Die Alone

by yorickjones

Twas the night before Christmas... Kevin McCalister collides with a childhood hero, John McClane. Home Alone/Die Hard x-over

DIE ALONE

The good boys and girls of his squad had expressed their condolences for his drawing the short straw shift-wise. Doubling up Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, that's tough, they all said and he had to smile at the memory of that. Everybody's done it at some point, they consoled, they knew what it was like. What they couldn't guess was that he had been secretly glad for the out. Currently headquartered in the McCalister family home in Evanston were two brothers and two sisters, their respective spouses, eight nieces and nephews, mom and dad, and two sets of grandparents. McCalister's Christmases were like a day camp crossed with a political convention and wrapped in a big red and green bow.

He loved the whole lot of them in the same conceptual, abstract way most people loved their families but McCalister tended towards a solitary life. An ex-girlfriend who'd finally dumped him after a year's worth of hints about cohabitation were breezily ignored once rather bluntly summed him up as falling somewhere between "an independent spirit" and a "disgruntled loner." A friend used to rib him that he was just a log cabin and a pull-over hoodie away from being the next Unabomber. It all rolled off McCalister's back. He knew he was no misanthrope (he'd joined the force to help people after all) but he'd always simply been most contented with his own company.

There were times though when his thoughts quieted and his attention untethered that he felt a gentle nagging at his core. The suggestion that he was missing something, that it might be nice to have at least one person to share his life with. But when he pondered the likelihood of finding someone who could cope with the stresses of living with a cop, understand his odd flights of whimsy and give him his required space – well, it was one gift he never bothered putting on his Christmas list.

December 24, 2008. 6:48 PM. Five hours and 12 minutes 'til end of shift.

He had been the first on the scene. No call had gone out, he'd just happened to be steering his unit down State when he saw the same crowds of last minute Christmas shoppers that had lined up on the sidewalks to get into Marshall Field's that morning come streaming out in a mad Japanese monster movie panic from under the green awnings and stately giant golden horns that dressed the outside of the store each holiday season. He swerved to avoid hitting a shrieking pedestrian and kissed the curb parking his cruiser half a block down from the store. When he radioed in the disturbance and informed dispatch he was riding solo, they told him to wait for backup. He rogered that and immediately countered by exiting the car and heading for the noise.

McCalister was the only person actually entering the store, swimming upstream against the panicked hordes scattering to the four corners of the gigantic building and pouring out of the doors of its multiple entrances. The elevator banks to his right were disgorging full cars of cartoonishly elongated faces – mothers and children and full-grown men in the grips of a base survival instinct. McCalister passingly noticed that, panic aside, they each still clutched their various shopping bags and festively wrapped packages. He kept struggling and dodging forward past the abandoned jewelry and cosmetics counters in the palatial first floor, heading through the open, yawning space for the central atrium whose enormous crisscrossed escalators were full of shoppers and employees alike climbing over one another to make their escape. It was an ugly sight despite the Christmas wonderland of North Pole villages and candy cane trees that had been built all around the Burnham fountain at the atrium's center and McCalister's head swam for a second. He stood in the midst of a maelstrom of holiday-dressed insanity, raising his voice to its highest pitch, asking any and everyone shoving past what had happened. In response, the slightly-built and unfortunately unassuming young cop found himself nearly knocked to the floor by a trio of little ladies wearing matching snowflake sweaters. Amongst the noise and the jostling, he caught strange disjointed references to Santa Claus and dynamite.

A strong hand suddenly gripped his right bicep and McCalister spun to see one of the store's security guards – a thick-knecked, pot-bellied buzz-cut in his late-40s whose name tag read "Chet." "Did you call it in?" the guard asked, his eyes shifting nervously.

"No, I- What am I reporting?" McCalister asked, "What the hell is going on here?"

"'Bout ten minutes ago one of the Santas took a hostage."

"One of the what-?"

"One of the Santas from the Christmas Village!" Chet bellowed at McCalister like he was impatiently dealing with a touristing foreigner, "Where the kids get their picture taken!"

"Right, okay."

"He stood up an' he grabbed this girl – one of the employees – and he opens his coat; he's got sticks of TNT strapped all the way around his gut! Starts shouting, tells everybody to split or else! Then he pulled that girl to the elevators, talkin' into this earpiece-phone thing. I kept my distance but I could hear him talking to his men."

McCalister was fighting back dread and amazement, "His men? How big a crew is involved with this?"

Sweating, Chet looked around, McCalister could tell he was itching to join the mad dash for the street, "He was talkin' to a lot of 'em, telling them to take point. Called 'em all by reindeer names-"

"Reindeer games?"

"Names," Chet barked, "You know, like 'Dasher' an' 'Blitzer' an' shit. Look, I don't know! All I can tell you is Santa musta made it to security central-"

"Where?"

"Tenth floor," Chet pointed straight up. "Next thing I know is our C.O. is on the walkies tellin' us to start evacuatin' the store as calm and quick as we could. We were doin' that when the PAs cut on and the Santa was sayin' they got five minutes to clear the place before people started dyin'. Place went fuckin' batshit after that – you can see that."

"Okay, okay," McCalister said, "Shit. Okay. I need you to hang with me while I radio this in."

"Nuh-uh, man, I can't do that," Chet said shaking his head, his expression strained. Maybe this guy had been a badass once but he looked scared now and ashamed. "All the other guys left, even the C.O. is probably standing outside watching by now. You gotta get some back-up on this and f-"

Chet was cut off by the sudden and terrifying sound of an assault rifle being fired in a short burst from somewhere deeper in the store, from one of the floors above them. At the sound the crowd noise swelled in a unified shriek and the thinning crowd redoubled its efforts for the doors. Chet jogged away with them without looking back at McCalister.

His heart pounding in his ears, McCalister shouted his initial report into his handheld. Hostage situation, multiple assailants, shots fired, possible bomb threat. Within seconds he had two sergents and a captain sqwawking at him to get the hell out of the place and let the big boys take it from here. It was easy enough for McCalister to fake a radio breakup and keep proceeding into the store, taking advantage of the nearly exhausted stream of customers, cashiers, maintainance and kitchen staff to edge away from the exposed floor area and make for the far walls. He wasn't going anywhere soon, but if the explosives-laced Santa had taken over the security HQ, he had the eyes of every camera in the place at his disposal. It wasn't that McCalister was a showboater or glory hound and he was fully aware he'd have to answer for his insubordination but he couldn't dismiss the reality that there were possibly lives to be saved between now and the arrival of "the big boys" with their shiny helmets and flak jackets.

"Okay, Kev, you're all they get. You're the thin blue line here," McCalister started muttering as he jogged towards the Wabash side of the store. This reflexive quirk of his personality, the deadpan running monologue, had irritated roommates, patrol partners and girlfriends his entire life. "It's a big place and they got assault rifles. But I've got, uh, a winning smile."

At that moment, with the store seemingly empty, he turned in a tight circle, taking it all in and appreciating how enormous the place truly was. A city block unto itself, a grand white monument to materialism in marble, wood and light stacked in elegant balconied stories thirteen above and one below street level. There could be people anywhere, in the shops, the restaurants, the bathrooms, trapped by some external obstacle or by their own fear. He prayed that the gunfire he'd heard had just been a warning.

The thought of possible stragglers had crossed more minds than his, apparently. As he jogged from ornate column to ornate column, throwing his back against the walls with his gun in both hands and cocked in the ready position that reminded the young cop of the way he'd been taught to pray, McCalister was surprised to hear the store's PA system interrupted in the middle of a faint instrumental version of "O Come All Ye Faithful". The voice that followed was a man's - older, phlegmy but evidently amused with itself. "Attention shoppers," it began, "it occurs to us that some of you might not have taken us seriously when we suggested you high-tail it for the nearest exit. You really should. Anybody left in this building in the next three minutes will be, officially, our hostage. Hopefully you have better things to do with your holidays."

At this the unknown broadcaster began laughing, an unsteady sound which devolved into a coughing fit. Sounds like you should've stayed in bed, Mr. Terrorist, McCalister thought. The cough was finally stifled and the voice recovered enough to finish.

"We now return you to the mellow sounds of Manheim Steamroller already in progress."

McCalister was shaking his head at the weird audacity of the person or persons behind this incursion. He was sure that, at some point, their motives would become clear - a flashy robbery, a political statement, a suicidal "last stand" - but at the moment he was more concerned about making damn sure that the place was cleared of any innocent people who might get caught in the crossfire once the specialists showed. The elevators, which he was now directly across from, were a no-go; McCalister was willing to bet these people had their eyes on the comings and goings from any of the security offices upstairs. There must be hundreds of cameras peppered throughout the store which meant making his way anywhere could be an announcement of his presence. As he pinpointed the cameras closest to his position and considered his options, the escalators suddenly ceased. That didn't bother McCalister as much as the camera placement above the escalator banks.McCalister made for the now-stilled down escalator, keeping himself low. At its foot, he began crawling on hands and knees - quickly - praying that the bad guys weren't as occupied with who might be trying to leave the store as they were with anyone trying to get in. He accomplished the top of the stairs in just such a lizard-like fashion and, eyes on every camera he could spot, he made a weaving, stop-and-start recon of the store's second floor.

Once he discerned to his satisfaction that the balcony and the concourse directly ahead were free of any assault-rifle toting "reindeer," MCalister ventured into the men's wear section to the left and swapped out his shoes. The standard issue gum-soled beat-walkers he wore were making too much noise against the store's polished floors. Not knowing which corner might conceal an armed terrorist, he didn't want to take the chance that his own footfalls would betray him. The shop had a wide selection of running shoes that were perfect. Smirking to himself, McCalister picked the most expensive pair (SRP: $120.00) and slipped them on. It was just a loaner after all. He moved on, hugging the walls and trying to stay sharp. Ducking into shops, scanning all corners, listening for the slightest sounds, but all he heard was the thrum of the blood rushing through his veins and Johnny Mathis singing "The Little Drummer Boy."

