Chapter One

Naples Italy Special Investigator Georgio Spavento downloaded the secure file The Philadelphes from his laptop to a CD. The electronic eyes and ears of the secret criminal society La Camorra and its allies had infiltrated the most secure databases of Interpol and the Governments of Western Europe. He dare not send the file over his departments network to Dorian Wilde, the one man in Philadelphia who could save that city from financial ruin and its mayor from imminent assassination. He smoothed back his jet-black hair and placed the CD in his suit coat vest pocket. Thin strips of sunlight creased the closed blinds. It was all the light he allowed to pierce the sanctity of his office. His phone was tapped for sure. He adjusted his tie in the glass-enclosed picture of his great grandfather Georgio Spaventa who chased the assassin Talarico from Naples over a hundred years ago. Camorra ran so many government offices that all goods that were shipped through the port of Naples paid a ten percent mulct to Camorra.

Georgio sported the same bushy mustache as his great grandfather in testimony to the mans courage and heroism. Now it was his time to bring honor to his family even if it meant his death.

He unlocked his office door and entered the noisy outer office full of detectives, suspects, lawyers and secretaries. The staff seemed alien, unfriendly as though he were the Roman poet Ovid left stranded in a foreign land for telling the truth. PC monitors stared like so many spies. He tapped his knuckles on the desk of his secretary Enza Strollo, a busty, middle aged Neapolitan woman, pretty under her wire- rimmed glasses. Her graceful hands glided across the keyboard as though it was a piano.

Io departe, he said to her. She too had grown distant though hed often played with her as a child in the alley behind their tenements.

Quando ritorne? she asked without looking up.

He shrugged his massive shoulder, unwilling to engage her. Forse domani. Forse une settemana. Telefono mio moglie e dice Io portare uno pizza margherita da Seppis per cine. Ciao!

She nodded. Si, and continued typing.

He strode away unaware that Enza dialed the cell phone of Antonio Talarico, great grandson of the assassin. Spaventia departe. Dopo egli andare la pizza negozione da Seppi she said and hung up.

Georgio scurried down the rear stairs of the Police Station, a brown brick building nicknamed, castello dmattone,- brick castle. He scanned the street as he emerged from the heavy metal door into the glare of a brilliant January late afternoon sun. Car horns honked as they squeezed through the narrow streets lined with pushcarts and produce stands. The old city was dubbed the place of Chaos, an allusion to a view of hell in Dantes Inferno. He loved the smell of the city, a virulent blend of fresh fruit and decay and danger and fresh made pizza and the occasional call of a tourist shouting that her purse had been snatched from her arm or her necklace ripped from her throat. He headed to Garibaldi Square and the Internet caf at the Hotel Terminus.



Antonio Talarico figured Spaventa would leave from the rear door so he lounged by a fruit stand and pared the skin from an apple with the fish knife his father had given him on the day that hed entered the service of La Camorra. The ceremony was a simple toast of warm Chianti drunk in one draught along a hillside in Ischia, an island across the bay from Naples. Ischia was his familys ancestral refuge from the elder Spaventa and the other Garabaldiste who had hounded his great, great grandfather from the back streets of Naples. But the hunter was now the hunted. Hed follow Spaventa until the right moment when he left the pizza shop with his occupied carrying his last meal. Dark haired, his five foot ten trim, copper wire strong body honed from years of self taught military regimen, hed blend into the crowd of young Neapolitans that crowded the dirty, dense streets. He trailed Spaventa at a distance of half a block as the officer crossed into the Piazza Garibaldi under the faded bronze statue of Italys most famous lawman and politician pre Mussolini. Talarico covered one side of his mouth and spit on the statue.

May the pigeons shit on you forever, he said.

Antonio wanted to stick an ice pick into Spaventas heart so his blood would drench the piazza wine red. But there were too many witnesses including two armed Carbinieri officers guarding the entrance to the Hotel Terminus.

Antonio lit an American cigarette an round the glass-enclosed lobby of the hotel s Georgio worked at a computer terminal in the Internet caf. Antonio liked to blend in a crowd feared he stood out too much amid the well-dressed businessmen but the Il Segreto had ordered him to report any strange movements. Georgio finished his work on the Internet PC and pocketed a CD. The Il Segreto would want the CD even if is soaked in blood. One of the Carbinieri approached him so Antonio stubbed out his cigarette.

Aspetta, said the policeman.

Antonio stopped in his tracks and smiled. Si Signore. Qui fa?

The policeman towered over Antonio. Non vorrei ladro in albergo!

Antonio did not want to argue that he was not a thief so he obligingly nodded. Io departe.

The officer eyed him down a nose shaped like a ski slope.

Non ritorno, malandrino, said the policeman.

Antonio put up his hands and backed away saying, Ciao Signore!

At that moment, Georgio rushed past him. Antonio took a few steps away from Spaventa and then turned and followed his prey.