Sergeant Nico Toscani, a native of Palermo, Sicily, is a detective in the Chicago Police Department's vice squad. At an early age he had become interested in martial arts, and moved to Japan to study them. In 1969, Toscani was recruited to join the Central Intelligence Agency by Nelson Fox and was involved in covert operations on the Vietnamese-Cambodian border during the Vietnam War. There, he became disgusted with station chief Kurt Zagon, who tortured prisoners. A stand-off occurred when Toscani tried to stop a torture session, and he left the CIA. Toscani returned to Chicago, joined the police department, and got married.