103 Assault on Rome by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Salvatore Luciano was devoted to the law. Not the abstract concepts of equality and justice, which were subject to an endless range of nebulous interpretations, but the law itself, as written down through generations that had gone before. The law was everything to Luciano, and he had pursued its rigorous enforcement from the time that he was old enough to fill a uniform. From childhood, the pursuit of criminals had been his life. In taking up the cause at twenty-one, he had fulfilled his destiny.

His father had been district prosecutor in Sardinia, a man who took his duties seriously in a region where the Mafia had thrived for centuries upon corruption and intimidation, murder and extortion. All of those were crimes, according to the statute books, and so Gaetane Luciano sought to jail the perpetrators, hauling them before reluctant magistrates, compelling frightened constables to drag hem in repeatedly, regardless of their ages, wealth or social standing. When bribes were tendered, Prosecutor Luciano angrily rejected them and jailed the scum who came to him with hat—and cash—in hand. On one occasion, while visiting the courts in Naples to arrange for extradition of a prisoner, the prosecutor was accosted by a slim American whose name was also Luciano. Recently deported from America, the scarvafaced Charlie Lucky had embraced Gaetane, called him brother, voiced the hope that they could work together amicably in the future. Livid, Prosecutor Luciano spit in Charlie Lucky's face and walked away without a word. Incredibly, he lived to tell about it ... but he did not live for long.

The ruling mafioso in Sardinia was Don Praetorio Carlino, an insatiable glutton who weighed in around 350 pounds when he was off his feed. Carlino's gluttony extended past the dining room, however, and encroached on other areas; his appetite for prepubescent girls was legendary, thinly covered by his wealth and the "esteem" in which his neighbors held the porcine mobster. It was said that no child under twelve was safe with Don Praetorio, but five successive prosecutors were unable to substantiate the charge. The sixth to try was Luciano's father, and it took him all of seven days to find Carlino in a hotel suite where he was "on vacation" with the daughter of a farmer from the neighborhood. The girl was nine years old, and she was nearly catatonic by the time a squad of policemen arrived with Luciano on point. Carlino was arrested on the spot, paraded through the streets to jail in saggy, boxer shorts and nothing else. He posted bail within the hour, and was huddled with his most accomplished guns by suppertime.

The gunners overtook Gaetane Luciano on the afternoon before Carlino's trial. They cut him down in broad daylight, firing seven shotgun blasts at point-blank range while scores of witnesses went briefly blind. The news reached Salvatore in Rome, where he was just a rookie on the force, intent on someday living up to the achievements of his father. Luciano took a leave of absence

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