The characters & events of this story are fictional. Colonel Emilio Gariboldi is a veteran of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. An idealist as a young man, he had hoped to emulate his hero Italo Balbo and hence joined the Italian air force. A fatal encounter with an enemy intruder while camped with his unit on the heights of an elevated plateau near Axum changes his life forever. The discovery of the body of a young black woman prisoner found in bed next to him cements his embroilment with a criminal organization involved in human trafficking. Almost two decades later, another young black girl is found dead at the foot of the Terzano Tower in Campobasso.