Book excerpt: Come play the Zero Game - you can bet your life on it... Matthew Mercer and Harris Sandler are best friends who have plum jobs as senior staffers to well-respected congressmen. But after a decade in Washington, idealism has faded to disillusionment, and they're bored. Then one of them finds out about the clandestine Zero Game. It starts out as good fun - a simple wager between friends. But when someone close to them ends up dead, Harris and Matthew realise the game is far more sinister than they ever imagined - and that they're about to be the game's next victims. On the run, they turn to the only person they can trust: a sixteen-year-old Senate page who can move around the Capitol undetected. As a ruthless killer creeps closer, this idealistic page no only holds the key to saving their lives, but is also determined to redeem them in the process.