“Is that your place?” the helicopter pilot asked as he swung the craft into a sweeping circle above the rustic cabin, on a small lake below.
Echohawk leaned into the turn. The man’s voice was clear and soft in the headphones. “Yes,” he answered. “There’s a clearing just to the north where another cabin once stood. You can set down there.”
“Roger that.” The pilot banked a second time, heading toward the area Echohawk pointed out.
The helicopter flew over a dense copse of woods near the entrance road. Echohawk looked down and started in surprise. The image was fleeting but he knew it instinctively from his military days flying Blackhawk missions in Afghanistan.
“Pull up,” he ordered the pilot. The man looked at him in surprise. Echohawk did not hesitate. He reached over and eased back on the stick. The helicopter rose.
“Hey!” The pilot shouted.
“Pull up,” Echohawk said, the steel in his voice clear. The man did as he was told.
“What’s going on?”
“Some visitors I’m not eager to meet,” Echohawk said.
The pilot nodded. “Where to?”
“Menominee Coast Guard station. There’s a helicopter pad beside the marine center there.”
The pilot must have known where the center was for he took off in a direct line to Menominee’s harbor. Echohawk sat back in the seat. Those were soldiers down there waiting … waiting for me. He needed more time to think about what to do next.
* * *
Echohawk remembered the day Kellog Ang had called him into his office, and to his surprise, asked him what he knew about Bigfoot.
He thought about his answer for a moment and uttered the statement that would change his life. “It’s all bullshit.”
Ang smiled at him. “What if I told you I have proof it’s real?”
“I’d say you’re smoking some really good shit.”
The door to the office opened and the younger Ang brother entered. Winston took a seat beside Kellog behind the large oval desk. He pulled a small silver disk from a case and handed it to Echohawk.
“What’s this?”
“A gift from my brother and me to you. It’s your own, new, Ang brothers Personal Assistant.” He pulled his long black hair from behind his ear and showed the PA he had pasted there just above the mastoid nerve. “It’ll keep you connected to us 24/7. Please put it on. You’re going to find it very useful in the coming months.”
Echohawk fingered the device then affixed it behind his left ear.
“Now tap the side twice,” Kellog said.
He did so and felt a soft hum that faded almost instantly. His eyes widened in surprise. “What’s next? You induct me into the club with a secret handshake?”
Neither of the brothers flinched at his sarcasm. Winston punched a button on a TV remote. The far wall of the office became a television monitor. “What you’re about to see, only a handful of people have ever witnessed – the creature you call Bigfoot – the one your Auntie Ayasha wants you to protect.”
Echohawk recalled shifting uncomfortably in his chair. The Ang brothers knew too much about him. He had thought about pulling the PA off and walking out of the office right then. But something stayed his hand. It was the surety in the way the younger brother talked and the lack of any surprise in either man’s face. Instead he saw an intense look of fear in their eyes. He remembered thinking, these guys are true believers. They have to have a reason for telling me this. Something more than endless plaster of Paris footprints and hazy photographs everybody has seen but he didn’t say any of this to the Ang brothers. He listened.
The television monitor came to life and Echohawk saw the white Bigfoot, strapped to a chair. The men interviewing it were speaking Russian. The creature answered in the same language.
“This took place in northeastern Siberia,” the older brother said.
Winston turned the sound down. “That Bigfoot is real and your Auntie Ayasha and your clan are playing a critical role in keeping their existence secret.
“Did you know this?”
Ecohawk decided to partially lie, “That’s the legend I was told.”
But many are now gathering near your tribal lands in Upper Michigan. We need your help to stop them, and the threat to humanity they represent. A threat that will wipe humans off the face of the Earth.”
Echohawk was too stunned to challenge the idea, particularly after the Ang brothers showed him images of the Bigfoot’s right arm being dissected. The unusual matter that sloughed away was like nothing he had ever seen before. He had realized then it was one thing to listen to Auntie Ayasha’s plea for him to accept his tribal role, another to see one captured. It made him a little uneasy.
“What do you want from me?”
“We want you to be our eyes and ears on the ground in the UP for the next several months. There’s a five million dollar bonus in it for you once the last of these creatures have been exterminated and humanity is safe.”
At the time he thought, and now I have the chance to return home and avenge my grandfather’s death. He would have done it for nothing.
“I’ll do it.”
“Good,” Winston said. “When we need you, you’ll be contacted by an elderly Russian gentleman named Dmitryi. The man interviewing the Bigfoot in Siberia. Meanwhile, you’ll work as a contract engineer to the Coast Guard and live at a cabin just outside of Menominee we’ve purchased. Quite rustic and well-equipped. I’m sure you’ll like it.”
When Echohawk had arrived in Michigan, his plan to return home and face his Auntie and the legacy he had so vehemently rejected slowly evaporated. He would help the Ang brothers and keep quiet. But everything had changed when the Bigfoot talked to him.
Echohawk looked out through the glass bubble at the forests streaming beneath the craft. The late afternoon sun shone brightly off the fall colors. He imagined somewhere beneath the dense foliage Bigfoot lurked, hiding from Meriwether’s teams of trained killers. He gritted his teeth and settled back into the seat. The steady thrum of the engine, muffled by the headphones, gave him privacy within his own thoughts.
I have a decision to make.
* * *
The flight to Menominee’s harbor was uneventful and the pilot set him down near the wharf, where the Coast Guard vessel Ulysses was docked. “How ya going to get home?” the man asked.
“I have a vehicle in town.” Echohawk bent low and scurried beneath the rotors. He waited until the pilot left and then went into the parking lot, where he kept his BMW S1000RR, Motorrad racing bike.
Pulling on the helmet, he sat down on the cycle. The machine recognized his bio signature and fired up. The roar was hardly noticeable through the helmet’s Kevlar reinforced fiberglass. He jacked the bike’s phone lead into the headset and tested the sound with his mic. His voice was soft and clear.
He waited a moment. Intuition told him the Russian was at the cabin. He knew a back way around the men waiting to intercept him. On his terms, he would decide what to do next.