What do you get when you mix a stunning CIA officer and a slightly paranoid ex-spook from Down Under with two mob associates on New Orleans' craziest night of the year? Shaken and Stirred February 04 from Zebra Books!
Vienna, December 31
At precisely eleven-forty-seven on the eve of Saint Sylvester, the Llewellyn clan’s newest spy came in from the cold. All of Vienna was steeped in celebration, and the light-strewn, snow-rimed streets were as crowded as the lobbies of the upscale hotels. To London Llewellyn, this unplanned stopover in Vienna was a mixed blessing. If not for a weird quirk of Fate, she would have been Stateside by now, fighting the New Year’s Eve traffic on the Beltway instead of begging a night’s lodging with her older brother, Benji, in a foreign country on the craziest night of the year.
It had started on the tarmac at Prague International Airport when a crazy with a box-cutter who thought he was the Messiah, had provided the pre-flight entertainment. During her nine months abroad, London had come to appreciate the laid-back Euro lifestyle. But laid-back, live-and-let-live wasn’t her first choice when some headcase high on holy narcissism and methamphetamines was threatening to take down the flight crew, starting with the flight attendants.
London, having just finished an assignment, was headed stateside for a quick debriefing, and a long, much-deserved vacation. For twenty minutes, she’d been eying the refreshment cart. Queen of the white knuckle fliers, she was fantasizing about a neat Irish whiskey or three when Jesus rocketed from his seat at the rear of the aircraft, grabbing the flight attendant and threatening to slit her throat if his demands were not met immediately.
London groaned just thinking about it. She’d been living undercover as a military attaché, while observing and gathering information, and in all of that time she hadn’t come close to being made even once until the fiasco on the plane.
Who would have thought that subduing one wackjob with her infamous Please-God-just-kill-me-now scrotum-twist hold would have merited a celebratory dinner and a brass band? And the more modest her protests, the more insistent the Czech Republic officials became. Finally, to prevent growing concerns from turning to outright suspicion, she had surrendered, allowing herself to be properly thanked for her heroism, key to the city, and all.
Who knew that the flight attendant would turn out to be the niece of a top-ranking general... the same general she’d stolen documents from the previous week?
If the incident on the flight hadn’t been bad enough, she’d missed her train on the U-Bahn, Austria’s underground subway system, arriving late. She just hoped Benji hadn’t decided to paint Vienna red without her. Her shoes were too tight, and her feet were killing her.
London put her bag down at the front desk, sending the bellhop her best touch-it-and-die glare, and groaned at the cramp in the small of her back. She had just enough Deutsche Marks to take the subway back to the airport, and she wasn’t tipping some flunky to do something she was perfectly capable of handling herself, even if she did feel like hammered dog shit. “Heir Stuveysant’s room, please?”
The desk clerk, a pale-haired, washed-out version of John Cleese, looked her up and down, and London swore she saw his lip curl below his pencil-thin mustache. “The Prince Wilhelm is a respectable establishment, Fräulein. We do not allow solicitation.” Prior to entering the lobby, London would have doubted it was possible to speak Hochdeutsch, High German, with a pronounced and watery lisp. Somehow, he managed it, sounding like a transvestite with a chronic sinus condition.
London set her jaw. She’d spent half a week’s wages on her little black dress and Italian leather pumps, the same pumps that were a half-size too small, and which had cut off all circulation to her toes twenty minutes ago. The dress was a takeoff on a Christian Dior, her hair was damp and straggling from her top-knot and she didn’t appreciate this glorified gopher casting slurs on her frugality. “Do I look like a prostitute to you?”
His raised brow was answer enough.
London’s temper did a slow simmer. “Look, Adolf, it’s already been a bear of a day. Save the lip and give me the damned room number. Heir Stuveysant is expecting me.”
It wasn’t quite a lie. She’d spoken with Benj after the incident in Prague, and she’d hinted that she might delay her return to the states by a day or two. Of course, she hadn’t told him that she’d be dropping by, but what were a few surprises among siblings? She was the only baby sister he had, and she had no doubt that he’d be delighted to see her... as delighted as one Llewellyn could be to be subjected to the company of another.
Not that they weren’t a close family.
They were very close.
In fact, maybe they were a little too close... keeping in touch, keeping tabs on one another, continually stoking the fires of their competitiveness. Psychologists called it sibling rivalry, but London and Benji had honed their one-upmanship to an art form.
Benji, older by four years, had been London’s idol for as long as she could remember, but she would have died before telling him that. She couldn’t recall a time when she hadn’t looked up to him. Benji... the golden child, the chosen one.
Benji had followed their father Patrick into the Agency, just as Patrick had followed his father. “The company” was a Llewellyn family tradition, and it only seemed natural that London, the only female in a pack of hard-nosed Irish-American males follow suit and pursue a career with the Agency. She could have gone the way of the DS&T, DI, or DA , But the Directorate of Science and Technology was full of geeks, the Directorate of Intelligence were glorified paper pushers, and she wasn’t sneaky or underhanded enough to work in the Directorate of Administration.
Besides, the Directorate of Operations was her best chance for action, adventure, career advancement. The DO was where her grandfather had begun his career, at the beginning of the Cold War, where her father had distinguished himself in Laos, where Benji was making his mark... the only place for a true red-blooded Llewellyn male... or female.
Benji had welcomed London into the fold, fresh from training and green as new spring grass, by letting it leak at the Christmas Party that London had gone through a sex-change operation during her first year of college. He’d driven it home by repeatedly calling her Lance, then whispering profound-sounding apologies for his slips.
It had taken her three weeks and a photocopy of her birth certificate to convince her coworkers that she wasn’t–nor, had she ever been–a transsexual, and a few homophobes in the DA still gave her the fish-eye when she was around. The memory didn’t soothe the ragged edges of her frayed temper any more than the knowledge that she’d never quite managed to pay him back for that one did. “The room number?” she said pointedly, “Or must I make a scene?”
“Three-thirty-three,” he said in carefully executed English, turning to an elderly Swiss couple, dismissing London.
“Danke,” London said, “asshole.”
She got to the elevator as the doors were closing, but managed to jam her carry-on through the opening, and when they opened again, wedged herself between a fat man who reeked of fried onions, and a frizzed blonde with spike heels and a slim black cigar. The blonde eyed the massive run in London’s black stockings, then turned her head and blew a stream of blue smoke at the ceiling. The fat man shifted his weight from one small foot to the other, scratching the left cheek of his woolen-clad ass, bumping against London.
London sent him a glare, and he muttered and moved half an inch. “You sure as hell better be staying in tonight, Benji. If you’re out with the guys while I’m marching through Hell, I am so gonna be pissed.”
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