For Love & Bourbon (4 page)

As an agent with the Terrorist Financing Operations Section of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, that made it his business and, frankly, he had a bone to pick with anyone who dared send money overseas to sponsor terrorist activities, even if it
was
the IRA.

Across the table from him, his partner was busy sucking down two fingers of Lucky Fox Distiller’s Choice, chipper as can be.

“You realize you’re contributing to the problem, right?” Cooper nodded at the glass of whiskey, amused by the irony of it.

Special Agent Marco D’Amico shrugged. “What? It’s good stuff. Innocent until proven guilty, my friend.”

“Please. You know they’re guilty. At least, we know Ty Brannon is,” Cooper reminded him, taking a pull from his own bottle of Sam Adam’s. They sat in the same old bar they’d always gone to, packed with FBI agents, lobbyists, and political goons. Big screen television sets lined the brick walls, set on non-stop ESPN. Cooper’s gaze drifted to watch the horse race someone had turned on, mildly interested in it. “We just gotta get down there and prove it.”

“All in good time. Until then, I’m going to enjoy this glass of especially fine bourbon.”

Cooper chuckled and picked at the label on his beer. “If we find what I think we’ll find on Brannon’s computers that may be the last taste you get of Lucky Fox whiskey.”

“All the more reason to enjoy it.” Marco grinned. “You ever been down south?”

“Nope.” Cooper settled back in his chair. “Never had a reason to. Until now.”

“Whole other world, my friend.” Ice tinkled as Marco lifted his glass in a toast. “Us New York boys are gonna stand out like sore thumbs.”

“As if the badge wasn’t bad enough.” Though Cooper itched to dig out the file he had on Brannon from his briefcase, he resisted the urge. He’d pored over its contents hundreds of times already, prepping for the task of heading the team down in Louisville on the investigation. Within twenty-four hours he’d land in Kentucky and be able to confront the man behind the file. The man who he was convinced was sending money to family in Ireland to fund the IRA.

Cooper’s blood ran green with Ireland himself, though a few generations separated him from the country and its notorious war with Britain. What he knew about it he’d learned since taking on the assignment. Under any other circumstance he wouldn’t have given a damn, but two Americans were dead. The IRA, and most likely the Brannons, were to blame. He meant to see that they pay for the blood they’d spilled, even though they were thousands of miles away from the conflict.

He had hair the color of dusted gold, cut in trim waves and neatly combed around a long, inquisitive face. His deep, cobalt eyes were always searching, always analyzing. An inherent ability to solve complex puzzles and a bright, intelligent mind had made him a shoe-in at the FBI.

A personal reason made the decision necessary.

He’d been born in the heart of New York City, the son of a rookie cop and a homemaker. Raised on a staunch belief in truth and justice, his dream had been to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the police force himself.

At least, until that fateful September day changed everything.

Avoiding the thought, he polished off his beer and set aside the bottle. A waitress promptly came by to collect it and offer another, which he refused. He turned his attention back to Marco. “What do you think Brannon’s going to say when we show up?”

“If we’re lucky, he’ll fess up. But the odds are he’ll lawyer up instead.”

“I wonder if his wife and kids have any idea what he’s been up to.”

“If they do, we’ll find that out soon enough.”

“I can’t imagine they don’t know their own relatives are on Ireland’s SDU watch list.”

Marco laughed. “What? You think that shit comes up at Thanksgiving dinner? From what I hear, the American Brannons have a fifty-year-old feud with the Irish line. Most likely, Ty’s the only exception to that feud.”

“Feud?” Cooper reached now for the file folder in his briefcase, perusing through it for mention of the turmoil between the two sides of the Brannon family. Had he seen it somewhere?

“Yeah. The old man—Joe, I think his name is? He broke free from the Irish clan back in the ‘60s when they had a disagreement over the recipe for Brannon Irish Whiskey. Didn’t you know any of this?”

“It wasn’t written down…” Cooper scanned the contents of the folder, though he knew it wasn’t included. Clearly the FBI thought that little detail not worth mentioning.

“Visit the Lucky Fox website. It’s all on there,” Marco said, distracted as the waitress passed by again. He ordered another glass of whiskey while Cooper thought over this new information.

A feud between the Irish and American sides of the family painted a completely different picture in his head of Ty Brannon. The man had probably hidden his money contributions to the IRA from his father, which meant the rest of the family likely had no idea about it either.

That should make for an interesting introduction, Cooper mused. What would the family say if he came right out with the allegation that Ty was accused of funding a deadly terrorist group, comprised of their own family members? Would they balk and clam up, lawyers at the ready?

Perhaps. It would be wise of them to do so. Barging in with a warrant to search a person’s computer files had a tendency to put them on edge.

The IRS had Brannon on tax fraud, that much had already been established. The money shuffled overseas into a Swiss bank account had missed the tax man’s hands. He’d lead with that charge, giving himself leg room to wean information out of the other members of Ty’s family on what they knew about the IRA.

If he was lucky, he’d gather enough information from both Ty’s computers and his relatives to put him away for good.

OUTSIDE THE
windows of his tenth story apartment, it rained like hell and lightning jutted across the blackened sky.

Cooper busied himself tossing clothes into a suitcase, distracted by the James Bond movie playing on the television. He turned at the sound of gunshots, grinning at the image of Bond taking down yet another baddie.

