Over the next few days, Matt gradually adjusted to life in the Gennero-McClane household. Holly and McClane seemed to have a delightfully contentious relationship: She insisted on taking care of him, and he insisted on being a troublesome patient. Lucy spent as much time as possible with Matt, which got a little more difficult as her summer classes at Rutgers resumed following the Independence Day holiday.

After a week of lounging around, even with his new computer to distract him, Matt was getting cabin-fever. McClane had already all but gone nuts. So when Matt's follow-up appointment with a local orthopedist revealed that his leg was healed enough for him to start his new job – provided it didn't involve running, jumping, kicking or other death-defying antics – Matt decided it was time to see what life "on the inside" was like.

Lucy took him shopping. Apparently, the grunge-hacker look Matt had going on didn't, in her opinion, fit the prototype of an FBI consultant. Being dressed by his girlfriend (he thought of her that way now, without worrying about it) was more fun than Matt suspected it should be, although he drew the line at buying a suit. "There's a reason they call bureaucrats 'suits,' Luce," he insisted, refusing to even try one on. "I may work for The Man, but I'm not dressing like The Man."

Finally, they settled on some expensive button-down shirts (Matt was persuaded when Lucy took a moment in the dressing room to demonstrate how much fun taking the shirts off could be) and some jeans without holes or patches. "You look totally hip," Lucy assured him. "You'll be the hottest FBI agent in New York."

"I'm not an agent," Matt protested, but without much force. He liked that Lucy thought of him as a hero. He just hoped his new job wouldn't involve acting like one; he'd had all of the heroics he wanted for one lifetime.

That evening, Holly prepared a special meal in celebration of Matt's new job. Growing up in foster care, Matt had rarely been celebrated; even birthdays had tended to go by with little more than the perfunctory cake and ice cream, and in his adulthood, that had gone by the wayside. The fact that a woman he had known for just over a week would take the time to fix barbecue spare ribs, baked potatoes, macaroni and apple pie – Matt's favorite meal, cunningly elicited from him by Lucy – made him feel like he was part of a real family for the first time in his life.

After supper, McClane and Matt, stuffed to bursting, sat on the back porch sipping ice-cold beer and listening to the strangely comforting sounds of Lucy and her mom doing dishes. "This is nice," Matt remarked.

In the gathering darkness, he couldn't quite make out McClane's features, but he thought the grim detective might actually have been smiling. "Yeah, Holly knows how to keep a comfortable home. She's pretty amazing."

Matt hesitated to ask the question which had plagued him ever since he first saw McClane with his ex-wife: Why would two people who still loved one another choose to live apart? Lucy's explanation didn't seem sufficient; Matt couldn't shake the suspicion that more had happened between McClane and Holly than their daughter knew.

Taking a deep breath, he decided to go for it. "This is probably none of my business – Well, I mean, it is none of my business, but I was wondering…"

"Why me and Holly split up?" McClane supplied. Matt nodded, relieved not to have actually posed the question. "It's complicated, kid. You love somebody, you marry somebody, you have kids, and one day, you wake up and realize the girl you fell in love with has become this incredible woman, and her life is taking her in a totally different direction from yours. Then you've got a choice to make: Do you stay with this woman and give up the life you want, maybe not even want but the only life you know how to live, or do you make her stay with you and give up what she wants, or do you call it quits and let each other go."

"Or you could, you know, compromise," Matt countered carefully, sensing he was on dangerous ground.

McClane drained the rest of his beer. "Compromise. That's what all the marriage counselors say. 'Just compromise, just see it from her perspective or his perspective.' That's bullshit, kid. People who tell you marriage is a compromise are the selfish fucking bastards who want everything on their own terms. Marriage is sacrifice. Being a parent is sacrifice. And sometimes, you have to be the one to make the sacrifice, because your family has done enough of it already."

A heavy silence descended upon them then. Staring across the darkened backyard, Matt kept thinking back to something Lucy had said on his first night in the Gennero house: He always seemed too involved with other people to come see us. In a way, Matt knew nothing could be further from the truth; McClane loved his family, including his ex-wife, with a kind of gritty tenacity Matt had never seen in another human being. Yet in a larger sense, McClane had chosen other people over his family, because he couldn't give up being a cop – the only way he knew how to live, as he had put it – in order to make his marriage work.

Fantastic. I'm about to enter a profession that's pretty much guaranteed to wreck my future with Lucy. Congratulations on the new job, Matt…

"Lucy tells me you lost your parents."

