L'impero
Dario Ferri, an investigator with the Rome anti-Mafia unit visits the dreaded Ma-fia killer Nicolo Panarea in prison. Dario has recently been the one to put him away and has been promoted to detective as a reward. He now hopes to put the cherry on his cake by actually getting Panarea to talk. Hardly is he left alone with Panarea in his cell, when the Mafioso draws a home-made knife and threatens to murder Dario if the prison staff get involved in any way. Then instead of taking Dario hostage and escaping Panarea cuts off his own little finger. This is to dem-onstrate that Dario will never succeed in getting him to break his 'Omerta', his oath of silence. Put to shame Dario leaves. Some time later: Dario has spent the night with his lover Laura Martoni. They are still in bed, having a laugh, when Laura already receives a phone call from her secretary, and friend, Grazia, who wants to go over the day's most important ap-pointments. Laura is a young up and coming politician. Enthusiastically she leads a parliamentary committee on the issues of immigration. For her part Laura takes the liberal approach. She does not wish to stop the growing tide of economic refugees with draconian measures, but believes instead that sensible laws would divert these immigrants into more legal avenues. Laura's political sponsor Canniti supports her ambitious plans, yet the conservative member of parliament Bressan is putting up vehement resistance to any changes in the law. Unexpectedly Laura gets help from an old friend. Her former teacher at 'The London School of Eco-nomics', now living in Switzerland, Professor Dossena. He happens to be in Rome and over dinner he presents Laura with a very unusual plan. Thanks to his insider knowledge Dossena has amassed an immense fortune by speculating on the stock markets. He is prepared to donate this fortune for the purpose of building dwell-ings, social areas and schools for penniless immigrants. The idea is to free the im-migrants from their illegal status and to integrate them in a positive manner in the creation of a united Europe. Laura can help in realising this plan by way of her committee. Enthusiastically she agrees. In the mean time Dario is having to deal with immigration problems on quite another level. Super rich Russian Mafiosi keep buying more and more real estate on the Adriatic coast- at this rate they will soon control a large piece of the tourist industry. Dario's boss Nazzaro tells him that Arkadin one of the most important Russian purchasers has just arrived in Rimini. Dario goes there to tail Arkadin. Arkadin is having a good time at a second rate nightclub belonging to a dodgy pimp, Manin. A beautiful and talented Russian singer, Sonja, is on stage and sings a Russian song for her compatriot Arkadin. Dario is among the crowd. During the song Sonja exchanges a few provocative glances with Dario. Dario is en-thralled, but still keeps his eyes on the joint. Thus he notices two suspicious new arrivals: a shady Italian called Genco and Miro, a Yugoslav hit man. Without warning Miro opens fire on Arkadin. At the same moment Dario identifies himself as police and fires back. This gives Arkadin and his people the chance to leave the club alive. By the time the local police arrive there is no trace of either Genco or Arkadin. The local police are not pleased by Dario's unannounced presence in Rimini or his solo intervention. Systematically the exclude Dario from their investigations. However at least Dario manages to give his card to Sonja. She should give him a call, in case she feels like talking to a trustworthy cop. Back in Rome Dario watches television - Dossena, with Laura as presenter, is pub-licly announcing his plan to all of Italy. One of the discussion group is Bressan. His criticisms are however dismissively dealt with by Dossena with whit and spirit. In future Laura will devote herself entirely to Dossena's project. She knows this will take up a lot of time, this will reduce what l
