The Ambush at the Straits

The coastal autostrada between Palermo and Messina was known among Sicilian drivers as the Highway of the Winds—a serpentine ribbon of elevated asphalt that clung to the jagged northern cliffs of the Madonie mountains, bridging deep mountain ravines on soaring concrete pylons before plunging into pitch-black tunnels bored through solid volcanic rock. Tonight, a violent Mediterranean squall had turned the highway into a treacherous obstacle course of blinding horizontal rain,…