Chapter 9 - The Decoy
By 10:30 AM, heavy fog rolled off the Columbia River, blanketing the town of Astoria in cold, milky moisture. Julian drove a secondary pickup truck he had kept stashed in a barn near the highway.
First, he dropped Evelyn and Lily off at St. Mary’s Cathedral in the center of town. He handed Father Thomas, an old contact who had hidden refugees for decades, an envelope of untraceable currency.
“Lock the sanctuary doors,” Julian instructed, his voice low and commanding. “If I don't return by sunset, take them to the federal marshals in Seattle. Give them Clara’s files.”
Father Thomas gripped Julian’s hand. “May God have mercy on your soul, my son.”
“God can wait,” Julian replied grimly. “I have business in hell.”
Julian walked back to his vehicle. In the passenger seat, he placed Lily’s bright yellow raincoat over a bundle of folded blankets, creating the silhouette of a sleeping child from a distance. He then placed Evelyn’s phone, still pinging its location, inside the glove compartment.
He drove toward the Astoria waterfront. The abandoned fish cannery sat rotting on weathered pilings extending into the freezing gray currents of the river.
Dominic’s spotters were positioned on the rusty tin roof. As Julian’s truck rolled slowly down the gravel access road, two heavily armed guards emerged from the main warehouse doors, leveling assault rifles.
Julian put the truck in park, killed the engine, and stepped out into the biting wind. He kept his hands visible, walking slowly toward the entrance.
“He came alone!” one guard shouted into a radio headset. “Wait... there’s a lump in the passenger seat. Looks like the kid!”
Julian walked through the rusting corrugated doors into the vast, echoing belly of the cannery. The smell of brine, rust, and machine oil was thick in the air.
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At the far end of the warehouse, surrounded by six armed bodyguards, sat Dominic Cole in a leather armchair, a silver-tipped cane resting between his knees.
“Julian,” Dominic smiled, his teeth yellowed beneath a groomed gray mustache. “You always were a punctual man.”