McClane's voice startled Matt out of what was fast becoming a self-pitying reverie. Finishing off his own beer, he lapsed into the nonchalant tone he always adopted when discussing his parents. "Yeah, a really long time ago. I don't remember them very well. You know, like some random memories of watching cartoons or something. "

"Mind if I ask how?"

Matt knew McClane could simply pull up the file through the NYPD database, so he decided brutal honesty was the best course. "They, uh, they were pretty big into the whole partying scene. My foster parents always told me they were killed in a car wreck. I looked them up when I got older, and it turns out they crossed the center line and took out an entire family coming home from this little girl's dance recital. My dad was driving and he was like six times over the legal limit for alcohol. It killed all of them, everybody, on impact."

That criminal element just runs in the family.

"And you don't have any other relatives?"

"Uh, I think maybe a grandfather somewhere in a nursing home? I went into the system after my parents died. I was like four, I think."

"I've picked up a lot of kids with stories like yours," McClane mused. Although he couldn't see the other man's face, Matt could sense McClane studying him intently. "Not very many of them turn out like you, kid."

Matt laughed, embarrassed. He wasn't accustomed to compliments from McClane, no matter how much he obsessively craved them. "Social misfits with criminal records?"

"Decent people." McClane stood up. "I'll drive you over to the field office tomorrow. Make sure they don't give you any shit."

"I appreciate that." Matt truly did. He knew McClane was bored out of his mind and desperate for any excuse to leave the house, but he was also comforted by the promise of McClane's imposing presence his first day on the job. It would be like having his big brother accompany him to school on the first day: Nobody would be stupid enough to mess with him after that.

Lucy came out just as her dad went inside. "You guys bonding?" she teased, lowering herself onto Matt's lap.

"Something like that." Matt rested his hands lightly on Lucy's hips, loving how perfectly she fit against him. "Your dad's cool."

"He is. Sometimes." Lucy nuzzled Matt's neck with her nose and caught his earlobe between her teeth.

A shiver of desire shot down Matt's spine. Glancing toward the house, he asked nervously, "Can your dad see us from in there?"

"Is it okay if we stop talking about my dad for a minute?" Lucy was trailing kisses along Matt's jaw, making it next to impossible for him to concentrate on anything else – even the threat of McClane bounding out the back door with a loaded shotgun. "Because I would really, really like to just focus on you right now."

Turning his head in a vain attempt to capture her mouth for a real kiss, Matt murmured, "I think I can do that."

"Good." Covering his mouth with hers, Lucy slid her arms around Matt's neck, urging him closer. He kissed her deeply; he loved the feeling of drowning in her, the cool softness of her lips and the tangy warmth of her tongue. Almost before he knew it, her hands were under his shirt, and his fingers were tangled in her hair.

A wave of white-hot desire took Matt's breath. Lucy was an amazingly sexy girl; it wasn't as if he hadn't considered making love with her before. But something about her kiss, her whole demeanor, was different – hungry, insistent, undeniable. With supreme force of will he drug his lips from her mouth and, resting his forehead against hers, said breathlessly, "We've got to slow down here."

"Why?" Hands splayed across his chest, Lucy looked searchingly into Matt's eyes. "Because you don't want me?"

He couldn't help but laugh at such a ridiculous suggestion. "Yeah, right. I'm not even slightly attracted to you."

Lucy wasn't dissuaded. "Then why? Because you don't want to piss my dad off?"

I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm either a saint or an idiot.

"No, it's not about your dad." Matt caught Lucy's wrists and gently pulled her hands out from under his shirt, determined to focus. "It's just, you know, we haven't been together very long and I don't want to rush…things."

"This doesn't feel rushed to me. It feels just right." Brushing her lips across his, Lucy whispered, "Doesn't it feel right to you?"

Oh my God, just say yes, you idiot!

"Yes," Matt heard himself saying, surrendering to her soft, teasing kisses. "Yes, it feels right…" He dipped his chin, pressing his mouth to the pulse above her throat. "But Luce, Lucy, we shouldn't – with your parents here – "

He heard Lucy smile. "You know what I really adore about you, Matt Farrell?"

"Mmm?" Matt was a little preoccupied with exploring every inch of her neck, his fingers curled in her hair.

"You are probably the most decent guy I've ever met."

That brought Matt up short. Wasn't that what McClane had just called him, decent? And here he was, ready to toss Lucy down on the lawn and rip her clothes off, after he had promised McClane that he wouldn't rush into anything with her.

