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hand from your pocket nice and slowly and throw away the gun you’ve got in there.’
    ‘I haven’t got a gun.’
    ‘Just fucking do it.’
    ‘I’ll kill you for this. You’re a dead man, you understand?’
    ‘You’ve got three seconds to comply or you’ll be the dead man.’ I lifted the barrel of the MP5 slightly so it was pointed right between his eyes, my aim absolutely steady.
    The key is to establish control, but LeShawn was still delaying. Behind him, faces were appearing in the windows of the council block, attracted by the noise of gunfire. Any second now the cops would be called, and there could be an ARV right round the corner. We had to move.
    I started counting. ‘One! Two!’ My finger tightened on the trigger, and I pushed the stock back into my shoulder, preparing to fire.
    Which was when LeShawn caved. Reluctantly he brought his hand out of his pocket and threw a Glock pistol on to the grass in front of him.
    ‘Throw the holdall over to me. Now.’
    He hesitated, and at the same time Cecil came over, pushing the X5 driver in front of him using the barrel of his MP5, before kicking his legs from under him. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he demanded, pointing his weapon at LeShawn. ‘Do as he tells you or you’re dead.’
    Slowly, LeShawn heaved it off his shoulder and threw it over.
    I grabbed it, slung it over my own shoulder, impressed by its weight, and took a step back.
    ‘You,’ I said to LeShawn’s wingman, the third member of the crew. ‘Bring out your gun.’
    ‘I ain’t got one,’ said the guy, taking his hands out of his pockets. They were empty, and now he looked scared.
    I told him to put his hands on his head and, while Cecil picked up LeShawn’s gun from the grass, I gave the guy a quick search, keeping the barrel of my MP5 pressed against the base of his skull. He was holding a knife but that was all, which is the great thing about Britain’s gun laws. The baddies can’t get hold of decent weaponry very easily any more, which gives men like us an advantage.
    I pocketed the knife and told the guy to keep his hands on his head, which he did without arguing. It wasn’t his money and he wasn’t prepared to die in order to protect it, which seemed to me to be the sensible option. I’d have done the same thing. Most sane people would. But then with these guys it’s all about respect, and having a rep on the street, and being made to go down on your knees in a public place and give up your stash and your weapons is an insult of the most heinous kind.
    Which was why, in the end, I suppose the whole thing was always going to go tits up.
    It happened when I was crouched down behind LeShawn, gun pressed against the back of his head. I was about to give him a brief once-over just to check he didn’t have another gun somewhere, while Cecil covered me from the front. By this point the whole thing, from the moment I’d jumped out of the moving car, had lasted no more than forty-five, fifty seconds tops, and was running pretty smoothly. We were ten seconds away from making our getaway when Cecil cursed and looked towards the council block behind me. I heard shouts too, and turned round.
    A lanky white guy with wild hair, wearing a pair of tracksuit bottoms and nothing else, had appeared out of the building’s main entrance and was running towards us, waving a carving knife and clearly off his nut on crack.
    Cecil opened fire over the guy’s head, the noise deafening, and the guy had the good sense to hit the deck, dropping the knife in the process. But I’d let my guard down, and suddenly LeShawn swung round, grabbed the barrel of the gun, and tried to yank it out of my hands. I fell forward, resisting pulling the trigger, and fell over him, landing in the grass, twisting round so I could still keep a grip on the gun.
    LeShawn fell on top of me, shoving the barrel to one side, one beefy hand going round my throat and squeezing with such power that it cut off my air supply