Excerpt

The smell of gunpowder and clove clung to her skin, an enticing blend that had a more profound effect on Basile than any other scent he had smelled on a woman.  She had a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from her lips, reading the e-paper the man across the table had handed her.  Her thumb occasionally tapped the left bottom corner of the screen, the other hand supporting her chin.  Basile was unusually tense and the faintly static-y sound of the muffler was getting on his nerves, as well as the sound of her nails tapping in an uneven pattern on the table. 

"What do you think?"  He finally asked.

"I think," she said, taking a draw on her cigarette, then holding it loosely between two fingers of the hand under her chin.  "Patience is a virtue."  Her eyes never left the e-paper.  He bit back a nasty retort, then looked around the dim bar.  The place was a dive, the tables built into alcoves in the walls so nobody with an enemy would be shot in the back, a grungy bar against the back wall, facing a rather small door, more square tables in the middle.  It made him a little nervous to look up and see the blatantly obvious weaponry dispersed among the bottles of liquor and synth caps on the shelves back behind the counter- a couple of pistols, some emp flash-bangs, several canisters of tear gas, and a few cans of mace.  It was all made obvious that the bartender wasn't joking about using it with the gas mask sitting next to the miniature arsenal. 

"So,"  She broke his concentration.  "You do understand that this isn't usually my thing.  I don't normally even entertain the thought of human trafficking.  The only reason I would even consider this would be due to the fact that it's a one time thing- but the money has to go up."

"Up?!"  Basile sputtered.  "I think that my client's offer of 200k is more than generous, Ms. Hansel!" 

She regarded him like one would view a bug. 

"Your opinion on this matter is uneducated.  Some of my men won't sully their hands with this unless they are compensated extremely well.  I will need to purchase plenty of food, have enough to cover doctor bills if they have a disease that my crew and I contract, to pressurize my cargo bay and make it hospitable enough for people to survive.  With the date your client had provided as necessary, I would have to postpone a client and pay a breaching fee."  Her eyes were cool and flinty, and she took a long draft of the brew in front of her before continuing.  "I'll need at least 600k."

"That is unacceptable, Ms. Hansel."  He tried to stay calm as his ire started to show, cracking his fixed smile.  She smiled, a slow, infuriatingly slow, crook of one corner of her mouth. 

"It's all I will accept, Mr. Garument."  Basile took a deep breath and put on a false smile, starting the negotiations.  He watched as she ordered a drink and then gave him a long-suffering glance as it arrived.