Political Terrorism in Italy

Political terrorism in Italy is presented as a persistent public danger with private consequences: it raises demand for protection, strains the supply of professional bodyguards, and erupts into a killing witnessed by Rika in Milan. The novel keeps this threat distinct from organized kidnapping, but shows how fears of both shape families’ security decisions and the business built around them.

A Climate of Political Violence

When Vico Mansutti explains the shortage of competent bodyguards, he places it against the spread of terrorism across Europe. He names the Red Brigades, the Red Army, and Basque Nationalists as examples of the organizations drawing on the limited supply of trained protectors. In his account, this demand makes reliable guards difficult to find and drives their price upward. Political violence is thus not merely a distant headline: it affects the practical choices available to families seeking protection.

The novel also shows how kidnapping anxiety enters family life, but does not equate it with terrorism. Rika fears that Pinta could be taken after the Macchetti child was abducted outside his school in Milan, in broad daylight. Ettore counters that the Macchettis are among Milan’s richest families and that his own family is not wealthy. Their argument reveals competing assessments of risk; the child’s kidnapping is a reason for Rika’s fear, not an act attributed to a political group.

Protection as a Market

Vico describes several responses used by families who feel threatened: sending children abroad, usually to Switzerland, or arranging guarded schools, bullet-proof cars, and highly competent bodyguards. He estimates that such protection can cost about thirty million lire a year. Specialized agencies, including international firms with branches in Milan and Rome, supply guards, but terrorism across Europe contributes to a shortage and rising prices. The danger therefore reshapes ordinary routines as well as household budgets.

The discussion expands from personal protection to insurance. Vico explains that Italian law bars domestic insurers from covering ransom payments because such policies might encourage kidnapping, while insurers abroad can provide that coverage. He identifies Lloyd’s of London as a major provider and describes two conditions: premiums must be paid outside Italy, and the insured must keep the policy secret. Security measures can lower premiums, just as watchmen or guard dogs can reduce the cost of factory insurance. Vico illustrates the incentive with a hypothetical billion-lire policy: a full-time bodyguard could lower the premium from fifty million lire to thirty million, saving twenty million. A so-called premium bodyguard costs about seven million lire a year, but offers little practical ability to stop a kidnapping; the appointment can nevertheless help secure the discount. This arrangement shows how a market for protection can reward the appearance of security as well as its actual capacity.

The Killing in Milan

The political threat becomes immediate when Rika leaves a hairdresser and sees two men jump from the side door of a Volkswagen van. They run toward a man unlocking a white Fiat and open fire. Creasy pulls Rika into a shop doorway, covering her as shots shatter glass overhead. When the gunmen escape, the victim lies across the Fiat’s bonnet, dead. The victim is identified as a prosecuting attorney, and the attack is identified as a Red Brigades killing—described as not unusual in Milan.

Creasy then speaks to the police. He shows his bodyguard’s license, gives an account of what he witnessed, and offers descriptions of the gunmen so broad that they could fit a hundred thousand young men in the city. The Volkswagen’s number plate is more specific, though the van is stolen. The scene sets the shock of Rika’s direct encounter against the apparent familiarity of political murder in the city. Creasy’s rapid response protects her from the immediate gunfire, but the killing itself remains a public act of violence that the available clues do little to resolve.

Political Terror and Criminal Violence

The novel places political terrorism beside, rather than inside, the organized-crime kidnapping business. Vico describes kidnapping as a highly organized enterprise controlled by criminal groups; his account of political organizations concerns a different source of danger, one that also competes for bodyguards and heightens demand for security. Rika’s fear following the Macchetti abduction, the insurance discussion, and the Red Brigades killing all belong to the same climate of insecurity, but they do not have the same perpetrators or mechanisms.

That distinction gives terrorism its broader narrative function. It is both a recurring social condition and a concrete disruption of daily life: it affects the cost and availability of protection, then appears in the street where Rika is walking. The witnessed assassination makes the threat visible without turning the novel’s separate kidnapping and insurance plot into a political-terrorist operation.