Peter Bishop stared at the pile of soon-to-be worthless coins and bills at the center of the table, wondering if he wasn't the rube in this poker game; the Russian sitting across from him, the Kurd to his right, and the Turk to his left certainly thought he was.

It was the dawn of a new era in Iraq, and all the dinars bearing the face of Saddam would officially lose all monetary value the moment the sun rose. So of course, Peter found himself in the backroom of an empty coffee house at four in the morning, gambling with three shady guys who wanted to foist their worthless money on the stupid American.

The goal here was to lose – or if your pride couldn't handle that, to change the rules of the game; right now, Peter was winning, which meant that he was losing.

The burly Russian across from him gave a toothy smile, showing off a shiny gold incisor. He wore a stained wife beater, and the number of tattoos across his arms and chest told Peter he was some low-level member of the Russian mob.

The Russian laid down his cards down on the table with trembling hands, showing a pair of nines. Peter stared at the Russian's hands for a second; he then cocked an eyebrow and put his own cards down.

A pair of aces.

The Turk and the Kurd – who had each folded already – tittered and talked across the table in Farsi.

"My bad luck, comrade," the Russian said in heavily accented English. "I'm almost out of money."

He grinned again, almost blinding Peter with the reflection from his gold tooth.

"Isn't that a shame?" Peter said morosely. He gathered his earnings – a large pile of Saddam-era coins and bills – and added them to his ever-growing pile.

Peter glanced at his watch and realized that if he going to get rid of the pile of dinars, he would have to start losing now. As the Kurd gathered the cards and started shuffling, he reached into his rear pocket and brought out the flask, uncapped it and took a sip, gasped, capped it and placed it on the table in front of him.

"Vodka!" he muttered across the table to the Russian.

The Russian looked like a hound at picnic. Over the course of the next hand – which Peter actually managed to lose, by simple luck of the draw – the Russians eyes were constantly drawn to the flask.

Peter gathered the cards with a theatrical flourish. Snatching up one of the 100 dinar coins, he danced it across the knuckles of his right hand as he cut and shuffled the deck with his left at the same time.

"Gentlemen," he said in Farsi, startling the Turk and the Kurd, who had believed their crosstalk to be unintelligible. "It's almost sunrise, and all the dinars on this table are going to be worthless. So, to make the last hand of the game actually mean something, I say we all put something of value into the pot."

With that, Peter placed the flask of vodka in the center of the table.

The Turk and the Kurd looked at each other across the table, confirming Peter's suspicions about this game. Fortunately he'd already switched the deck of cards. Whatever scam they were pulling – marked cards, probably – wasn't going to work this hand.

The Turk produced a cheap pocket watch and put it next to the flask. The Russian added a pair of sunglasses. The Kurd pulled a small dagger out of his boot and tossed it on the table.

Peter dealt the cards. When the Turk picked his hand up, he cursed loudly, tossed the cards back on the table, and left the room, continuing to curse.

"I guess we can take that as a fold," Peter said.

The Russian put his small pile of dinars into the center of the table, followed by the Kurd and Peter. By unspoken accord, they showed their cards simultaneously. The Russian won with a full house, and immediately plucked the flask up and took a long swig, ignoring his pile of money and cheap trinkets.

And before they realized that the slick new cards they had played the last hand with weren't from the original deck, Peter had already left the coffee house.


"You dangled vodka in front of an alcoholic to win a card game?"

Olivia was both amused and appalled.

"I don't actually know that he was an alcoholic," Peter objected. "Maybe he was just thirsty. And besides, I did it to lose a card game!"

Olivia shook her head, making it plain she didn't believe his story.

"Well, you asked," he defended. "There are a lot of places in the world where alcohol is worth more than money. It sure was in Iraq back in '04."

Peter got up from the table, grabbing both of their cups and refilled them; he gave Olivia her cup back while sitting down with his own.

"I wish that were the worst thing I'd done," he said sadly. "I really was a different person before you blackmailed me out of Iraq."

Olivia gazed at him curiously for a few seconds before her beautiful green eyes flickered to the table.

"Okay," she said. "Now tell me about the book."