The lesson dinned by history into the modern generations tells them trust is a luxury to be kept tight round the family, that the greatest virtue is silence, that you wait as long as it takes for the opportunity of revenge, then, by God, you dish it out. While Europe was civilizing itself a hundred years ago, down there on the rock, close to Africa, they were brigands and bandits. Not our problem, an Italian problem, until…'

Dwight Smythe remembered him now, like it was yesterday, and the recruits hadn't coughed, or sniggered, or fidgeted, but had sat rapt as if the old academic was telling them the reality of DEA work.

'For protection, the brigands and bandits formed a secret society. Rules, hierarchy, organization, discipline, but relevant only to Italy, running contraband cigarettes, fleecing an extortion racket dry, until – strange, I think, the way the little moments in our existence, the two-cent moments have their day – until a Turkish gentleman named Musullulu got to share a prison cell in Italy with the Sicilian gangster Pietro Vernengo.

They talked for two years. Those two years, in that cell, '78 and '79, they changed the face of society, they put you men in work. The drugs trade, the misery trade began in that cell, two men and their talk…'

So clear to Dwight Smythe, the professor's words. Beside him Axel Moen sat quiet and still, eyes closed. Dwight knew the current statistics – a Federal Anti-Narcotics budget of $13.2 billion, of which the DEA took $757 million and said it was inadequate.

'The Turk talked heroin. The Turk could bring unprocessed morphine base into Sicily, via the Balkans. Good morphine base to make good heroin. In 1979, the Italians opened the cell door and Mr Musullulu went his way, never been seen by a law enforcement agent since, and Signor Vernengo went back to Sicily and told the guys what was on offer. Don't ever think that because they didn't get grades at school the Sicilian peasants are dumb.