Floor by floor McCalister repeated his casing of the eerily empty store. He was looking for any civillians still present, but he also kept mental inventory of the store's departments as he went, there might be something useful at hand. At the very least he spotted plenty of perfect gifts for his over-extended family that he wished he had come across a week ago when he'd done his own Christmas shopping; but he had thusfar not encountered one other living soul, bad guy or civillian. Until the 6th floor bedding department where he found the first definite evidence of the store's occupancy. But it was hardly what McCalister was expecting.

A rythmic panting and soft groans accompanied by a male voice loudly whispering, "Yeah, yeah baby, yeah." McCalister was thrown but he crept in regardless. At the rear of the shop, splayed on top of the in-store display of (according to the placard) the "Colonial Rest Full-Sized Queen - Walnut" was a pair of teenagers - a skinny, pink-kneed girl and her zit-assed boyfriend - screwing for all their worth.

McCalister got in close, aiming his voice at the back of the boy's head and barely speaking above a whisper, "Okay, keep abs-" The girl squealed, saw McCalister and looked like she'd scream even louder before McCalister reached out and clamped his hand over her mouth. Only then did the boy clue to the cop's presence, jerking back from his girlfriend and, for a second, looking like he was prepared to bolt for the elevators with his pants around his ankles and his condom proudly waving in front of him like a latex banner.

"Stop," McCalister said, with hand raised. And the kid obeyed, looking terrified and absolutely ludicrous at the same time. "And pull up your pants for God's sake."

The teenager did this while his girlfriend likewise slid her panties and jeans back on. "We were just-!" she started while the boy was simultaneously chanting "Oh fuck oh christ oh fuck oh christ"

"Listen," McCalister tried to calm them and bring their volume down, but the boy was too keyed up.

"You can not tell my old man about this! I mean it; he will beat my ass so far into the ground!"

"It's true," the girl backed him up, "His dad's a beast!"

"Ssshh," McCalister urged, "Jesus! Just quiet down. You mean to tell me that there are terrorists in control of this building and you're more worried about what your dad is going to do to you when – or if – you get home?"

"You don't know the old man," the boy said without a trace of irony.

McCalister tried to get useful information out of the pair but they insisted they hadn't seen anything other than the mad rush of customers and employees evacuating – no armed terrorists, no explosives-strapped Santas. They just found themselves in an empty store surrounded by lush display bedding and had mutually decided to let their hormones do the thinking.

The boy, who was as tall as McCalister, made a show of squaring his shoulders, cockily dismissing the cop's outrage, "Look at this place, man! We didn't think they could find us in all this, I mean I haven't seen jackshit so far!"

"We thought it would be kind of a kick, y'know?" said the girl, who only now started blushing in front of McCalister.

The young cop was stunned, "A kick? There's assault rifles being fired and people trampling over each other to get out and you guys decide it might be 'a kick' to hide out and hump?"

"Hey, like, life moves pretty fast," the girl interjected defensively, "and if you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it."

McCalister coughed, "What?"

"That's what my dad says, anyway."

The teen boy reached over and stroked the girl's hair, "That's 'cause your dad's cool."

"He can be, but-"

The young cop frowned, cutting them off, "Okay, okay, enough. What's your names?"

The girl was pulling her fine dark hair back over her ears and answered like a guilty parochial student, "Bueller. I'm Cammy Bueller. Sir."

The boy's shoulders dropped again and he answered the floor, "John Bender. Junior."

"Okay, Cammy, John, I'm Officer McCalister and if you want to make it to an age where you guys can do what you were just doing legally, you stick with me and you keep very quiet. Do you understand?"

As if intentionally undermining his order, McCalister's radio crackled to life and the voice of his commanding sergeant shattered the quiet of the place. The teenagers jumped at the sound.

"McCalister? You on this channel?" Osterholt barked. "If you can hear me, McCalister, come back!"

McCalister jerked the radio to his mouth and punched the "send" button. "Yes, sergeant," he hissed low in response, "I'm here but need to run silent."

Before Osterholt could reply, McCalister had dialed the radio volume down to nearly the last stop. Still, his sergeant's voice hammered out of the receiver, "What you need to do is get your ass outta there pronto! This is the big show and we got the place covered. There are negotiators and SWAT and Feds and every last goddamn meter maid in the Chicagoland area waiting out here to do their job, but we need the place clear!"

"That's what I was doing!" McCalister responded, "I've got-" And he stopped, something telling him not to be too specific, "Look, this place isn't empty!"

"What?" Osterholt sounded genuinely thrown. "You grab hold of anybody you got with you and you get the hell outta that building right the fuck now! These guys aren't dickin' around, McCalister, they gave us a statement and have basically said that they've got enough C-4 to blow the Tiffany glass right outta the ceiling and will do so if they come across any cops inside the joint!" McCalister looked to the teen lovebirds and saw the stark terror this announcement had etched across their faces. His own throat was closing up. Osterholt kept barking, "Maybe they're full of shit, maybe not, but we play by their rules for now – you know how this works!"

McCalister brought the radio in close again, ready to vie for a little more time to finish his sweep of the last three public floors, when the Christmas music that had provided low-key accompaniment suddenly cut-off once again and the voice of the self-amused cougher returned.

"That's good advice, Hero Cop. We ain't playing games here. Nobody's been hurt yet, but if you don't clear out in a jiffy, the first hostage is gonna die. Sound like something you can live with, McCalister?"

A nasty wave of despair crashed over McCalister. They had been listening in; the bad guys were smart enough to zero in on the cops radio frequencies and eavesdrop. Now they knew he was in the store – alone. He eyed the two teens and tried to look unruffled for their sake; fear had taken over their faces and frozen them into pale elongated masks.

McCalister punched "send;" "Okay, nobody wants anybody to be hurt. If our hosts can hear this – and I think they can – I'm only asking for clear passage out the State Street doors with one civillian in tow."

McCalister saw the kids looking at each other, stunned. "I have a young girl here with me and I just need to get her out."

Both the boy and the girl opened their mouths to question or protest, but McCalister staunched them with a hand raised. Osterholt came back on the box demanding to know what McCalister had meant about the hosts being able to hear them but McCalister didn't answer; his eyes lifted to the ceiling, waiting for the word from on high.

"Okay, champ," the terrorist chief's rattling, phlegmy voice bounced through the empty vaulted building, "you got it. Rudolph, Dasher and Blitzen will shadow you to the door but won't lift a finger unless you try something creative. Tell your bosses outside they'll get our full demands at midnight. No sooner."

Almost immediately, the boy started in at McCalister, "Wait, man, you're takin' us both out, right?"

McCalister was already pulling his uniform tie loose and working at the buttons of his shirt, "You're both going. Get undressed."

The young couple shot a look to each other before simultaneously loosing a "What?" of disbelief.

"You," McCalister iterated, pointing at the boy, "Bender Jr. Strip down. You get to be a cop today."

The kid, though clearly still lost, did as he was told and within a couple of minutes the 27 year-old cop and the 16 year-old boy had swapped everything but underwear. McCalister was tucking his gun into the back of the jeans he was now wearing (which, he was disheartened to realize, were still a bit too big for his slight frame) and removing the ammo pouches from his uniform belt now gracing the teen's waist. "Okay. Now you're me. You walk Cammy here in front of you. Go calmly, carefully downstairs – do not bolt for the doors. Once you're outside - again moving cautiously, cool – ask to speak to a Sergeant Osterholt with the Chicago PD. He's out there right now. He's my boss. Explain to him who you are and where I am but – and this is the most important thing – tell him to keep all this off radio."

"You're staying here? On your own?" the girl asked amazed.

"Yeah."

The boy, looking very uncomfortable in his new outfit, jerked his head back and asked "What are you, man? A fuckin' headcase?"

Until the question had been posed, McCalister hadn't really examined his motives. "Just full of the holiday spirit, I guess," he answered with a shrug and a smile that suddenly made him look like a mishievous kid years younger than the teens he was sending into safety in his place.

The next couple of minutes were tense ones as McCalister listened hard for any sign that the mastermind of this store-jacking was going back on his word and as he hoped even harder that he hadn't put those kids in any greater jeopardy than they'd faced inside. Caught full in the blaze of floods that lit up the front of Chicago's venerable department store even more than usual for a Christmastime, McCalister pressed against a window looking out over State Street. He saw cars from at least four precincts, SWAT, feds and anti-terrorist commandos stacked four deep around the building perimeter – easily the biggest turnout of law enforcement in these parts since that inexplicable incident in the early '80s when everybody short of the Marines had been called in to arrest two blues musicians at the county courthouse, a case study in overkill that the old guys in McCallister's precinct were still reluctant to talk about. This night, the gathered forces were keeping their distance as policy and the terrorists' own demands dictated. With no idea how many hostages were at stake, no definite count of terrorists and/or thieves and/or loonies they were facing and with, as Osterholt had said, no way of telling if the threats of massive explosives cached about the building were valid or empty, they had dug in for the long haul.

"C'mon, you horny SAT flunkees. Just remember what I said. Play it cool and you're home free. Look at 'em all waiting for you, with hot cocoa and microphones. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon..."

Then, much to his relief, McCalister saw a reaction ripple through the crowd below, saw the news crews start to jockey their way through the sea of law enforcement to get a better picture of ... and there they were. Bender Junior looking from this height every bit a cop ushering Cammy into the waiting arms of the front line of flak-jacketed SWAT officers. At least that worked okay, McCalister thought, but his mind, as it tended to do, instantly jumped forward. What next, genius?

He knew roughly what he wanted to do and he knew where the tools he needed were, but there was still the question of getting there without running afoul of the team that had taken the building. But what choice did he have, really?

