Richard Dartley is a freelance assassin.
Born Richard Woodgate, the son of parents who were member of the upper middle class, people who had considered every president since Truman to be an idiot, albeit for various different reasons, Dartley was himself hardly a sterling example of superiority as he was routinely a C student with little or no ambition. This included his stint in Vietnam where he learned to kill but wasn't that good at it.
The murder of his father in Rio, when the man was supposed to be in Miami, brought out the truth that he had been for many years an agent for the CIA. The combination of death and duplicity brought a change to Dartley who suddenly wanted to be a part of the team fighting both communism and terrorism. On his own he trained diligently, helped by an uncle who was also a gun maker for hire. After a year of solid training, he was ready to offer his services.
Unfortunately, the CIA didn't want him. Looking at his less-than-stellar history and misunderstanding his motivations, they replied that while they were willing to teach good men to kill, they weren't interested in teaching 'crazies to be good'.
So, Dartley decided to go freelance, starting small at first and building himself a reputation. And it worked. Within a few years, he was considered one of the very best, able to sell his talents for $1 million.
Still, his determination to follow in the footsteps of his father as best as he could continued such that he chose carefully his accepted assignments. He would only take contracts on men that were evil in his eyes and deserving of death. In a strange way, he would only kill those he felt his father might have killed.