Meet Jonathan Hemlock. He has a renovated Gothic church on Long Island for his home, he teaches art, climbs mountains, and performs assassinations (sanctions) to get money to augment his fabulous collection of art masterpieces purchased in the black market. Against his will he is tricked into a most hazardous sanction assignment that involves an attempt to conquer and scale on of the most treacherous mountain peaks in the Swiss Alps, the Eiger.