Bonaparte.

It's glib, it's flip, its' autocratic, academic, ironic.

It's perfect.

And it's been his impenetrable mask for more years than he's bothered to keep track of these days. When exposure comes, it's so sudden, so swift, and so goddam unexpected, it takes his breath away. He should have been watching, he tells himself. He's getting lazy, getting old, but the truth is, he's no less cock-sure than any other Expendable, maybe more so, as he's always fancied himself small fry. He'd convinced himself he was flying low, safe, under the radar. Who, after all, is looking at the paper-pusher that looks like a cheap tourist, with a penchant for loud shirts and cargo shorts? Who wants the ageing number's man with perpetual stubble going to grey on his jaw and a balding head he covers with stupid hats, when they can have the hero instead?

Or the anti-hero….or whatever. The guys who blow shit up.

Now's not the time to quibble over semantics, the man whose real name is Malachi Sweeney, reminds himself as, hand not-quite-shaking but wanting to, he reaches for the secure cell he keeps on his person at all times. As he counts the rings and waits to hear a voice on the other end of the line, his formidable intellect picks up its former wild whirl.

One ring.

He thinks of himself as small fry.

It's a lie.

He thinks everyone else, thinks of him as small fry. He likes it that way, wants it that way. Enjoys the irony of it. That's why it was so fucking perfect. His own private joke, Bonaparte.

An Emperor with an inferiority complex, how like a spy with superiority complex.

Two rings.

After all, he knows he's the one that keeps it all going. He's the foundation. He understands the teams, he finds the talent, and not just talent, but the right mix of skill and personality. Fuck, he doesn't just supply the teams, he fucking builds them. THE Teams. The ones people don't admit exist but always call, on a secure, untraceable cellular phone like the one in his hand. The men, and the odd woman, who do the work others don't do, can't do, won't do. No red tape, no political dissembling, just fire and blood, mostly their own, and half the time little or no reward and only one guarantee. A bloody end. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday….and they, none of them, doubt it. And they go anyway.

Hell, maybe they're heroes after all…..nobody said heroes have to be smart.

Three rings.

But it doesn't matter, none of it matters, because it looks someone has gotten wise, or so it would seem. If you'd asked Bonaparte the best way for the rich, and powerful, and conscienceless to get rid of the inconvenient heroes that Bonaparte supplied to men like Barney Ross, he tell you to stop trying to dam the river one drop of water at a time, and poison the well at its source.

Yeah, it looks like someone finally got wise.

Four rings.

Probably because the man Bonaparte was currently waiting on, had reached a whole new level of pain-in-the-ass to the dark and destructive powers that be, after acquiring an infusion of young, new kick-ass, to go with his already formidable stable of old kick-ass.

Five Rings.

Bonaparte's rabbiting mind began to narrow its focus, spinning tighter and tighter circles around the problem he faced, the force of his intellect dragging together every pertinent scrap of information; observations, statistics, locations, and contacts, stored in his not-inconsequential brain.

He thought he had a lock on motive. Barney would say his perception of his own influence was arrogant enough to do justice to his megalomaniacal namesake, but his gut had clenched in that tell-tale way when his mind had first flirted with the idea. A hunch you could call it. Well some of his other hunches had names like Barney Ross and Lee Christmas. Another is the man known to most as Doctor Death, but that he knows was born Martin Clarke, formerly of Detroit. Thirty odd years ago, it was he who'd steered an angry young drug-dealer with a gift for violence, out of jail and towards an angry, middle-aged, ex-army ranger with a plan. That hunch had been called Gunner Jensen, and he freely admitted that particular one had landed a little left of centre. Still one of the best men around to have at your back when things went to hell though. The list went on, but basically, anyone who was anyone in the seething underworld of mercenaries and espionage, was on it. So yeah, Bonaparte trusted his gut.

Six rings.

With motive established, next, what's the first move? It's a chess game, the enemy has got to know that he's got Barney and the boys for Queen and court(a comparison the burley mercenary would hardly appreciate, but it brings a sharp smile to Bonaparte's face), but who's the King? Who's the week link they're going to play for?

Because everyone knows, when you crack a mask as well grounded and long-standing as Bonaparte's, you're playing to win.

But who does this chink in the armour leave vulnerable?

Seven rings.

Family, obviously. That's why most of the boys in this game don't have them. Or lost them, if they did.

An angry ex-wife and two kids I never talk too.

The words echo in his head as the phone goes to voice mail.

He leaves a terse message and wipes the sweat that has broken out on his upper-lip with one corner of his eye-smarting maroon and orange shirt, as he punches the next number.

