“He’s gotta be kidding,” said Van Horne after reading Di Luca’s communique.

“I think not,” said Thomas.

“Do you realize what this man’s asking?” Lifting Raphael’s feather from his desk, Van Horne weaved it back and forth through the God-choked air. “He’s asking me to give up my command.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Looks like you’re getting the boot too.”

“No regrets, in my case. I never wanted this job.”

Van Horne settled behind his desk and, opening a drawer, removed a corkscrew, two Styrofoam cups, and a bottle of burgundy. “Too bad you told Di Luca we blew the ballast. He’ll factor that into his calculations when he starts chasing us.” The captain twisted the corkscrew home with the same authority he’d brought to the problem of hoving chicksans into their cargo’s neck. “Luckily, we’ve got a good head start.” Yanking out the cork, Van Horne sloshed a generous amount of Chateau de Dieu into each cup. “Here, Thomas — it drives away the stink.”

“Am I to understand you intend to disobey Di Luca’s orders?”

“Our angels never said anything about an embalming.”

“Nor did they say anything about strange attractors, inverse Eucharists, or ballasting the Val with blood. This voyage has been full of surprises, Captain, and now we’re obliged to turn the ship around.”

“And never learn why He died? Gabriel said you’d have to go the whole nine yards, remember?”

“I’m no longer interested in why He died.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I just want to go home.”

“The bottom line is this: I don’t trust your friends in Rome” — Van Horne neatly ripped Di Luca’s fax in half — “and, what’s more, I suspect you don’t trust them either. Drink your wine.”

Thomas, wincing, lifted the cup to his lips. He sipped. A chill spiraled through him, head to toe. He felt as if he were experiencing the fate that Poe had contrived for the protagonist of “The Pit and the Pendulum,” except in this case the bisection was occurring along the prisoner’s axis. Only after his third sip did the half of Thomas beholden to Holy Mother Church overcome the half that shared the captain’s suspicions.

“Did you know Seaman Weisinger stayed behind?” Thomas asked.

“Rafferty told me.”

“The kid thinks he’s going to have a major religious experience.”

“A major starvation experience.”

“Exactly.”

“We aren’t turning around,” said Van Horne.

“When the cardinals hear you’ve gone renegade, they’ll become irrational — you realize that, don’t you? They’ll — Lord only knows. They’ll send the Italian Air Force after you with cruise missiles.”

Van Horne gulped his burgundy. “What makes you think the cardinals will hear I’ve gone renegade?”

“You have your responsibilities, I have mine.”

“Jesus, Thomas — do I have to ban you from the radio shack?”

“That isn’t your prerogative.”

“Let’s make it official. Okay? From this moment on, the shack’s off limits to you. Make that the whole damn bridge. If I catch you sending Di Luca so much as a fucking chess move, I’ll lock you in the brig and throw the key over the side.”

An icy knot congealed in Thomas’s stomach. “Anthony, I must say something here. I must say that I’ve never had an enemy in my whole life, but today, I fear, you have become my enemy.” He grimaced. “As a Christian, of course, I must attempt to love you just the same.”

Van Horne poked his index finger through the bottom of his Styrofoam cup. “Now let me say something.” He flashed the priest a cryptic grin. “When the cardinals obtained your services, Thomas Ockham, they got a much better man than they deserved.

September 9.

Latitude: 60°15'N. Longitude: 8°5'E. Course: 021. Speed: 9 knots. Sea temperature: 28° Fahrenheit. Air temperature: 26° and falling.

Thank God for the Westerlies, wafting out of Greenland like Grant took Richmond and driving away the stench. I can breathe again, Popeye. I can see clearly, hear distinctly, think straight.

Even though my decision to muzzle Ockham and hijack the body was made in the thick of the stink, I’m sure I did the right thing. Assuming we can maintain our 9 knots, we’ll have dropped our load and started for Manhattan before Di Luca’s even crossed the circle. If the man wants to play taxidermist after that, fine.

Yesterday Sam Follingsbee put it to me: either we get some vitamins into the crew, or we start converting the officers’ wardroom into a sick bay. So I changed course — reluctantly, as you might imagine — and by 1315 the Val was within 2 miles of Galway Harbor and its world-famous grocery shops.

“Would you like to be dropped off here?” I asked Cassie, fervently hoping she’d pass up the offer. “You could probably get a plane out of Shannon Airport before sundown.”

“No,” she replied without hesitation.

“Won’t your bosses be pissed?”

“This voyage is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said, taking my hand and giving it an unchaste squeeze (or so it felt), “and I need to see it through.”

The chief steward himself led the expedition. At 1345 he and his pastry chef, Willie Pindar, set out in the Juan Fernandez, their pockets stuffed with shopping lists and American Express travelers’ checks.

A few minutes after Sam left, a fiberglass cutter with a gold harp on her side appeared, poking around our tow chains like an Irish wolfhound sniffing its littermate’s balls. The skipper got on his bullhorn and demanded a meeting, and I couldn’t see any choice about it. With the Vatican out hunting us in the Maracaibo, I wasn’t about to irritate the rest of militant Christendom as well.

Commander Donal Gallogherm of the Irish Republican Coast Guard turned out to be one of those big, blowsy sons-of-the-old-sod that Pat O’Brien used to play in the movies. He came up to the bridge with his exec, sprightly Ted Mulcanny, and between the two of them they made me homesick — not for the actual New York City, but for the New York City of Hollywood legend, the New York of warmhearted Irish cops whacking their nightsticks across the rumps of Dead End Kids. And at base that’s what these clowns were: a couple of Irish cops patrolling their watery beat from Slyne Head to Shannon Bay.

“Impressive vessel you got here,” said Gallogherm, striding around the wheelhouse like he owned the place. “Took over our whole radar screen.”

“We’re a bit off course,” said Dolores Haycox, the mate on duty. “Damn Marisat — always crashing.”

“That’s an awfully strange flag-o’-convenience you be flyin’,” said Gallogherm.

“You’ve seen it before,” I told him.

“That so? Well, you know what Mr. Mulcanny and I are thinkin’? We’re thinkin’ there’s a major irregularity about this tramp tanker of yours, and so we’ll be needin’ to see your Crude Petroleum Right o’ Passage.”

“Crude Petroleum what?” I said, wishing I’d run their cutter down when I’d had the chance. “Phooey.”

“You don’t have one? It’s a strict requirement for bringin’ a loaded supertanker through Irish territorial waters.”

“We’re in ballast,” Dolores Haycox protested.

“Like hell you are. You’re at the top of your Plimsoll line, sailor girl, and if you don’t produce a Crude Petroleum Right o’ Passage posthaste, we’ll be obliged to detain you in Galway.”

“Say, Commander,” I asked, catching on, “might you happen to have one of those ‘Crude Petroleum Rights of Passage’ on your cutter?”

“Not sure. What about it, Teddy?”

“Only this mornin’ I noticed just such a document flutterin’ about on my desk.”

“Is it … available?” I asked.

Gallogherm flashed me a majority of his teeth. “Well, now that you be mentionin’ it…”

“Dolores, I believe we have a stack of — what do you call them? — American Express travelers’ checks in our safe,” I said.

“The price bein’ eight hundred American dollars,” said Gallogherm.