The Third Option   ::   Flynn Vince

Cameron was extremely efficient with virtually every firearm there was. It didn't matter if it was a pistol, a shotgun, or a rifle. In his early twenties, he had gone to a gun club in rural Virginia with another employee of the CIA and was exposed to competition shooting for the first time. Over a period of years, this had turned from a passion into an obsession. Cameron was the top pistol shooter in his club and one of the best on the East Coast. He was very proficient at skeet shooting and was deadly accurate with a rifle. All of this shooting, however, was done under controlled conditions.

Cameron's pride and joy was his gun collection. Over the years, he had steadily built it up to the point where it now, totaled more than a hundred pieces. Since he had bought them wisely and they had appreciated greatly over the last two decades, the collection was now worth a small fortune.

Despite all of this, Cameron was deeply embarrassed by one fact. He had never killed another human. Villaume was right – Cameron had always sent someone else to do the dirty work. Now that Cameron had officially broken with the CIA, and he was dealing with hired killers like Villaume and Duser, he felt it was time to make a statement. This was how he had rationalized his decision to be the one to pull the trigger on the Jansens. He was in a dangerous line of work where a peer's respect for one's talents could someday mean the difference between life and death. Deep down inside, however, Cameron knew the real reason. He had wondered for years what it would be like. He had spent thousands of hours shooting at inanimate targets with weapons that were designed to kill living things. Many of them designed specifically to kill human beings. The competitions had always taken place under closely controlled and regulated circumstances. The only variables were often the wind and the humidity. His passion had never been taken to that final level, and now it was time.

Cameron, it turned out, was beginning to realize it was, a good idea he had brought Villaume along for the job instead of Duser. The man was a meticulous planner, like himself, and in the end someone with far more practical field experience. Cameron had brought two handguns, a sniping rifle, an assault rifle, and a submachine gun. He had had it in his head that he would take the Jansens from a safe distance of five hundred to six hundred meters with his Walther WA 2000 sniping rifle. Villaume didn't like this idea. The Walther fired a. 300 Winchester Magnum cartridge, and the shot would sound like a cannon up in the mountains. They wanted to get in and out of Evergreen without attracting any attention.