After the Fuhrer’s triumphant entry into Vienna following the Anschluss, the hotel’s balcony had been decorated with huge red-and-black banners displaying the swastika and the Reichsadler – the German eagle. When O’Connor reached the jungles of Guatemala, he would have cause to reflect on the irony of his choice of accommodation.
‘Not many people remember, Mr O’Connor, but the Nazis used reinforced concrete to construct bunkers beneath this bar. The tunnels they built led through the walls of the hotel cellars into a concealed entrance underneath Dumbastrasse,’ Klaus added. O’Connor knew that Dumbastrasse, the street on the western side of the Imperial, connected with the Karntner Ring at the front of the hotel.
‘Bombproof,’ he observed.
Klaus smiled. ‘The Imperial was very lucky. The State Opera House and the Burgtheater were destroyed, and the Ambassador Hotel and the Old Bristol were bombed as well, but even if we had been hit, the tunnels beneath where you’re sitting are a metre thick. The doors are solid steel and the filtering systems were made by Drager, the same construction company that made the filters for Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. I can remember my father saying that when the SS Captain Otto Skorzeny rescued Mussolini in 1943, he brought him into the hotel through the secret Dumbastrasse entrance.’
‘And the gold?’
Klaus shrugged. ‘The only gold left now is on the hotel plates and cutlery that is stored there. Still, there are rumours… My father told me that before Himmler fell out with Ribbentrop, he used to stay here frequently. My father showed me a photograph of Himmler and one of his proteges, an SS officer by the name of Karl von Hei?en. Von Hei?en finished up as the commandant of the concentration camp at Mauthausen. A terrible place. He was also involved in the disappearance of a large quantity of ingots just before the fall of the Reich. The ingots were rumoured to have been stored here, then shipped to Central America through the Vatican Bank, I think. Perhaps they are still to be found, Mr O’Connor?’
O’Connor left a twenty Euro note with the bill, and left the bar. He climbed the narrow red carpet secured with gold strips to the centre of the long marble staircase, the same staircase that Hitler, Himmler and countless other characters from the dark pages of history had used. At the top of the stairs a huge oil painting of Emperor Franz Josef in the dress uniform of an Austrian field marshal dominated the landing. O’Connor passed a tastefully lit statue of a naked goddess and his thoughts turned to Dr Aleta Weizman.
He locked the door of his suite behind him and checked the single hair he’d left at the bottom left-hand corner of the wardrobe safe. Satisfied nothing had been disturbed, he dialled the combination and extracted the disc containing the Weizman data. He’d already committed it to memory, but he wanted to be sure there was nothing he’d missed, and he inserted the disc into his laptop.
The file was classified ‘SECRET – NOFORN’, meaning that in addition to the watertight security accorded CIA secret files, the information was not for release to foreign nationals. It didn’t make sense to O’Connor. The information on the combined FBI/CIA Weizman disc was sparse, and most of it could have been obtained from government departmental records in Guatemala City anyway. WEIZMAN, ALETA REBEKKAH Born: 15 November 1972, San Marcos, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Grandfather, Professor Levi Weizman, distinguished archaeologist. Parents and siblings deceased.
O’Connor grimaced. The word ‘deceased’ concealed a raft of information. Physical characteristics: Height, five-foot eight; hair, black; complexion, olive; eyes, dark-brown; scar just above the right buttock. Marital status/Social pursuits: Does not appear to be in a relationship. Married an American in 1999, but the marriage lasted only eighteen months and ended in divorce. No children. Holds a PADI qualification, including high-altitude diving certification, but does not appear to dive on a regular basis. Religion: Describes herself of ‘no fixed religion’. Catholic upbringing; Jewish ancestry. Education: BSc, BArchaeol (Hons), PhD (Harvard). Political outlook: No evidence that Weizman is a member of any political party or organisation, but she can be outspoken on human rights, especially on behalf of present-day descendants of the Maya. Publications: Mainly confines herself to writing academic papers on ancient Mayan civilisations, but has also authored a paper on the science behind changes in the earth’s magnetic field and its connection to an ancient Mayan warning (see attached list at Annex A). Took a major in mathematics in her BSc.
