Godhand gave a small smile to the girl and reholstered his Magnum. No matter how you sliced it torturing someone was always lousy work. He knew the ins and outs and what hurt and what made someone black out but to him it was still just a job; like climbing up a steep muddy slope. Back home they were people who majored in information extraction but when you were on the move you needed to know the right way to put screws into somebody's thumbs. You needed to be versatile - smart. These new kids, man. They did it all and they did it for cheap. You had to read up. Study the literature. All to keep up with a bunch of guys that got an earlier start than you. You had to. When was the last time anybody ever saw a hitman in a retirement home? No way to retire in this business. No way at all. Once you lose your step you're just like an old dog that gets sick; they take you out the back and shoot you in the head. Lousy way to go.
The mercenary was glad it didn't have to come to the really nasty stuff. He was losing his stomach for that sort of thing. No, that was untrue; he was still vicious when he needed to be. Godhand just didn't want to do that sort of thing to a girl. Never could handle that. Different animals, he guessed. A man just sort of bites down and takes it. You hack away but there's a sort of quiet dignity in your role and his and it's spiritually acceptable for both men. A woman, though. She just looks at you. Big doe eyes staring at you. Staring. Nobody could work under those conditions. Well, some men could but not Godhand. In the end she'd sensed that he really didn't want to have to go to work on her and fessed up. No use arguing with a gun. He crept out of the covered wagon and strode over to Djakara's jury-rigged meeting room. Pulling back the thick cloth tarp shielding the occupants from the cold, he spoke.
"She says we're going up against about a thousand people. I'm tough and James knows his stuff, but I don't know. If you got anything special stashed in the caravans Djakara, now's the time to say so."