“My left breast?”

“Anybody’s left breast. As the years went on, it became clear he hadn’t come anywhere near circling the globe — the earth was obviously four times bigger than he’d guessed — but Columbus still needed to believe he’d reached the Orient. Don’t ask me why. He just had a need. Next thing anybody knew, he’d made up this crazy theory that the world was really shaped like a woman’s breast. He had gone most of the way around, only he’d done so at the nipple” — Anthony ran his finger along the edge of Cassie’s areola, tickling her — “whereas everyone else was measuring the circumference much farther south.” His fingers wandered downward. “So my father, in the end, has a fool for an idol.”

“Jesus, Anthony — he can’t be all bad. Nobody’s all bad, not even God.”

The captain shrugged. “He taught me my trade. He gave me the sea.” A sardonic chuckle broke from his lips. “He gave me the sea, and I turned it into a cesspool.”

Cassie grew suddenly tense. Part of her, the irrational part, wanted to keep this despairing sailor in her life long after the Valparaíso put to port. She could picture them chartering their own private freighter and setting off together for the Galapagos. The other part knew that he would never, ever be free of Matagorda Bay, and that any woman who let herself become entangled with Anthony Van Horne would end up treading the same malignant oil in which he himself was drowning.

For the next fifteen minutes, the captain pleasured her with his tongue — not an eel this time but a wet, fleshy brush, painting the mansion of her body. None of this will make a difference, she swore as he drew out a second Supersensitive. Even if I fall in love with him, ran Cassie’s silent vow, I’ll continue to make war on his cargo.

WAR

“GlVE ME PANTS that entrance” chanted Albert Flume as he herded Oliver, Barclay, and Winston into the Enterprise’s rusting passenger elevator.

“Shoulders Gibraltar, shiny as a halter.” Sidney Pembroke pushed the button labeled HANGAR DECK.

“A frantic cape,” said Flume.

“Of antic shape,” said Pembroke.

“Drape it.”

“Drop it.”

“Sock it.”

“And lock it at the pocket!”

“Navy code?” asked Barclay as the rickety car descended into the hull.

“Zoot-suit slang,” Pembroke replied. “Golly, I miss the forties.”

“You weren’t even alive in the forties,” said Barclay.

“Yeah. Golly, I miss ’em.”

The forward hangar bay was astonishingly hot, a phenomenon that evidently traced to the seven kerosene stoves roaring and snorting along the amidships bulkhead. Sweat popped onto Oliver’s brow, rolling downward and stinging his eyes. Instinctively he stripped, taking off his Karakorum parka, cashmere scarf, cowhide gloves, and Navy watch cap.

“Tactics.” Removing his Memphis Belle bomber jacket, Pembroke swept his bare arm across the cavernous bay.

“Exactly.” Flume pulled off his blue crewneck sweater. “Strategy’s the soul of war, but never underestimate the power of tactics.”

The bay was jammed to the walls, plane stacked against plane, their wings folded like the arms of defeated infantrymen bent in surrender. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts, maintenance crews bustled about, chocking wheels, popping out instrument panels, poking around inside engines. A few yards away, two nervous-looking sailors rolled back the steel door to the powder magazine, gently picked up a 500-pound demolition bomb, and set it on a hand-operated trolley.

“American carrier planes are traditionally stored on the flight deck,” said Pembroke.

“As opposed to the Jap convention of keeping ’em on the hangar deck,” said Flume.

“By bringing both squadrons below, Admiral Spruance has thawed every rudder, flap, and gas line.”

“Come dawn, he’s gonna start all the engines down here. Imagine: starting your engines in your hangar bays — what a brilliant tactic!”

The bomb handlers dollied their charge across the bay and, as if returning a baby to the womb, stuffed it into the fuselage of an SBD-2 Dauntless.

“Say, you folks are planning to come, aren’t you?” asked Flume.

“Come?” said Oliver.

“To the battle. Ensign Reid’s agreed to fly us out in Strawberry Eleven.”

“This isn’t my sort of thing,” said Barclay.

“Oh, you must come,” said Pembroke.

“Marx never cared for battles,” said Winston. “I don’t either, especially.”

“What about you, Oliver?”

The Enlightenment League’s president took out his monogrammed linen handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. If he worked at it, he could easily have discouraged himself, conjuring up fantasies of Strawberry Eleven crashing into an iceberg or being blown apart by a stray demolition bomb. But the final truth was this: he wanted to be able to tell Cassandra he was there, right there, when the Corpse of Corpses went into the Mohns Trench.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The next morning at 0600, Spruance’s pilots and gunners crowded into the carrier’s stuffy, smoke-filled briefing room. Oliver immediately thought of the Episcopalian services to which his parents had periodically dragged him back home in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania; there was the same weighty silence, the same restless reverence, the same mood of people getting ready to receive the lowdown on matters of life and death. The hundred and thirty-two war reenactors sat at rigid attention, parachute packs balanced on their laps like hymnals.

Ramrod straight, chest puffed out, Spruance’s portrayer slipped his briar pipe between his teeth, ascended the podium, and, grabbing the sash cord, unfurled a hand-drawn overhead view of the body in question, cryptic grin included. “Our objective, gentlemen: the insidious Oriental golem. Code name, ‘Akagi.’ ” The corpse was sketched with its limbs spread-eagled, evoking da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man. “Nimitz’s strategy calls for a series of coordinated strikes against two separate targets.” Lifting the pointer from the chalk tray, the admiral jabbed it into the Adam’s apple. “Our torpedo squadron will concentrate on this area here, Target A, hitting the region between the second and third cervical vertebrae and creating a rupture descending from the epidermis to the center of the throat. If we’ve calculated correctly, Akagi will then begin shipping water, much of it flowing down the windpipe and into the lungs. Meanwhile, Scout Bombing Six will drop its payloads on the midriff, systematically enlarging this depression here — Target B, the navel — until the abdominal cavity is breached.” Clamping his pointer under his arm like a riding crop, Spruance faced the air group’s leader. “We’ll attack in alternating waves. Toward this end, Commander McClusky, you will divide each squadron into two sections. While one section’s over its designated target, the other will be getting refueled and rearmed back here on Mother Goose. Questions?”

Lieutenant Lance Sharp, a paunchy, balding man with a tiny smear of brown mustache on his upper lip, raised his hand. “What sort of resistance might we expect?”

“The PBYs report a total absence of fighter planes and AA artillery on both Valparaíso and the golem. However, let’s not forget who constructed this sucker. I calculate the enemy will launch a fighter umbrella of between twenty and thirty Zeroes.”

Lieutenant Commander E. E. Lindsey, a tense Virginian who bore a startling resemblance to Richard Widmark, spoke up next. “Will they really launch a fighter umbrella?”

“That’s basic carrier tactics, mister.”

“But will they really?”

“They launched a hell of a fighter umbrella on June 4, 1942, didn’t they?” Spruance chomped on his pipe. “Well, no, they won’t really launch a fighter umbrella,” he added, more than a little annoyed.

“Question about technique, Admiral,” said Wade McClusky. “Shall we dive-bomb, or would glide-bombing be best?”