With a deep breath, McCalister retraced his steps back down the stilled escalators – hiding as he went from the cameras he'd marked on the way up, eyes constantly darting about for men toting rifles.

He made it all the way to the first floor and beyond to the lower level without glimpsing even the shadow of Rudolph or all of the other reindeer.

It was so ingenious, so cool, that McCalister felt himself revert for the briefest of moments to a bright-eyed kid with a new toy. They were called R/C Travellers and they were one of the big ticket items on many a kid's wish list: the Traveller was essentially a remote-control helicopter about a foot long with a great hi-tech gimmick – it was smart. A kid could command the Traveller by a hand-held toggle or he could map coordinates for the toy and tell it to return to its launch point at a specific time, along its journey its own sensors and AI chip would enable it to dodge targets, to bank and turn as best suited the flightplan. In short, it was a stealth robot plane based on the same tech that the military was implementing on a much larger scale.

"Most excellent," McCalister exclaimed to the vacant air, "Most truly excellent." He scooped up three of them (SRP: $375.00 a piece) from the 5th floor toy department and carried them along with him to the electronics and entertainment department on the lower level.

The next items on his shopping list were safely locked within display cases which McCalister wasn't keen on smashing for fear of betraying his presence but a quick survey of the department revealed just what he needed – two demos out of the box and another from a competing brand sitting on little raised plastic pedestals under a sign reading: "The WiFi Cam Just Got Smaller!" No shit, McCalister thought, smiling, as he palmed these three tiny digital cams (SRP: $850.00 a piece) – each no bigger than a woman's lipstick. He'd seen these advertised and had wanted one of his own, but knew that wouldn't happen anytime soon on his cop's salary.

"'Four and a half out of 5 stars,' raves Home Electronics Magazine," McCalister reported to no one. This new generation of wireless digital cameras was tiny and light and could wirelessly "beam" the motion it captured back to whatever receiver (a DVD-R drive for recording or a TV to be viewed in real-time) had been encoded for its signal. Even better for McCalister's purposes was that each of these display cams was already connected to a demo monitor right there in the electronics department; he moved each one around the store to make sure they were online and good to go. They worked like a dream.

The idea McCalister was hurriedly cobbling together in a corner of the department that, as near as he could tell, wasn't in direct view of any of the store's security cams, was one that he'd actually proposed to the chief of the tactical unit – only to discover that a similar concept had just been shot down by the city as being A) too expensive and B) a magnet for complaints about invasion of privacy. McCalister could see the points made, but right now he just needed more eyes. His fingers deftly wired a cam each to the underside of the three Travellers using the twist-ties that had been part of their packaging. Once secured, all McCalister had to do was program the flight patterns of the Travellers and fire up the rotors.

He was grinning as he sat on the floor with his own little air force hovering just feet away from him, their engines buzzing lightly, sending pictures of his own grinning face to the trio of monitors he'd angled so he could view them from his position. They were just waiting for the command. He reached for the first of the three controllers arranged before him and pushed the "Go" button, watching as the Traveller on the far right split off from the group and headed out of sight. He did the same for the other two until all three had buzzed away like obedient bees.

He'd commanded each of his "spies" to head for the central atrium and ascend, each had also been assigned a sequence of floors to navigate; one would do a full recon of the 1st, 4th, and 7th floors, another would do the 2nd, 5th and 8th, while the last would take floors 3, 6 and 9. The trick was in processing the visual input of all three cameras simultaneously. McCalister's eyes blurred between all three monitors, feeling slightly nauseous as he attempted to cope with the bobbing and weaving POV shots of floors, walls, product displays, etc. Once, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he glimpsed someone on screen but discovered, once he commanded that Traveller to pause and hover in place, that he'd been alerted only to the presence of a very non-threatening mannequin in a long ski coat.

The jerry-rigged gadgets had worked great, giving McCalister a pretty good overview of the entire building from the first floor arcade to the admin offices on 9, from the 28 Shop to the Narcissus Room to the Trend House, from InFields sports bar on the lower level to the fantastically lush Walnut Room on the 7th. The Travellers had flown over 800,000 square feet in just an hour and a half before swooping back to McCalister and hovering before him as if waiting for his next command. The problem hadn't been with McCalister's spies but lay with what it was they reported: namely, an absolute lack of anyone patrolling the store. In fact McCalister had yet to see anybody at all since the amorous teen couple, so what exactly was going on here? Maybe the gunmen had all grouped upstairs on the security floor? Maybe it was all an elaborate distraction from a massive heist occuring somewhere else? Maybe ... there weren't even any reindeer? The one thing that was immediately apparent to McCalister was he would have to find a way to the one place in the store where he was positive beyond a doubt there was a Santa Claus.

9:17 PM. Two hours and 43 minutes 'til end of shift.

He wondered what his buddies on the force were doing at that very minute. Maybe sipping at boozed-up egg nog, maybe wrapping last minute gifts or trying to coax their excited youngsters into bed with promises of a benevolent b&e by a jovial recidivist perp bearing gifts. None of them, he was willing to bet, were monkeying up steel cables in a pitch-black department store elevator shaft. McCalister sighed and the sound echoed weirdly.

"Does Rico get to do this? No. Sad little man. He's probably having crazy Feliz Navidad sex with his fiancee right now. And Tepper and Stanz – those guys are probably reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' to their kids. They just wish they were climbing up elevator cables while wearing somebody else's pants."

The escalators didn't extend to floor 10 and above and the stairwells ended in doors with card-key locks that he couldn't get past, so McCalister had forced open the elevator doors on 9 and made a grab for the grease-slicked cables wearing a pair of heavy-duty climbing gloves with rubber traction pads on the palms (SRP: $59.99) that he'd nabbed from the sports department. The barely fifteen foot climb wasn't a challenge but finding hand and footholds that would give him the necessary leverage to open the elevator doors on 10 was something else entirely. When he spotted in the darkness a series of rungs set into the wall of the elevator shaft that he could've used instead of shimmying up the nasty black cables he just shook his head. He crossed over to the nearest rung, the perfect angle from which to send out the "borrowed" crowbar (SRP: $25.99) he had tucked into his belt and hook its claw – as quietly as possible – into the crack of the elevator's doors. He pulled. All he could do was pray that the elevator wasn't within view of any of the (possible) terrorists.

The heavy doors took a lot of convincing before they slowly parted but they were at least compliantly silent. Once he'd achieved an opening wide enough for his thin frame, McCalister stopped and set the crowbar softly down upon the floor on the other side of the elevator threshold before reaching out a timid foot to find its own landing. Gripping the edge of the partially opened door with all his strength, McCalister was able to swing the rest of himself from the support of the ladder rungs and onto the polished tile of the 10th floor in a hasty, awkward hop. There was a small clatter from his shoe lightly scooting aside the discarded crowbar and McCalister immediately dropped into a crouch, hoping the sound hadn't given him away. Keeping low, he scurried for the cover of a nearby water cooler and scanned from around its edge for any movement up or down the corridor. Compared with the stateliness of the building below this story was all function over form. The security floor of Marshall Field's could've easily fit in any corporate building with its uniform rows of white walled offices nearly devoid of any trace of the building's grand architecture save the windowed rectangle of the atrium continuing its reach for the roof. McCalister imagined the layout must look much different and more cheerful during the day when the sun flooded these blank white rooms with natural light. Most of the rooms here were fitted with large picture windows which prompted McCalister to stay hunched over as he moved forward, sticking to the wall and darting glances up and down the halls. There was more of the pervasive lack of movement or sound until McCalister came to a door marked "Control."

This was the nerve center of security operations for the whole gigantic store, a room which occupied the entire western column of office space. From his tentative peeps through the blinds of the room's windows McCalister could discern multiple banks of monitors feeding back clear images from the store's hundreds of cameras. Computer stations in the middle of the floor were still powered up and showing grids of the store's floor plans, possibly commanding the lights or power to the various sectors of the building. There were racks of A/V hardware where the store's music was being played and where the PAs were hooked up by wires leading to the broadcast desk with its own hi-tech mike and soundboard. And then there was the girl tied to a rolling office chair.

Young woman, actually, probably in her late-20s, McCalister judged. Shoulder-length brown hair with loose curls, large light-colored eyes and a smallish mouth. She was dressed in one of the same holiday-themed vests he'd seen some of the other store employees wearing and she was talking to someone that McCalister couldn't see. He wasn't able to hear anything above a murmur of voices but as he read her body language she didn't seem in the least frightened of whoever was holding her hostage. McCalister inched farther along the outside wall, trying for a view of the other side of the conversation. A glimpse of red which revealed itself as the shoulder of a Santa Claus costume coat. The man talking to the hostage was sitting reveresed in one of the office's rolling chairs, his head angled away from where McCalister was situated so all that was truly visible was the little hop of the Santa hat's white pom-pom when the terrorist ringleader would look away from his captive to the monitors nearby. It was while studying the movements of the seemingly casual criminal - a compact guy, as McCalister made him, not more than 5'7" or 5'8" - that McCalister spotted something that caused his eyebrows to leap. Twelve road flares connected by colored wire and a belt of duct tape that lay inert and discarded on the desk in front of the man McCalister was now sure was the one and only intruder in the whole place. D.I.Y. TNT, McCalister thought before moving a little quicker towards the men's room, Cute.

The snap-in hand soap container had been easy enough to wrest loose but the real trick had been in distributing its contents along the floor without making too much noise. McCalister settled on pressing the box under his heel, slowly, and spraying the soap in thick strands along the hall ringing the security control room – specifically in front of the room's door. Then, backing out in the crouch that was starting to take a toll on his back, he returned to the front corridor where the water cooler was. McCalister hefted one of the replacement bottles and set it down, sliding it along the floor to the corner of the control offices block. He worked the plastic cap off and grinned to himself as the pure mountain spring water gulped and burped its way out of the mouth of the bottle, running freely across the polished tile floor and creating little bubble islands where it mixed with the previously displaced soap. McCalister couldn't help smiling; he felt like he was 8 all over again.

