Yawi strolled down the opposite side of the street to the shop he was going to, the low evening sun casting long shadows across the street. It would be dark soon. His long overcoat shielded his Browning M1911 sticking out of the waistband in his jeans. He kept his head looking forward and used his eyes to look into the shop on the other side of the street. It looked normal, he could see a couple of customers bimbling around and the shop keeper sitting on a chair behind the counter, watching his tv. He looked up and down the street, either side of the shop, checking it looked clear. He decided the front looked okay, but he wanted to check the back as well. He carried on walking until he came to a road crossing. He crossed over to the shop's side of the road, casually strolling into an alley. It led to a big car park behind the shops and their back entrances. Before he left the alleyway, he looked around to check it was clear and pulled out his pistol, pulling back the top slide just enough to see there was a round in the chamber. It always made him feel better. He replaced it where it was in his jeans and covered it with his overcoat. He then felt his two back pockets to see if his two spare magazines were still there. They were. He took a final look around before pushing off from the alley and walking along the side of the car park towards the back of the shop. 

He kept his hands out of his pockets and by his sides, ready to react if needed. He was nearing the back of the shop, about twenty meters. His eyes were on a swivel. Fifteen meters. He fixed his eyes on the back door of the shop, there was no motion activated lighting and the bulb above the door had been smashed out. Ten meters. Suddenly he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He stopped, ducked next to a dumpster against a wall, crouched down and moved his hand to his pistol. He squinted out into the low light, trying to see who was out there. His eyes took a second to adjust, his heart beginning to pound. He spotted a couple walking - more like staggering - across the car park. They were about halfway across the tarmac and just out of comfortable engagement range. They finally stopped by a car, the bloke fumbled with his keys, they were both laughing. He slowly removed his pistol from his waistband, gently flicking off safety. The girl, who looked about half his age, put her arms around his neck, giggling before kissing him. It took a second for his alcohol-soaked brain to register before he began kissing her back. Yawi sighed. They looked like a regular drunk couple, but good operators would make it look like that. He kept both hands on his pistol, staying in a crouched position. He waited there for a couple of minutes before they started to get more heated and clothes started coming off. The guy turned around hurriedly and opened the back door of his car, they both piled in. After a couple more minutes of waiting, the car began to steadily rock. Yawi exhaled and replaced his pistol, flicking the safety back on. He waited until there was a decent amount of condensation on the car windows before moving out. 

He continued walking towards the back of the shop and stopped when he reached the door. It was a round door knob with a simple Yale lock. He didn't waist time and tried turning the knob very slowly. It was a little stiff but still turned. He tried pushing the door very lightly but it wouldn't budge. He slowly turned the knob back to it's original position. He gently pressed in the top corner of the door, where a deadbolt might be, with both hands. It moved in about an inch. No deadbolt. He did the same to the bottom corner of the door. Again, no deadbolt. Yawi shook his head as he began to remove a very crude lock pick set from one of his inside overcoat pockets. It took him less than a minute to defeat the lock; he knew he'd done it when he heard the low 'click'. He used the tension wrench to turn the lock fully, unlocking it. He replaced his lock pick set and removed his pistol, flicking off the safety. He wanted to check chamber again but he knew the round was there, he just needed to get in and get on with it now. He held the pistol in his right hand and kept on the handle side of the door, keeping his body off to the side, behind the wall. He turned the door knob very slowly and the door began to open. 

He opened it just a crack and peered in. It was a pretty dark corridor at the back of the shop with a single flickering light bulb in it's middle. There were a couple of rooms leading off from it but he couldn't see any activity. He opened the door just enough to slip in. He quickly stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind him, locking it again. He turned around to let his eyes adjust to the poor light, tuning in to the new environment. He stood there for about five minutes, letting all the sounds around him become familiar. He kept his pistol close to his chest and pointing forwards the whole time - safety off and finger on the trigger. After he decided he'd tuned in enough he slowly began to walk down one side of the corridor, one foot at a time, feeling out the floorboards before committing to a step in case they creaked. He was coming up on the first room to his left, the side of the corridor he was on. He started to hear very distant voices coming from the bottom of the corridor. He strained his ears but they were muffled. He waited a few seconds before moving on again. He was right outside the first room, the door was open and there was low light coming from it. He crouched down low and peered his head around the side of the doorway. It was empty of human life, but full of cardboard boxes, stacked on top of each other. He turned back to the corridor and stood up, moving swiftly past the doorway, and against the wall again. His movements had been smooth and he hadn't made much noise, but he waited to see if he could hear any reaction. He couldn't. His heart was pounding in his chest now and he struggled to keep his breathing under control. He waited another minute before moving off again down the corridor. 

The second room was on his left again, just a couple of meters away. He could hear the voices more clearly now, it sounded like a tv to him - probably the shop keepers in the front. He stepped forward slowly and placed his foot down. The creak of the floorboard echoed through the corridor, reverberating off the walls. Yawi gritted his teeth and froze his foot, half-placed, half-in-the-air. He listened for any movement or noises that would tell him he'd alerted someone but there weren't any. He took a deep breath, beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead. He slowly began to remove his foot, trying to balance himself on one foot and providing a stable platform for his pistol at the same time. The floorboard creaked slightly as he moved his foot. Fuck it, he thought, and brought his foot straight up off the floor. He thought he could hear movement from the room in front of him. Shit, he'd alerted someone. He took a deep breath, put his pistol in the aim and moved into the room - fuck the noise. 

