Three-Card Bounty

 is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas.

Quick walkthrough
Violet, Cook-Cook, and Driver Nephi have been giving Major Dhatri a major problem and he wants their heads on a plate.

Detailed walkthrough
Cook-Cook is easily the closest of the bounties to the airport. To avoid a few unnecessary Fiends you must travel north along the highway near the airport until you reach a few frag mines. Take a left turn towards Vault 3 and take out the 5 to 8 standard fiends you may encounter. Finally after or while you're tackling the fiends near the brahmin pen Cook-Cook will appear with an incinerator and a flamer. He'll use the incinerator for long range attacks and the flamer for close, so it's recommended that you simply shoot the incinerator out of his hands then walk backwards and shoot while he tries to get into flamer range. He utilizes armor so Armor Piercing bullets are recommended. Also remember to NOT aim for the head, else your pay will suffer.

You can also talk to Little Buster before setting out after Cook-Cook, who informs you that Cook-Cook has a favorite brahmin named Queenie, and that killing Queenie would incite Cook-Cook to fly into a rage, attacking anyone near him, including Fiends. Snipe Queenie (from the northwest of the ruins usually works nicely) and wait for the fighting to end.

Since it will be close contact fighting, Cook-Cook's head should remain intact if he's overtaken by the Fiends, and there will be only a few (low on health) Fiends left for the player to fight. If Cook-Cook survives, he can be sniped through the ruins, especially at night when you can sneak closer (and even easier if you have Boone + ED-E's perks). For an extra reward talk to Recon Sniper Corporal Betsy after killing Cook-Cook, 360 NCR dollars. Pretty Sarah in Westside will also reward you upon hearing you have performed this "service to humanity".

Driver Nephi is the furthest away of the three, however, he is much easier to take care of than Cook-Cook. You are given the option to assemble First Recon at the Samson Rock Crushing Plant, which is just outside where Driver Nephi is situated. He is surrounded by approximately 5 other Fiends. Driver Nephi himself is also very easy. He only uses a melee weapon, his golf club - Nephi's Golf Driver - which, whilst powerful, is simple to fight against, just keep your distance and, with the help from First Recon, the Bounty is quick and easy. If you lure him into the rock crushing plant and let one of First Recon kill him, you will be able to gain an additional 300 caps. Also he runs slightly faster than the Courier when wielding nothing, but when he gets close he will swing his club and miss 99% of the time, this also gives you an advantage. Note that if you follow First Recon to the rock plant on foot, instead of fast traveling after speaking with Lieutenant Gorobets, they will encounter a minefield as they cross a road directly east of the rock crushing plant, in line with The Basincreek Building. It may be worth clearing these mines beforehand.

And finally Violet. Violet has no other Fiends to support her, but does have a pack of dogs. Located just to the West of Cook-Cook's location, you will be confronted with approximately 6 Dogs, 1 of which is Unique - Violetta - who takes slightly more to kill than the other dogs. Violet herself is relatively easy to kill as she doesn't wear specifically tough armor, and only uses a Hunting Rifle.

Returning to Dhatri will give you 250 caps per bounty (50 caps if the head is mangled) and 100xp per bounty.

Note: If you have any followers with you, they will likely rush the fiends as soon as you get near them. You may want to leave them at McCarran, lest they run in and get killed or ruin anything you were trying to do (like lure Nephi to the snipers).

Bugs
[Happened in Game version: 1.1.1.271] In the PC game, after killing Driver Nephi and returning the head to Major Dhatri and choosing the option to reclame your bounty, Dharti may ask to see the head but nothing happens and the conversation ends, you must keep talking to him until the head is removed from your inventory and your bounty recieved, this may take several attempts.

You can take violets head before even starting the quest.

Behind the scenes
The title of this quest may be a play on the name of the confidence game, Three-card Monte, as well as a reference to playable decks of cards issued by the US Military to its troops during the Iraq War on which information, including a picture, if available, of the most-wanted members of then president Saddam Hussein's government, were printed.