Ten minutes later, emergency crews had McClane and Matt out of the elevator, and paramedics were checking out their cuts and scrapes (apparently encurred from falling debris in the elevator, though Matt had been too frightened to notice at the time) beside an ambulance in front of the federal building, which had become an absolute madhouse. Matt counted a dozen firetrucks, probably three dozen police cars, and an endless stream of ambulances that kept loading up patients and driving away with lights flashing and sirens blazing. The street in front of the building had been roped off, and people were milling around everywhere, most of them employees judging from their suits and skirts.

"It only hit the fifth floor," a police officer had confirmed McClane's theory the moment they had reached the lobby, which was a surprisingly well-ordered scene given that the entire building was being evacuated – ninety floors, and no elevator service. "We've got some injuries up there. I'll let you know how bad."

Now, as Matt surveyed the scene, trying to be as stoic as McClane while a paramedic dabbed a foul-smelling orange liquid onto a cut on his scalp that started in his hairline and looped over his right ear, he was shocked to see Bowman making his way toward them. The deputy director was covered in soot and dust and had pressed a blood-soaked towel to his forehead over a nasty gash, but he was very much alive.

"McClane." Matt pointed toward Bowman, and McClane turned to see.

"I'll be damned." McClane smiled grimly as Bowman joined them. "And they say I'm hard to kill."

Bowman bit his lip, looking distraught but in control. "Glad you two made it out. I can't believe that son of a bitch did this."

"How bad?" McClane gave voice to the question Matt, seeing the number of ambulances, was afraid to ask.

"It could have been worse," Bowman replied darkly. "The explosion seemed to come from the extreme back of the office, I'm thinking maybe from a supply closet or the restrooms by the emergency exit. The firewall absorbed most of the shock thanks to that. So far, we've only got two people missing, and they may have been running errands – we're checking on that right now. No other fatalities. Some bad burns and lots of broken bones and bad cuts, but I'm hoping we haven't lost anybody and aren't going to."

Sagging with relief, Matt listened as McClane filled Bowman in on their theory of where Molina might have been. While McClane talked, Matt (who had finally been given a clean bill of health by the paramedics) flipped open his laptop and began the not-so-legal procedure of hacking bank records until he came upon one in Manhattan belonging to a Frederick Molina. Seeing that the social security number matched the FBI's records, he announced, "I've got it. The account was opened on January 26 in Molina's name." He glanced up at his audience, adding, "That's like a week before he accessed the server room in the middle of the night."

"Bastard didn't waste any time, did he?" Bowman observed bitterly. "How much is in the account, and where is it?"

"Two hundred million dollars," Matt answered. McClane whistled. "Chase Manhattan Bank, about six blocks from here."

Something on the screen suddenly caught Matt's eye. "Wait." He held up a hand to prevent McClane and Bowman from dashing off to gather the cavalry. "I don't know if this means anything to you guys, but it says here that the account was opened by Owen Milsner. Is that one of Gabriel's aliases or something?"

Bowman placed a hand over his eyes. "Goddamn it. I should have suspected Milsner's involvement."

"Who's this asshole?" McClane asked, watching as Matt typed furiously, searching through public records for Owen Milsner. It didn't take long for hits to pop up: Apparently, Owen Milsner was a ridiculously wealthy Texas oil tycoon's son with suspicious ties to Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. He had an FBI profile that went on for six pages, and an NSA file Matt wasn't brave enough to hack.

"I was afraid of this when we got the intel that Gabriel's financier was in Manhattan," Bowman explained. "I doubt Milsner gave a damn about Gabriel's supposedly patriotic intentions. He'll want the information Gabriel had about how to bring our systems down, and he'll sell them to the highest bidder among his terrorist contacts. Fuck, the guy'll probably be ten billion dollars richer by this time tomorrow!"

Matt caught McClane's eye, and he suspected they were both thinking the same thing: It's always about the money.

"Bowman, look, nothing's changed," McClane insisted. "We get in the car, we head Molina off at the bank, and – "

"Whoops." Matt's heart dropped into the region of his shoes. "Too late. Molina just emptied his account – secure wire transfer to a bank in the Cayman Islands."

Bowman stomped his foot and cursed loudly. "We'll never make it to the bank before he's gone. He's a ghost."

