“It’s an honor, Michael.” Thomas pressed SEND. “Anthony?”

“Yeah?”

“We were right. An angel.”

“The last angel,” rasped Michael. His voice had a dry, brittle quality, as if his larynx had rusted along with his ship.

“Anything I can do for you?” asked Thomas, slipping the walkie-talkie into the pocket of his parka. “You thirsty?”

“Thirsty. Quite so. Please — on the bureau…”

Crossing the cabin, Thomas located a four-chambered glass bottle shaped like a human heart and filled with water.

“Am I too late?” The angel lifted the harp from atop his knees. “Did I miss His funeral?”

“You missed it, yes.” Pressing the bottle to Michael’s withered lips, Thomas realized the angel was blind. His eyes, milky and motionless, lay in his head like pearls wrought by some terminally ill oyster. “I’m sorry.”

“But He’s safe now?”

“Quite safe.”

“Not too much decay?”

“Not too much.”

“Still smiling?”

“Still smiling.”

Michael laid his right hand on his harp and began picking out the famous zither theme from The Third Man. “Wh-where are we?”

“The Hebrides.”

“That near Kvitoya?”

“Kvitoya’s two thousand miles away,” the priest admitted.

“Then I won’t even get to visit the body.”

“True.” The angel’s fever was so intense Thomas could feel the heat against his cheeks. “You built Him a beautiful tomb.”

“We did, didn’t we? It was my idea to inter Him with His masterpieces. Whale, orchid, sparrow, cobra. We had a tough time deciding what to include. Adabiel made a big pitch for human inventions… argued they were His by extension. Wheel, plow, VCR, harpsichord, hardball — we’re all such Yankees fans — but then Zaphiel said, ‘Okay, lot’s put in a .356 Magnum,’ and that settled the matter.”

A crepuscular cabin on a derelict freighter in the middle of the dreary North Sea: not a likely setting for revelation, yet that was what now struck Thomas Wickliff Ockham, S.J. — a revelation, a luminous truth blazing through his mortal soul.

“There’s a fact I must know,” he said. “Did God actually request the Kvitoya tomb? Did He come to you and say, ‘Bury Me in the Arctic’?”

Michael coughed explosively, peppering the Campin Annunciation with droplets of blood. “We peered over the edge of heaven. We saw His body adrift off Gabon. We said, ‘Something must be done.’ ”

“Let me get this straight. He never asked to be buried?”

“It seemed the decent thing to do,” said the angel.

“But He never asked.”

“No.”

“So in sending His corpse to earth, He may’ve had something other than a funeral in mind?”

“Possibly.”

Possibly. Probably. Certainly. “Do you want extreme unction?” asked Thomas. “I have no chrism, but there’s a ton of consecrated firefighting foam on the Maracaibo.”

Michael closed his sightless eyes. “That reminds me of an old joke. ‘How do you make holy water?’ Ever heard it, Father?”

“I don’t know.”

“You take some water and you boil the hell out of it.’ Extreme unction? No. Thank you — but no. The sacraments don’t matter anymore. Precious little matters anymore. I don’t even care if the Yankees are still in first place. Are they?”

Thomas would never know whether Michael heard the good news, for the instant the priest offered his reply — “Yes, the Yankees are still in first place” — the archangel’s eyes liquefied, his hands melted, and his torso disintegrated like the Tower of Babel crumbling beneath God’s withering breath.

Thomas stared at the bunk, beholding Michael’s ashy remains with a mixture of disbelief and awe. He drew out the walkie-talkie. “You there, Anthony?”

“What’s going on?” demanded Van Horne.

“We lost him.”

“I’m not surprised.”

The priest ran his fingers through the soft gray ephemera on the mattress. “Captain, I think I’ve got the answer.”

“You’ve discovered a TOE?”

“I know why God died. Not only that, I’ve decided what our next move should be.”

“Why’d He die?”

“It’s complicated. Listen — tonight’s supper will be a private affair. I’m inviting only four people: you, Miriam, Di Luca, your girlfriend.”

“Whatever your theory, I doubt that my girlfriend will accept it.”

“That’s exactly why I want her there. If I can persuade Cassie Fowler to disinter the corpse, I can persuade anybody.”

“Disinter it?”

Thomas bundled the divine dust and holy feathers into the bedsheet, securing the corners with a convoluted knot.

“Answer me, Thomas. What do you mean, ‘disinter it’?”

For reasons known only to himself, Sam Follingsbee bypassed the Maracaibo’s normal stores that evening and instead cooked up a copious Chinese buffet using the last of the meat they’d salvaged from the sinking Valparaíso. After Thomas said grace, he and his guests dug in. They ate slowly — reverently, in fact, even the habitually sacrilegious Cassie Fowler. Di Luca, too, seemed to approach his meal with piety, as if he somehow sensed its source.

Swallowing a mouthful of artificial mu gu gai pan, Thomas said, “I have a theory for you.”

“He’s solved the great riddle,” Van Horne explained, devouring a mock wonton.

“I’ll start with a question,” said Thomas. “What’s the most accurate metaphor for God?”

“Love,” said Sister Miriam.

“Try again.”

“Judge,” said Di Luca.

“Besides that?”

“Creator,” said Fowler.

“Close.”

“Father,” said Van Horne.

Thomas ate a morsel of bogus Szechuan beef. “Exactly. Father. And what would you say is every father’s ultimate obligation?”

“To respect his children,” said Van Horne.

“Provide them with unconditional love,” said Miriam.

“A strong moral foundation,” said Di Luca.

“Feed them, clothe them, house them,” said Fowler.

“Forgive me, but I think you’re all wrong,” said Thomas. “A father’s ultimate obligation is to stop being a father. You follow me? At some point, he must step aside and allow his sons and daughters to enter adulthood. And that’s precisely what I think God did. He realized our continued belief in Him was constraining us, holding us back — infantilizing us, if you will.”

“Oh, that old argument,” sneered Di Luca. “I must say, I’m saddened to hear it from the author of The Mechanics of Grace.”

“I think maybe Tom’s on to something,” said Miriam.

“You would,” said Di Luca.

“A father’s obliged to step aside,” said Van Horne. “He’s not obliged to drop dead.”

“He is if He’s you-know-Who,” said Thomas. “Think about it. As long as God kept aloof, His decision to enter oblivion would remain a secret. But if He incarnated Himself, came to earth…”

“Excuse me,” said Di Luca, “but at least one of us at this table believes just such an event happened about two thousand years ago.”

“I believe it happened too,” said Thomas. “But history marches on, Eminence. We can’t live in the past.”

Fowler sipped oolong tea. “What, exactly, are you saying, Father? Are you saying He killed Himself?”

“Yes.”

“Cripes.”

“Knowing full well His angels would die of empathy?” asked Van Horne.

“That’s how much He loved the world,” said Thomas. “He willed Himself out of existence, simultaneously giving us ponderous proof of the fact.”

“So where’s His suicide note?” asked Fowler.

“Maybe He never wrote one. Maybe it’s inscribed on His body in some arcane fashion.” Thomas loaded his fork with counterfeit calamari in black bean sauce. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I, for one, am quite moved by our Creator’s selflessness.”

“And I, for one, think you’re way out on a limb,” said Di Luca, eyes narrowing. “Could you tell us exactly how you arrived at this bizarre conclusion?”

“Jesuitical deduction,” Thomas replied, “combined with a crucial fact I learned this afternoon from Michael.”