Phantoms

to break out in a cold sweat.
    Copperfield reached the locker. “Let me at that handle.”
    “It’s no use.”
    “ Let me at it!”
    Bryce got out of the way.
    The general was a big brawny man—the biggest man here, in fact. He looked strong enough to uproot century-old oaks. Straining, cursing, he moved the door handle no farther than Bryce had done.
    “The goddamned latch must be broken or bent,” Copperfield said, panting.
    Harker screamed and screamed.
    Bryce thought of Liebermann’s Bakery. The rolling pin on the table. The hands. The severed hands. This was the way a man might scream while he watched his hands being cut off at the wrists.
    Copperfield pounded on the door in rage and frustration.
    Bryce glanced at Tal. This was a first: Talbert Whitman visibly frightened.
    Calling to Bryce, Jenny came through the gate. She had three screwdrivers, each of them sealed in a brightly colored cardboard and plastic package.
    “Didn’t know which size you needed,” she said.
    “Okay,” Bryce said, reaching for the tools, “now get out of here fast. Go back with the others.”
    Ignoring his command, she gave him two of the screwdrivers, but she held on to the third.
    Harker’s screams had become so shrill, so awful, that they no longer sounded human.
    As Bryce ripped open one package, Jenny tore the third bright yellow container to shreds and extracted the screwdriver from it.
    “I’m a doctor. I stay.”
    “He’s beyond any doctor’s help,” Bryce said, frantically tearing open the second package.
    “Maybe not. If you thought there wasn’t a chance, you wouldn’t be trying to get him out of there.”
    “Damn it, Jenny!”
    He was worried about her, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to persuade her to leave if she had already made up her mind to stay.
    He took the third screwdriver from her, shouldered past General Copperfield, and returned to the door.
    He couldn’t remove the door’s hinge pins. It swung into the locker, so the hinges were on the inside.
    But the lever-action handle fitted through a large cover plate behind which lay the lock mechanism. The plate was fastened to the face of the door by four screws. Bryce hunkered down in front of it, selected the most suitable screwdriver, and removed the first screw, letting it drop to the floor.
    Harker’s screaming stopped.
    The ensuing silence was almost worse than the screams.
    Bryce removed the second, third, and fourth screws.
    There was still no sound from Sergeant Harker.
    When the cover plate was loose, Bryce slid it along the handle, pulled it free, and discarded it. He squinted at the guts of the lock, probed at the mechanism with the screwdriver. In response, ragged bits of torn metal popped out of the lock; other pieces rattled down through a hollow space in the interior of the door. The lock had been thoroughly mangled from within the door . He found the manual release slot in the shaft of the latch bolt, slid the screwdriver through it, pulled to the right. The spring seemed to have been badly bent or sprung, for there was very little play left in it. Nevertheless, he drew the bolt back far enough to bring it out of the hole in the lamb, then pushed inward. Something clicked; the door started to swing open.
    Everyone, including Bryce, backed out of the way.
    The door’s own weight contributed sufficiently to its momentum, so that it continued to swing slowly, slowly inward.
    Private Pascalli was covering it with his submachine gun, and Bryce drew his own handgun, as did Copperfield, although Sergeant Harker had conclusively proved that such weapons were useless.
    The door swung all the way open.
    Bryce expected something to rush out at them. Nothing did.
    Looking through the doorway and across the locker, he could see that the outer door was open, too, which it definitely hadn’t been when Harker had gone inside a couple of minutes ago. Beyond it lay the sun-splashed alleyway.
    Copperfield ordered Pascalli and Fodor to secure the locker. They went through the door fast, one turning to the left, the other to the right, out of sight.
    In a few seconds, Pascalli returned. “It’s all clear, sir.”
    Copperfield went into the locker, and Bryce followed.
    Harker’s submachine gun was lying on the floor.
    Sergeant Harker was hanging from the ceiling meat rack, next to a side of beef—hanging on an enormous, wickedly pointed, two-pronged meat hook that had been driven through his chest.
    Bryce’s stomach heaved. He started