Battle of Palermo

The Battle of Palermo is Creasy’s assault on Villa Colacci, the decisive attack that carries his revenge into Don Cantarella’s stronghold and leaves both men near death. It begins as Cantarella’s confidence in his own power hardens into anger at the people around him, then turns into a methodical armed incursion through the villa’s defenses.

Causes and the Assault’s Opening

In Cantarella’s study, the windows are shut and the curtains drawn against the darkness beyond the villa walls. He has been watching the garden, where distant floodlights provide the only faint illumination. In recent days, fear has given way to frustration and anger: people long accustomed to obedience are questioning his authority, and even those near him seem to show their doubt. Abrata has just been insolent in the study. Cantarella expects Creasy to die soon and imagines that he will then use the example to make the others feel his power. That conviction makes the scene’s reversal especially stark: the man who believes he can restore obedience is already inside a stronghold about to be breached.

Seconds later, Creasy floats over the wall by parachute. He lands near the orchard, absorbs the impact by bending his legs and rolling, releases the canopy, and drags it back into the fruit trees. With his Colt ready and a silencer screwed into place, he takes a Trilux night sight from his chest pouch and watches the grounds. Two Doberman pinschers trained to attack and kill silently come racing around the villa. Creasy aligns the sight and weapon, then shoots the first at ten meters in the head and throat. The second reaches five meters before he shoots it through the heart; its momentum carries it to his feet, where it dies with a whimper.

The assault moves from the garden into the kitchen, where the household is watching Juventus play Naples on television. The window shatters and a grenade arcs into the room, abruptly turning the shared attention toward the screen into a fight for survival. Three people die immediately, two are disabled by shrapnel, and two others are stunned behind the blast’s protection. Before the stunned men can reach for their weapons, Creasy kicks in the door. Holding his Ingram Submachine Gun at chest height, he searches the room for anyone still alive and fires at those he finds. The raid has crossed the villa’s outer defenses; its next movement carries the violence deeper inside.

Fighting Through the Villa

Inside, Creasy continues the assault with the Ingram, reloading in a smooth sequence that the narration likens to a dance. Its rhythm is made of screams, gunfire, and the tinkling of spent cartridges. He passes a makeshift dormitory and throws a grenade through its door. When a man is blown into the passage, still moaning and trying to raise a shotgun, Creasy fires a brief burst and moves on to the stairs, where he stops with his back to the wall to listen.

On the landing, Don Cantarella holds a pistol in one hand and grips his personal bodyguard’s sleeve with the other. He orders the bodyguard to stay, then commands Maurizio Dicandia, Cesare Gravelli, and Abrata to go down the stairs. Dicandia edges onto the first step; Creasy’s gunfire strikes him in the chest, and he collapses down the staircase. Gravelli and Abrata retreat across the landing rather than descend. A grenade explodes between them when they turn back, while the landing’s corner shields Cantarella and his bodyguard.

Terror now displaces Cantarella’s attempt to command the defense. He shoves the bodyguard forward, stumbles into his study, and slams the door. At the window, he smashes the glass with his pistol and calls for his men to come upstairs. The order cannot restore control: a blast splinters the study door from its hinges and catapults the bodyguard into the room, bringing Creasy to the threshold.

The Final Confrontation

A blast tears the study door from its hinges and throws Cantarella’s bodyguard into the room. Cantarella crouches behind his desk, pistol extended, waiting for the men he has called upstairs. Creasy comes through the doorway in a diving roll, clears the fallen bodyguard, and rises to his knees. Cantarella fires twice. One shot hits: Creasy’s right shoulder is shattered, leaving his arm useless. Cantarella fires twice more, wildly, but the Ingram still hangs from Creasy’s neck. He grips it with his left hand and sweeps bullets across the room.

Creasy gets up slowly, moves around the desk, and finds Cantarella on his back with blood seeping through his fingers. The wounds are fatal. Cantarella’s expression holds fear, hatred, and pleading as Creasy stands over him. With his boot, Creasy lifts Cantarella’s chin and presses the toe against his throat. He tells him, "Like her, Cantarella. Like her, you will choke to death." Then he shifts his weight forward. The guards who have reached the passage hear only a low, gasping moan before it stops; the assault has ended with Cantarella dead and Creasy gravely wounded.

The scene’s aftermath turns on the effort to keep Creasy alive. Mario Satta holds pressure on his wounds while Guido Arrellio packs cloth against them, trying to stem the blood spreading across the carpet. Massimo Bellu speaks urgently into the phone. Satta glances at Cantarella’s body, then notices a flash of gold: a crucifix amid the blood. Sirens wail, and Guido sobs with frustration as he works; Satta’s fingers tire, but he keeps pressing. The victory at Villa Colacci has exacted a near-fatal cost, leaving the law-enforcement men who arrive to confront not only Cantarella’s death but the immediate possibility of losing Creasy.

Public Aftermath and the Fight for Creasy’s Life

A month after the assault, the funeral was held on a cold winter day on a hill above Naples. Reporters attended in numbers, their interest sustained since the battle had been headlined “The Battle of Palermo.” The coverage had shifted from the violence at Villa Colacci to the struggle that followed: Creasy’s fight to survive.

At first, as he lay in intensive care in Palermo, doctors gave him little or no chance. He clung to life, surprising them. After two weeks, a special Carabinieri aircraft transferred him to Naples, at Mario Satta’s instigation, because Cardarelli Hospital was better equipped than the Palermo hospital and more secure. Satta’s brother led the team of doctors treating Creasy. The attack had ended with Don Cantarella dead, but its final measure was not the assault’s success: it was the prolonged, uncertain effort to keep its wounded attacker alive.