"Is that a good thing?" Matt asked, as lightly as he could manage.

Lucy laid her head on his shoulder. "It's a wonderful thing. And you're right," she added. "My mom's house is not a very appropriate place for…that." She gently kissed his cheek. "I can wait, if you can."

Or we could get in the car and drive to your dorm – Dammit, no, be a decent person…

"I can wait." Matt was surprised at how true it was once he had said it. Despite the fact that his body was virtually screaming with desire, deep down, he knew Lucy was worth waiting for, and not even the most amazing physical encounter was worth jeopardizing what felt like the beginning of a long, happy relationship.

Against his neck, Lucy asked quietly, "You'll be careful tomorrow?"

Ah, so that was the issue: She was scared for him. Matt held her closer, his arms wrapped securely around her waist, and pressed his lips to her hair. "You don't have to worry about me. What I'm gonna do isn't like what your dad does."

"But you'll be careful?"

"I promise."

"Good." Lucy grinned playfully up at him. "'Cause you know, Matt, I kind of like you."

The next morning, McClane and Matt pulled up bright and early in front of a high-rise glass-and-concrete building in lower Manhattan which housed the headquarters of the New York FBI field office, including the cyberterrosim division. They had no more than parked alongside the curb, however, when the back door was jerked open and a large, bearded young man veritably dove inside.

"What the - ?" McClane, pistol drawn, whipped around. Matt was too stunned to move.

"Don't shoot!" The intruder, cowering as close to the floorboards as his considerable bulk would allow, raised his hands. "It's me, dude!"

Matt had already recognized the voice. Twisting around to confirm with his own two eyes, he gasped incredulously, "Warlock? What are you doing here?"

"Jesus H. Christ, man, that's what I'd like to know." With McClane's gun lowered, Warlock – a.k.a. Freddy – quickly adopted his usual disinterested sarcasm. "What am I doing here? Before the two of you broke into my house, I was living a pretty sweet life, minding my own, not hurting anybody. Now, thanks to you and Rambo here, I'm neck-deep in shit like you wouldn't even believe."

McClane raised his pistol warningly in Warlock's direction. "Freddy, either get to the point and tell me what the fuck you're doing jumping into the backseat of my car, or get the fuck out."

Warlock looked extremely put out by such treatment. "Dude, I am about drop a bomb on your life so big – "

"Freddy," McClane warned.

"All right, all right." Warlock sighed heavily, as if the weight of his news was almost more than he could bear. "Look it: After you guys took out Gabriel, I figured it was safe to, you know, explore a little bit. See what I could put together. Maybe," he glared pointedly at Matt, "get some kind of recognition for helping save the country, you know, like a swank job with the feds…"

McClane cleared his throat. Rolling his eyes, Warlock continued, "So anyway, I get to thinking about it, and here's what doesn't make sense: How did Gabriel hack the FBI cyberterrorism division to begin with? 'Cause none of those little start-up guys wrote any kind of code that could have remotely penetrated the FBI's firewalls."

A very large rock seemed to form in the pit of Matt's stomach. "Oh shit," he breathed.

"What?" McClane, impatient, looked from Warlock to Matt. "Kid, what is he talking about?"

"He's talking about somebody on the inside," Matt explained. He was so scared even his lips felt numb. "You can do a lot of things by remote, but the FBI servers, they aren't on the same network as everything else."

Nodding, McClane put in, "Like the utilities. You actually had to be there to shut them down."

"Sort of." Matt decided full explanations of computer programming could wait. "You could get into the FBI's computers from off-site, but only if you had their access codes – "

"And those are stored on secure servers you can't access from outside the building," Warlock finished, looking immensely pleased with himself.

But McClane was unimpressed. "Aren't you guys forgetting something? Gabriel was FBI. He could have downloaded those codes from this server thing anytime and saved 'em up for his big firesale."

Warlock was shaking his head. "Dude, you don't get it. I thought the same thing at first, but then I remembered that just over a year ago, the feds went to a totally revamped system." Seeing that McClane still didn't understand, Warlock burst out impatiently, "The codes Gabriel would have had access to are totally useless now, man! Even if he had taken them before he got canned, they wouldn't have done him any good, not with the new system."

As the realization of what Warlock was implying dawned on McClane, Matt saw his own horror reflected in the detective's eyes. "You're saying we missed somebody. Somebody who was helping Gabriel this whole time."

"Do you know who?" Matt asked Warlock. It would be just like the egotistical hacker, Matt thought sourly, to save "the best for last," having known the identity of the bad guy all along.

