘He’ll be in charge of the preliminary classification of any skulls before they’re shipped back to Wewelsburg.’
‘Guten Tag, Herr Professor.’
‘Guten Tag, Father Ehrlichmann.’ Levi shook hands, immediately wary.
The next morning Levi woke just before dawn. He dressed in a light safari suit and quietly pulled back the dirty brown canvas tent flap. The expedition tent lines had been pitched along the eastern side of the airstrip, and Levi’s tent was just two down from von Hei?en’s.
The stars were fading as Levi made his way towards the thick jungle at the north-west corner of the airstrip. He knew from his previous visits that the narrow jungle-track led to the Central Acropolis, the sacred heart of the great Mayan city. The air was cool, and already the jungle was coming alive in the soft pre-dawn light. Suddenly, a series of enraged roars pierced the foliage. Levi looked up to see a group of howler monkeys, the biggest nearly a metre tall, their squat black faces staring down at him from the tops of massive, buttressed strangler figs. The killer trees started life as a tiny seed. Eventually, the seed’s tendrils wrapped around a host tree, strangling it, as the crown of the fig tree soared above the canopy. Figs were a favourite of the howler monkey. The troop moved on, noisily alerting the rest of the jungle to Levi’s presence. Further into the rainforest, Levi spotted two keel-billed toucans, croaking and barking in the half-light, their bright-yellow hooked beaks contrasting with their jet-black feathers, but it was the large paw marks and droppings nearby that made him proceed more cautiously. Levi recognised them instantly; a jaguar was on the prowl. He moved silently on the forest floor of decaying leaves, peering through the low-lying ferns, orchids and mosses that grew in abundance alongside the balsa, chicle and myriad other trees and vines growing thickly around the ancient city.
Twenty minutes later Levi emerged into a clearing, surrounded by moss-covered limestone pyramids. The jungle was noisier now. The howler monkeys competed with the chirps and trills of the hummingbirds, the hoot-oot of the blue-crowned motmot, the insistent kyowh-kyowh of the orange-breasted falcon and the squark-squark of the brilliantly coloured macaws and parrots.
Levi moved through the East Plaza, skirting the sacred court where the Maya had played humanity’s oldest and most brutal ball game. He reached the Great Plaza and the base of Pyramid I, built by Jasaw Chan K’awiil, the twenty-fifth ruler of the ancient city. Levi looked up. The limestone steps of the huge pyramid connected nine separate levels, culminating in the roof comb, nearly forty-six metres above the plaza.
Breathing hard, Levi at last reached the summit and turned to survey the jungle below. A heavy white mist drifted through the tops of the thirty-metre-high ceiba trees, sacred to those who had once occupied the ancient city. Huge mahogany, cedar, chicle and ramon trees towered over the smaller copal trees and escobo palms, forming a thick green carpet as far as Levi could see. To the west stood the imposing Pyramid II, and to the south-west of the Great Plaza he could see Pyramid III. Further west the roof comb of Pyramid IV thrust defiantly through the mists, while to the south, the top of Pyramid V was also visible, as was the Pyramid of the Lost World. Levi walked to the east side of Pyramid I. The mists on the horizon were tinged with a brilliant orange-red glow. A fiery sun rose slowly and majestically, bathing the ancient city in its light.
Levi felt a sense of awe as he reflected on the ancient Maya. To the east of the Great Plaza the jungle had taken over the magnificent paved causeways that once controlled the entry of traders into a bustling marketplace. The pyramid temples of a mighty city that had glimmered in a brilliant shade of salmon pink had now eroded to reveal a dirty limestone, covered here and there in a dank, dark moss. Levi shivered. The sudden fall of the Maya was an eerie reflection of humankind’s vulnerability and mortality. He turned towards Pyramid IV, pulled a compass from his pocket and took a bearing, then a second bearing on the Pyramid of the Lost World.
Far below, von Hei?en adjusted his binoculars. He stood in the shadows of the ball court and watched as Professor Weizman put the compass to his eye.
Roberto Arana, the shaman from the shores of Lake Atitlan, was also watching. He was short and stocky and his sun-weathered face looked older than his years. His jet-black hair was tied in a ponytail and he wore a bright-red bandana. More at home in the jungle than either von Hei?en or Levi Weizman, Roberto kept both men in view from his position in the rainforest beside Pyramid II.
Levi waited while the mother-of-pearl disc steadied. His pulse quickened as it stabilised. His experiment back in Vienna with the light beam had predicted that the prism on top of the first figurine would deflect the sunrise, aligning the sun’s rays on precisely the same bearing, directly towards the top of Pyramid IV. Was the second figurine somewhere in the depths of the partially explored Pyramid IV? And where was the third?
Levi replaced the battered compass in the pouch on his belt and began to descend the steep blackened limestone steps on the eastern face of Pyramid I. His thoughts turned to Ramona, Ariel and Rebekkah. In Vienna, he knew, things had gone from bad to worse. Hitler was more threatening than ever, and the Austrian Nazi Party’s Brownshirts were firmly in control of the streets.
Von Hei?en put down his binoculars and waited.