Still holding the now empty water bottle, he waddled in a crouch to the far end of the corridor. He waited for a moment listening to the conversational murmur from within the control room punctuated by occasional bursts of coughing. McCalister drew the gun from the back of his jeans and then, with the briefest possible prayer that he wasn't making a terrible mistake, he threw the blue plastic jug the length of the hall so it hit the floor with a resounding succession of gong-like crashes. Pressed against the wall of the control room, McCalister could hear the weighted interruption of talk within and the following hurried footsteps. It was maybe a second and a half before Santa Claus (who McCalister noticed, had pulled his snowy white nylon Santa beard up as he exited the room) came bursting out of the control room door, moving fast and low. But his second footfall on the soaped tile floor was his undoing and Saint Nick went down in an unintentional display of slapstick, arms pinwheeling for the last half-second of balance. McCalister released a small, self-congratualtory, "Yes!" and then made his move, crossing to the flailing and cursing older man.

The cop was less than ten feet from his intended quarry, his regulation firearm trained on the suspect, when the tables turned again. McCalister had managed to bark an authoritative, "Stay down! Do you hear me? Stay-!" when the floored would-be Santa produced from the recesses of his sodden costume a small, blocky piece of black metal that McCalister instantly recognized as an UZI semi-automatic handgun. They were capable of firing ten rounds in a second and they were also illegal in the state of Illinois but McCalister would have to pick a better moment to explain this to Santa – say, a moment when he wasn't diving to the soapy floor to avoid being ripped apart by the short bursts being fired in his direction by the most un-jolly old elf he'd ever met. The floor glistened with pebbles of glass from the shattered atrium windows that had been behind McCalister and the air now hung with a fine smoke from the gun's discharge. McCalister's ears rang in the aftermath but he thought he could hear the woman hostage squealing from within the Control room. These observations were all just minutae logged by the tiny portion of his brain not occupied with getting away from the man trying to kill him. For the moment, McCalister's own ingenuity was working against him as he was now having as much trouble gaining traction as his opponent, they were both fighting gravity and the absense of friction like first time rollerskaters. Seeing Santa steady on his knees and pulling the UZI back around, McCalister made a desperate sweeping kick from his prone position on the floor. To his amazement the kick actually connected, knocking the gun from Santa's hand and sending it spinning heavily along the corridor. Seeing this as the only chance he would have, McCalister hauled himself up and forward in a clumsy but determined lunge for the man who had both saved and ruined his Christmas single-handedly. He grabbed onto the coughing bad guy's torso, pinning his arms and getting the impression of a bulkier frame than he expected, but this by-the-book takedown didn't last long. Santa had gotten one leg planted and now he rolled his shoulders with enough force to slip out of McCalister's hold and send him skidding towards the shattered windows. The young cop caught himself before tipping over its jagged edge but in doing so the gun slipped from his wet hand. McCalister watched it drop ten stories past the gigantic hanging snowflakes tethered to the ceiling above, feeling his confidence go with it, falling unimpeded until it crashed into the Christmas village at the atrium's base.

"Wait, so you're Hero Cop?" the jolly terrorist's voice came from behind him, a mocking tone laced with what sounded like a Brooklyn accent. "So you sent somebody else out in your duds and you stayed behind to – what? Save the day?"

Santa started laughing now and, as before, a gross hacking cough accompanied it. McCalister turned to see the man bent over, one hand supporting him on a knee and the other steadily gripping his retrieved UZI. McCalister barely twitched forward, about to make a move, when the man straightened, stifling the last of his cough, and levelling the gun at him. McCalister froze.

"Nuh-uh, Johnny-on-the-spot," Santa warned, "not unless you want coal in your stocking and a few rounds in your chest."

McCalister felt the sweat prickling along his scalp as he mentally checked his options. Santa made a gesture with the gun indicating where he wanted McCalister to go.

"Well, I hope you paid attention in hostage school, because you're gonna-"

It was the least plausible and most dangerous move he could make and McCalister was just as surprised as his would-be captor when he suddenly turned and jumped out of the shattered window. It wasn't a suicide plunge but something nearly as desperate. His stomach trying to escape through his throat, McCalister aimed for the closest pole extending from the ceiling holding one of the enormous plaster snowflakes that hung in the open air of the atrium. In the eternity of one uncertain second, McCalister saw his hands splayed wide and reaching and then, with a jolt of interrupted momentum, he felt the aluminum pole under his fingers. His hands clamped the pole like industrial magnets and his body swung in a graceless semi-arc while the pole thrummed under his weight. Hold, he prayed, please hold! For a moment he just hung there, legs now wrapped desperately around the pole, quaking and swaying – whether from the stress of his added weight or from his own rattled nerves he couldn't tell. He chanced a look up to the edge of the window which he was amazed to see was at least twenty feet above him but he saw no hint of the UZI-carting Santa. McCalister knew this meant he was on the move. He didn't have much time.

The criss-crossing escalator banks that ascended the atrium were too far away to leap to and the particular pole to which he clung terminated at a snowflake still far too short of the floor below, so McCalister shakily transferred himself to the next closest one and began shimmying his way down carefully. This pole was the better choice and ended roughly level with the third floor. That was still a problem. His nearest step-off point was the stack of oversized presents that rose out of the decorative Christmas village below his feet. It would be a drop of twelve feet or more but McCalister saw no other choice. He just hoped those shiny, cheerful ribbon-wrapped boxes were made out of something soft. He let go of the pole and dropped.

Crrummph! McCalister, sunk there in a him-shaped pit of caved-in fake presents, muttered a paen to an unknown benefactor.

"Thank you, yes, thank you Mr. Whoever It Was That Invented Cardboard. And on behalf of my kids – if I ever have any – thanks times two."

His left leg smarting from the fall, McCalister dug himself free and clumsily clambered over the snow-capped papier-mache mountains and the winding tracks of a toy Polar Express train until he was once more on the polished tiles of the first floor. He took a few moments to scramble about the atrium looking for his fallen gun but felt anxious about spending any further time in the one place his opponent expected to find him. The advantage of surprise and stealth had been spectacularly lost in the fumbled arrest upstairs and more than anything McCalister needed another hiding place where he could recoup and reformulate a plan to help the woman being held on the 10th floor. Unarmed and limping slightly, McCalister made his way back towards the center of the main sales floor.

He had just rounded the corner into the men's fragrances department when a burst of 9mm rounds chewed a line of bulletholes through a marble column not four feet from his head. He nimbly dove for the partial cover of the product counters and the line of fire followed shattering the glass of the cases and numerous bottles of cologne and aftershave. Then the firing stopped for a moment, leaving McCalister huddled on the floor in a swamp of overwhelmingly strong fragrances which seared where they seeped into the multiple small cuts to his face and hands. Suddenly he was transported back to his first unpleasant experience with his dad's Brut "skin bracer", his eyes watering at the memory.

The fresh round of coughing – a deep, wet hacking – aided McCalister in pinpointing Santa's position. A quick glance over the counter's edge confirmed it, the sickly hostage-taker had set up a blind on the second floor balcony and was now sunk behind a free-rolling wooden display case of designer pajamas trying audibly to fight back the cough and find his breath. McCalister wanted to take advantage of the pause to make a break for better cover, but the metallic racket of a fresh clip being driven home made him hesitate.

"Can I ask you a question, McCalister?" the voice ricocheted through the cathedral spaces of the store, "What the fuck were you thinkin'? I mean, you had the chance – hell, you had a couple of 'em – to just walk out of here and nobody woulda thought less of you. Let all the king's horses an' all the king's men line up outside to take down the dangerous terrorist cell while you coulda been back at the squad house drinkin' cold coffee and fillin' out a shitload of reports. That's maybe not so much fun, believe me I know, but at worst you'd still be home in time for Christmas morning."

All of this registered with McCalister ("believe me I know?" Was Santa a cop?), but he was busy looking around him for a weapon or at the least a tool to distract the gunman. The bottles of cologne gave him an idea, but he was still strapped for a vital element – until a quick search of the kid's jeans turned up a telltale cylindrical lump in the front left pocket and McCalister thanked whatever Higher Power might be currently tuned into his particular channel that John Bender Jr. was such a dependable reprobate.

"Hhu-ack! Hem." Santa continued, regaining his breath with a wheeze, "Ugh. Listen, You're not leaving here now until we all do – that was your choice – but you play along and I promise you you'll be with your family in time to open presents. Nothin' better, right? Being with those you love for the holidays?"

McCalister was feverishly stuffing strips of gift ribbon into the open tops of small cologne bottles which he'd snapped the applicators off of. Santa's words had triggered a small torrent of images of what was waiting for him within the holly-bedecked halls of the McCalister homestead. His dad's disappointed face which was the only expression he offered his son since the day McCalister had announced his intentions to enter the police academy. The unending interrogations of his mother regarding his bachelorhood and/or lack of offspirng, intentional or no. The knuckle bruises to his upper arms from his older brother who, despite being a husband, father and semi-successful hot tub salesman, reverted to a pre-adolescent bully whenever the two were in the same room. Both his sisters' puckish glee when loudly speculating about McCalister's denial of his true sexual orientation.

He smirked as he called back, "You don't know my family."

Santa laughed appreciatively, a shaky laugh that ended with an audible expectoration of a large chunk of phlegm. "Yeah I do. They're all the same, ain't they? A little fucked up, a little great too. People who cut you the most slack and the least at the same time. You want to feel really alone, pal? Then just keep shuttin' them out. The day'll come when you wake up and realize you never knew how much they were worth."

It took two or three flicks at the thumb wheel of Bender's 50 cent lighter but finally McCalister achieved a wavering yellow flame. He brought it to the first of the ribbon wicks. It caught fast.