To his surprise (and dismay), Warlock shook his head. "Nah, man, I been trying to figure that out, but Gabriel didn't leave behind many digital footprints. I can't find any account traces or anything to show who he might have been paying off. The only thing I could find was this." He produced a crumpled sheet of paper from his back pocket and handed it over to McClane, who looked at it blankly. "That's a list of all the programmers Gabriel tricked into writing the codes that made his little firesale a go. Everybody on it has been deactivated except for two people: Matt Farrell," he pointed to the column with Matt's name in it, "and this dude, here at the bottom of the list, with no code by it."

Matt looked over McClane's shoulder at the paper. Sure enough, at the very bottom of the page was the name "Benedict Arnold" with the cryptic notation "2nd Lt" beside it instead of a description of the code written, as the other columns listed.

"Benedict Arnold," Matt mused, searching his memory. "Wasn't he the guy who defected to the British during the Revolutionary War?"

"Yeah. Benedict Arnold, the most infamous American traitor in history." McClane folded up the paper and tucked it in his jacket pocket. "Look, Freddy, I appreciate your help, but you're right in front of the federal building. Why didn't you just go in and tell them what you found?"

Warlock gaped at McClane. "Dude, are you nuts? How the fuck d'ya think I got this info, off Google?"

"He had to hack into secure files to find this out," Matt quickly explained to McClane, who was looking testy. "Warlock, we can go in there together. We'll work out, I don't know, some kind of immunity deal or something."

"Oh, and who are you now, man, Yoda? You just gonna walk in there and pull some little Jedi mind-trick and convince the FBI not to put me away for computer crimes?" Warlock shook his head dismissively. "Ain't no way. I've done my civic duty. Now you guys can deal with it."

Warlock started to get out of the car, but McClane placed a restraining hand on his arm. "Freddy," he said seriously, "these are not the kind of people you fuck around with. Now, if there's any way what you've been doing could be traced back to you, you need witness protection."

With a snort, Warlock pulled away from McClane. "Thanks but no thanks, dude. I know how to disappear a hell of a lot better than the government could do."

As the car door slammed behind Warlock, Matt tried to digest what they had just learned. Someone on the inside – someone who was, in all likelihood, still inside the inside – had helped Gabriel pull off the most important and most difficult part of his firesale: hack the FBI. Without that breach, the financial data would never have been transferred to Woodlawn, meaning Gabriel's entire plan would have been for nothing. And apparently, the FBI, probably assuming exactly what McClane had (that Gabriel could have downloaded the access codes himself before his termination), had no idea that a traitor was in their midst.

A traitor who could very well have access to all of the information Gabriel had stolen – to the secrets which could bring down the United States' defenses and economy, putting them right back where they were during the firesale.

"Holy shit." As the enormity of the situation hit Matt, he gripped the door handle for support. If he hadn't been sitting down already, he thought he might have collapsed. "Holy shit, McClane, what do we do?"

"We've got to talk to Bowman," McClane determined, getting out of the car. "C'mon, kid, let's move."

"Wait!" Matt jumped out of the car and jogged, wincing at the pain in his leg, to keep up with McClane. "McClane, think about it. We don't have any idea who this Benedict Arnold guy is. It could be Bowman."

"It's not." McClane opened the front door and proceeded to the receptionist counter, where he calmly told the pretty blonde receptionist, "Lieutenant John McClane, NYPD. I'm escorting Matthew Farrell to the cyberterrorism division. He's a consultant for them."

"Just a moment while I confirm, Officer." The receptionist turned away to speak into the telephone.

Matt's mind was whirling. "McClane," he whispered desperately, "how do you know it's not Bowman?"

"Because I just know, kid."

McClane smiled at the receptionist, who was waving them through security. He showed the security guard his badge and was allowed through with his pistol; Matt cleared the metal detector with no problems and hastily clipped his visitor's badge to the front of his new shirt.

"So what's the plan?" The elevator doors opened and the two of them got on alone. McClane pushed the button for the fifth floor. "We just walk in there and demand to speak to Bowman? Anyway, isn't he in D.C.?"

"Not this week. This week he's here in New York, following up leads on Gabriel." McClane noted Matt's confusion and smiled. "I spoke with him on the phone last night, kid, to let him know you'd be coming in today. He said he had some intel that Gabriel's financial base was here in New York, so he was going to be here for the week checking it out."

