don’t know about who goes where, or who you supposed to be seeing.’
‘Show me the shit,’ the bearded guy said as he stepped into the hallway, but he was highly suspicious and he pointed at the two men holding the bags of money. ‘Wait out there and one of you call Major Dee and ask what the hell is going down.’
James and Savvas could hear everything from behind the living-room door. Kelvin didn’t have a gun and would be a dead man the second the Salford boys got their call through to Major Dee. The plan was to wait until the northerners and the money were in the kitchen where they’d be easily contained, but Savvas realised it was never going to get that far and raised his walkie-talkie up to his lips.
‘All teams move,’ he said.
Wheels was the first one out of the living-room door, whilst Bruce came out of the bedroom on the opposite side of the hallway. As the Salford boys reached for their guns, Kelvin spun around and made a lunge towards the relative safety of the kitchen.
Meanwhile, two more of Sasha’s men had burst from a flat along the balcony and ran towards the three Salford men in the doorway. James and the hostages jolted with fright as gunfire echoed along the concrete balcony.
As Kelvin scrambled into the kitchen, the man with the beard took aim at his back; but Bruce shoulder-charged and knocked him to the ground.
‘The money’s moving away,’ Sasha screamed over the walkie-talkie. ‘The guys with the bags are running back towards the stairwell. That driver better be dead, Martin.’
‘It’s cool, boss,’ Martin said proudly.
‘Cut them off at the bottom of the stairs, kid,’ Sasha ordered. ‘I’m coming down to back you up.’
While all this was going on James waited in the living-room guarding the hostages. He dived to one side as a ricochet shattered the barred window. The chunks of flying glass had enough momentum to tear down the curtain rail, flooding the gloomy space with sunshine.
Out in the hallway Kelvin had wrapped a muscular arm around the bearded man’s neck and was giving him a beating.
The three Salford boys who’d been in the doorway were retreating under heavy fire from the men out of the flat two doors along, but that still left Bruce in a tight hallway with Pete – the bearded man’s second-in-command – less than two metres away.
Pete was pulling his gun and Bruce realised he couldn’t beat him on the draw. As a shot tore down the hallway, Bruce dived low, expecting to get hit. But the bullet sheared through the door at the end of the hallway and Bruce found himself with his arms locked around a set of chunky thighs.
Bruce was extraordinarily strong for his size. He grabbed Pete’s shooting arm and pushed his hand upwards so that his second shot tore through the ceiling, then twisted him into a thumb lock, making the gun drop out of his hand.
Worried by the sounds of struggle, James raced out into the hallway to check that Bruce was OK. He saw Bruce drive Pete backwards out of the front door and pin him against the railings outside. Bruce had to back up to make enough space to swing a punch and finish his opponent off, but as he let go he noticed that one of the Salford boys with the bags of money had doubled back and was sprinting along the narrow balcony towards him.
Less than three metres from Bruce and running at full pelt, James couldn’t see any outcome apart from Bruce getting knocked down. As James snatched his gun from its holster and almost tripped over Wheels – who’d been knocked down during the struggle – Bruce swung around. His elbow caught Pete in the side of the head, knocking him sideways, then he turned his back on the man running towards him and leaned forward.
As the dude crashed into him, Bruce let him roll over his back before springing up and tossing his assailant high into the air. If they’d been on the ground he would have slammed down on his back, but instead he went head first into the banister atop the metal railing.
The blue sports bag rattled a boarded-up window and hit the balcony, but the man who’d been holding it found his fingers clutching wrought-iron posts as his legs slipped over the edge, ten metres above ground.
Sasha’s voice came out of Bruce’s radio as he took a final knock-out swing