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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