The elevators doors opened to an ultra-modern, bustling office filled with men and women unfailingly dressed in navy, black or gray business suits. Matt saw McClane cast a sidelong glance at his powder-blue button-down, faded jeans and well-worn sneakers. "What?" Matt demanded, following McClane down the hallway toward what seemed to be the room's command center, a large bank of computers surrounded by important-looking agents. "You don't think they'll take me seriously without a tie?"

"No, kid. I think they've probably been told to take you seriously." McClane paused to grin at him. "I just think it's funny how much these people are going to hate listening to a kid in sneakers."

Matt grinned back, although inside, he was nervous – nervous about doing a good job, about being in a room full of people who had been told he was some kind of expert, about discovering the identity of Gabriel's inside man before the world fell apart again. He was beyond relieved that McClane was with him. Otherwise, Matt thought he might have bolted for the door and never looked back.

Bowman was surrounded by eager-beaver types all determined, it seemed, to make a good impression on the high-ranking officer. McClane caught the deputy director's eye and waved. As quickly as he could, Bowman extricated himself from the press of agents and made his way over to them.

"Detective," he shook McClane's hand, then Matt's, smiling warmly. "Matt. Good to have you."

"It may not be so good once you hear what we've got to say," McClane cautioned, pitching his voice low enough so only Bowman could hear him. "You got someplace we can talk in private?"

Frowning with concern, Bowman nodded and directed them toward a large office off the main floor. He closed the door behind them and shut the blinds before perching on the edge of a large, cluttered mahogany desk.

"Okay, you've got my attention, McClane. What is it?"

McClane jerked his chin toward Matt. "You explain it, kid. You're the expert."

Trying to keep a tremor out of his voice, Matt relayed everything Warlock had told them in the car, as well as his own analysis of the situation. "I think somebody on your staff was probably planning to disappear once the firesale was over," he concluded. Bowman looked shell-shocked. "Gabriel probably paid whoever it is enough money so they'd never have to come out of hiding."

"This is unbelievable. I mean, I believe you," Bowman said quickly. "I just…don't believe it."

"You got any ideas who this guy could be?" McClane demanded.

Bowman stared hard at a spot on the floor, obviously wracking his brain. "Only certain members of my staff have access to those servers. You have to swipe your pass-card just to get in the server room, and the servers themselves require a nine-digit PIN to access. So we'd have a record of whoever went in there and who accessed what on the servers, but still, the breach could have happened anytime in the eleven months since we put in the new system."

"How big of a suspect pool are we talking?"

"Nine people, including me." Bowman reached for the telephone. "I'll call Washington and have them pull up the server room logs."

"Wait." Matt placed his hand over the phone. "If you do that, you could tip off whoever this is." He looked to McClane for support. "I mean, we don't know how many people are involved, right? Whoever you ask to start looking into it could be one of the bad guys."

"He's right," McClane agreed. "Can't you access that stuff from here?"

"I can." Matt whipped his new laptop out of his messenger bag and plunked it onto the desk. "Just gimme a sec…"

Within minutes, with the help of Bowman's passwords, Matt was into the FBI's records. He swiftly sorted through a veritable mountain of data, blocking out everything from his mind except the computer processes he needed to control.

You can do this. You can do this. You have to be able to do this, now, when it counts.

"I'm in!" Hoping he hadn't sounded too surprised by his own abilities, Matt turned the screen so Bowman and McClane could look over his shoulder. "I'm pulling up the sever room logs now…Okay, wow that's a lot of…You guys must use this room a lot, huh?"

Bowman nodded. "On a fairly regular basis."

McClane spoke up, "My experience with bad guys is they like to work when they think nobody's watching. Kid, can you tell from that what time somebody went into that room?"

"Sure." Matt quickly sorted the log data into grids for morning, afternoon, evening and night. "Okay, it looks like most of the accesses took place in the morning and afternoon. I've only got about a dozen in the evening, and – hey, here we go, two at night."

Squinting at the screen, Bowman remarked, "One of those is me." He pointed to his name by an 11:45pm entry on January 10. "My wife was so pissed that I was at work that late."

"Looks like you were online for ten minutes. That's not enough time to get the codes Gabriel would have needed," Matt observed. Blushing, he added quickly, "I mean, not that I thought – "

"Everybody's a suspect, Matt. That's a good lesson to learn," Bowman interrupted, looking anything but offended. "The other access was…Oh my God, Molina."

McClane made a derisive noise. "Molina? You mean Wax Works, that bald asshole?"

