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way down. Hoffner looked back up, a thoroughly disingenuous smile on his lips. “May we?” The man said nothing as Fichte took hold of the top rung and started down. Hoffner followed.
    The air quickly thickened, and the smell of damp earth—at the top quite pleasant—gave way to something less inviting as they descended, familiar, yet nondistinct. It was only when he reached the bottom and stepped away from the ladder that Hoffner recognized the odor. Human feces. Muted, but undeniable.
    The two Kripomen were now standing in the first of a series of man-made caverns, wide mining shafts that spoked out from the central area. The subway station at Rosenthaler Platz had evidently been chosen to house an underground arcade—shops, cafés—the skeleton of which had been near to completion before the work had been shut down. All that remained by way of construction material, aside from the timber and steel supports, was the odd piece of wiring and the scrawl on the wooden slats, measurements and the like penned in a dull charcoal. A few of the slats had gone missing, though Hoffner recognized that they had been well chosen; none of the gaps looked to be threatening the pit’s structural integrity. He had to hand it to the poachers.
    He never imagined, however, that these poachers would be standing directly behind him, or rather sitting. And yet there, along a narrow wooden bench in an adjoining cavern, sat an utterly unexpected foursome—husband, wife, and two sons of perhaps eight and ten. They were all neatly dressed, considering the circumstances, the man in a worn coat and tie, the woman in a long dress in need of a good cleaning, all with overcoats folded in their laps. The gaunt faces stared straight ahead as if, with a kind of macabre persistence, they were waiting for a train. Off to the side were what looked to be two well-worn feather beds sitting atop several of the absent slats, a small wooden table, a bucket, and a camping fire. A steel trunk rounded out the furnishings.
    Two more patrolmen stood at either end of the bench. A third—a sergeant, from the braiding on the brim of his helmet—stood by the fire. He took a step toward Hoffner. “Herr Detective, I am—”
    “Yes, I’m sure you are,” said Hoffner as he turned to Fichte. “I think my partner can fill me in.”
    The attention seemed to catch Fichte by surprise. When Hoffner continued to stare, Fichte finally said, “Apparently they live down here. The man was an engineer—”
    “Division Two, Firma Ganz-Neurath.” The voice came from the father. Hoffner turned. “I am a designer for this site,” the man continued in an accent tinged with something other than German. “Under the direction of Herr Alfred Grenander. We have only been living here. Nothing else. Nothing else.” There was a wavering sincerity in his tone, one that Hoffner recognized all too well. It was usually reserved for the third or fourth hour of interrogation, that time when a man tries to convince himself of his own innocence. “I am not ashamed to be here.”
    Hoffner kept his gaze on the man, then turned to Fichte. “He’s not ashamed to be here,” he echoed wryly.
    Fichte nodded. “From what we can make out, he lost his position. They had a choice. Either hold on to their flat, or eat. They decided to eat. It’s actually pretty livable down here. It’s dry, warm, and except—”
    “Yes,” said Hoffner. “I can smell it.”
    Again, Fichte nodded.
    “And the boys?”
    “On the rolls at a nearby school. They haven’t missed a day.”
    Hoffner looked back at the family. Again, he waited. “Why am I standing down here, Herr Kriminal-Assistent ?” Before Fichte could answer, Hoffner continued, enjoying his audience: “He seems like a nice-enough fellow, decent. Amid all the shortages, war, revolution, he’s managed to find a way to keep a—well, to keep something over his family’s head. He sends his children to school. He’s been an engineer with