The guy shrugged. Sandhogs are a proud lot. They built New York City, its subways and sewers, every tunnel, pier, skyscraper, and bridge foundation. Every glass of clean water comes out of the tap thanks to a sandhog. A family job, different generations working together on the same sites. Dirty work done right. So the guy was reluctant to sound reluctant. “Everyone’s in kind of a funk. We had two guys walk off, disappear. Clocked in for a shift, went down into the tunnels, but never clocked out. We’re twenty-four/seven here, but nobody wants night shifts anymore. Nobody wants to be underground. And these are young guys, my daredevils.”

Fet looked ahead to the tunnel openings where the subterranean structures would be joined beneath Church Street. “So no new construction these past few days? Breaking new ground?”

“Not since we got the basin hollowed out.”

“And all this started with the rats?”

“Around then. Something’s come over this place, just in the past few days.” The sandhog shrugged, shaking it off. He had a plain white hard hat for Vasiliy. “And I thought I had a dirty job. What makes someone want to become a rat catcher anyway?”

Vasiliy put on the hat, feeling the wind change near the mouth of the underground passage. “I guess I’m addicted to the glamour.”

The sandhog looked at Vasiliy’s boots, his Puma bag, the steel rod. “Done this before?”

“Gotta go where the vermin are. There’s a lot of city under this city.”

“Tell me about it. You got a flashlight, I hope? Some bread crumbs?”

“Think I’m good.”

Vasiliy shook the sandhog’s hand, then started inside.

The tunnel was clean at first, where it had been shored up. He followed it out of the sunlight, yellow lights strung every ten or so yards, marking his way. He was under where the original concourse had been located. This big burrow would, when all was said and done, connect the new PATH station to the WTC transportation hub located between towers two and three, a half block away. Other feed tunnels connected to city water, power, and sewer.

Deeper in, he couldn’t help but notice fine, powdery dust still coating the walls of the original tunnel. This was a hallowed place, still very much a graveyard. Where bodies and buildings were pulverized, reduced to atoms.

He saw burrows, he saw tracks and scat, but no rats. He picked away at the burrows with his rod, and listened. He heard nothing.