Prologue

17 September 2019 Derrylin, Co. Fermanagh

As he pulled out onto the main road from the Quinn Industrial Holdings car park, with Slieve Rushen Mountain in his rear-view mirror, Kevin Lunney’s mind was on the evening ahead: dinner with the family, possibly cutting the lawn afterwards, definitely looking through papers ahead of an important board meeting the following morning. Distracted by these thoughts, he failed to notice the black Audi tailing him.

He sped along in his Toyota Land Cruiser, unhindered. Traffic congestion in Derrylin was never a concern. That’s the way he liked it. His evening commute was less than ten minutes, door to door. A much different scenario to what he’d faced during his time away from this place, his home. He’d left many years earlier to study electrical engineering at Queen’s University in Belfast and, after university, got a job with Andersen Consulting in Dublin, a role that took him across the Atlantic for a while to work on a project with Microsoft in Seattle. But now he was back home and, truthfully, he never missed the big city life. Instead, he was content to be back among family who, for generations, had lived along the narrow roads he was now driving, between the border villages of Derrylin and Kinawley. He knew every house and family along the route. The school friends with whom he’d grown up, played football and

Quinn

worked alongside. All that had been possible because of one phone call from the man who had gone on to become like a second father, a mentor, to him; the businessman who changed his life.

Sean Quinn.

As Kevin made his way home, he passed farmers taking advantage of the late summer sun to get a final cut of grass in. He thought of his wife, Bronagh, preparing the dinner for seven o’clock as usual – he was a man of routine, as she often said. They had known each other since their schooldays and married three years after he returned home from Dublin. They had since raised a family of six. The eldest boys were entering their teens now and he knew that Bronagh had a whole new level of worries about them. They both did. It would only be a matter of time before they’d want to go out on a Saturday night into pubs that Kevin and Bronagh worried were full of dangerous hotheads with too much drink in them. Nowadays, simply being a son of Kevin Lunney's could cause a row.

If Kevin had looked in his rear-view mirror at that moment, he might have seen that the driver of the black Audi was on his mobile phone, telephoning ahead, confirming that the target was a matter of minutes away. They’d scouted the route and identified the weakest spot for Kevin Lunney: a section of road near his home from where he couldn’t easily escape. The driver’s accomplices were already in position. Kevin Lunney was driving straight towards them.

Kevin turned left off the main Derrylin road and onto the home stretch, the Stragowna Road. Ahead of him he could see Molly Mountain, where he’d lived as a child. One of his brothers still lived up there on the family farm. The wind farms on Doon Mountain were also in view. They were now owned by a French firm.

Kevin often pondered on his life since his return to ‘Quinn Country’. He’d never actually thought of anything he’d done since returning to work for Sean Quinn as for himself. It was always for the big man, the boss, the chieftain. Kevin could still clearly remember that day in

Prologue

Dublin, when he was working at Andersen Consulting. Out of the blue, he got that call from Quinn, inviting him up to see him the next time he was home. Kevin was amazed that Quinn knew who he was and had called him personally, never mind his shock at the role that Quinn later offered him when he did travel north. That had been in 1995, with the Celtic Tiger in full throttle and the country throwing a party. Having left Fermanagh almost fifteen years before, Kevin was going home to become the general manager of Quinn Insurance, which had only opened its doors the previous January. Quinn told him that the company was going to become the biggest of its kind in Ireland. And Kevin Lunney would be the person to make it happen.

And he did.

But now, as the Stragowna Road narrowed and the uncut hedges tumbled out onto the road, that time felt long gone for Kevin Lunney. Sean Quinn was now a king without a kingdom and, as Kevin was back at the company as chief operating officer after Quinn’s departure, his former mentor was now telling the world that Lunney was a traitor. Dozens of ‘Wanted’ posters with Kevin’s face on them had appeared all along the border, alongside the words ‘Cromwell’s men are here again’. There had been threats against him and some of his colleagues, but for Kevin, Quinn’s anger felt much more personal. The threats had already led to violence, as he was still recovering from a vicious attack by a young boxer while he'd been eating his lunch in a local café. It had left him in hospital with multiple facial injuries, including a broken nose. He still felt tender around his right eye and face. But he’d made his choices and refused to be forced off the land of his ancestors, even if he knew there was a clear and present danger from those who wanted their king back on his throne, or at least on the red chair Quinn used to sit on in his old office. Those who refused to believe that this was no longer Quinn Country.

