Almost every aspect of this cover story had turned out to be untrue. For a start, the new ‘elite corps’ did not exist, or rather it existed already in the form of the Direzione Investigated Anti-Mafia, set up in 1995 by Judge Giovanni Falcone with the collaboration of the then Minister of Justice, Claudio Martelli. Aurelio Zen had not been invited to join this group, and not surprisingly, since it consisted of young, keen, energetic volunteers from the country’s three separate police forces. Nevertheless, he was being posted to Sicily, he had learned shortly after his return to Rome following the false close he had achieved in the Vincenzo affair. In what role, however, remained for the moment ambiguous.
‘Essentially, you’re to act as a facilitator,’ Zen’s immediate superior had told him before his departure from Rome. ‘Needless to say, the DIA are doing admirable work, on the whole. Nevertheless, there is a growing feeling abroad that, like every elite division, they sometimes exhibit a regrettable and perhaps potentially perilous tendency towards a… How shall I put it? A degree of professional myopia. There have been instances, some quite recently, when they have regretfully been perceived to be acting without due consultation, and in apparent ignorance of the wider issues involved.’