The Maya Codex (11 page)

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233 …

The extraordinary ratio of 1.618 was obtained by dividing one number in the sequence by its previous number, and Levi also knew that the golden mean was part of life itself. It determined the ratios of the spirals on things as small as nautilus seashells, right up to the ratios of the massive spirals of the galaxies themselves. Even the distance between leaves on plants yielded a Fibonacci number.

‘The ratio is at the very foundation of the universe,’ the village chief observed, ‘and the Maya, Inca and Egyptians all used it in the construction of their pyramids. If you’re to find what you are looking for, look for the centre of the golden mean,’ Pacal intoned.

‘
Dios bo’otik
. Thank you,’ Levi said. ‘I will keep looking.’

‘But be careful,’ Roberto Arana warned. ‘The German officer and the priest are both watching you.’

Four young village men, descendants of the warrior class of Tikal, escorted Levi back to the airstrip. As they crossed the bridge, another spine-tingling roar rent the night air, but the blazing torches they all carried kept the magnificent jaguar at a distance.

The camp was in darkness. Levi hid the precious maps in a cavity he’d dug near a corner of his tent, grabbed his weathered leather bag containing his archaeological tools, and set off for Pyramid V. He held a flaming torch in front of him, picking his way through the jungle towards the tomb of a Mayan king. Carefully, he climbed the jumble of blackened limestone steps that led to the small room at the top of the second-tallest pyramid in Tikal. At least there was a full moon, he thought.

In the jungle below, von Heißen positioned himself behind a huge cedar tree and watched.

9

THE VATICAN, ROME

T
he Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli, his soutane immaculate and edged in crimson, was deep in thought. He stood at the window of his office on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace and stared unseeingly towards the Tiber and the ancient City of Rome. The second-most powerful man in the Catholic Church was tall and spindly. His long oval face was lean, his cheeks hollow, his nose hooked and aristocratic. Among the myriad challenges confronting the Vatican’s principal foreign diplomat, some took priority. Above him, on the top floor of the palace, the papal physician was attending Pius XI; Pacelli was now the favoured candidate to take the Keys of Peter. The rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was equally grave.

The Cardinal lowered his gaze towards
Piazza San Pietro
. The dark cobblestones shone in the soft glow of the Vatican lights. They seemed to hold a message of dark foreboding. Pacelli moved away from the window and returned to his desk, turning his mind towards the other grave matters of concern: the Vatican’s finances and a Nazi archaeological expedition being carried out in the distant jungles of Guatemala. On the wall behind him a two-metre-high black-and-silver crucifix hung in silent observation. Had the solid silver Christ been able to speak, He too might have uttered a warning. Pacelli’s thoughts were interrupted by his private secretary knocking on the double doors.

‘
Avanti
.’

‘Il Signor Felici is here, Eminence.’

‘Show him in.’

Signor Alberto Felici, Gentleman of His Holiness and Papal Knight Commander of the Order of Sylvester, bowed deferentially as he entered.

‘
Benvenuto, Alberto
.’ Pacelli kissed the ambitious diplomat on both cheeks. ‘Have a seat,’ he said, indicating one of three comfortable lounge chairs. ‘
Desideri acqua minerale, caffè, tè?
’

‘No,
grazie
, Eminence, I’ve not long eaten.’ Alberto patted an ample stomach that was testament to his fondness for food and fine wine.

‘Thank you for coming at such a late hour,’ Pacelli began, after his secretary had closed the doors, ‘Before we get on to your reports, I hear that congratulations are in order.’

‘
Grazie
, Eminence, you are most kind.’ Alberto had finally married in his late forties and now his wife had given birth to their first child.

‘Have you settled on a name yet?’

‘Salvatore Giovanni Felici, Eminence, and if your busy schedule allows, Maria and I would be honoured by your presence at Salvatore’s baptism.’

‘We can do it here in
San Pietro
if you wish. Who knows, the young Salvatore Felici may grow up to become one of us. The priesthood is always looking for good candidates,
non è vero
?’ Pacelli smiled.

‘Maria would be very pleased, on both counts, Eminence.’

‘Good. Now, what have you discovered about our friend Nogara?’ Pacelli had become increasingly suspicious of Signor Bernardino Nogara, the financial advisor to Pius XI. In 1929 the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini had signed the Lateran Treaty, finally recognising the sovereignty of the Holy See as a separate state. As reparation for lost papal territories, the Italian government had paid an enormous sum to the Vatican, but now rumours of failed businesses, Nogara’s links to an ultra-secret Masonic Lodge and his luxurious lifestyle had been swirling around the Vatican’s corridors.

‘When I worked alongside Signor Nogara during the negotiations on the Lateran Treaty, he kept very much to himself, so I was prepared for anything, Eminence. Even so, I’ve been surprised by what I’ve found, and I can assure you the investigation has been very, very thorough.’

Pacelli braced himself for the worst.

‘Signor Nogara lives very simply, Eminence. In the time he’s been involved with the Vatican’s finances, he’s drawn a modest salary and his bank account contains less than US$200. As far as I can determine, he gives generously to charities, all of them Catholic. He attends Mass every day and his entertainment appears to be limited to a weekly visit to the movies.’

Pacelli looked puzzled. ‘And women?’

‘There are no women in his life, Eminence, and there is no evidence of … how shall I put this … soliciting sex. He has no connections with the Masons, or any anti-Catholic organisations, and he confines his reading to the financial journals.’

‘The accounts?’

‘The Special Administration of the Holy See is in excellent order, Eminence, and Signor Nogara is well on his way to turning a hundred million dollars into the Vatican’s first billion.’

Pacelli’s eyes widened.

‘Signor Nogara is very much a man after your own heart, Eminence. He is devoted to the Holy Church.’