The driver in the Audi called ahead again to say that the prey was only moments from the trap. Kevin Lunney pulled off the Stragowna

Quinn

Road, passing Carn Cottage on his right, a new bungalow built by his neighbours. He steered the jeep past the short stone wall on his left and around the bend and up the lane, which hadn’t much more than a foot's clearance on either side of his 4x4. He was less than 200 yards from home.

Kevin had failed to notice the Audi during the short journey and remained unaware of it as it took the same turn, reversing up the lane to box in Lunney’s Land Cruiser and allow for a speedier getaway. But he couldn’t miss the large white vehicle now obstructing the lane in front of him.

It was unusual but not unheard of for a ‘townie’ to get lost in the multitude of vein-like roads – many of them little more than tracks – that ran through the borderlands. Still, Kevin approached with caution. If by the time he reached them they had yet to move, he decided to stay in his own car rather than to get out. For a moment, the white vehicle sat still. The only noise on the lane was the sound of a late summer evening: birds buzzing, distant tractors, grass being cut. In truth, Kevin’s mind was still primarily on the evening ahead – dinner, the possibility of cutting his own lawn – not really on the car in front of him.

Without warning, the white vehicle burst into life. It reversed straight for Kevin, wobbling over potholes and bouncing off the ditches as the driver struggled to keep it on the lane and on target.

There was no time to avoid the inevitable. Within seconds, almost in slow motion, Kevin saw the front of his Land Cruiser crumple as the vehicles collided. From nowhere, two men in balaclavas pulled at the driver- and passenger-side doors of his jeep, which Kevin had instinctively managed to lock. They were shouting, but he couldn’t make out a word they were saying.

He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket for his phone. Bronagh and the kids. Call Bronagh. Panicked, he struggled to get the code into the iPhone.

Bang.

Prologue

The driver-side window crashed in, showering him with fragments of glass. As one of the men grabbed at him, Kevin retreated to the back seat, away from his grasp. Now the man was inside the car, followed by the other one. Kevin kicked and pulled at their balaclavas, but was soon overpowered and hauled outside.

Though disorientated, Kevin was still aware enough to notice that a third man, heavier than the other two, was now behind him. Then he saw it for the first time. The red, old-style Stanley knife. It was in the hand of the third man. The blade flashed in the late summer sun, as the man thrust it towards Kevin’s throat. He then used it to slice away his watch from his wrist. Amid all the head-spinning confusion, he understood a command: ‘Get in there now. We want to talk to you,’ one of the attackers shouted.

But he’d no idea what the ‘there’ was.

He knew the accents too – they weren’t northern but southern, with a mix of brogues. The guy with the knife was clearly from Dublin. If they wanted to rob him they’d come a long way. If they wanted the jeep, why wreck it by smashing the windows? None of it made sense.

One of the men was holding what looked like two milk cartons. What was in them? ‘Get into that or we’ll kill you,’ said the man with the knife.

‘Jesus Christ almighty,’ Kevin screamed.

What could possibly warrant such viciousness? They hustled him towards the back of the black Audi, which he saw now for the first time. Kevin contorted himself, trying to pull free, but his captors held on tight. It was clear that they had a destination for him.

The boot.

He kicked at the car as they tried to force him inside. They were all shouting again, at him, barking orders at each other. ‘Get in there or we’ll kill you.' One shoved his head while the other two lifted his feet from under him.

His face was pushed tight against the rear of the back seat as the rest of him was stuffed inside. Before he could turn over and make a bid for

Quinn

freedom, the boot lid slammed shut. The summer sun, the dinner with Bronagh and the kids, cutting the lawn, the prep for the board meeting, were all gone.

Replaced with an all-consuming dark.