Live and Let Lie

I came to, tied to a chair and facing Dr John Reid, Jack McConnell and an unknown rat faced young man who must have been the one who found me upstairs and knocked me about. Reid approached me, his claws twitching. 'What happened to your hands?' I asked.
'Got too close to Elaine C Smith one night and she had them off before I knew what was happening but that's not important now Spiers' said Reid, turning to the rat faced youth. 'This is a member of my family, known only as Agent John. He's a trained assassin who we had released early and in secret from a Spanish jail. His will be the last face you see Spiers.' The youth giggled and raised a gloved hand which held a pint tumbler. He smashed the tumbler against a desk and held it menacingly in the air.
'You are obviously wondering what we have here so since Agent John is going to slice you up and bury you on Eaglesham moor, I figured I might as well just tell you in the time honoured evil genius exposition section.'
I shivered, my mind racing for a way out of this but I was stuck with no way out.
Reid continued, 'This is Station X, headquarters of our most audacious scheme yet. The idea came from the star chamber of Celtic supporting Labour MPs and we released Jack from his First Ministerial position to carry out our plans. Here he has gathered the finest minds from the street urchins he used to manage in his days as a leader of pickpockets on the streets of Glasgow. In the old days Jack would install them in newspapers to do our bidding but occasionally they developed a mind of their own or in the case of the Traynor, became drooling, unmanageable psychopaths just as dangerous to the organisation as they were convenient to our agenda. So we built a workshop where we could create our own stories in bulk and feed them through our agents onto the front and back pages of every newspaper in Scotland. In time we were so successful that we needed more urchins but we had emptied the streets so Jack looked to Malawi and in exchange for aid packages financed by the Scottish Executive, we received their street children and quickly put them to work.'
I gasped - 'child trafficking? You monster! I knew you had to be involved in some dreadful scheme but this is beyond the pale! I'm not even sure I could write about this, it just goes against the grain to even contemplate the idea.'
'Then you'll understand the desperation of our plan. We need this drip feeding of news to further our ambitions. Half the journalists you've heard of don't even exist' and he turned and pointed a claw at one child, 'That's John McGreechan right there, and that,' he pointed at another, 'That is Mark Wilson, and over there is Roddy Forsyth. All of them, cyphers for getting our message into the public domain.
'And that message Spiers, and you're going to appreciate this since you used to be one of our great success stories before you began to sneak around trying to find out the truth. Our greatest achievement was to convince the Scottish protestant middle classes that they were intrinsically sectarian. To make them feel so guilty without knowing why that they wouldn't dare question any of our more extreme actions through fear of being accused of being bigots. The message was sent out through newspapers the land over and supported by our people in restaurants and at dinner parties who would accuse their friends of sectarianism or anti-catholicism should they dare query the need for separate schools or the predominance of catholic Lords Provost of Glasgow - even wanting Celtic to lose at football became anathema in civilised conversations throughout the country. At first the middle classes just kept silent through fear but then they began to believe it themselves and pretty soon we had a protestant class as docile as cattle on a farm.
'Only one institution stood between us and our masterplan - Rangers. To think that a football club followed in the main by working class men could come between us and domination of Scotland! So the past few years we have been chipping away at it, creating in Rangers a boogey man for the 21st century. By the time we're finished with it, no one will take seriously anyone who is remotely involved with that club and any claims of a Celtic minded take over of the country will be dismissed as the hysterical ravings of a bigoted lunatic. Thank you Spiers for contributing to our works.'
And he began to laugh, a depraved bawling laughter that froze my blood. Then Agent John walked slowly towards me, the broken tumbler heading for my throat.
'Goodbye Spiers and thanks again for all the help' shouted Reid and then Agent John stopped suddenly in his tracks and fell face first onto the floor, a dagger in his back. Reid and McConnell turned around in panic and watched as dozens of black figures dropped from the ceiling on ropes. Reids henchmen came running out of side doors only to be gunned down by these mysterious men. Then one of them landed behind me and began cutting the ropes which bound me to the chair; it was Graeme Souness.
'Don't say a word Spiers' he whispered, calm as you like, then he shouted orders across the room: 'McCoist, Colin West, take out those guards. Falco, Stuart Munro, free the children!'
I couldn't believe it, I was being rescued by the late 80s Rangers squad.
Souness looked up as McConnell and Reid scampered up the metal stairs to the exit and gave chase, pausing only to order Graham Roberts to take out Bridget McConnell who was flailing her whip and keeping Robert Fleck at bay.
I freed myself and stood up only to be grabbed by the arms and bundled out of harms way by Mark Walters and Avi Cohen. Above me Graeme Souness caught up with Jack McConnell, kicking his feet away and knocking him unconscious on the steel slats of the platform. Reid, reaching the end of the platform, turned and faced Souness who slowed down and approached him, gun in hand and saying something to him which I couldn't quite hear. Then Reid laughed and reached out a claw and opened a door and out sprung the Traynor, knocking over Souness and tearing at his gun hand with his teeth. I looked around and the 80s Rangers squad were mopping up the henchmen and hadn't noticed their leader struggling, I had to help somehow so I climbed the stairs and ran at the Traynor, booting him in the ribs. He turned and looked at me, his face lighting up and then he was on me, his hands around my neck, choking the life out of me. I'm doomed, I thought but then, swinging across from the other side of the room came Stephen Purcell, he landed with a crash and threw a net over the Traynor, yelling 'Run Graham, run!'
Souness looked up, 'Erm, which Graham?' he said.
'Both of you, now run!' screamed Purcell.
Souness lifted me to my feet and we sprinted to the exit. Reid was gone and the 80s Rangers squad had cleared the children from the building as fire took a grip and began to spread through the workshop. We splashed down the tunnel and up into the mill and gathered with Souness and his men outside as helicopters took off with the children to safety. I looked into a nearby jeep and there were the McConnells, handcuffed beside Terry Butcher as they were driven off.
Then I was bundled into a car and as I gazed back at the burning mill I couldn't see if Reid, the Traynor or Stephen Purcell had made it out. Then exhausted, I slumped back in my seat. I felt tired and quite in shock at the way the night had turned out but before I could consider everything that had happened, the window between me and the front of the car began to slowly open and there sitting in the front passenger seat was Martin Bain. He looked back at me and said, 'Spiers, we have to talk.'