So were the three steps leading down to the front door. The bus had seemed sealed tight but the flies had gotten inside. They always do, somehow.
The safety glass had come apart in cubes that looked like rock salt. There were no jagged, razor-edged shards. Jack brushed aside the fragments on the hood. He crouched almost double, sticking a foot through the frame and stepping down to the driver’s seat. The driver’s area was free of blood.
Jack eased himself through the frame into the bus. It was like stepping into a baker’s oven. Sweat sprang out from every pore. He breathed through his nose as shallowly as possible. A cloud of flies buzzed around him. He waved his hand in front of his face, batting them away, but they kept coming back.
He took out a small flashlight from one of his pockets and switched it on to dispel some of the murky shadows. He made his way down the aisle toward the rear of the bus, the flashlight beam gliding over rows of seats, the floor and walls. Some seats were bloodstained but most were not. A few side windows were cracked but none had been broken. No bodies were in view. He ducked down to shine the light under the seats but there were no bodies there, either.
He worked his way to the back of the bus. It lacked an emergency rear door. A mass of dried blood stained the floor and back panel. It was reddish-brown and several inches thick. The evidence seemed to indicate that there had been a number of bleeding bodies at the back of the bus, that they had been dragged to the front and out the door.
Jack figured he had seen all there was to see for now. The forensics team could take it from here. He wanted out.
He went to the front of the bus, using the driver’s seat as a stepping stone to climb through the windshield frame and out on to the hood. He hopped up on the vehicle’s roof and went to the rear. He boosted himself onto the top of the shed and jumped off. He landed on the ground with knees bent, rolling on his shoulder to absorb the impact.
Anne Armstrong, Holtz, and Sanchez had joined Frith and they were all waiting for him. Bailey was still back at the vehicles keeping watch. Sanchez said to Jack, “You look pretty shook, man.”
Jack took some deep breaths, filling his lungs with clean air. He could still taste the blood reek in his nostrils and at the back of his throat. Holtz had a canteen. Jack took a mouthful of warm water, swished it around in his mouth, and spat it out. He drank some more before returning the canteen.
Anne Armstrong said, “What did you find?”
Jack told them. Armstrong said, “What do you make of it?”
Jack said, “I’m only guessing based on what I saw. The Zealots didn’t just pull a disappearing act on Thursday morning. There was a purge, too. One faction cleaning up on a dissident element, say. The victims were killed or wounded at Red Notch. Maybe some were killed and some only wounded. The entire compound cadre cleared out in the blue bus and some other vehicles. Our witness Skeets said there was a convoy of a couple cars and trucks along with the bus. The victims were in the bus.
“Somewhere along the way but most likely here at Silvertop the bodies were disposed of. The bus was backed into this shed, which was a wreck already. The killers finished the job, probably by battering it down with one or more of their other vehicles. It wouldn’t take much to bring the walls down considering the age and state of disrepair of the shed. You could do it with a pickup truck or SUV. The west wall is broken in at just about the right height for a truck bumper and there are fresh scrapes and gouges on the boards.
“What the collapsed shed didn’t hide was concealed under the tarp. It’s the same color as the surroundings and would blend right in with the scenery. Especially to any air searches doing a flyover.”
Sanchez said, “I don’t get it. Why go to all that trouble?”
Jack said, “The blue bus was a liability. Too big, too obvious, and too well- known. And one more reason: the surviving Zealots didn’t need it anymore. They were able to leave in the other vehicles that made up the convoy. Which tells you another thing — there couldn’t have been too many Zealots left out of the original two dozen or so.”
Frith said, “That must’ve been some purge.”
Jack nodded. “A real Night of the Long Knives.”
Armstrong said, “It sounds plausible but one aspect puzzles me. After taking such pains to hide the bus, why not leave the bodies inside?”
Jack said, “I picked up on that, too. It’s a key question. Why not leave the bodies inside? It suggests that discovery of the bus by the authorities is less important than the discovery of the bodies. For some reason, the bodies must not be found. Why not?
“One answer comes to mind. Whose bodies are they? What if Prewitt himself was one of the ones purged? Suppose the cult leader and his loyalists were eliminated by an upstart faction. That development would electrify the rest of his crowd, namely the hundreds of rank-and-file members outside the inner circle. Many of whom are known to reside in this state to be close to their guru.
“The usurpers could be the ones planning a strike against the Round Table. Prewitt and his loyalists opposed it so they had to go. But the plotters still require the assistance of Zealots outside the Red Notch cadre to carry out their plan. True believers who’d jump to obey the commands of their grand exalted leader Prewitt would balk if the orders came from someone else, some upstart who’s trying to take over the whole works.”
Armstrong frowned, stroking her chin. “Prewitt’s death — murder — would have the members scrambling like an overturned anthill if it were known.”
Jack went on, “Or it could work the other way. Maybe Prewitt’s in favor of a strike and liquidated all those who opposed him. That would split the cult, too, at a critical time when unity is required for a Sky Mount action.”
He smacked a fist against his palm. “All of which makes it vital that those bodies be found — and quick!”
Armstrong said, “Yes, but how?”
Jack said, “I think I’ve got a lead. A clue. If I’m right we won’t have to look very far.” He indicated a gaping hole in the ground about a hundred feet east of the shed. “See that ventilator shaft?”
The others turned to look at where he was pointing. He went on, “There’s something different about it from the other holes in the ground on top of the bluff. I noticed it when I was up on the roof of the shed. It stands out when you see it from above. What it is, is that the soil around the hole is a different color from the rest of the terrain. It’s darker. Like maybe somebody raked it up to cover their tracks.”
Armstrong said, “It’s worth a look.”
The group crossed toward the shaft. The sun was a bit past the zenith, and the team members cast blobs of shadow that slanted slightly east.
The mouth of the shaft was an unnaturally regular circle of blackness gaping in the middle of the ground. It was not boarded over or fenced in. It was about thirty feet in diameter and was ringed by a brown band of soil. Beyond the ring the ground was light brown streaked with tans and grays.
Sanchez said, “It is a different color.” Jack said, “There’s no tracks running through it, either.”
Holtz said, “That doesn’t mean anything. Nobody’s going to ride a dirt bike or off-road vehicle too close to the edge.”
Jack said, “Not many weeds or bushes, either. And no trash, bottles, beer cans, and the like.”
The group fanned out in an arc bordering a section of the dark band. There was a clear line of demarcation between it and the surrounding lighter-colored soil. Jack dug his heel into the light-colored soil, gouging out a patch several inches deep. The soil that he uncovered was the same dark color as the ring bordering the shaft. He said, “How close can you get to the edge here anyway?”
Anne Armstrong said, “I wouldn’t get too close.”
Jack stepped into the ring of dark soil and moved toward the rim of the shaft. He moved slowly, carefully, halting about four feet away from the edge. He could see the edge of the rim opposite him on the other side of the shaft. The shaft was a hole bored straight down through the ground.
He took off his baseball cap, folded it in two, and stuck it in his back pocket. He got down on his knees and lay flat on the ground, feeling the warmth of the earth beneath him. Frith and Sanchez crouched behind him, each holding one of Jack’s ankles— a safety precaution in case the ground at the rim should give way.
Jack stuck his head over the edge and looked down. The shaft plunged more than a hundred feet straight down. The sun was almost directly overhead, allowing him to see most of the bottom of the hole, except where a
