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.
