“Well then, let’s see. In 1701 Peter installed these magnificent panels in a special room in the Catherine Palace near present-day Leningrad, where they stayed until we liberated them a few years ago and brought them here to Gross Friedrichsberg. When it was still at the palace, the room was often described as the Eighth Wonder of the World.”

I tried to look impressed, although my own opinion was that this wide-eyed, lazy description of the Amber Room must have been given by people who didn’t get out very much. I was getting a little tired of Koch’s reverence for the orange stuff, so I decided to hurry things along.

“Sir, might I ask what all this has to do with me?”

“You’re going to help us get these priceless artifacts back to Berlin, where they belong.”

“Me? How? I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry,” said Koch. “We weren’t thinking of making you hide them under your coat, Captain. No, we had something else in mind. Didn’t we, Harold? Something a little more sophisticated.”

“We’re going to load them on a refugee ship that’s due to leave the port of Gotenhafen in a few days’ time,” said Hennig. “The MS Wilhelm Gustloff. As you probably know, many of those ships are frequently targets for Russian submarines from the Baltic fleet operating out of the Finnish port of Hangoe. We thought it might help to guarantee the safety of both passengers and panels if the Russian navy was informed that one of their most important national treasures—which we may have to trade back one day—is on board that same ship.”

“They might be rather less inclined to sink it,” said Koch, as if I might have failed to understand.

“Informed? How? By postcard? Or would you like me to drive to the front and give them a letter?”

Hennig smiled. “Well, that would be one way. But we were rather hoping you might persuade that sweetheart of yours—the little lightning maid—to put out an unencrypted signal on an open frequency informing the Russians, indirectly, of the presence of the Amber Room on board the Wilhelm Gustloff.”

“Really,” said Koch, “when you stop and think about it, this would be to the advantage of everyone.”

“Persuade her? How? What am I supposed to tell her?”

“Only what we’ve told you.”

“Need I remind you both that putting out a signal without encoding it using a Scherbius Enigma machine would be a court-martial offense? For which she could easily be shot as a spy. Or worse. You’re asking her to break the very first rule of being a signals auxiliary.”

“No, no, no,” said Koch. “My authority as Prussian gauleiter supersedes all local military and naval codes and protocols. There would be no chance of this even getting near a court-martial.”