The Third Option is a thriller novel by Vince Flynn, and the second to feature Mitch Rapp, an American agent who works for the CIA as an operative for a covert counterterrorism unit called the "Orion Team".

The title refers to the option in international relations when diplomacy fails and military intervention is inappropriate: black ops.

Mitch Rapp is sent on a highly sensitive mission in northern Germany to assassinate Count Heinrich Hagenmiller V, a powerful arms dealer who has been selling weapons to Saddam Hussein and other enemies of the United States.

Clark, along with Rudin and Secretary of State Charles Middleton, are in an alliance to stop Dr. Kennedy from succeeding the dying Thomas Stansfield as Director.

Unbeknownst to Rudin and Middleton, Clark dispatches a group of contract killers led by "Professor" Peter Cameron, to initiate a widespread blood-purge that will eliminate any person that can leave a paper trail back to him.

However, only moments before Rapp reaches Cameron, he is killed by an Italian assassin named Donatella Rahn, who was hired by Clark.

It was Clark that ordered the hit, but pretends to know nothing about it, even to his close friend Jonathan Brown, the Deputy Director of the CIA who hates both Stansfield and Dr. Kennedy.