Against his best efforts, the events of the past 48 hours had just about caught up with McClane. It was the gunshot wound that was the kicker, of course. Lack of sleep, food, bumps, bruises, cuts, scrapes, even cracked ribs he could make himself ignore. But the bullet had been a direct hit to his shoulder, and he could feel the blood running down his back where it had exited. His eyes glazed over as he fought to remain conscious.

"Stay with me," Gabriel ordered, pressing the steel of the gun barrel to McClane's head, but the injured man was already slumping. "McClane!" he shouted, and moved the gun from John's temple to the bullet wound, pushing the barrel hard into the hole there, twisting the weapon to make it even more painful.

John's pain receptors overloaded, jolting him back to awareness and he gritted his teeth, eyes closed, grunting in agony.

"Stay with me," Thomas directed again, emphasizing each word by giving a slight poke against the bloody shoulder. "On your tombstone, it should read: Always in the wrong place at the wrong time," the terrorist said into John's ear.

Eyes open, his face taut with determination, McClane rasped out his own suggestion as he grabbed at the gun, not to pull it away as Gabriel expected, but instead to pull the trigger, shooting himself. "How about, 'Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker!'"