His first move was to order the Sicilian newspapers to discontinue the publication of Guiliano's letters. His second move was to arrest Guiliano's mother and father on the charge of conspiracy with their son. The next was to arrest and detain for questioning over two hundred men in Montelepre on charges that they were secret members of Guiliano's band. All those arrested were transported to jails in Palermo that were heavily guarded by Colonel Luca's men. All these actions were taken under laws from the Fascist regime of Mussolini still on the books.
The Guiliano house was searched and the secret tunnels found. La Venera was arrested in Florence. But she was released almost immediately when she claimed she never knew that the tunnels existed. Not that she was believed, but Inspector Velardi wanted her free in the hope that Guiliano would visit her.
The press of Italy lauded Colonel Luca to the skies; here finally was a man who was "serious." Minister Trezza was delighted with his choice, especially when he received a warm letter of congratulation from the Premier. Only Don Croce was not impressed.
The first month, Turi Guiliano had studied Luca's actions, the deployment of the carabinieri army. He admired the Colonel's astuteness in forbidding the newspapers to print his letters, cutting off his vital communication to the people of Sicily. But when Colonel Luca indiscriminately arrested the citizens of Montelepre – guilty and innocent alike – the admiration turned into hatred. And with the arrest of his parents, Guiliano went into a cold murderous rage.
For two days Guiliano sat in his cave deep in the Cammarata Mountains. He made his plans and reviewed what he knew about Colonel Luca's army of two thousand carabinieri. At least a thousand of them were stationed in and around Palermo, waiting for him to try to rescue his parents. The other thousand were concentrated in the area around the towns of Montelepre, Piani dei Greci, San Giuseppe Jato, Partinico and Corleone, many of its citizens secret members of the band who could be recruited for a battle.
Colonel Luca himself made his headquarters in Palermo and was invulnerable there. He would have to be lured out.
Turi Guiliano channeled his rage into the making of tactical plans. They had a clear arithmetical pattern to him, simple as the game of a child. They nearly always worked, and if they did not he could always disappear back into his mountains. But he knew that everything depended upon faultless execution, every little detail perfected.
He summoned Aspanu Pisciotta to the cave and told him the plans. Later, the other chiefs – Passatempo, Terranova, Corporal Silvestro and Stefano Andolini – were told only what each had to know for his particular job.
Carabinieri headquarters in Palermo was paymaster for all forces in Western Sicily. Once a month a heavily guarded money wagon was sent out to pay the garrisons in all the towns and province headquarters. The pay was in cash, and an envelope for each individual soldier was made up, lire notes and coins to the exact pay, stuffed inside. These envelopes were put into slotted wooden boxes which were locked onto a truck that had formerly been an American Army weapons carrier.
The driver was armed with a pistol, the soldier paymaster beside him with a rifle. When this truck stuffed with millions of lire left Palermo, it was preceded by three scout jeeps, each with mounted machine guns and four men, and a troop carrier holding twenty men heavily armed with machine pistols and rifles. Behind the money truck came two command cars, each with six men. All these vehicles had radio communication to call Palermo or the nearest carabinieri barracks for reinforcements. There was never any fear that bandits would make an attack on such a force. It would be suicidal.
The payroll caravan left Palermo early in the morning and made its first stop at the small town of Tommaso Natale. From there it swung onto the mountainous road to Montelepre. The paymaster and his guards knew it would be a long day and they drove quickly. They ate pieces of salami and chunks of bread and drank wine from botttles as they rode. They joked and laughed and the drivers of the lead jeeps put their weapons down on the floors of their vehicles. But when the caravan rode over the top of the last hill that led down into Montelepre, they were amazed to see the road ahead filled with a vast flock of sheep. The jeeps leading the column made their way into the flock, and the guards shouted at the roughly clothed shepherds. The soldiers were anxious to get inside the cool barracks and eat a hot meal, to strip to their underwear and loll in the beds or play cards for their noon hour break. There could be no danger; Montelepre, only a few miles away, had a garrison of five hundred men of Colonel Luca's army. Behind them, they could see the truck carrying the payroll enter the vast sea of sheep but did not see that it had become becalmed there, that no path opened up for it.
The shepherds were trying to clear the way for the vehicle. They were so busy they did not seem to notice that the troop carriers blasted their horns, the guards shouted and laughed and cursed. There was still no alarm.
But suddenly there were six shepherds pressed close to the paymaster truck. Two of them produced guns from beneath their jackets and kicked the driver and paymaster out of the truck. They disarmed the two carabinieri. The other four men threw out the boxes full of pay envelopes. Passatempo was the leader of this band, and his brutish face, the violence of his body, cowed the guards as much as the guns.
At the same moment the slopes around the road came alive with bandits holding rifles and machine pistols. The two command cars at the rear had their tires blown out by gunfire and then Pisciotta stood in front of the first car. He called out, "Descend slowly, without your weapons, and you'll eat your spaghetti tonight in Palermo. Don't be heroes, it's not your money we're taking."
Far up in front, the troop carrier and the three scout jeeps reached the bottom of the last hill and were about to enter Montelepre when the officer in charge realized there was nothing behind him. Now even more sheep were on the road cutting him off from the rest of the convoy. He picked up his radio and ordered one of the jeeps to go back. With a hand signal he directed the other vehicles to pull over to the side of the road and wait.
The scout jeep made its turn and started back up the hill it had just come down. Halfway up it met a hail of machine-gun and rifle fire. The four men in the jeep were riddled with bullets, and without a driver the jeep lost momentum and slowly rolled back down the hilly road toward the convoy.
The carabinieri commanding officer sprang out of his scout jeep and shouted at the men in the troop carrier to dismount and form a skirmishing line. The other two jeeps took off like frightened hares scuttling for cover. But this force was effectively neutralized. They could not rescue the paymaster truck since it was over on the other side of the hill; they could not even fire on Guiliano's men, who were stuffing the money-filled envelopes into their jackets. Guiliano's men held the high ground and obviously had the firepower to slaughter any attackers. The best the army could do was set up a skirmish line under cover and fire away.
The Maresciallo of Montelepre had been waiting for the paymaster. By the end of the month he was always short of money and, like his men, anticipated a night in Palermo dining at a good restaurant with charming women and friends. When he heard the gunfire he was bewildered. Guiliano would not dare attack one of his patrols in broad daylight, not with Colonel Luca's auxiliary force of five hundred soldiers in the area.
At that moment the Maresciallo heard a tremendous explosion at the gate of the Bellampo Barracks. One of the armored cars parked in the rear had blown up into an orange torch. Then the Maresciallo heard the clatter of heavy emplaced machine guns from the direction of the road that led to Castelvetrano and the coast city of Trapani, followed by a constant rattling hail of small arms' fire from the base of the mountain range outside the town. He could see his patrols in the town of Montelepre itself streaming back to the barracks, in jeeps and on foot, fleeing for their lives; and slowly it dawned upon him that Turi Guiliano had thrown all his forces at the five hundred-man garrison of Colonel Luca.