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The true story of the Special Anti-Terrorism Unit created by General Dalla Chiesa in response to the attack launched by the Red Brigades on the Italian State. The series starts and ends in Sicily, where Dalla Chiesa (one of the most important and beloved figures in recent Italian history) investigated the mafia in the 1960s and where he was murdered in 1982. But the heart of the story takes place in Northern Italy, especially in Turin, and focuses on the hard fight against the Red Brigades, a far-left terrorist group that dreamed of a proletarian revolution against the capitalist State and committed dozens of murders. These were very difficult times for the fragile Italian democracy, of which Dalla Chiesa was a fundamental bulwark.
In 1973 Dalla Chiesa was fighting the mafia in Sicily when he is transferred with his family to the North of Italy, to Turin, where there is another emergency: terrorism. The state sends its best man to face the Red Brigades who, in an escalation of violence, have begun to kidnap and kill magistrates, politicians and police officers. The General realises that to fight this insidious war one must respond with the terrorist’s same weapons: he thus creates a special group of chosen officers, young recruits who do not look like military and who must learn to think like terrorists. It is the only way to track the Red Brigades down and stop them. The team members will use battle-names: “Savage”, “the Functionary”, “the German”, “Minnie” (the only girl in the group) and Nicola, a young recruit from Southern Italy who will be the point of view of the series with his voice Over. Dalla Chiesa guides his men with clarity of analysis and organizational genius. Under his guidance the Special Anti-Terrorism Unit carries out crucial operations, managing in the end to defeat the Red Brigades, decimated by arrests and informants.
Dalla Chiesa's investigations are intertwined with the most important events in Italian history during those crucial years, such as the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, a leading figure in the majority party - the Christian Democracy - who aimed at a government agreement with the Italian Communist Party. While fighting with his men against the Red Brigades, Dalla Chiesa must beware of the intrigues of politics and the distrust of his superiors, who are jealous of his success. After defeating the Red Brigades, Dalla Chiesa quits his uniform and returns to Sicily to fight against the mafia, agreeing to become Special Prefect of Palermo. But despite the many promises he is left alone and on September 3, 1982 he is brutally murdered by mafia hitmen, behind whom lie dark plots and bigger interests.