He moved through the doorway, weapon in front of him, scanning across. He moved off to the right of the doorway, clearing the natural opening and looking for his immediate threat. He couldn't see anyone. There was a round table in the middle of the room with chairs surrounding it but no people. He cleared the corners and scanned the room with his eyes, the pistol in his hands following them. His index finger was pressed against the trigger, taking first pressure, but there were no targets. That's when he noticed the dog. A giant rottweiler to be precise. His entire body tensed. It was in the middle of the room, next to the table, sleeping. The sound of Yawi's heart seemed to drown out all else. He swallowed and wetted his suddenly-dry lips. He waited to see if the dog had noticed him. It appeared it hadn't and was still happily sleeping away. Yawi exhaled and slowly began walking towards the corridor again. Every step he took sounded like someone smashing a couple of brass pots together. He knew he wasn't being that loud, but the adrenaline had taken full effect now. He got halfway to the door when he heard the dog begin to stir. He froze, hoping it would just go back to sleep. It didn't look like it was. Yawi was stuck to the spot as he watched the dog stagger to it's feet and blink the sleep away. It turned it's head and froze when it saw him. Yawi's mind raced. He was compromised. There was no way he could take out the dog quietly and he wasn't yet in a position to confront the shop keeper. This was it, he had to just go for it now. He'd been on a rolling start line anyway and now he'd met the enemy. Just as the dog began to realize what he was looking at, Yawi sprung from his spot in the middle of the room and hurled himself towards the door. 

He reached the door just as the dog finally switched on and decided he didn't like this intruder. Yawi could hear the dog smashing it's way towards him, knocking over a chair. Yawi entered the corridor, slamming the door shut behind him. It opened into the room so he thought he'd be okay. The dog slammed against the other side of the door, going ballistic, barking it's head off. He left the dog, turning to the end of the corridor, pistol back up, he advanced. His mind was in full combat mode now, each foot placement was calculated, every breath deep and deliberate. Both his eyes were open, the foresight on the pistol was blurred and the sight picture was in focus and good. He had a stable platform as he moved, both hands on the weapon, trigger finger taking first pressure. He knew the shop keeper had a shotgun behind the counter, he wasn't going to take any chances. 

He came to the end of the corridor at the back of the shop. He didn't mess around and went straight through the door, moving off to the right, getting some cover behind some shelves. There was a loud bang towards the front of the shop and a shotgun shell shredded the doorway he'd been in a second before. He turned the weapon towards the counter, firing a double tap through the shop shelves. He was now in contact with the enemy. His years in Northern Ireland had honed his combat skills. He moved sideways as he fired another double tap at the target. Another shotgun round was fired from the counter, going wide of him. He hit the deck and began to crawl quickly to the side. Shotgun round after shotgun round went off above him, taking out glass bottles, smashing cans, chucking packets of crisps and bars of chocolate all over the place. He turned out of the aisle he was in and got into a crouch, moving parallel to the counter, covered from view. A couple more rounds were fired from the shop keeper as he reached the end of the aisle. They were still being fired towards the back of the shop. Yawi crouched at the end of the aisle, waiting for the shop keeper to reload. He was sucking down oxygen as more rounds went off, he needed a clear vision when he emerged. The shop keeper fired another round from his shotgun, a loud clicking coming from the weapon in his hands. Yawi didn't waste a second and stood up, coming out from the aisle, crossing the 5 meters or so of empty space between them in seconds, his pistol pointed at the shop keeper the entire time. 

The shop keeper froze, mid-reload. "Put it down!" Yawi screamed at him, the pistol less than two feet from the man's face. "Put it fucking down now or I'll blow your fucking head off!". The shop keeper swallowed hard before slowly lowering his shotgun onto the counter. "Turn around and back up!" Yawi screamed, still hyped from the firefight. He knew the man would be as hopped up as he was, so he needed to control him by being overly aggressive. The man did as Yawi asked, keeping his hands in the air the whole time. Yawi kept his trigger hand on the weapon, reaching across with his other and slinging the shotgun off the counter, chucking it behind him. It landed with a loud clunk. Apart from Yawi's breathing and the dog still going mental in the back, it was quiet. The shop keeper had been closing up for the night, the metal grating in the shop window was halfway down. Yawi let himself calm down a little bit, regulating his breathing. "Just take the money," the shop keeper said, "just take it and leave, please." Yawi waited a second before replying. "You know that's not why I'm here." 

The man tensed up on hearing Yawi's voice. He turned his head slightly to look at him. When he saw him he began to shake. "Oh fuck man, oh fuck please, I didn't know it was you man, please I'm sorry." Yawi didn't blame the man for shooting at him, he probably didn't know who it was. "Shut up. I told you I'd be back if you didn't stop moving the coke." The man was shaking his head, "Please, I won't d-do it without y-y-you know from now on, I swear!" Yawi started to become frustrated, he never understood people like this. "I fucking told you! I made it abundantly clear if you didn't stop I would come back and kill you. Was there something about that you didn't understand or do you just want to wind up dead you thick cunt?" The man began to cry, "No, p-please I swear, I-I'm s-s-sor-ry." Yawi sighed, he always pitied people like this. A pool began to form around the man's feet. Yawi rolled his eyes. "Your coke comes through me now, do you understand?" The man nodded intensely, words getting caught in his throat. "If you don't, you will die. I will return and make you dead. I will put my pistol into your mouth and blow your brains all over these shop walls. Let me know if there is anything about that you don't get." The man shook his head, "N-n-no, I u-u-underst-st-and." Yawi nodded to himself. "And from now on, I want 5 grand from this place every week. Got a problem with that?" The man shook his head. "Good. Don't make me come back here, Donald." Yawi placed his pistol into his waistband, covered it with his overcoat and walked to the back of the store. He walked past the room where the dog was still going ballistic and gave it a kick, which seriously pissed off the dog. He smiled to himself as he unlocked the back door and slipped out into the darkness.