She won't be happy. Fuck, she'll be furious. Wasn't it why she'd left him in the first place, and taken the kids too?

And he's kept the promise he'd made that bitter day, all those long years ago. To go and stay gone. That's why the voice on the other end of the line isn't hers. Best to come at her sideways.

"Hello?"

"Jake?"

"Dad?"

His son's voice is so incredulous, it would make him wince if he had emotion or thought to spare.

His son, his beautiful boy, is 29. He's an ex-navy SEAL, and works for Uncle Sam now, in a more official capacity than his Daddy. Not so official that he's doesn't get it though. All of it, in the few short sentences Bonaparte feeds him. It helps that since he's joined a team that's in-the-know, more-or-less, he's a bit more read-in than his mother or sister, about what exactly it is his father does. Bonaparte doubts his daughter would have even a cursory answer to that question were it put to her. Not an accurate one certainly. She probably wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line-up either.

He forced down another un-welcome pang. We all make our choices. He knew it, he lived with it. The problem was, they'd had to live with his choices too. His wife, his ex-wife, and his children. They're old regrets for another time, he tells himself, listening to Jake Jr. talk.

"I'll put Mom in lock-down ASAP." His voice is clipped, all business, Bonaparte can hear him moving around, throwing things, into a bag or a suitcase, he guesses.

"Meryl, your Mom, she's gonna be…..fuck, she's gonna be furious."

"She can be furious in witness protection."

He smiles again, that's his boy. He hesitates, but says what's on his mind.

"Pick the men yourself. Promise you'll stay with her."

"My word," says his son, and that's all there is to say except,

"Charlie-"

"Is in Budapest." Bonaparte finishes the sentence.

"I'm talking care of it."

Or he would be, if Barney would answer his damn phone.

Three hours later when the secure cell finally rings, Bonaparte has worn a rut in the carpet of his cheap motel room, booked and cancelled three flights to Europe, travelling is probably too risky now. Who knows if any of his other aliases are still secure? The feeling of helplessness puts the bottle of tequila in his hand, and he's drunk almost half of it. It's nearly enough to settle his nerves. Nearly.

He doesn't care what they do to him. If they've got the balls to be that direct, well, this old dog has got a few surprises left up his sleeve. He's not that old. He's already heard back from Jake. He and Meryl, who's alley-cat mad, he can hear her in the background cursing him when the boy calls to check in, are already deep under and are going radio silent 'til whatever storm is coming blows over. And the storm is coming, his gut can feel it gathering around him. He thanks God that his kid works fast, and hell yes, that is pride he's feeling over it. And guilt, and relief, and more regret as he listens to Meryl damn him. It's not the first time, it likely won't be the last, and it is sick that the sound of her bitching makes him smile and ache with a strange kind of nostalgia? He always loved her temper, the spit-and-fire of her. If he was honest with himself, he still did.

Old regrets.

Right now is the time to deal with new fear, and this mother hen has still got one chick unaccounted for. By now the vultures know she's the only easy prey left, and he and can see them circling in his mind's eye.

Barney sounds, as always, like a water-logged bulldozer, and the bad connection isn't helping, but it doesn't take long to get him up to speed.

"Budapest?" He asks.

"What the hell is your girl doin' there?"

"Research" Bonaparte answers.

"She's a historian."

"Gets her brains from you, huh?" says the other man. And then, what Bonaparte has been waiting to hear.

"Smilee's in Serbia, he can be by tomorrow." What he doesn't say is that if Smilee is in Serbia alone, he's probably under-cover. And since it's Serbia, it's probably deep cover. The kind that's hard to leave intact and pick back up at a later time. The kind that breaking unexpectedly can be deadly….

"Whatever he's working on…" Bonaparte begins, but Barney doesn't let him finished.

"He drops it as of now." Family comes first.

What's left unsaid is more important than what Barney voices. As usual.

The relief is maybe worse than the fear. The tequila hits him like a sledgehammer when the adrenaline that's been keeping him going is released.

"I'll send a Lee and a few of the boys to collect them, once Smilee gets to her. You got an address?"

Stupid question. Bonaparte's got everyone's address. And their phone number, and their email, and their twitter handle, and whatever other shit they've got going on.

His daughter may not be able to pick him out of a line-up, she may not have seen him since she was seven, but Bonaparte knows every shade of her smile. There hasn't been more than a half an hour in her entire life that he hasn't known exactly where she was.

He promises himself he'll change that, he'll see her face to face, if only they get through this.

Holding firmly to that thought, he rattles off an address and a cell number and hangs up, around him the walls fade away as he passes out, the cell phone that's now his lifeline still in his hand.