Art professor and mountaineer Jonathan Hemlock (Clint Eastwood) is a retired government assassin called on to return to work for two more "sanctions", a euphemism for officially approved killings. During his career with a secret government agency called "C2", Hemlock amassed a private collection of 21 rare masterpiece paintings, paid for from his previous sanctions. The director of C2, Dragon (Thayer David), is an Albinism ex-Nazi confined to semi-darkness and kept alive by blood transfusions. Dragon wants Hemlock to kill two men responsible for the death of another government agent, code name Wormwood. Insisting he is retired, Hemlock refuses until Dragon threatens to expose Hemlock's art collection to the Internal Revenue Service. Hemlock agrees, and travels to Zurich, where he carries out the first sanction for $20,000, twice his usual fee (), and a letter guaranteeing no trouble from the IRS.