"I'm not so sure." Matt couldn't believe he was contradicting his new boss on the first day, but hey, that was what had gotten him the job in the first place, so he decided to put national security above a promotion. "Think about it. Milsner's here in Manhattan, you say, and he wants whatever info Gabriel had, and Molina can get him access to that with your server codes. It's probably a long shot, but maybe if we can find Milsner, we can find Molina before he hands over the codes."

McClane was already waving over a cop car to commandeer. "I like it," he declared. "Bowman, you stay here and get your people in order, try to figure out if you've got any other moles on the inside besides Molina. The kid and I'll see if we can hunt down Milsner."

"Okay," Bowman reluctantly agreed, looking very much like he wanted to accompany them, though of course the chaotic scene around them precluded him from leaving for what could well be a wild goose chase. "But if you even get a whiff of Molina, I want you to call me and I'll send back-up. Got it?"

McClane slid behind the wheel of the squad car; Matt jumped in the passenger's side, laptop out and fingers flying over the keyboard. "You got it," McClane promised Bowman.

As they wound their way through the parked firetrucks and ambulances, McClane turned to Matt. "You believe any of what you said back there, kid, or were you just trying to look impressive?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to think like one of the bad guys, you know, like if I had the FBI's server codes and was about to be branded a traitor anyway, what would I do: leave the country with two hundred million dollars or try for the jackpot?"

"Bad guys go for the money every time," McClane agreed. "So where we going?"

"Milsner has a penthouse apartment in Manhattan and an office building connected to his father's oil company just off Wall Street," Matt relayed, reading off the screen. "Think he's a guy who brings his work home?"

McClane was already turning toward Wall Street. "These guys don't like it messy where they live."

"Okay, so let's go see if Molina has an appointment with Mr. Milsner this afternoon." Matt was proud of himself for sounding eager instead of petrified, which was how he felt. Still, he couldn't stop himself from adding, "But McClane, you know, what Bowman said about calling for back-up – you remember that I'm not actually a cop, right? So if people start shooting, I'm not going to be any real help."

McClane smirked at Matt over the dashboard. "Like I said, kid, you're young – you got lots of time to learn. So buckle up."

Matt would have preferred sneaking into Milsner's office building by the back door (okay, he would have preferred waiting in the car while McClane and a SWAT team stormed the building), but McClane simply sauntered through the front door of the swanky office building, marched right up to the security desk, and asked which floor Owen Milsner's office was on.

"Ninety-fourth," the guard replied. "Are you expected?"

"Yeah," McClane responded smoothly. "I'm Frederick Molina."

The guard checked a computer screen at his elbow. "Okay, Mr. Molina, looks like you're cleared to go up. Uh," he glanced at Matt, "this is…?"

"My assistant." McClane remained perfectly calm; Matt felt faint from terror, and they hadn't even made it out of the lobby yet. "Is that a problem?"

Apparently, the guard knew his business well enough to be hesitant about trifling with one of Milsner VIP appointments. "No, no problem," he said, after a moment's reflection. "Elevator's right through there."

"Oh Christ, another elevator?" Matt muttered as they moved past the security desk.

"Relax, kid. They're not gonna blow this building up. They're in it." McClane stepped into the elevator and pushed the 'door close' button as soon as Matt followed him in. Instead of 94, however, he pushed the button for 93. To Matt's puzzled expression, he said, "Probably not a good idea to see what kind of welcoming party Milsner's got in his lobby, d'ya think? We'll take the stairs and have a look around."

"Right." Matt was relieved that McClane was there to think of these things. He would have tripped off the elevator without ever expecting an ambush had he been by himself.

On the short ride, McClane removed the pistol from his shoulder-holster and loaded it. He put a few extra clips in his jacket pocket. "Just in case," he assured Matt, who was shaking again despite his best efforts not to.

So much for promising Lucy I'd be careful. I hope I live to regret this…

At the ninety-third floor, McClane and Matt exited into what appeared to be the headquarters for a national financial magazine. Without a sideways glance, McClane led the way to the staircase, which was empty (not surprisingly, in a building with over one hundred floors). Matt hobbled behind as best he could up the single flight of stairs leading to Milsner's office suite, grateful as pain throbbed in his injured calf that McClane hadn't suggested getting off a few floors below.

