Halfway Heroes
Page 95
Heather drummed on the dashboard. Mark, driving, had followed Rooke back to Kentle Funeral Home. They had been sitting in front of the building for what felt like hours, staring at Rooke’s hearse parked to the side. Rooke hadn’t shown himself, either to leave or to announce that he was still there. Yet given that they had a perfect view of the only exits from the building, Rooke couldn’t have escaped their watchful eyes. Neither wanted to head in without backup, not knowing what Rooke had planned for them.
“Finster? Where are you?” Heather said into her walkie-talkie.
“I’m almost there,” he said. “By the way, they took the hospital.”
“The mercenaries?”
“Captured. Emeryl included. Only a few are still free. I sent them to the second group of canisters,” he said.
Mark checked the car’s clock. They only had a half hour to spare. He briefly considered the effects of the SN91. How it would kill him and everyone else in a tidy, efficient manner. He cleared those thoughts from his mind. We’ll get the code. We’ll get the code, he told himself.
He tried to focus on anything else. The funeral home’s logo caught his eye. KENTLE FUNERAL HOME, A FAMILY BUSINESS. The name was familiar. Mark knew he’d seen it recently. But trying to figure out where failed as a distraction. The harder he thought, the more his gaze was drawn to the clock. His heart rate speed up as it ticked toward their doom. He could think of nothing else but the SN91.
After waiting awhile longer for Finster to show, Heather stepped out of the car. “Let’s go,” she said. “Can’t wait around forever.” She pulled out one of her numerous pistols, checked it, and headed into the funeral home with Mark in tow.
The funeral home was longer than it was wide. The curse of building in a cramped city, Mark supposed. It was a gray-painted wooden building, sitting a couple of stories high. An attic shed had been added to the flat roof of the second story, giving the building a little more height. On top of the peaked roof of the attic was a steeple, with a weathervane behind it spinning this way and that. The interior was silent, as one would expect, and the lights were off. It was as muffled and quiet as the display coffins they passed through the foyer.
Wonder if they get a lot of business, he thought as they passed various rooms, all set up with rows of chairs. Probably will after today. Mark shuddered at the inviting, cushioned caskets and stayed close to Heather.
At the end of the foyer was an intersection, with a spiraling staircase that rose to the second floor. Heather aimed her pistol at the rooms on each side of the hall. But nobody popped out to surprise them. At least nobody from the rooms on this floor.
“Hello,” said a voice above them. Heather raised her gun upward as she and Mark lifted their heads to look. Hanging over the banister on the second floor was Rooke, grinning like a mad fool. But he wasn’t the only thing that had caught their attention. No, what was more important was the shoulder-mounted, long tube-like weapon that Rooke was aiming at them.
“Is that an RPG?” Mark asked, gaping at how he could’ve possibly acquired a rocket-propelled grenade device.
“Yes, it is,” Rooke said. “So hold it right there.”