O’Connor paused for thought, reflecting on what he’d learned during his last posting to one of the United States’ top-secret research stations at Gakona, in the icy wastes of Alaska. Was Weizman getting close to some uncomfortable truth about the earth’s magnetic field and a possible pole shift? As catastrophic as such an event might be, she wasn’t the only one probing for answers; and even if she had linked the chilling scientific facts to an ancient Mayan warning, it didn’t remotely justify an assassination mission. O’Connor scrolled down the page. More recently Weizman has authored articles critical of US policy in Central America (full texts are at Annex B). Surveillance priority: Low.
O’Connor scanned the remaining pages, which included the full texts of Dr Weizman’s journal articles, her academic papers, including one on a missing ‘Maya Codex’, and a few transcripts of interviews in the Guatemalan national papers El Periodico, Nuestro Diario, and La Hora. Still puzzled, O’Connor took out the disc and returned his laptop to the safe. The Weizman dossier raised many more questions than it answered.
O’Connor stripped off and adjusted the pulse on the shower, one of the great pleasures of staying at the Imperial, he thought as he soaped his lean, hard body. But his mind quickly returned to Dr Weizman. An obscure archaeologist working in the jungles of Guatemala shouldn’t be registering on Washington’s radar. Based on what was available on her file, she didn’t even come close to the ‘clear and present danger’ test that might give the President justification to order the current mission. There had to be more to it, O’Connor thought. Much more. He resolved to break in to her apartment. Perhaps there he might discover something that would explain the mystery.
BOOK I
1
Professor Levi Weizman removed the priceless jade figurine from the large wall-safe in his study and placed it on his desk. The intriguing milky-green sculpture had been carved in the shape of a ceiba tree, a tree revered by the ancient Maya as the Yaxche, ‘tree of life’. The powerful figure of a male jaguar was etched amongst the tree’s buttress roots, and through the roots there was a hole in the shape of?, the Greek letter phi. At the apex the Mayan artisans had faithfully reproduced the ceiba tree’s distinctive flat crown. Long, intricately carved branches radiated horizontally in the four directions of the compass. Levi had encountered the tree many times on his field trips. In the highlands of Guatemala the ceiba soared above the jungle canopy, providing a roost for the harpy, the largest of the eagles, but for the figurine the Maya had replaced the eagle’s nest with a black-and-gold obsidian cup in which rested a large shimmering crystal.
The Weizmans’ third-floor apartment overlooked Sterngasse and Judengasse in the old Jewish sector of Vienna’s fashionable Stephansdom Quarter. It was early evening and light snow was falling, the flakes drifting onto the cobblestones below. Deep in thought, Levi thrust his hands into his pockets. The Mayanist scholar was well into his fifties, but he maintained the fitness of a much younger man. His grey hair was brushed straight back from an oval face, and his white moustache and beard were neatly trimmed. Levi adjusted his square rimless glasses and stared at the figurine. The markings on it were, he knew, consistent with it being made around 850 AD, a time when the Maya had occupied the great city-state of Tikal, deep in the jungles of what was now Guatemala.
In the summer of 1936 Levi had discovered the figurine in a secret chamber in Pyramid I, one of Tikal’s many tombs. The trip had been a sabbatical from the University of Vienna, and Levi knew that eventually he would have to make his find public; but he was convinced the figurine held an ancient secret which he was determined to unlock before he made any announcement.
‘ Es ist fast Abendessen. It’s almost dinnertime, sweetheart. The children are getting restless.’ Fifteen years younger than her husband, Ramona Weizman had maintained her own career as one of Vienna’s leading fashion designers and milliners. Her label was sold exclusively from her street-level boutique beneath their apartment and