The older man in the red and white suit stood up from behind the pajama display and addressed McCalister again,"Okay, partner, I know you don't have your gun so the way I see it you really only have two options. One: you come on up here nice and peaceful like and I truss you up a bit. Or two: ...you know, I lied. There really isn't any other option."

"I'll take option three," McCalister replied as he stood brusquely and hurled the makeshift molotov cocktail in a nice overhanded arc towards his opponent on the second floor. The 8 oz. bottle of Bulgari Pour Homme (SRP: $87) tumbled end over flaming end making shattering impact against an edge of the rolling display case Santa was standing behind. Had the situation been less desperate McCalister might have taken a second to appreciate the neat effect of the spray of ignited perfume lashing against the stacks of elegant night clothes and catching them up in a flash of boiling orange fire. Santa had barely enough time to jerk back with a startled gagging sound, a lick of flaming liquid having leapt to his white nylon beard and smoldering there. The "terrorist" dropped his UZI and immediately ripped the beard off with both hands.

McCalister launched a second volley which fell wide of the display case and crashed to the floor at Santa's left creating a fiery puddle and then the young cop was running full-tilt for the stilled escalator. Santa was preoccupied with dodging the spreading flames, his focus no longer on his prey a floor below. The smoke alarms began wailing through the store and the sectional automatic sprinklers kicked in, now dousing Santa as he tried to regain his gun and fight off a fresh round of coughing. McCalister was taking three steps at a time as he hustled upstairs to try and meet his captor, hoping against hope that he'd bought himself enough of a distraction to get the jump on sickly St. Nick. When his ankle met the rope of unlit Christmas tree lights that had been strung along the escalator landing McCalister was launched forward in an epic skidding trip that ended with his cranium smacking into the base of one of the store's directional columns.

Before the world fuzzed into blackness, McCalister made out the upside-down form of a slightly singed Santa Claus craning over him. "Can't believe you fell for that one, kid," his voice swam through the roar in McCalister's head, "Oldest trick in the book..." Any retort the cop might've offered was lost to the onset of unconsciousness.

December 25, 2008. 12:03 AM. Three minutes past end of shift.

"...that our claims are sincere and our message important enough to die for, we of the Anti-Consumerists Army are prepared to set off the explosives we have placed about this shrine to America's greed and sacrifice ourselves to the cause of a socialistic and humanistic world economy unless we are granted audience with those world leaders and corporate tyrants previously listed. We demand also fifteen minutes of primetime air on all major networks, a private jet with safe passage to the destination of our choice and 50 million in Euros."

The words made no sense at first; it took a few seconds as McCalister's eyes roamed under reluctant lids to register that the sounds were human speech. But soon his senses rebooted and he was able to frame his surroundings. He found himself inside the security control room bound to his very own office chair, two laps of prickly duct tape across his mouth and his wrists joined behind the chair back with thin plastic zip-cuffs. Four feet to his right was the sole civillian hostage, the woman he'd only glimpsed before, similarly bound but alert and, again McCalister noticed, unconcerned. Santa – his damp and slightly scorched fur coat removed – stood at the main computer and communications station with his back to his captives, speaking into the phone with an affected (and not particularly convincing) accent of some vaguely European stripe. He was reading from a notepad.

"Oh, and inform his captain that we have the actual Officer McCalister in our custody. At the first hint of any further attempts by your assorted agencies to infiltrate this building's perimeter, we will prove how seriously we stand by our convictions. Remember that the lives of 18 hostages and the fate of this architectural landmark are in your hands. You have six hours to meet our demands."

Finished, Santa hung up the phone, cutting off the indistinct sqwawking response from whatever Bureau negotiator was on the other end. He dropped his script on the desk and took in a deep breath which was interrupted by a round of thick hacking that he must have surpressed during the length of the call. McCalister's gaze darted to the woman hostage during this display and he saw nothing but concern towards her sickly captor. Finally recovered, Santa turned to face her while McCalister observed surreptitiously – keeping his head hung low to maintain the appearance of unconsciousness. Santa's beard was completely removed for the first time in McCalister's presence and the sight of the man's face in full, the recognition of those features, had the young cop doubting whether or not his head had truly cleared from its recent trauma.

"That should buy us a few hours – at least until they do their homework into recent hires. We're good. We're good for now." As if just remembering she was there, the man who claimed to be a member of the "Anti-Consumerist Army" leaned forward, reaching for his female hostage and removing the tape from her mouth with gentle hands. He spoke to her with a near-coo of a voice, "I'm sorry, baby. Couldn't be sure you'd, you know, play along. Here-"

"It's okay, dad," she replied cautiously as he moved behind her to undo her obviously loose bonds.

McCalister shut his eyes again, reeling from the shock of his opponent's revealed identity. He couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that this short, slightly stooped bulldog of a man in the dingy "wife-beater" and red velvet pants was once a hero of his – a hero of the whole country not so long ago. How in a world that occasionally makes sense could this man be John McClane?

McClane swiveled the woman in the chair about to face him. "Now then," he said to her with a warm smile showing a mouth full of nicotine-stained teeth, "who's hungry?"

The three of them - McClane's now unbound daughter, the man himself and McCalister still strapped to the rolling chair which McClane was pushing from behind – made their way to the same elevator McCalister had shimmied up to reach the 10th floor but this time it was used as intended and the strange trio was deposited on what appeared to McCalister's hastily cracked eye to be the 7th floor, passing through the Culinary Studio and making for the oppulent Walnut Room. For the length of the brief journey downstairs and across the empty floor, McCalister had also been audience to an eavesdropped exchange between father and daughter.

"You still seeing that kid with the – all the piercings? What's his name – Delorian?"

"Dorian. Dad, that was high school."

"So? Your mom and I met halfway through senior year. Different schools but there was this dance she got invited to that-"

"Don't. Dad, don't bring up Mom, okay?"

"Well, it's a shame you're not still with that kid 'cause we coulda used him right about now. We coulda hung ornaments off his face. Heh! ... What? Not even a smile? C'mon!"

"It's not funny. None of this is funny, Dad! I can't believe what you've done – what you're doing! Do you even-"

"Hey! Enough of that! That's not important, what's important is we're here, we're together for Christm-"

McClane's sentence was broken apart by another bout of coughing that McCalister felt tremoring through the chair that was still gripped in the older man's hands. When it passed, McClane inhaled deeply - this close to his captor, McCalister could hear the rattle in the man's lungs, a sound like crinkled paper bags lined with pebbles and sand. McClane rejoined as if nothing had happened.

"Together for Christmas, that's what's important. I know I'm outta touch, baby, but I'm willin' to bet that some things haven't changed. I bet you still like to eat the cranberries first."

McCalister's chair stopped rolling and he could feel the older man release his hold and move away.

"Now just stay put," McClane was saying to his daughter, "this won't take long at all."

"But, Dad, what about this man? Shouldn't we get him some help?"

"Naw, just keep an eye on him. He's alright. In fact he's been awake for a while now, isn't that right, partner?"

McCalister released the smallest of resigned sighs as he opened his eyes. The woman standing beside him was startled but McClane just shot him a wink before retreating towards a pair of swinging doors at the rear of Marshall Field's world famous restaurant.

"Ho ho ho," he offered before disappearing into the kitchen.

There was a second or two of frozen silence which McCalister broke, lightly clearing his throat.

The woman turned and immediately knelt beside him, meeting his gaze as she tentatively peeled the tape from his mouth. "God, I'm so sorry. Are you okay, really?"

A simple question but McCalister was briefly at a loss. At the strangest, most inappropriate time conceivable and in the most ridiculous, Hollywood-obvious manner, McCalister found himself distracted into muteness by her eyes – gray-blue and crystalline and currently holding his with an expression of such pure empathy and concern that he had to swallow twice to find his voice.

"Yeah – m'good," he finally answered, feeling as idiotic as he must sound to this woman. Smooth, man, he thought, that sold you right there.

"I'm Lucy," she said, "Lucy Generro."

"Kevin McCalister," he replied, shifting in his seat and testing his bonds again while still trying to offer her his most charming smile.

"It's true you're a cop?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, "Just a patrolman. Though seeing how botched I've made things tonight, I might not be one for much longer."

There was a muffled clatter from the kitchen and both McCalister and Lucy shot glances towards the doors. Looking a mite more frantic, Lucy looked around herself for something, "I need like a knife or – or something sharp-!"

McCalister shook his head, "No, it's – Ma'am, it's okay."

"But," she started, an attractive frown pulling at the corners of her small but full-lipped mouth, "I – I have to get you out of here-!"

"No, seriously, you don't. Right now it'd be best to play this his way. I get the feeling he hasn't actually hurt anybody tonight and I don't want to back him into a corner where he feels he has to."

Calmed, Lucy finally dropped herself into the nearest chair, turning it away from its place at an exquisitely pristine dinner table to face McCalister. As she sat, her shoulder-length curls bounced in a way that McCalister noticed and liked. He was noticing and liking far too much of this woman, he cautioned himself.

She was somewhat forlornly gazing at the carpeted floor, "You know who he is, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do."

"Please," the woman interjected, "enough of the formal 'copspeak,' okay? It's-"

McCalister nodded, trying to appear as casual as possible given the circumstances,"Lucy. Lucy Generro?"

Lucy smiled, sensing the query in his inflection, "My mother's maiden name. I was a McClane up until the legal changeover a few years back. Family ugliness - not exactly ice breaker material."

"Sure, no, I understand," McCalister assured her, prefacing another uncomfortable lull filled with the continuing soft Christmas music piped through the colossal chamber of the empty store and the muffled sounds of preparation occasionally escaping the kitchen.

Lucy sighed sounding nearly exhausted from the day's surreal events. She lifted her head to look about their surroundings. "You know, they did a really nice job this year."

