Italy

Italy serves as the setting for a confrontation shaped by geography as much as by force: the Mafia’s operations link cities and regions into a hierarchy, while Creasy and Guido must arrange the practical means to challenge it. The country is depicted not as a uniform battleground but as a place where criminal power, compromised institutions, and local preparations intersect.

Criminal Power Across the Country

In describing the kidnapping to Guido, Creasy outlines a chain of beneficiaries extending across Italy. Fossella and Abrata are the two principal bosses in Milan; Fossella ordered the kidnapping, placing him next in line for retaliation after Rabbia and Sandri. Conti, based in Rome, would receive a share, and Cantarella in Palermo would take a portion of everything. The distribution of profit makes the crime more than a local affair: each level of the hierarchy is implicated, including in the killing that follows.

Guido describes the Mafia’s reach as extending well beyond its bosses. It can defy the police, influence or control some officers, subvert courts, and bribe politicians from village councillors to Cabinet ministers. In parts of the south and Sicily, he says, it acts as the law, deciding whom to punish or reward, and exercises influence even inside prisons. Its networks include informers, contacts within police forces, and groups of armed enforcers in cities and towns, with a presence in every village in some southern areas.

Institutions and Resistance

The country’s official institutions appear compromised and unevenly equipped to oppose that reach. Guido names the police, the Carabinieri, the courts, and the prisons as instruments often weakened by corruption and infiltration, while acknowledging that courageous police officers, prosecutors, and judges still exist. In Reggio di Calabria, authorities are pursuing a major trial concerning corruption and the forced purchase of land for a new steel complex, but the case stands against a broader system that Guido considers too weak.

Guido contrasts this recurring institutional weakness with Mussolini’s success in suppressing the Mafia during the 1930s. That success, he stresses, depended on Fascist methods that also harmed innocent people. After Mussolini, the Mafia returned stronger than before. Italy’s history in this account therefore offers no uncomplicated model of victory: the most effective past campaign came at a grave human cost, while the postwar criminal order proved resilient.

The Ground of Creasy and Guido’s Plan

Italy is also where Creasy and Guido organize the practical start of their campaign. Guido proposes financing weapons and other purchases there, drawing on an account he still holds in Brussels because it would be easier than having Creasy transfer the money. Creasy asks what should happen if he does not survive; Guido answers with a joke about being remembered in Creasy’s will. The exchange makes the danger explicit while turning the plan into a shared undertaking, supported by Guido’s money and their willingness to proceed together.