Henry Olsen had made a lot of money - $8,325,000 to be precise - killing people. He invested most of it in shares. So when he read on-line that the US Federal Reserve was planning to lift interest rates and that could cause a share-market crash, he got worried. Maybe he should cash up and wait for the bears' picnic.
He wanted to phone his financial adviser in New York and get his view. But it was noon in Sydney right now and would be 7 p.m. in New York. His adviser had probably gone home. Have to catch him tomorrow morning. Until then, there was no point worrying.
His hotel room was on the 41st floor of the Intercontinental Hotel. He strolled over to the window and looked out at bunch of sailing boats racing each other across Sydney Harbour under a perfect blue sky. Despite the view, he felt glum. When he was in the US Marine Corps, he spent six months in the stockade for breaking a sergeant's jaw. After that, if he stayed in a hotel room for more than a few days, he got claustrophobic. During the month he'd occupied this room, it had shrunk to almost half the size. He desperately wanted to go home to New York. However, he couldn't because he'd contracted to kill whoever iced Pedro Garcia.
His employer - one of Pedro's uncles - was a big-shot in the Medellin cartel. He was furious when he heard that his favourite nephew was murdered in Sydney and eight kilos of coke was stolen. He couldn't look his sister in the eye until her son was avenged.
The uncle employed Olsen to be his instrument of vengeance. He chose the right man. During his ten-year career as a hitman, Olsen had contracted to kill 21 men and one woman, and slain every one.
Until now, he'd always worked in the United States. However, when his broker offered him the chance to do a hit in Sydney, Australia, he jumped at it. He realised that, in an age of globalisation and disappearing international borders, a contract killer had to travel. He flew into Sydney on a tourist visa, under the name Kenneth Roberts.
Unfortunately, the assignment proved more difficult than he expected. The uncle wasn't sure who killed Pedro and put Olsen in touch with a couple of Pedro's friends in Sydney. Olsen contacted them, and they said a guy called Tony Thompson usually helped Pedro package his coke shipments and got whacked a fortnight after Pedro.
There was obviously a falling out among thieves: Thompson and an accomplice rubbed out Pedro and stole his coke; then the accomplice rubbed out Thompson. So Olsen had to identify the accomplice who killed Thompson and whack him.
Olsen visited Thompson's mother one evening, stuck a big pistol in her face, and demanded to know who killed her son. She claimed she didn't know. However, she'd employed a private investigator called Gary Maddox to find out.
Maddox had disappeared. So Olsen decided to wait until he reappeared, then force him to reveal who killed Thompson. Every day, at about noon, he telephoned Maddox's office, hoping someone would answer. Eventually, someone picked up the phone and said: "Gary Maddox here."