Glad for the prompt, McCalister took a moment to follow her lead and appreciate the beauty of the fully-dressed Walnut Room without feeling the need – at present – to catalogue possible escape routes or defensive positions. The columnated walls, the balconies of the 8th floor gallery and the sharp, perfect squares of tablecloths glowed warmly from the lights which shone and dazzled the full height and width of the giant Christmas tree situated in the center of the restaurant floor. The sole source of illumination in the three storied enclosure, the Douglas fir stood 40 feet, stopping just short of the paneled ceiling. Each branch and bough was draped in a nebula of sparkling silver-blue lights and chrome ornaments, haloed orbs reflecting these pinpoints of pseudo-celestia about the room's empty expanse. Part of his mind knew that this was just an enormous piece of rapidly dying arborea dressed as gaudily as any of the mannequins populating the store, as blatant an advertisement as the signage announcing a "Holiday Red Tag Sale", but for a breath, the tree seemed to McCalister's eyes like a reaching, overarching reminder of the dreams of childhood – an invitation to believe again in the magic assigned to this time of year. He couldn't help but grin.

"They absolutely did," he replied, looking back at her only to find her looking at him with the exact same grin on her face. They each issued small laughs and broke eye contact.

Lucy's expression very suddenly creased with earnestness, "I'll make sure you get out of here safe, Kevin."

McCalister was both startled and amused, "Hey, that's supposed to be my line!"

Suddenly the lulling background ambience of Nat "King" Cole's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was joined by the muffled racket of McClane's heaving coughs issuing from behind the kitchen doors. McCalister watched as Lucy squeezed her eyes shut against the sound. As much sympathy as this stirred in him towards her, there was still one thing he had to know:

"Why, Lucy?" he asked her gently, "Why did he do this?"

Her eyes were moist when she opened them but she quickly rubbed them dry with the back side of her hand,"He's sick. Obviously. I mean, I don't know - I haven't heard from him in six years. There was, like I said, family ugliness." Her voice went hoarse and she struggled to find it again, "Terrible times. And mom and I – to be honest I don't think we ever wanted to – to see him again."

She inhaled sharply as if surprised at herself, "God, that's an awful thing to say. Who says things like that? But we-"

She fought to collect herself before dropping her shoulders and launching into something like an explanation delivered as uninflected ramble. These were raw memories and she offered them up delicately, "My parents divorced in '99 and my brother and I were both still in high school. The judge asked each of us who we wanted to stay with. I stayed with mom in L.A. because all my friends were there and, well, I'd seen plenty of unflattering sides of my dad over the years. JJ, though, JJ went with dad back to New York. He wanted to get closer to dad but ... it didn't work. JJ was pretty much left to his own devices and his own devices led to some pretty bad stuff. Drugs. Dealing and using. Dad was oblivious. This was right after 9/11 and dad – from what mom and I could tell – was kind of shellshocked. I mean, it hit everybody hard but dad – well he's a native New Yorker for one, but also he'd been believing his own hype for too long. John McClane kind of became the face of American anti-terrorism for a long time. You saw him, doing the talk shows, shaking the president's hand – straight-talking, wise-cracking John McClane, American hero."

"Yeah I did," McCalister nodded. "Hell, I got sent home in 8th grade for wearing a 'Yippee-Ki-Yay, Motherfucker' t-shirt."

Lucy chuckled ruefully, "There you go. I was the only kid on the block whose dad had a bumper sticker catchphrase. But 9/11 was his – was all of our wake-up call. In the end, he didn't overhear those plans, he wasn't on those planes, he couldn't save the day. He didn't. Dad was on the road, in Cleveland I think, with his band."

"Your dad was in a band? I didn't know that."

"Which is good because they were pretty terrible, but it was something he'd always wanted to do as a kid and, well, he was John McClane so people paid to see him anyway. So there he was, in some Cleveland hotel room, probably hungover, watching on TV like the rest of us as those people jumped, as the towers fell. He wasn't there to help pull bodies out of the rubble just like he wasn't there to help JJ when he OD'd that Christmas."

"Jesus," McCalister commentated, suddenly feeling that much more shallow for a lifetime of petty conflicts and clashes with his folks and his four siblings. "I'm sorry."

Lucy nodded as acknowledgement of his empathy, but shrugged, "Terrible Christmases are our family specialty." She straightened in her chair and lifted her chin as if correct posture would make the weight of her emotions more bearable. "You asked me why he's done this. I asked him the same thing right after he dragged me into the elevator, right before he taped my mouth shut. 'Why are you doing this, Daddy?' And he said, 'For you.'"

An involuntary shudder wracked her and she turned her head to hide the onset of new tears. McCalister wished he could go to this virtual stranger and do his clumsy best to comfort her but he was still a prisoner of the office chair. He opened his mouth to say ... something, when he was preempted by the metallic rattle of a serving cart shoved through the kitchen doors and wheeled now around the circumference of the tree, piloted at last to the table at which Lucy sat.

McClane, humming along with the piped-in music, parked the full serving cart stocked with all manner of silver dinner service including a large domed tray for the entree. He grinned at his daughter as he smoothed back the few sweaty strands of iron gray hair remaining atop his glistening scalp, his t-shirt soaked through from the heat of the ovens. "Pull up a napkin, baby, 'cause your poppa is puttin' on a spread like you never seen!"

After removing from his pants pocket a small rectangular box (a cell phone? a PDA?) which he then set on the table, McClane began unveiling dish after dish and setting them on the table before Lucy, beginning with, as McCalister noted, a dish of cranberries. There were steaming dinner rolls, candied yams, potatoes au gratin, breaded stuffing with almonds, asparagus spears, plum pudding, and, of course, the bird. A fine 12-pound turkey glazed perfectly brown. "Huh? Not bad, right? They got fifty or so of these back there, pre-made for the shelters around town. Just needed a warm up and – voila! So dig in!"

For a moment Lucy didn't move at all, just fixing her father with a look of weary reluctance before relenting and spooning some of the cranberries into her mouth. McClane beamed.

The smell of the food caused an involuntary and quite notable growl to issue from McCalister's stomach. McClane, heaping potatoes onto his plate, laughed.

"Roger that, pal. You play your cards right and we'll set you up with some left-overs."

"I'd appreciate that, Mr. McClane," McCalister replied, keeping his eyes steady and unwavering on his captor.

McClane's eyebrows jumped. He hefted a large carving knife and pointed it at his bound hostage while squinting one eye,"That's nice, I like that. Very respectful. Let's keep it cordial, Mr. McCalister." Turning the knife on the turkey, McClane began cutting away large slices of meat. He laughed,"McClane and McCalister – we sound like a mick law firm."

McCalister didn't respond. In fact, he made no move at all as McClane finished serving Lucy and sat down to his own plate of food. He merely sat and stared at McClane, not straining against his bonds or returning Lucy's occasional glances. He watched the man eat and listened in on more conversation – small talk about the food, the weather and uncomfortable reminiscences of Christmases past ("Yes you were,"McClane chided his daughter at one point, "you were totally afraid of him with the - the robe and the hood. Every year we watched that movie and every year the same thing; the second the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed up you would curl up under my arm and peek out through your fingers!") broken apart by punctuating bursts of coughing. McCalister waited for a lull which wasn't long in coming, Lucy squirming and McClane staring desperately at the dismantled bird in the middle of the table,. Finally, the young cop spoke.

"You've been planning this for a long time, huh?"

Snapped out of his search for words, McClane looked distracted but relieved to jump tracks, "A while, yeah. Matter of fact, I've had three different jobs here in the last six months – each with a different name and disguise, each with a different departmental HR person, and nobody ever clued-in. Place is that frickin' big. I got into Security for a month to learn the ins and outs of manpower, equipment, protocol. Then I was in Maintenance, wearin' – I was wearin', literally, the worst fake moustache ever but still I got away with it. I know the layout of this place like I know how to choke the chicken-" He stopped and shot an apologetic look to his mildly horrified daughter, "Sorry, Luce. Anyway, I got what I needed done – laid out all my little surprises. And, finally, got a gig as last-minute Santa when the regular guy ran into a little trouble on the way home from a bar."

Both of McClane's guests looked at him with obvious dread. McClane smirked, "Ease up, kids, the guy's got a couple of bruised ribs, tops." Lucy and Kevin shared a look that suggested neither was entirely reassured by this.

McClane laughed around a mouthful of turkey, "Really, it's all been too easy. And it nearly came off without a hitch."

"Nearly?" McCalister asked.

"Well, I hadn't planned on any property damage – I never wanted to discharge the weapon."

McCalister, feeling curiously at ease for a hostage, challenged McClane,"But you did before you even knew I was in here. I heard it-"

McClane waved that away with a gesture of his fork which was loaded with dressing,"That was a sound-effect. I played it over the P.A. once I got to the security office upstairs. Knew that it would scare off the lollygaggers." He wolfed down a bite and elaborated, alternating his focus between McCalister and Lucy who still picked mechanically over her food. "The idea all along was to make it seem bigger than it really was. Make it look like 10 people instead of one, make them think I've got a bunch of hostages and the place wired with explosives, or else they'd have already gone commando on me by now."

Lucy looked at her father disparingly, "You sound like you're proud of this whole thing."

"A bloodless, single-handed takeover of a public building of this size? Not exactly small potatoes, darlin'."

"Well, I'm sorry to have thrown a monkeywrench into your big plan," said McCalister.

"You were just doin' your job, right?" McClane managed before three enormous coughs broke free which he tried to stifle behind his napkin. He swallowed and rejoined, smiling weakly, "Besides, it's not like I didn't consider the possibility that something like this could happen. I'm not exactly unfamiliar with scenarios like this."

McCalister's mind flashed through images and snippets of the McClane that used to be, the man that his daughter had distanced herself from. A smirking hero who vocally shunned the spotlight but who still managed to throw out plenty of opening day balls, lead a few St. Patrick's Day parades and officially light his share of city Christmas trees. "I know. You were pretty famous for awhile there."

