“As soon as it is signed, both Miss Schaper and her unborn child, of course, can board the ship. But not until then. You see where I’m going with this, Gunther. Either she agrees to send the unencrypted signal—which I will supply, of course—and on an open channel, or she’ll be the last naval auxiliary left in the city when the Russians turn up. After which I don’t give much for her chances or the baby’s. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you of all people what the Russians are doing to our women. It was you who wrote the report on Nemmersdorf, wasn’t it? How many women was it they violated? The Russian soldier seems to regard the rape of German women as a patriotic duty. I mean, they fuck like they’re using a bayonet. So, I wonder how many Ivans she could take on before she lost that baby.”

“You put that very nicely, Hennig. So nicely I wonder how I don’t see how many of your teeth I can make stick to my knuckles.”

“You don’t want to hit me, Gunther. That would spoil everything. For you. For your girl. And her invisible jockey.”

I bit my lip, which was momentarily better than biting a senior officer. I wasn’t sure what the military law on that one was, but I didn’t think it was a ticket home on the MS Wilhelm Gustloff.

“And where will you be? When the ship sets sail.”

“Oh, I’ll be on the ship, too. Someone has to oversee the transport of the Amber Room back to Germany. I’m sure you agree it’s much too valuable to let it travel by itself.”

“I’m impressed. How did you manage that?”

“Let’s just say that when the gauleiter was in the Ukraine—where he was also the governor, of course—he managed to spirit away the contents of four whole museums. And those are just the ones that I know about. I should say he now has an art collection to rival Hermann Göring’s.”

“And you threatened to tell Hitler or Himmler about them. Is that it?”

“It would have been my duty as a German officer.”

“And Koch? What about him?”