McClane silently eased the stairway door open and peered around. Turning back to Matt, he announced, "Okay, looks like we've got a pretty normal-looking reception area. But with the shit Milsner's into, I'll bet you my pension plan he's got armed guards up here."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, I figure right about now Milsner's getting the message that Molina's here to see him, so when Molina doesn't actually show up, they're gonna start to get nervous. Then we'll see what happens."

"So we're hanging out here for a minute," Matt clarified. Sitting down on the stairs, mostly to relieve the pain in his leg but also so he could take out his laptop, Matt began working on isolating the building's computer network while McClane cautiously checked the lobby every couple of minutes. The computer security was surprisingly sophisticated; Matt assumed a lot of financial information flowed in and out of the offices, and if Milsner was any indication, probably criminal activities people didn't want easily exposed as well. It took some doing, but in just a few minutes, he had pulled up the security cameras' CC feed.

He jumped when almost instantly he spotted a familiar face in the lobby. "Molina's here," he whispered to McClane. "He just walked in."

"Must've got caught in traffic." McClane peered out the door again. "There we go," he muttered, letting the door fall shut softly. "Two big guys with guns just headed for the elevator. They must be looking for Molina."

"Really? They're just carrying guns around an office building?" Matt was startled by the chutzpah.

McClane shot him a withering look. "No, kid, I can see the bulges of shoulder holsters under their shirt jackets. Criminals like Milsner have a little subtlety, you know – it's how they keep from getting caught."

Matt smiled sheepishly. He quickly redeemed himself, however, by noting that Molina was not getting past the security guard: "McClane, we may have a problem here. The guard isn't letting Molina up because he just let us up thinking you were him."

"Yup, and right about now, Milsner's henchmen oughtta be hitting the lobby." McClane pulled out his pistol and double-checked that it was loaded. "You got your cell phone, kid? Now'd be the time to call for back-up."

Back-up, of course! Matt couldn't believe he had forgotten; somehow, it seemed unusual to think of McClane needing any help. "Right," he mumbled, fumbling the cell phone out of his bag. "Okay, here we go…Dialing…"

Please pick up please pick up please pick up PLEASE PICK UP –

"Bowman."

Heaving a sigh of relief, Matt whispered into the receiver, "Bowman, this is Matt. Uh, Farrell, Matt Farrell."

"Go ahead, Matt," Bowman said, while beside Matt, McClane rolled his eyes and motioned for him to hurry up.

"Yeah, we're at Milsner's office building and Molina just showed up. McClane says we need back-up."

"You got it." Bowman sounded delighted. "You guys safe?"

"Tell him where we are," mouthed McClane.

Matt quickly relayed that they were in the stairwell outside the ninety-fourth floor and, for the moment, not in any immediate jeapordy. Bowman promised back-up would be there within five minutes, both NYPD and FBI. "I'm also calling the building's security and having them lock the place down," he informed Matt. "Stay out of sight. We've got 'em cornered."

Daring to hope that perhaps more gun battles were not in his immediate future, Matt told McClane what Bowman had promised, and McClane nodded in agreement. "Looks like they've figured out they might have company," he observed, pointing at the screen, which showed the armed guards escorting Molina to the elevators while one of them spoke into a walkie-talkie. On the other side of the door, Matt noted the sounds of an office staff suddenly on the move.

"Are they going to try to escape?" he asked quietly.

"Probably. But see, the building's being locked down." McClane pointed out the security guards swarming the exits. "Unless he's willing to shoot his way out of here, Milsner's stuck. And so is Molina."

Rats caught in their own trap. Matt felt enormously pleased by their success. Maybe being a cop wasn't so difficult after all –

From the other side of the door, Molina's voice, high-pitched and panicked, abruptly cut through the noise of panicked employees scrambling for the elevator: "It's McClane and Farrell, I'm telling you, they knew something when they came into the federal building this morning, I told you – "

"Yes, I heard you the first time, Mr. Molina." The responding voice was cold and calculated, different from Gabriel's in its tone and texture (Matt detected a distinctive Texas drawl) yet terrifying in much the same way because it was so emotionless. "I have to say, I'm a little disappointed in you for leading the authorities directly to me."

Molina's voice was practically shrill with fear. "Listen, this wasn't supposed to happen! I was supposed to give Gabriel the codes, stay around on my end to be sure he got his money, and then I was supposed to disappear. His plan goes all to hell, thanks to some NYPD has-been and a kid who doesn't even look old enough to shave, and now all of a sudden, I'm standing around with my dick in my hands waiting for you people to get me out of this. So excuse me for panicking, but I'm telling you, if I hadn't gotten out of that building when I did, me and your codes would be in federal custody right now."