"Nicely put. 'For awhile,' yeah. That shit doesn't last. The 'man of the hour' is in for a shock when minute 61 rolls around."

"I know what that's like, kinda."

"Oh really?"

"When I was a little kid, like 8 and 9, I had a couple of run-ins with a pair of burgulars and I held 'em off. Made the news and I was a second grade celebrity – 'for awhile.'"

Lucy perked up, "I think I remember that!"

"Well, there you go. Be glad you got it out of the way early. There's plenty of time for your head to shrink back to a normal size and for people to forget you were anything other than a normal kid. But you make the headlines a few times, you get a rep as a hero, and the spotlight can linger. You get used to it, get used to never paying for a meal, get used to sitting across from Larry King or Regis Philbin and like an idiot you start buying into it. You start realizing how much you'll miss it when it slips away - and it always does."

"But that doesn't erase the things you did. You were an inspiration to a lot of my generation of cops. You still are."

"The best thing for a hero to do is disappear or die. Because they will always live to disappoint. Like that black cop from Detroit – made some high profile collars in California –"

McCalister nodded, knowing exactly who McClane was talking about,"Foley."

"Yeah, look at him. Gets busted with two tranny prostitutes a few years ago. Last I ever heard of him. Or that hotshot L.A. detective, Riggs, always dodging those excessive force charges, and then he went trigger-happy in a showdown and gets his old partner and three bystanders killed. That guy's locked up in the nuthatch now. Fine way to retire, right?"

"So aren't you worried how this is going to make you look when all is said and done?"

"What? No, man, fuck that! This is just what I – what I had to do. It's Christmas – today is Christmas – and tomorrow can fuck itself."

"Why didn't you just call me, Daddy?"

"Ha! Yeah, right! For a solid year after JJ's funeral I tried to talk to you and what did I get?"

"Daddy-"

"Disconnected numbers, returned mail – by the time I found out your mother moved you guys here there was already a restraining order. She'll blame me to the ends of the earth for his death like I just let it happen – like I let him die to spite her. Well, I miss your brother just as bad as she does, only difference is she still has you."

"Time has passed, Dad. If you'd only talked to me, told me what you were going through-"

"You made it clear enough, babe. You dropped my name like a bad habit."

The sadness and regret in the older man's voice was a living presence in the room, a naked guest daring anyone to acknowledge or object to their nudity. A small, heaving gulp from the other end of the table caught McCalister's attention and he turned his gaze to find Lucy quietly sobbing, her head lowered and a few coiled ringlets of hair skimming the top of the food on her plate. Brown hair and cream gravy. McCalister prided himself on being a quick-witted guy but at this moment he knew he was powerless to do anything but watch.

"No, no, Luce, don't. This is me, this is all me. I screwed this up just like I always do. I just – your old man's kind of a fuck-up. I've slipped through a lot of tight spots, I thought on my feet and I survived a lot more than I should have. But it catches up with you, honey, it all does. You take for granted that you're always gonna be okay, that the ones you love are gonna be there to patch you up at the end of the day, but the time comes - you know, eventually you run smack into the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come." He smirked at his daughter, "Yeah, babe, he always scared me too. But when you meet him face to hood you're never ready. What? Not me! You got the wrong guy! I got time to kill! I got plenty of time to put things right, show the woman I duped into marrying me that I can actually live the quiet life. Fool myself that there's plenty of time to be there for my kids when they're hurting or when they're hurting themselves. Quit smoking? Sure, I'll start tomorrow. But in those quiet times, in the hours between the microwave dinner and the final drift off to sleep after the 11 o' clock news, you can hear it – you hear the timer tickin' down. Tick, tock, tick, tock. And the worst part is when you realize there ain't nobody there for you. For all the handshakes and free dinners, for all the pats on the back and the starfuckin' groupies, you've got nobody by your side waiting for the curtain to fall. That's the fuzzy end of the lollipop, y'know? Who gives a shit about what you did when you still had a full head of hair? Saved a few people? Protected a few million dollars? Big fuckin' whoop. What did it get you? Where's the shit you should be proud of? Where's the things that actually add up to a life you can be proud of? You lost it, you idiot, you let it all go or – or you drove it away, but one thing's for sure, it's gone and what do you got? Nothing. I got nothing, babe. But I couldn't let that be all she wrote. That's why. And I know this has been-" "This was a baaad idea. But I really, honestly didn't know how else t- I love you, kid, and I just didn't want to be another sad old fart in a paper gown, starin' at a hospital ceiling when the clock run out. I don't want to die alone."

McClane sagged a bit, his eyes wet, and then it started. Ripping through him from the core of his chest outward, a fresh spate of coughing that seemed more violent than the last, wracking him physically and making him jangle and jerk like a marionette under the direction of a sadistic pupeteer.

"Dad?" Lucy was out of her chair and at her father's side in an instant as the last expellation produced a thin spray of blood that adorned his stubbled chin and the front of his soiled undershirt. She caught him by the shoulders as he swayed on his feet. "Oh god," she exclaimed, using one of the restaurant's fine linen napkins to clean his face.

McClane weakly looked to McCalister, all trace of cocksure bemusement gone from his voice as he explained, "It's called stage 4 small cell lung carcinoma. By product of a lifetime of smokin' that, smokin' that cigarette. Found out from a couple of bearers of bad news in white coats that I – chemo or no chemo – I got about 8 months left. That was six and a half months ago."

Lucy's slender hand stroked her father's gray cheek and she sobbed loudly, a snotty and unashamed snort. "God, Daddy, I'm sorry – I'm so so sorry. I wish, I wish we hadn't lost all that time! You know I love you, right? You know that, right?"

McClane shushed her

A sudden and insistent electronic alarm, a high-pitched whooop!, issued from the small plastic box McClane had kept next to his place at the table. While McCalister and Lucy both turned confused glances towards the device, the noise seemed to jolt the weakened McClane to a new state of determination. He broke from his daughter's hold to grab the box up and read its small screen. "The upstairs sensors," he said, eyes alight, "The fuckers are on the roof!"

And completely unlike a man who had just moments before been seized up at the mercy of his failing lungs, McClane spun on his heels and darted out of the Walnut Room leaving his guests behind to stare after him.

"Lucy!" McCalister called out, snapping her back to attention, "You've gotta cut me loose."

"What?"

He indicated by thrusting his chin towards the table, "The carving knife – grab it!"

She rose and reached across the table for the large bladed knife from where it rested deep in the carcass of the turkey, "But I thought you said-"

Lucy now knelt behind McCalister and was tentatively, carefully sawing at the thin but resistant zip-cuffs. "I did, I did say that. I'm still trying to keep anybody from getting hurt. And the best way to do that is stop your father from doing anything stupid."

"Good luck with that," Lucy said grimly as she finally succeeded in severing one of the cuff bands.

His hands free, McCalister took the knife from Lucy and deftly swiped it throught the duct tape binding holding his ankles together. Hopping to his feet, he told her,"And you need to get out of here."

"Leave? As in 'out the front door' leave?"

"Yes, absolutely. And when you get to the door, make sure they see you before you step outside. Keep your hands above your head and move slowly."

"No," Lucy said, her features pinching with determination in a manner that made her look alarmingly similar to her father, "I can't and I won't. You heard him. I can't leave him now."

Kevin lost some of the authoritative bark from his voice and clasped her shoulders gently in his hands, "More than anything what your dad really wants is for you to be safe and if we're about to have an anti-terrorist strike team swoop down and corner your dad – well, it could get messy real fast. If all goes well, we'll both see you on the outside."

Lucy's resolve visibly dimmed as McCalister's reasoning and obvious sincerity sank in.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

At the restaurant's exit, she started in the direction of the nearest escalator bank, turning her head just once to watch the young cop darting for the elevator. She quietly recited a rosary as she descended the unmoving stairs.

Unconcerned about giving himself away at this point, McCalister used the elevator to reach the 10th floor. The second he stepped onto the security floor's still-wet tiles, the loudest sound he'd ever heard – an apocalyptic BOOM – sent a shudder through the entire building and lit the world outside the store's windows with an out-of-season orange flash of fiery light. An underlit billowing plume of smoke roiled upwards past the windows on the south-western side of the building. At that moment McCalister had no way of knowing that the ornate clock that had angled off that corner of the building, a landmark of the store and the city for over a century, had just been blasted to pieces of charred, twsited metal now raining to the ground along the corner of State and Randolph, but he knew that a dangerous line had been crossed. His heart hammering away, he picked up the pace, skidding his way to the door of the security control room.

Once more ensconced in the stained and damp Santa coat, McClane was standing before the monitor banks showing multiple angles of a quartet of SWAT officers on the ends of their repelling harnesses being hastily reeled back into the night sky by their unseen helicopter escorts. McClane's voice rang out with raspy glee, "That's right, assholes! You better tuck tail an' git! This ends when I say it ends!"

McCalister made the entry of the control block as the phone started to ring. While McClane grabbed for it, the young cop snuck into the room, stealthily moving up behind the man with whom he'd come to sympathise to the near-exclusion of any sense of duty. Having seen his childhood hero at his weakest, having witnessed first-hand the sad, simple motives that had driven him to such extreme measures, McClane seemed so small to McCalister as he began barking into the phone in the same amateur European accent, "We warned you what would happen if you tried to violate our terms and now innocent lives will have to be-"

McCalister took advantage of McClane's riveted focus on the phone call and was now a mere five feet behind McClane, keeping an eye on the unattended UZI laid upon the monitor desk. McClane, eyes wide and his upper lip beaded with sweat, kept railing at the negotiator on the other end of the phone, his lame accent slipping, "The clock was just the beginning so you better back off! I've got contingencies you don't know about – I'll take the whole place down!"