‘I have done him an injustice,’ the Cardinal Secretary of State observed quietly.

‘In matters of finance, Eminence, it’s always better to be sure. I suspect the rumours originated from those who are jealous of Nogara’s access to you and the Holy Father, and, of course, your concordat with Reichskanzler Hitler has realised far greater revenue than we anticipated.’

Pacelli nodded. The agreement he had signed with Hitler had been a masterstroke. Not only were German Catholics now subject to Canon Law, but criticism of Catholic doctrine was prohibited by German law. In return for the Vatican’s support of his regime Hitler had agreed to a
Kirchensteuer
or ‘church tax’. This meant that in addition to ‘Peter’s Pence’, which flowed into the Vatican from dioceses all over the world, practising Catholics in Germany now had their pay cheques docked at a rate of nine per cent of income tax.

‘It will be important to ensure the agreement on the
Kirchensteuer
stays in place, but I understand the Holy Father is preparing to issue an encyclical.’ Felici’s Vatican connections were impeccable, and he’d already heard that the dying Pius XI was about to release his long-awaited treatise
Humani Generis Unitas
– On the Unity of the Human Race. ‘If such an encyclical were to criticise Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, Eminence, it might endanger the concordat itself,’ Felici warned. ‘Ambassador von Bergen is quite worried.’

Pacelli nodded, only too well aware that all his hard work might be unravelled by a single stroke of the ailing Pontiff’s pen. ‘I’ve assured the German ambassador of the Vatican’s continuing support, especially in the fight against the Bolshevik Communists. In my view they’re a far greater threat than Hitler and the Third Reich. As for the Jews … they’re not our concern.’

‘That’s good news, Eminence, because Nogara will shortly suggest a change in the Vatican’s financial arrangements.’

‘Why, if we’re doing so well?’

‘The Special Administration has served its purpose admirably, Eminence, but with so much money flowing in, the Vatican will shortly need its own bank. A separate entity that can operate as a normal bank on the international financial stage.’ Felici knew well that the Vatican Bank would be anything but normal. Immune from any scrutiny by Italian or international authorities, and even from the Curial Cardinals, the Vatican Bank, or the
Istituto per le Opere di Religione,
would be exempt from any Italian government tax. In time the bank would provide a mechanism for the Mafia and prominent Italian businessmen to launder billions of lire into secret Swiss bank accounts. In the nearer future, the Vatican Bank would become a conduit for Nazi gold and treasures confiscated from millions of murdered Jews.

‘A bank might contradict the Church’s teaching on usury,’ Pacelli observed thoughtfully, reflecting on one of the most grievous sins in Catholic dogma. St Ambrose and the councils of Nicaea, Carthage and Clichy had all condemned the practice of earning interest from loans, as had Pope Benedict IX.

‘There are ways around these things, Eminence – especially when it is for the good of the Holy Church.’

Pacelli nodded. ‘Would you be prepared to serve as a
delegato
on the board, Alberto?’

‘Of course, Eminence. Of course.’ Felici maintained a neutral expression, but he felt a surge of satisfaction that his plans were falling neatly into place.

‘Good. Then I will give Nogara’s proposal careful consideration.’ Pacelli closed the file on Nogara and reached for the one marked
Maya
.

10

TIKAL, GUATEMALA

L
evi Weizman struggled over the last of the broken steps that led to the small stone room at the top of Pyramid V. Breathing hard, he turned to survey the jungle below. A wind had sprung up, stirring the jungle canopy, and the moonlight danced eerily on the thick foliage. Levi reached into his satchel and took out a measuring tape. It took only a few moments to take the measurements of the small opening at the top of the pyramid, and Levi quickly worked out the ratio of height to width in his head.

One to 1.618. Levi whistled softly. The small room on top of Pyramid V had been constructed with the sacred ratio of the golden mean. Levi took out his compass. The tops of Pyramids I and IV were silhouetted, like shards of obsidian reaching for the centre of the Milky Way.
Look for the centre,
Levi thought. The middle of Pyramid I produced a bearing of 15° 30’, while the middle of Pyramid IV revealed a bearing of 352°, or 8° west of north. Would the crystals in the figurines reproduce those bearings at the winter solstice? Levi turned. As best he could judge, both bearings would intersect on the far wall of the room behind the opening. Levi took his measuring tape and calculated half the ratio distances on the wall. He played his torch over the masonry and his heart began to race.

It had faded over the centuries, but he could just make out the faint outline of the letter phi on a large brick in the centre. Levi took a small pick from his satchel and began to scrape at the sascab, the mortar the ingenious Maya made from crushed and burnt limestone. At first the mortar came away fairly easily, but as Levi reached areas that had not been subjected to the dampness of the air, the resistance increased. He took a finer pick, and a few minutes later it penetrated what appeared to be a cavity behind the stone.
Look for the centre.
He’d found a similar cavity in Pyramid IV, but that one had been empty. Now he knew why. It had contained another figurine until the shaman and the elders removed it for safekeeping. The brick began to wobble and Levi carefully inserted another pick and pried it loose.

The stubby rectangular figurine had lain there for centuries, just as the ancients had planned. A milky-green ceiba tree carved from exquisite jade, it was almost identical to the one Levi had brought back to Vienna, except there were both male and female jaguars etched among the buttress roots at the base. The presence of both male and female cats balanced the figurine, Levi reflected, so this was surely the neutral one. Now, if he could only find the female figurine that represented the lost feminine … the final balance for a world that was now dominated by males.

Even though 2012 was still more than seventy years away, perhaps the world needed the time to prepare, or to attempt to reverse whatever catastrophe the Maya were predicting in the codex. The Meso-American jade glinted softly and Levi held it up to catch the moonlight in the crystal. He could see the ancient artisans had again carved a hole through the ceiba tree roots in the shape of Φ.