They called themselves the Brothers of the Night, and Sam Durell knew that for years they had specialized in organized crime -- women, numbers, horse parlors -- the usual rackets that were out of the CIA's domain.

Why suddenly had their operations shifted? Why, now, had the syndicate boys with their skilled liquidators and international connections become so interested in bombs, missiles and rockets?

Somewhere in the primitive hills of southern Italy lay the answer. To find it Durell would have to walk like a lamb to the slaughter among the dark powers of the underworld where blood was thicker than water and flowed as freely as the wine-dark sea.