For Souness Eyes Only

I should have known better than to visit the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia while Phil Tartaglia's men were looking for me but who would have known the Bishop of Paisley would have the will or the means to send assassins all the way to Barcelona just to take care of one discredited journalist who had the audacity to question his latest attack on the Scottish people via a thinly veiled threat to Salmond's Executive?

I was grabbed by the hair from behind and my neck jerked as I was dragged down the steps and into the boot of a car.  Then the car revved up and we shot off across the city with me in the dark and stifling heat, cursing my choice of corduroy over linen on such a day and wondering how I was going to get back to La Ramblas now.

I shouldn't have worried too much as eventually the car screeched to a halt, the boot opened and as I squinted at the harsh invasion of sunlight, I was punched in the face and hauled out, groggy but still able to make out my own hotel just across the way from the cruiseship terminal where my unknown assailants seemed to be taking me.  There were two of them, holding me by an arm each and they didn't say a word during our whole stride through various gates and towards the helipad.  I groaned, they were taking me home for summary justice Roman Catholic Church style which meant being handed over to Lawwell and Kearney for torture either in the bowels of Parkhead or more likely, in Hampden now that Celtic had annexed the SFA.

I was dripping with sweat and was glad of getting out of the heat of the midday sun as we passed into the shadow of a terminal building and as we did, I could hear a scraping sound coming from the wall as we approached it.  There was a large round grill there, covering what could be air conditioning or something similar; the sound was coming from there and wasn't noticed by my assailants until a boot swooshed down the pipe and kicked out the grill and a figure all in black rolled out in front of us, raised a silenced Beretta and shot my captors off of me.  'Come on loser,' said Graeme Souness as he gripped me by the elbow and we ran towards the helicopter which was warming up on the pad.  When the pilot saw us running towards him he reached for a pistol of his own but Souness shot him on the run from a hundred yards and he fell from the vehicle, the cord from his earphones stretching out behind him, still attached to the dashboard as he hit the ground.  Souness took the headset from him and we bundled in, taking off before a gang of men running down the Sant Bertrand Wharf Terminal, purple robes flowing behind them could get within accurate shooting range.  I looked at Souness as we gained height and turned towards France and he was smiling.  He caught me gazing at him, stunned at how quickly events had transpired - why only half an hour ago I was taking in the bells and smells of the Santa Eulalia, all the troubles of Scotland behind me and now, here I was again in the hands of a complete maniac who isn't bothered in the slightest that we could've been killed.  I sat back in my seat and half closed my eyes and I could almost hear the swooping strings of some John Barry title theme.