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    Stirred Not Shaken
    Stirred Not Shaken
    Stirred Not Shaken
    Ebook66 pages1 hour

    Stirred Not Shaken

    By Julie Thomas

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    About this ebook

    This is a book of quirky short stories.

    Stirred Not Shaken - Cam McIntosh is a fictional deep cover spy for the CIA, then something goes terribly wrong and he finds himself in the strangest place on earth, talking to Poirot and mixing a martini for Bond, James Bond.

    My Two Germans - Two people meet in front of an Albrecht Durer portrait in the Louve and start up a conversation. The results are astonishing and rock the art world to its core. A satisfying story of good triumphing over the greatest evil mankind has ever known.

    No Such Luck - Sit on a beach and mind your own business and before you know it a Master of Fate arrives and you're considering what you'd do with just one wish.

    Death's Pantry Door - What goes through the head of a food critic as she lies dying? Delicious memories.

    For King and Country - based on a letter sent home by a young New Zealand Spitfire pilot on his way to fight in World War II. It begins almost like a holiday cruise and ends watching Liverpool burn as U boats try to sink the boat and he can hear men screaming in the water.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJulie Thomas
    Release dateSep 15, 2011
    ISBN9781466167155
    Stirred Not Shaken
    Author

    Julie Thomas

    Julie Thomas is the author of the highly acclaimed The Keeper of Secrets, Rachel's Legacy and Levi's War. She worked in the media in New Zealand for over 25 years in radio, television and film, before turning to full-time writing. She lives in Cambridge, New Zealand.

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      Book preview

      Stirred Not Shaken - Julie Thomas

      STIRRED NOT SHAKEN

      By

      Julie Thomas

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      * * * * *

      PUBLISHED BY:

      Julie Thomas on Smashwords

      Stirred Not Shaken

      Copyright © 2011 by Julie Thomas

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      * * * * *

      To my Dad and to an English teacher at school who, nearly forty years ago, told me that if I stuck at it I might be able to write a book one day.

      * * * * *

      This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      * * * * *

      CHAPTER ONE: STIRRED NOT SHAKEN

      I blame the Belgian for my demise. We’d spent half the book stalking a Columbian drug cartel. Our Intel told us they’d found a new way of couriering drugs into the US and then murdering the unsuspecting recipients with untraceable bullets made of ice. It was a strong plot, lots of explosive action, hot women, stiff booze and some simmering resentment towards me from Jeff Ross, my rookie partner. We tailed the cartel’s American boss, Hugo Cortez, into an abandoned warehouse down by the docks. For reasons that hadn’t been clearly explained we didn’t have time to wait for backup, so we ‘bit the bullet’ and stormed the building. It was a set-up. We had a mole in our organisation and Cortez knew we were on to him. He led us into a hail of badly aimed machine gun fire but, being the heroes, we flung ourselves behind some stacks of metal packaging and regrouped.

      Cover me, I’ll make a run for that old press. I can get a better shot at him from there, I hissed at Jeff. His answer was lost in the din of bullets. I threw myself across the stained concrete floor and rolled behind the broken steel press.

      Hola, Mr McIntosh.

      As I gazed up at the barrel of Cortez’s handgun I paused for a second to consider what my hero, Hercule Poirot, would do in such a dire situation and was felled by a surprisingly well aimed bullet to the heart. I waited for the delete key to take me back to where I could attack from a different angle, but it didn’t happen. One moment I was racing through the open door, ready to take down my nemesis, and the next I’d been shot through the heart, eliminated just as I’d established a franchise. I hadn’t ever considered what happened to a spy once he was eliminated, but I certainly didn’t expect to find myself spinning through space and landing with a jarring thud onto a sandy beach. It hurt more than being shot so I lay for a long moment until my ragged breathing settled down.

      Broken any bones, Monsieur?

      I raised my head far enough to see two shiny patent leather shoes and the tip of a mahogany cane about six inches from my face. I rolled over onto my back and checked the body rapidly from the toes to the head, nothing felt broken.

      Don’t think so.

      I sat up slowly and stared back at the dapper little man who was observing me impassively. What the hell?

      Ah I see you recognise me! Hercule Poirot, detective, at your service.

      He gave a slight nod of the head. He was exactly as I’d always imagined him to be, about five foot four inches tall and impeccably dressed in a cream linen suit. He held a mahogany cane, topped with a gold miniature telescope, in one hand. His very black hair was slicked back and his neat moustache was perfectly shaped and heavily waxed. The green eyes were serious, watchful, cautious. I stood up and brushed the sand from my clothes.

      Cam McIntosh. Where am I, sir?

      He nodded again.

      Oui. An American of Scottish extraction; tall, heavy set and strong. You are a physical kind of hero I think, but not, as I suspected, Jason Bourne. Please tell me, Monsieur McIntosh, are you a PI or a spy? And how did you meet your end?

      I looked down, my shirt was clean and my chest was closed, not a speck of blood in sight. How did he know I’d died?

      I’m a deep cover spy. How did you know I’d...met my end?

      He smiled and seemed very pleased with his deductions.

      "Mais oui, shot, no doubt. You are the new breed, all technology and terrorists and drugs, n’est pas? Some of my companions here are used to a much slower pace; we solved murders by using the observation and our little grey cells. How did I know?

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