"Calm down." The slickness in the voice, which Matt presumed belonged to Owen Milsner, made Matt's skin crawl. "Paul, how much time do we have before the authorities arrive?"

A male voice replied, "According to the police channel, about three minutes."

"And will our ride be ready then?"

"We can take off in two minutes."

"Shit," McClane hissed, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. "They've got a helicopter. Bad guys always have a goddamn helicopter nowadays. Kid, you gotta call Bowman, tell him to get some guys on the roof – "

Before Matt could react to that order, however, they were presented with an even more pressing problem. Milsner inquired of Molina, "Do you have the codes with you?"

"The codes," Molina answered shakily, "are inside an encrypted digital file I created. It's a fake website. I can access them from here, but we really should get going."

"Codes first, Mr. Molina," Milsner tabled, his tone leaving no room for argument. "I'm not risking you backing out of our deal when your friends show up."

McClane looked desperately to Matt. "Can you stop him from getting into that file?"

"Already working on it." Matt tossed McClane his phone. "Here, call Bowman about the helicopter. I'm gonna try to get their IP address…okay, okay, good…and…if I can…"

As he always did when he was working on a challenging project, Matt blocked out everything around him: McClane whispering frantically into the phone, bad guys with loaded weapons on the other side of the stairwell door, one of the worst traitor's in the nation's history standing less than ten feet from him. He shut his mind off to the possibility that Milsner's men might check the stairwell, in which case he and McClane had nowhere to hide, and to the impending battle once the police did arrive. He focused entirely on getting control of Molina's file before Milsner did.

Because if I don't, this asshole is going to sell our country to the highest bidder – They could get everything with those codes, every piece of data the FBI's cyberterrorism division has backed up or locked up, which is, well, everything they would need to make Gabriel's firesale look like kid's stuff…

"Got it!" Matt whispered triumphantly. McClane, snapping the cell phone shut, crouched beside him on the stairs, gun leveled at the stairway door. "Okay, he's opening up the file – man, this is like a stupidly simple little plan, to put the codes into an encrypted file on a bogus website, it's a hell of a lot smarter than carrying around some disk that could get lost or – "

"When you're done being impressed by this asshole, you gonna tell me whether or not we can stop him?" McClane snarled.

Matt found himself incapable of being irritated by McClane at this point; he was too intently focused on his fingers flying across the keyboard. "It's relatively simple," he said, speaking without really thinking about his words. "I just…type this…and do that…and hit this sequence…and…okay, it's locked."

He sat back from the computer, heart pounding in his ears. "What do you mean, 'it's locked'?" McClane demanded impatiently. "What's locked?"

But Matt just put his finger to his lips for McClane to be quiet and listen. Almost instantly, a panicked, confused cry sounded from the other side of the door. "It's locked! The file, somebody's locked it!"

"Are you saying there's a problem?" Milsner asked silkily, his voice so threatening Matt shuddered. He had a terrible feeling they were about to hear Molina be murdered, and while Molina probably deserved it, Matt couldn't quite stomach the thought of hearing someone's death.

"It's got to be Farrell," Molina insisted, obviously pleading for his life. "He's encrypted the file with his own code. It could take, I don't know, days or years for me to figure out how to open it. Wait! Wait, he's got to be here somewhere, he's got to be in the building, I'm telling you!"

McClane was suddenly on his feet and pulling Matt up with him. "Time to move, kid," he declared, pushing Matt ahead of him down the stairs.

Trying not to trip as he shoved his laptop and cell phone back into his bag, Matt moved as fast as his injured leg would allow, McClane on his heels. They hit the entrance to the ninety-third floor just as the stairway door above them opened. "There they are!" Matt heard someone shout, and bullets echoed off the stairs as the door slammed shut behind them.

"Keep moving!" McClane pushed Matt through the startled people standing around the lobby of the ninety-third floor, all of whom began screaming when they saw McClane's weapon. "Get in there, get inside," McClane ordered, opening the door to an empty conference room and locking it behind them.