Matt clearly remembered Molina – he had tried to dismiss McClane when they showed up in D.C. the first time. "Looks like he entered the server room at 1:26am on February 7, and he was online for…seventy-eight minutes."

Bowman pressed his hand over his eyes. "Jesus Christ. Molina? I've known him for fifteen years! He's my second-in-command, for fuck's sake."

"Is there some way to tell what he was doing while he was in that room?" McClane asked Matt, looking sympathetically at Bowman, who seemed to be taking Molina's betrayal rather hard.

Find out who your friends are in this business, I guess. Matt entered a few more operations and, with a sinking feeling, noted that although according to the logs Molina's time spent in the server room was completely innocent, the file had obviously been tampered with. He pointed this out to Bowman, who concurred after one glance.

"He didn't even really try to hide it," Bowman wondered aloud. "Gabriel must have promised him the moon for this."

"Bad guys never think they're going to get caught." McClane was, Matt could tell, ready for action now that the mystery was solved. "Whatta ya say we go burst this asshole's bubble?"

Bowman nodded, his hurt changing over to anger before their eyes. "Absolutely. He's on the floor. The son of a bitch was helping me put together the task force – probably thought he could steer us away from this line of inquiry, protect his own ass while he found a way to disappear without Gabriel's help."

Inexplicably, Matt experienced a keen sensation of foreboding as Bowman and McClane started for the office doorway. On a hunch (and hoping he was being paranoid), he quickly accessed the New York federal building's security log and saw, with mounting terror, that Frederick Molina had exited the building five minutes earlier – right about the time McClane had motioned Bowman over for their private conference.

"Uh, guys," Matt called, halting the two officers in the doorway, "I think we might have a problem. Molina left about five minutes ago. He exited by the front door."

"Anyplace he's supposed to be?" McClane inquired of Bowman, who shook his head grimly. "Son of a bitch must know we're on to him."

"Okay, we'll put out an APB on him, get his picture to the airports and the train stations," Bowman decided. He was suddenly all-business; Matt found himself developing a much greater respect for the deputy director than he had felt in D.C., when the man was so unwilling to consider the possibility of a worst-case scenario that turned out to be exactly what was happening. "He won't get far."

As Bowman sprinted off to enact his orders, McClane motioned for Matt to follow him. "Get your stuff, kid. We're going on a field trip."

Matt hastened to stow his laptop in his bag. "Where are we going?" he asked, gritting his teeth at how much it hurt to walk quickly enough not to be left in McClane's dust.

Stepping into the elevator, McClane explained, "Bowman's got this end covered, but here's what I'm thinking: Can you use that thing," he pointed to Matt's laptop, "to find out if our Benedict Arnold has any bank accounts in Manhattan?"

"Uh, it might take a few minutes, but now that I know his real name it shouldn't be a problem. Why?"

The elevator doors slid shut. "Think about it, kid. Bowman said Gabriel's finances were based out of New York City, and I'll tell you one thing about criminals, they don't tend to live very far from their cash, so I'm guessing whatever account he set up for Molina will be here in Manhattan, and I'm also guessing it's one fat chunk of change. Now if you were getting ready to run for your life, are you gonna leave behind all the money you've been paid to betray your country?"

"Right," Matt nodded, catching on. "So we find what bank he's got his money at, we go there and – "

Without warning, the elevator car began to shake violently from side to side, at the same time that a horrible roaring noise rushed down on them from above. Matt instinctively dropped to the floor of the car and covered his head; McClane did the same. Dust reined down on them. For one terrible moment, Matt knew the elevator cable was getting ready to snap, plunging them at break-neck speed toward the basement.

But as suddenly as it had begun, the shaking and the noise stopped. "Christ," Matt gulped, tentatively lifting his head to look around. The car appeared relatively undamaged, though they were no longer moving. "What the fuck was that?"

"Explosion." McClane was standing, staring grim-faced at the car's ceiling.

"Explosion?" An icy wave of terror broke over Matt, and he began to tremble from head to toe. "In the building?"

"Up there." McClane pointed above them. "I'm betting the fifth floor. What do you wanna bet, kid?"

Matt felt sick to his stomach. "Oh my God, he just took out the New York cyberterrorism division, didn't he? All those people we just saw – they're all dead, aren't they?" He put his hands on his knees and leaned over, trying to force blood back into his head, which was tingling as his vision started to fade out. "Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick, I really do."

"Just breathe, kid." McClane placed a steadying hand on Matt's shoulder and helped him stand upright. "Hang in there with me, okay? I got a feeling this day's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better."