He tossed his cell phone charger and an extra set of razors into the case, humming the Bond theme song to himself. When a commercial came on for Irish Spring soap, his mind clicked into another gear and sent him straight to his desk, where his laptop was buried until a pile of books and paperwork.

Shoving a few things to the ground in the process, he dug out his computer and carried it to his bed. Within seconds he was searching the internet for the Lucky Fox Whiskey website.

The first thing he noticed was the smiling, radiant face of a beautiful woman holding a glass of golden-colored whiskey on ice. He skipped straight to the “about us” page, eager to confirm if what Marco had told him was true.

At the top of the page was a portrait of the family, three men and one woman, a list of names below. He scanned the smiling faces, a stab of guilt hitting him as he realized they had no idea of the storm to come. His eyes trailed to the dark haired man he recognized as Ty Brannon. The guilt he felt hardened to disgust as he stared into the man’s eyes, knowing he’d been likely lying to his family and betraying his country for years. He could think of nothing more despicable.

Reading on, he familiarized himself with the feud Marco had spoken of. He already knew about Brannon Irish Whiskey, the two-hundred-year-old distillery the Brannons in Ireland owned and operated. But what he hadn’t realized was that Joe Brannon’s Lucky Fox Whiskey was a completely separate entity. According to the website, at the ripe young age of twenty, Joe had approached his father with a daring new recipe for whiskey that he was convinced surpassed the brilliance of the one they’d used for ages. Instead of being met with gratitude, he was criticized and disowned from the family as if it were blasphemy. Not letting his family’s impudence get in the way of his ambition, Joe set sail for America, the land where he’d been told dreams came true.

And come true they did. He found his way to Kentucky and, with help from a local bank, purchased an old, pre-prohibition moonshine distillery and began to ferment his own recipe for Irish whiskey. Though it took a few years to really take off, Lucky Fox Whiskey became a staple for whiskey drinkers. Inspired by Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail, Joe expanded his brand to include several styles of bourbon.

The rest, after that, was history.

Cooper scrolled back up to the image of the family, his gaze falling this time to the old man at the center of the group. He had a shock of white hair, glittering blue eyes and an impish grin that reminded him of a Leprechaun.

“You must be Joe,” Cooper murmured, admiring the man for his tenacity. It had taken guts to leave everything he had known and uproot to a new country and an entirely different culture without any idea if it would work out. Guts and straight up ambition.

Beside Joe stood a young woman with auburn curls of hair, her arm wrapped playfully around his shoulders. Her smoky smile caught Cooper’s attention, the curve of it both a secret and an invitation. Just who was she to Joe, and why did the laughter lines of her face intrigue him the way they did?

Ava Brannon. He read her name over and over, matching it to her face and losing himself in his own curiosity. She was close to Joe, likely his granddaughter. Was the beautiful Ava the daughter of Ty Brannon? Did she have any clue what her father was up to?

His thoughts were disrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He fumbled around for it, finding it underneath the suitcase he had set up on the bed. Seeing his mother’s name on the caller-ID brought a grin to his face.

“Hey you.”

“
I didn’t wake you, did I?
”

“Nope. Just packing.”

“
Where are you going?
”

He fell back against the pillows of his bed, making himself comfortable. “Louisville. Got a case down there.”

“
Say hi to Elvis for me.
”

“That’s Memphis, Mom.”

“
Oh. Well, same area, right?
”

Laughing, he brushed back his hair and sighed. “Sure. How are you?”

“
Just fine. Robert’s surprised me with a trip to Hawaii. Can you imagine it? Me, on the white-sand beaches of paradise.
”

“That’s great.” Cooper glanced at his watch, noted it was nearly ten o’clock. “I’m glad he’s taking good care of you. I worry sometimes. With me in D.C., I—”

“
You don’t need to worry about me, Cooper. If anything I worry about you, all alone in that tiny little apartment.
”

“I’m thirty years old,” he reminded her. “Cut the cord already.”

“
A mother never stops worrying.
”

“Well, you should.” He muted the television, his eyes fixated on Bond as he silently went about seducing the vixen heroine. “So everything else okay?”

“
I finally went to the memorial at Ground Zero today. It’s only taken a decade for me to get the courage to go
.”

Cooper tensed, a jolt hitting his heart. “Did you find his name?”

“
I did.
” She paused, as if searching for the right words to say. “
You should go, baby. Get closure.
”

“It’s closed. I’m good.” He tried to wrangle the knot from his throat, despising himself for it. “I promise.”

“
Your father was a hero. He’d be very proud of you.
”

“I know.” Unsettled, he closed his eyes. “I miss him.”

“
So do I.
” She sighed, the sound weighted with a grief no manner of time could ever heal. “
Keep fighting the good fight, Cooper. Keep us all safe.
”

“I will.” He said goodbye and hung up the phone, the heartache lingering. Thoughts of his father—the tall, proud policeman dedicated to serving others—flashed through his mind and brought a heaviness to his chest. His old man had been one of the few to dive into the first tower after the plane hit, seeking to save anyone who could be saved. Little did he know the tower was destined to collapse upon him, burying him under steel and ash, never to be seen again. Life, gone in the blink of eye.