Matt's heart was beating so fast he could hardly catch his breath. His injured leg seemed caught in a perpetual cramp; he recalled the doctor saying something about muscle tears if he tried to walk too far too soon. He decided to worry about it later. Ignoring the pain and fear as best he could, he asked, "What do we do now?"

"Give me your phone." McClane crouched with him on the other side of a long mahogany desk, putting as many barriers between them and the door as he could. Outside, they heard more screaming, which Matt took to mean that Milsner's armed henchmen had just burst through the stairway door.

McClane punched in some numbers on the cell phone and spoke in a very official-sounding voice. "This is Lieutenant John McClane, NYPD," he told whoever was on the other end of the line, then rattled off his badge number. "I have a police emergency at the Walton Building…Yes, I know you have officers here already." Below, sirens were racing up to the building. "I am trapped on the ninety-third floor in the east wing inside a conference room. I have at least three armed men in pursuit. I'm accompanied by a civilian…Yes…Thank you."

Handing the phone back to Matt, McClane assured him, "They're coming."

"Are they gonna get here before the bad guys?" Matt had barely finished his sentence when the door suddenly splintered from gunfire. Instinctively, he ducked; McClane threw his body over Matt's, shielding him from the flying wood and bullets.

"Stay down, kid!" The instant the barrage stopped, McClane whipped around and fired several rounds directly at the door. Above the shrieks of terrified office workers, Matt heard a distinctive grunt and a thud that told him one bad guy was down.

He had no time to celebrate, though, before more bullets peppered the room. McClane shoved him backwards toward the wall, pulling the conference table over as he did so to give them more protection from the bullets. Matt was too scared to move or speak; the table was thick, but not thick enough to repel many bullets for very long. If the cavalry didn't come…

They didn't come last time and McClane did okay. Have some faith.

Slightly reassured, he raised his head just enough while McClane returned fire to peer out the window. Dozens of cops were flooding into the building. Even more reassured, Matt flattened himself against the wall as tightly as possible, closed his eyes, and willed the NYPD to move quickly.

"I think they've gone." McClane's pronouncement startled Matt, whose ears were ringing so badly from the gunfire he hadn't even realized the shooting had stopped. Reloading, McClane gave him a quick once-over. "You hurt?"

"I-I don't think so. You?"

McClane shook his head. "Not even a scratch." He winced as he rolled his injured shoulder, testing its movement. "Your leg okay?"

The cramp had eased up slightly now that the muscle wasn't being used. Stretching his legs out in front of him, back to the wall, Matt admitted, "It kinda hurts, but I think it's okay. I probably just shouldn't run away from anymore armed criminals today."

"We'll work on that," McClane grinned. He settled back onto the floor by Matt, keeping a wary eye on the door, his gun still in his hand. "So what you did back there, with the computer, does that mean Molina can't get this info to Milsner, ever?"

"Well, maybe not 'ever,' but it'll take him a long while to crack the encryption code I put on it. Hopefully long enough to get the access codes changed. That should only take a day or two, if Bowman puts everybody on it, and I'm sure he will."

"And then that information is useless anyway, right?"

"You're learning, Detective." Matt and McClane shared a smile.

"Officer McClane? John McClane?" a voice called from the now-silent lobby. "NYPD, is Officer McClane up here?"

"In here," McClane called. Two uniformed police officers appeared in the doorway, guns drawn; McClane quickly produced his badge, at which point they lowered their guns. "Is the building clear?"

One of the officers shook his head. "We're going floor-by-floor, dispatch says. I guess some helicopter got taken off from the roof, and they think most of the suspects were onboard, but we're still gonna check."

"Dammit." McClane turned away, scowling.

Matt placed a comforting hand on the detective's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, McClane. I mean, we stopped them from getting the file open, and that's like the main concern, right?" McClane nodded grudgingly. Feeling more elated by the minute, Matt went on, "They'll get caught up to eventually. Molina's probably already got a new hole in his forehead, if Milsner's anything like Gabriel, but even somebody like Milsner can't hide forever."

"Yeah." McClane didn't sound convinced, but he offered Matt a supporting arm to help him hobble through the rubble on his good leg. "You know, kid, I think my daughter's gonna be a little upset with me when she finds out I took you into another gun battle."

Picturing his reunion with Lucy, Matt felt dreamy and light-headed – or, possibly, he was high on an adrenaline rush. "I'll explain it to her, McClane. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

McClane sighed. "Story of my life, kid."