It was at this moment that McCalister made his move. He went to grab McClane in a stranglehold but was caught full in the face by a backwards swing of McClane's left arm and the fist at the end of it. The older man had apparently known McCalister was there and he now dropped the phone, ducked and spun around to deliver another punch to McCalister's head while the young cop was still reeling from the first surprise blow. McClane's right popped solidly against McCalister's temple and the young cop staggered, eyes rolling.

McCalister, nose bloodied and skull buzzing, attempted to sound even and reasonable,"Mr. McClane, this is not good. Do you want to make this worse for yourself and for Lucy?"

"No! You do not get to take this away from me!" McClane bellowed in response. "All I want for Christmas is just a few hours – just a little time with my daughter-"

McCalister wiped at the blood on his face with the back of his hand and began sidestepping to try and angle himself between McClane and the UZI,"Look, I understand that but this has to stop now. You- It's gone too far!"

Though he was clearly ill, exhausted and only vaguely in his right mind, McClane still smirked knowingly at McCalister, "Uh-huh. And who exactly are you to tell me how far is too far, rook? You want that gun, right?"

McCalister didn't divert his gaze from McClane's own yellowed, veiny eyes, "I want you to get out of this safely and with maybe a little dignity left."

McClane laughed at this, a spitting laugh that launched an ugly wad of something dark gray.

"Seriously, Mr. McClane," McCalister urged, still angling, "Now, before anybody's in the crosshairs, you sh-" He stopped in mid-word and suddenly looked away towards the room's doors, a startled expression on his face, "No, Lucy, I told you to stay-"

McClane was finally thrown, turning to the empty door when McCalister charged. The younger man connected bodily with McClane's torso, driving him hard into the farthest edge of the desk. McClane's air escaped in one expellation and he immediately dropped to his knees gasping and coughing

McCalister, breathing heavily himself, grabbed the UZI without challenge from McClane, the struggle and the coughing jag having robbed him of strength. With his free hand, McCalister helped haul McClane to his feet.

"Can't believe you fell for that one, old man," he said to his beaten hero. "Oldest trick in the book."

December 25, 2008. 3:26 AM. Three hours and twenty-six minutes past end of shift.

Before exiting the security command room McCalister had picked up the phone to let the feds on the other end know that it was all over and they were coming out. As he and McClane, quiet and shuffling, stepped off the elevator McCalister wished he had also taken the time to shut off the goddamned Christmas music loop. They made their way across the store's gleaming ground floor towards the waiting barricade of spotlights and patrol car cherries to the accompaniment of Burl Ives singing "Holly Jolly Christmas."

McClane, a couple of steps in front of McCalister and the UZI trained on his back, flatly commented, "It's your turn now, hero cop."

"My turn for what?"

"This is your big moment, kid," McClane said, "right before the credits roll. The bad guy's caught and you get to ride off into the proverbial sunset."

McCalister shook his head, "Sunset's a long way off. Besides, I'm not a big fan of westerns."

"Really? That's a shame," McClane said, "Still, I guess nobody ever really gets that ending in the real world. Hell, Roy Rogers was, like, 84 or something when he finally kicked. He died in bed - with his boots off. I don't know if he had anybody with him when he went but, y'know somethin', I don't think it matters. We all die alone."

"You're not alone, Mr. McClane," McCalister tried to reassure, "Your daughter loves you and she's out there right now, waiting for you."

They were nearly to the State Street entrance. Beyond the doors and the gentle fall of snow that had begun they could finally discern actual human shapes waiting in clusters amongst the various vehicles. Guns were still drawn and at the ready, as were the news cameras. McCalister couldn't pick Lucy out of the crowd but he was sure she was as close as the cops would allow. McCalister wanted out of this place, he wanted to sleep in his thickly blanketed bed, he actually wanted to be there when his entire platoon of relatives awoke from visions of sugarplums to start making that familiar holiday racket. And he wanted to see Lucy again. Of that he was sure.

"You're okay, kid," McClane suddenly said with a grin, pausing within a few yards of the exit, "Do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Let the bomb squad know that I also wired up the second clock – no booby traps or nothin', but they still need to dismantle it." McClane turned around, facing McCalister in a quick shift of position that immediately alarmed the young cop, "And tell Lucy I'm sorry I ruined another Christmas."

In a flash McClane reached behind and under the Santa coat, pulling forth an instantly recognizable object – McCalister's own lost firearm. Before a shocked McCalister could make a move, McClane brought the muzzle of the gun to the underside of his chin.

"Happy trails," he said and pulled the trigger.

December 25, 2011. 6:38 PM. Day off.

She went for the cranberries first. Kevin smiled as he helped himself to the turkey and tried to catch her eyes across the table. She returned his smile but it did little to diminish the hard lines of perennial sadness that graced her features this time of year.

It had been extremely difficult for both of them in the days after McClane's death. There had been a small funeral attended by Lucy, her mother Holly, members of McClane's band and the only friends of McClane's to see him through the rough patches, Det. Al Powell of the LAPD and a Brooklyn electronics store owner named Mr. Zeus Carver – a funeral also crashed by six major news outlets. Kevin had not been invited.

McCalister's supervisors had been unsure of how they wished to portray the actions of their young officer: whether as a brave effort by a stalwart lawman going above and beyond the call or as a complete botch by an insubordinate attention-seeker who should be brought up on charges. Luckily for Kevin they settled on the former. As McClane predicted, the floodgates had opened and McCalister was squinting in the spotlight again for the first time since second grade. But he was, by all accounts, a washout as a celebrity. They all claimed it was simply the truth they wanted, the story in his own words, but Kevin knew what they were truly after: a personality they could sell. A hero modest enough to be likable but expansive enough to be entertaining, in short, a new McClane. But McCalister refused – politely – to play along and every reporter, biographer and screenwriter that called or wrote or stood outside the precinct house in the rain came away empty. They met the same refusals – though not as graciously delivered – from Lucy. She never gave an interview and was most often photographed with her face hidden behind her mane of brown curls. With nothing but speculation to fuel them, the media could only draw what they could from the pack of posthumous character witnesses that sprung up in the days after and from tidbits like Lucy having her name legally restored to McClane.

Though the involved parties never divulged the events of the Christmas of 2008, the story took on a life of its own. The tragic downfall of a onetime American hero was irresistable material. Various biographical documentaries on McClane popped up overnight. A feature film based on McClane's real-life heroics became a box office smash. TV reporter and occasional McClane detractor Richard Thornburg's own book, Hype Hard – The John McClane Story (originally published in 1997), rocketed back to the top of the non-fiction charts in a new, revised edition with an addendum in which Thornburg offered weak and uncharitable speculations on what had happened to the hero in the years leading up to his death. And with the flurry of interest in McClane came new revelations and insights into the man including his brief stretch on a psychiatrist's couch in early 2002, his official status as a civillian law enforcement liaison with the anti-terrorist sector of the NSC from '96 to '99, his sporadic work as an operative of the ultra-secret IMF and many first-person accounts of the drinking binges that resulted in his dismissal from same. But the public at large, as informed as anyone outside the story could be, refused to damn McClane despite every report of recklessness and debauchery, embracing his life story as a cautionary tale of celebrity's fickle nature. McClane came away as revered as ever, bulletproof in death if not in life.

Even his album, John McClane and Bruno - Rock Hard with a Vengeance, jumped briefly out of the remainder bins.

But the fever subsided in due time and there were new tragedies and scandals to feed the public's hunger for bread and circuses, leaving Officer Kevin McCalister and Lucy McClane to find their footing again well outside the scrutiny of their fellow Americans. The slide back into anonymity was a blessing as Kevin tried to reach out to the woman whose life had tangled so messily with his own on a Christmas Eve past.

Lucy wouldn't see him at first. She had quit her job with Marshall Field's and spent a year in Los Angeles with her mother, thinking that she might find something there that she liked. But Chicago called her back and Kevin was there waiting. He sent letters that were never answered. He called a few times. He didn't want to intrude on her life, but he'd waited so long to explain, to offer his condolences and apologize for a promise he couldn't keep. Each time he actually got her on the phone she was clipped and unresponsive. Quietly, softly, she asked him to leave her alone and, though it felt like he was leaving the most important task in his life undone, he did. Thus he was greatly surprised to find her sitting on a bench in his precinct house's lobby on the following Christmas Eve. She looked nervous, clutching a wrapped present in her mittened hands, and trying not to make eye contact with the prostitutes sitting opposite her.

It started with late night Chinese food and a long talk that grew easier though sadder as it progressed. Lucy, despite her pain, couldn't help liking Kevin. His odd wit and his unabashed sincerity. For his part, he had been drawn to her honesty and her strength since their fated meeting two years before. Without admitting it to the other, they'd both fallen quite in love before the check arrived. At her door at the end of the evening, she'd forced her gift upon him which, when opened, revealed itself to be McClane's NYPD badge. He was stunned speechless though the kiss she then gave him rendered speech altogether unnecessary.

They had been together ever since. Each helped the other leave the comforts and sorrows of their respective pasts behind and move into a bigger world. They had wonderful friends and spent as many nights out as in, enjoying the life they were making. Kevin and Lucy became known as a fun and social young couple 364 days out of the year. Every day but this day.

The dinner was their one concession to the traditions of the holiday, but there were too many reminders on every street corner and on every TV channel. It was hard enough to get through the weeks leading up to the 25th, with Santas and garland-draped trees crowding the landscape, but Christmas Day was now impossibly weighted for both of them. They did not celebrate this one holiday anymore.

Kevin and Lucy ate in silence while carolers passed by on the street outside their apartment singing "Joy to the World." She sighed deeply and he squeezed her hand across the table.

Tomorrow they would put on smiling faces and drop in on friends and family. They would get past the dark anniversary again and resume their happy lives, their solid and mutual love. But tonight they would go to bed early, holding onto each other for warmth and security, protecting each other from the ghosts of Christmas past and dreaming fearlessly of Christmas yet to come.